Booking Holdings

Online travel's two most influential female executives, Ctrip's Jane Jie Sun and Booking.com's Gillian Tans, will now deliberate around the table together at Ctrip board meetings. Ctrip felt the need to announce that the two companies are strengthening their ties after Booking's 2017 investment in Ctrip rival and IPO-bound Meituan-Dianping.

We wonder whether Airbnb's community spirit will survive its growth plans and impending IPO.

While Airbnb has been brashly adding independent hotels, HomeAway has been quietly doing the same — although it has been using an entirely different business model given its ties to parent Expedia. Curation may have its place, but all of these companies realize that the more inventory and choice they give consumers, the more likely they are to spend on a stay.

TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer is ordinarily far from being the most-compensated CEO in online travel. This year represented an unusual payout for him. But Skift's annual survey reveals that most online travel CEOs are often more handsomely compensated than what the top bosses in other industries receive, on average.

Amazon likely has a role to play in the future of travel distribution, marketing, or devices — if not all three. Travel leaders need to prepare today or risk being caught flat-footed tomorrow.

In some ways, Trivago and TripAdvisor find themselves in similar situations, although TripAdvisor has more upside because of its global brand awareness and the breadth of its offerings. But both need time to play the long game. In Trivago's case, it is now seeing alternative accommodations as a potential life line.

With less fanfare than hotels, but with a ton of TV spend, Booking Holdings is intent on increasing its share of direct bookings. Anything that gets in its way, including metasearch sites that go out of favor, will be collateral damage.

Agoda's new CEO John Brown will be leading the company to increasingly push into Europe and the Americas, beyond its traditional online travel agency turf of Asia Pacific. The early numbers show that parent company Booking Holdings is putting its money where its mouth is.

Chinese outbound travel continues to boom and shows high potential for future growth. Travel brands and destinations need to understand the evolving behaviors and preferences of Chinese travelers in order to most effectively appeal to this market.

There is no set formula on how to do it, but it's clear that the most progressive companies in travel are intent on reinventing their businesses, and value propositions. On the other hand, certain things that still work, like customer service and personalized hospitality, will survive the cut.