Booking Holdings

Airline, hotel and car rental apps are rated by users as being well below the quality of travel booking apps. That they trail the travel booking apps isn't a huge surprise, but the the size of the ground they would have to gain to catch up is fairly daunting.

Hotel Urbano is focused on being a Big Data-infused travel company with an online travel agency platform in Brazil, one of the largest emerging markets in the world. Hotel Urbano claims it is not only riding that demand, but is also creating it.

There have been a flurry of acquisitions in hotel tech B2B solutions companies in 2014, and cash-rich Alibaba is going to be a player in the category.

Is Sabre worried about Booking.com getting into the hotel B2B game? Not overly, but in acquiring Genares, Sabre is proving that the best defense is a good offense.

Will Booking.com be as good at business services for hotels as it is for selling their rooms, and will a move into enterprise services for hotels be a huge distraction? We are about to find out.

While the national average room rate may be $137, along with everyone claiming the economy is nearly back to normal, more than half of the top cities have lower averages. This reflects the continuing economic recovery and hotels trying to get guests in the door, meaning it's still a great time to find hotel deals.

HotelTonight's marketing team likes to play up spontaneity as a prime booking motivator, but this data suggests that users are in need of reasonably priced rooms without the bells and whistles.

Hotel site Getaroom.com tried to drive consumers from its Web site to a call centers for up-selling, but the much larger CheapOair is intent on doing both -- perfecting online booking and giving travelers that option, but also prodding them to phone agents in its company-owned call centers.

Steve Singh is one of the most-forward-looking CEOs in the travel industry, and Concur's $150 million Perfect Trip Fund is actively investing in that vision.

The Priceline Group is moving much closer to Ctrip with a minority stake and CEO Darren Huston points to a series of additional moves in China in the next few years. Ctrip, though, hasn't always played well with other partners so it remains to be seen whether familial relations between these new second cousins will be long-standing.