Articles tagged “m&a”

Good morning from Skift. It's Tuesday, May 10, in New York City. Here's what you need to know about the business of travel today.

JetBlue's surprise bid for Spirit upended the airline industry and could derail Spirit's planned merger with Frontier Airlines. Analysts question whether Spirit is a match for JetBlue, but JetBlue's leaders insist it is and say the combined airline would lower fares.

Booking.com has a substantial presence in the Middle East, but there is a vacuum that Wego Group and homegrown players could begin to fill over the next few years.

Whether it is hotel-like commission levels on the online travel agencies, new product features, or market share gains, Tripadvisor was unabashedly selling the virtues of a Viator IPO — or deal. It's not a winner-take-all market, but rivals have narrowed any competitive gap.

Riding the hot vacation rental market, TurnKey Vacation Rentals did well for its investors — especially if the Vacasa stock price holds up in its pending public market debut.

Hotels adopting the airline industry's à la carte pricing model is a hot-button issue, but MCR Hotels CEO Tyler Morse is onto something by adopting it at venues like the TWA Hotel. The model can be the financial life raft hotel owners need after more than a year of decimated business.

The value of announced acquisitions this year is already three times that for the deals in all of 2020. We pulled together the top hotel acquisitions for 2021 for you by dollar amount, some deals strategic, some less so. The pace is brisk but the impact from the Delta variant could very well reverse the momentum heading into fall.

While much of the talk these days is about digital nomads and remote workers, both Expedia Group and Booking Holdings have doubled down on commitments to brick and mortar headquarters. Which could mean that there may be real offices again after the pandemic.

After shutting down or selling eight businesses — some of which were relatively inconsequential — since the beginning of 2020, Expedia Group doesn't expect any more such asset dispositions as part of its drive to make the company simpler and more focused. But selling brands may turn out to be the easiest part of the exercise.

Sqills has won more contracts from railway operators to upgrade their inventory, booking, and ticketing software than any other tech vendor in recent years. So this acquisition makes sense.