Articles tagged “online travel agencies”

How and where travel brands connect with the new experiential consumer will continue to evolve and shift along these three critical axes: Digital payments, mobile booking, and travel ad tech. Those that push beyond the best practices will take the most risk, but stand to gain the biggest reward.

CEO Fabio Cannavale has spent the last few years snapping up companies across Europe and as the company looks to supplement its online travel agency model with a media/advertising business, expect to see more deals in the near future.

With the threat of direct booking, the constant spending by traditional online travel agencies, and the move to mobile, metasearch has been forced to rethink its role in the booking funnel.

Mobile is predicted to overtake desktop for online travel bookings; below are four tips for hotels to stay current in the ever-changing, mobile-first, booking environment.

Like Chinese travelers, Ctrip is breaking out of its domestic shell and looking to become much more of an international player. There is vast potential for Ctrip still to take advantage of in China and then there is a whole wide world out there too as it begins to service customers outside of China. But can the company tackle both ambitions simultaneously? Ctrip has great partners -- 16,000 of them, actually -- to assist but the partners may also turn out to be formidable competitors, as well.

Can TripAdvisor, with all its content and global reach, become another Booking.com-like success story or will TripAdvisor's prospects fade? There are plenty of possibilities within that range, too, but much depends on TripAdvisor's transition into a booking plus metasearch site. That's the $9 billion question -- and there's a wide range of opinion on the outcome.

Hipmunk's user experience in hotel search feels more convenient than on many other metasearch and booking sites but like everyone else, Hipmunk is experimenting and has plenty to learn. We have a long way to go but that's no surprise to anyone.

TripAdvisor took a beating in the second quarter, but its growing tours and activities sector is showing strength as the company tries to become all things to all travelers.

When it comes to the potential of Southeast Asia's diverse online travel market, investors and online travel brands can no longer view what will be a gigantic market as something they can ignore for now and figure out later.

In online travel and the lodging industry, as well as politics, astute observers follow the money. As it is with Marriott: The chain is using TripAdvisor 1) for bookings with lower-than standard online travel agency commissions and 2) to advertise even-lower-cost direct bookings on Marriott.com. Makes perfect economic sense.