Articles tagged “uber”

Meals and hotel stays are becoming a bigger cost for business travelers. Airfares have dropped, although this doesn't help companies that dispatch their workers in cars for meetings in nearby cities.

Uber needs to shed its Saudi Arabia investment as long as Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman remains in power, and the country bombs innocents in Yemen. Uber's leaders know they have to do this, but how they dump their Saudi investment and the extent of the divorce remain to be seen.

Ridesharing and homesharing services have been long overdue for loyalty program launches. Now, both Lyft and Uber are offering at least limited options.

It's becoming increasingly clear that online travel players will try to leverage the heck out of connections between food delivery, ridehailing, and booking hotels. Uber and Lyft will undoubtedly become a bigger part of the action, as well.

In initial public offering land, it's a long time until 2019. The markets are turbulent at the moment and there are big regulatory headaches that stubbornly persist, but investors are salivating at the prospect of dropping some money into Uber and/or Airbnb. These IPO plans could be very impactful.

Uber needs to fix its culture and hit another moonshot beyond ridesharing. Nobody is quite sure where it will come from, but the result of investments in flying cars, autonomous cars, and a logistics network for businesses will be clear soon.

Beyond the Uber and Lyft drama here, the deeper trend seems to be companies and travel managers allowing business travelers to make their own choices about which ground transportation option they prefer. This represents a major change from how things used to be, and it is good news for the industry.

There were a ton of people who wanted the COO position at Uber, and it went to Expedia alum and former Orbtiz Worldwide CEO Barney Harford. The pressure will be on both Khosrowshahi and Harford to turn around the ridesharing company. As if there weren't abundant pressure already.

Lyft is playing catch up in the corporate travel sector, and partnerships with the major global travel management companies are a good way to increase adoption. Uber's lead, however, remains enormous.

Business travelers will lament the end of the Uber-Starwood partnership, but much more may be on the horizon for Uber's loyalty plans.