Startups

This week a handful of companies announced more than $650 million in funding. Business models include intercity bus and train travel, Oyo-style franchising in China, and the mobile ordering of duty-free goods on airplanes.

Many hotel groups are directing more of their ad budgets toward price-comparison search sites. That's a boon for vendors providing connectivity and automation services. But it's also a welcome, if still modest, injection for metasearch players like Trivago that have recently been struggling.

Travelzoo's founder Ralph Bartel has seen the value of his investment in the public company go from north of a billion to less than $100 million over two decades. Could the chairman of the company be seeking an exit with a sale to a buyer in Asia?

Medallia has pleased investors so far with the sales of its enterprise software for tracking customer feedback. But burnout on surveys is an industrywide problem, especially in travel. It remains an open question whether Medallia and its rival tech vendors can overcome the issue.

Travel tech's "platformania" may be cooling off. One reason is fiercer competition, according to a new study.

In the past seven days, travel startups announced more than $216 million in funding. But the hot market deserves a warning that paraphrases Fleetwood Mac: Investors only love you when they're investing. Funding will come and it will go. When the rain washes you clean you'll know. You'll know.

This week’s travel startups, including Sonder, StayPlease, and Bolt, released a series of funding announcements, many of them for undisclosed amounts.

Sonder's hotel-style serviced apartments operate in that sweet spot between Airbnb homeshares and full-on hotels. There are, of course, plenty of rivals doing a similar thing, but this funding round will enable Sonder to expand its business and give it a competitive edge.

From TripActions' quarter billion dollar investment round to Emerging Travel Group's solid $10 million round, there's lots going on in travel startup funding this week.

What makes Utrip's collapse eye-catching is that the company had the makings of becoming a respectable, if not a sensational, business. A timeline of the company's strategic decisions and failed attempt to get acquired may provide a few lessons for other travel startups.