Startups

Research shows that there’s a significant gap between early, mid and later stage funding rounds—unfortunately, it makes sense. The very nature of early vs. middle-to-late stage funding makes it difficult for startups in the travel space to move beyond the beginning stages.

Is this only the beginning of the beginning of online travel? With a recent downbeat set of results from online travel agencies, it's a question that's hotly debated these days.

In the California gold rush, businesses once sold pickaxes to prospectors. In today's vacation rental gold rush, they're selling management services to the property owners. The safest bets are always adjacent services.

Companies ought to carry out adequate checks on the ability of borrowers to repay travel loans on time. Otherwise, a surprise disruption such as an Icelandic volcano or an economic downturn could prompt defaults.

The conventional wisdom is that major online travel agencies make it impossible for their smaller counterparts to break through. Kiwi.com is challenging that thesis, though it is very much early days.

The moneyed set looked East this week as China had its second travel unicorn, Xiaozhu, receive a billion-dollar valuation, following in the footsteps of its rival, Tujia, China's first travel unicorn. Meanwhile, Ctrip bought Trip.com

Whoever said there's no money in tours-and-activities may want to have a chat with the folks at Battery Ventures, whose investment in GetYourGuide brings that startup's total funding to $175.5 million.

While venture capital funding of startups has dropped steadily since 2012, there are still ideas investors find worth funding, such as for short-term rental management, event venue marketplaces, and hotel distribution.

Hopper said it is on track to process about $500 million in gross bookings — a number much larger than actual revenue — this year. Its expansion into hotel bookings would bring fatter commissions and hopefully more engagement. But the company will go up against better-funded players. All bets are off.

Klook's rapid growth suggests that a growing number of Chinese and other Asian outbound travelers want to travel independently, instead of in groups, and thus book their activities a la carte. That portends a sea change in the travel industry.