Startups

Group hikes, river cruises, and other multi-day tours are still primarily booked offline through travel agents or direct with the operators. But future bookings of these tours will likely be digital despite the complexity. It's a tough sector, and TourRadar hopes to be well-positioned as the trend gains ground.

Another day, another support system for travel startups. Given all these incubators and accelerators, travel startups must be enjoying a golden age of innovation and profitability. Right?

Vacasa spent years building a business before venture capital came along for the ride at this level. Its fate now depends on how well it executes the sometimes-cumbersome task of on-boarding new properties at scale, and whether it can avoid hubris.

Mapbox’s funding shows that Google will once again face competition for location-based data, which is good for market dynamics.

The messaging app bets it can leap into becoming a platform for discovering places and hotels. Odds are against the company. But odds are in favor of visual-first search becoming widespread.

Groupon may have its struggles and many similar sites have gone out of business, but travel flash sales have a stubborn persistence — even if they would probably get additional traction in more perilous economic times.

Blockchain and China are both areas that investors find interesting, but blockchain requires a long-term view and China is really tough, especially domestically. Meanwhile, investors are pouring money into artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and are trying to sort out which travel startups working in these fields will make it to the finish line.

The travel industry has witnessed a number of successful mergers and acquisitions of major brands over the last few years. However, the deals that are truly driving innovation in the space are those that involve forward-thinking startups.

With this funding, Le Collectionist ramps up its marketing of luxury vacation rentals. But Airbnb and other tech and lodging brands may not let this profitable segment be siphoned off by this and other young startups for long.

Destinations can be doing a lot more to forge alliances between tourism and tech. London & Partners shows how.