Travel Technology

Expedia partnered with HomeAway on vacation rentals last week. One day it is going to partner with or acquire a sharing economy company built in the Airbnb mold, depending how the market shakes out. When you are as big as Expedia, you can afford to sit back and see how things shape up.

JetBlue still allows a first bag for free, but other fees for seats with more legroom and Wi-Fi are a key part of its plan to increase profit margins.

If iPad users have more fun, staying at more luxurious hotels, that's not hard to believe. Hotels.com's high percentage of mobile, same-day bookers, though, seem off the charts.

TripAdvisor is finding out that transitioning to hotel metasearch is very heavy lifting, and quite a gamble.

Both Apple and Google know that the next battle is to help people discover the physical world around them. This is Apple's latest attempt, but is still significantly behind its rival.

The true tests for the CBP kiosks at JFK and other airports will be during holiday travels, but so far, so good.

Lots of innovation in social media going on in hotel industry and lots of cross learnings to be had by highlighting the best.

TripAdvisor isn't an online travel agency because it doesn't take flight or hotel bookings. But, given its desire to expand further into a solution for in-destination tours and activities, you can make the argument that it is a more well-rounded one-stop shop for travel than many of the travel booking sites.

Most of the traveler leads that TripAdvisor passes along to online travel agencies and hotels don't come from its hotel metasearch search results pages. They come from the property pages where travelers read reviews and gawk at the photos. This is a huge differentiator from the competition and will afford TripAdvisor a big advantage in the long term.

Oyster began with grand ambitions and little understanding of how to create content without spending lots and lots of money. That content will now find a home at a brand that understands more sensible ways to do the same thing.