4 Takeaways From Skift's Online Travel and Distribution Summit
Skift Take
Profit, revenue and trends became less relevant during the pandemic so many travel businesses with deeper pockets used the standstill to rethink their strategies. Plenty of the new efforts will fail, but on the other side of the crisis, some of these businesses will look significantly different.
Many travel companies that have survived the pandemic have used the pause as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, or at least to launch new product lines that they may or may not have contemplated before masks and hand sanitizer became required accessories.
That was one of the four takeaways from Skift's Online Travel and Distribution Summit, which took place in a virtual event on February 17.
Pandemic-Era Product Innovation
Saying Certares raised more money for investing in the last year than it has in the past eight, founder and senior managing director Greg O'Hara announced that the private equity firm, with huge investments in travel, is looking at more real estate investments.
Referring to an upcoming hotel transaction, O'Hara told Skift founder Rafat Ali: “We’ll close our first deal in the next couple of weeks.”
O'Hara made the argument that given Certares' investments in companies including American Express Global Business Travel, Tripadvisor, Internova and AMA Waterway, the firm is one of the biggest travel sellers in the world, and case use the sometimes-contradictory data it collects to great effect.
Certares recently led a $42 million Series C investment round in cabin rental startup Getaway, and provided growth capital to small-group tour operator G Adve
