Michael Coletta

This special collection of individual reports – curated by our team of analysts – represents Phocuswright’s most essential research, data and analysis on the key technology trends and developments impacting the travel industry. For those seeking a better understanding of how technology is transforming travel, we recommend this content as a great place to start.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen, co-author of the first widely used web browser (since turned venture capitalist) famously proclaimed that "software is eating the world," observing that global economies were shifting from being hardware-based to software-based. Fast forward just a few years, and this saying already requires an update: Platforms are eating the world.

Phocuswright has tracked the digital travel startup landscape for over a decade. During this time, the digital travel ecosystem has undergone tremendous transformation. Travel startups continue to raise greater amounts of funding, challenge the status quo and lead the wave of disruption globally.

Phocuswright has tracked the digital travel startup landscape for over a decade. During this time, the digital travel ecosystem has undergone tremendous transformation. Travel startups continue to raise funding, challenge the status quo and lead the wave of disruption globally. This annual report – covering companies established since 2009 – provides a detailed view of the current state of travel startups across founding and funding activity, regions and categories.

Over the last 20 years, many areas of the travel industry have been transformed by waves of disruption, from technologies like the web and mobile to new product categories like home- and ride-sharing.

The next wave is undoubtedly artificial intelligence (AI), a catch-all term encompassing natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, machine vision and robotics.

In spite of some early-stage funding contraction, the travel startup ecosystem is alive and well. This article explores the state of innovation in travel and highlights the top trends and developments, based on the innovators who participated in Phocuswright’s Innovation Platform events in 2018. Presenters are grouped into categories based on area of focus, and key trends are summarized.

Phocuswright has tracked the launch of more than 80 travel-focused accelerators, incubators, early-stage investors and entrepreneur support programs in the last 5-7 years, not to mention dozens of pitch competitions, hackathons and conferences, including our own. Each promises to connect travel startups with a combination of industry expertise, resources, capital and exposure, and contributes to what is now a robust travel startup support ecosystem. These programs and entities have sprung from intermediaries, suppliers, destinations, investors and independent groups.

Following a flat performance in 2017, the U.S. car rental segment improved in 2018 with a projected 3% growth in gross bookings. Car rental is a mature online market, and as with the segment overall, online channel growth will be relatively soft in the coming years. This report provides an overview of the U.S. car rental segment, including online and mobile bookings, distribution trends, OTA versus supplier dynamics, and projections through 2022.

The cruise and packaged travel segments are entirely leisure-driven, and each remain heavily dependent on traditional travel agency distribution. In 2018, the cruise market is projected to grow more rapidly than packaged travel, at 10% versus 4%, respectively. This report provides complete sizing and analysis on the U.S. cruise and packaged travel segments, including online versus offline bookings, distribution dynamics, OTA versus supplier dynamics and projections through 2022.

Since 2008, Phocuswright has tracked the digital travel startup landscape, publishing annual State of Travel Startups reports beginning in 2012. Since then, digital travel has undergone tremendous transformation, and startups continue to lead the wave of disruption in the global travel industry. This report – covering startups that launched in or after 2008 –  provides a detailed view of the current state of travel startups, including regional analysis, funding levels and business focus.