Top 5: the stories and tips you may have missed in February

With this leap month almost over we look back at the most-read stories

Among the themes: peer-to-peer dilemmas, developments in VC funding, making it in Africa and Asia Pacific and emerging ways to search for travel.

1. Local lettings laws and the ‘sharing’ economy in Europe: debatable, dated or disingenuous?

Ahead of a European Competitiveness Council, this month Airbnb joined 47 other ‘sharing economy’ signatories, including other home exchange sites bedsonboard.com, lovehomeswap.com and onefinestay.com, to call on the European Commission to take a soft regulatory touch with the so-called ‘sharing’ sector.  Even more traditional players like HomeAway believe regulation of the sector should be less confusing. However, not everybody agrees and some organisations like the British Hospitality Association are lobbying for more regulation to stop commercial landlords from what they are argue is unfair bending the rules. As peer-to-peer distribution comes increasingly mainstream, the debate continues.

2. Snaptrip snaps up a fresh round of funding for its growing online travel niche

Sally White uses the example of the recent funding round of one-and-a-half year old Snaptrip to analyse the venture capital landscape. And it seems, she writes, that the financial world may not be in as dire a state as the news would have us believe. Reports early in 2016 that VC fund-raising had hit a speed bump proved less scary than first thought. Although the number of new funds fell by 13% in 2015, a report by Washington-based financial service group MoneyTree (using data from Thomson Reuters and the NVCA) found that corporate venture capitalists provided $7.6bn to start-ups in the US in 2015. That is the highest annual figure since 2000 when MoneyTree first started releasing these reports! And so it goes on and Snaptrip’s success is one story worth noting!

3. Travelstart steps up its African game

Eyefortravel speaks to the OTA’s founder and CEO about its recent cash injection and of the risks and rewards of operating in Africa

Another more established success story is Travelstart, a Cape Town headquartered OTA, which in February announced a $40m injection from Amadeus Capital Partners. In 2015 the firm that has been bootstrapped since 2006 turned a profit of $3.5m; today it has offices throughout Africa and subsidiaries in the Middle East and Turkey. In an exclusive interview with founder and CEO Stephan Ekbergh, EyeforTravel hears how the funding will be used and the significance of the strategic partnership. Much of the firm’s resources will be focused on “improving and expanding our mobile offering as well as innovation in this space”. Although lack of infrastructure development remains an issue smartphone adoption rates in Africa have soared – by 2020 525 million smartphone connections are expected, according to GSMA.

4. US ground transportation reaches technological tipping point

Innovation in ground transportation is becoming increasingly important in the US where citizens, and in particular the millennial generation, are driving less than ever. As this article highlights, in 2014, according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Americans took 10.8bn trips on public transport - the highest number of rides taken in 58 years. In fact the growth in US travel is the big story in EyeforTravel’s most recent forecast report. However, it is ground transportation that Polina Raygorodskaya believes has reached a technological tipping point. “I think it’s safe to say that the early days are coming to an end and days of much- needed technological progress are upon us,” she says.

5. Uber’s crash in China, local love and playing a numbers game

Speaking of ground transportation, in February news broke of the challenges Uber is facing in China. So in this piece, the first in an upcoming APAC series, we take a look at how choosing the right partnerships matters – that’s proving especially true in China. Indeed Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has admitted that the firm is not doing as well as first expected, in spite of its strategic tie up with online-offline giant Baidu. The challenges in the region include diverse local markets, multiple languages and payment strategies (the rise of mobile commerce), the capacity and local understanding to deliver a relevant product and having deep enough pockets to grow the investment. Wego and JetRadar, both firms with a foot in the Asia, provide relevant insights.

Join us at one of our upcoming events to hear more about trends in the world of online travel or check out our latest research reports for even deeper insights

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