The pandemic dust is settling, and now we're really starting to see consolidation take hold in the corporate travel sector. There's safety in numbers in the future.

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The hunter becomes the hunted.

The geographic business mix of Booking Holdings has always been a tightly held secret. The trajectory of the uneven recovery, with the U.S. being its strongest and Europe the weakest regions, prompted the company the tell-all. The dynamic proved disadvantageous for Booking's short-term rentals.

Hotel companies with a strong focus on leisure and drive-to properties are going to show the strongest development numbers this cycle, but don't expect a massive downturn in construction from even the more business-oriented brands. Real estate is a long-term play.

Sabre and its peers are finally accepting airline demands that distribution contracts should have incentives to build technology that boosts the upselling of travelers. The industry frames the move as providing value to flyers because it makes bundled services easier to buy.

Hotels face massive worker shortages this summer, but investors don't care and still want to buy up assets. Chalk this up to taking the long view and hoping hotels find a way to win back workers from other industries.

No vaccine access for all? No tourism recovery. It's playing out already, with more lives being lost senselessly. The travel industry should act fast and figure out how it can be part of the solution.

Group business and convention bookings may be coming back to life, but we're years away from some of the world's largest hotels seeing regularly sold-out nights. Barry Sternlicht said it, in striking difference to some bullishness from his fellow travel execs this week.

India's devastating second wave of the pandemic is arresting the pace of the travel recovery, at least for the short-term. It's too early to tell if the shrinking industry will be able to cater to the vast pent-up demand once Covid is under control.