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Amazon likely has a role to play in the future of travel distribution, marketing, or devices — if not all three. Travel leaders need to prepare today, or risk being caught flat-footed tomorrow.

Chinese outbound travel continues to boom and shows high potential for future growth. Travel brands and destinations need to understand the evolving behaviors and preferences of Chinese travelers in order to most effectively appeal to this market.

For all the growth and enhancements we have seen in hotel loyalty programs over the past few years, differing opinions among consumers and hotel owners with regards to the overall value and success of programs remain. Clearly, the road to fostering real consumer loyalty will be a challenging one. Hotel companies should ultimately focus on driving satisfaction and providing the best service so consumers choose their brand over others and recommend it to friends and family.

The relative spending power of affluent Americans makes them an attractive and strategic group for travel brands to target. The results of our second annual U.S. Affluent Traveler Survey help us understand key trends when it comes to their travel preferences, attitudes, and behaviors. Segmenting further by other characteristics allows us to create a more refined consumer portrait of such a lucrative, complex, and diverse group.

At the end of the day, it’s all about hospitality, but the vacation rental industry faces unique challenges in delivering on that promise. Technology will be key to providing an elevated guest experience across this fragmented market.

Optimizing a fragmented and traditionally offline model is obviously going to take time. However, we expect key players in the tours and activities space to increasingly try new strategies not only to increase scale, access to distribution, and consumer reach, but also to enhance in-destination experiences for travelers and locals alike.

The hospitality industry is evolving rapidly, with brands shifting to asset light and consolidating, soft brands and non-branded operators growing steadily, and the distribution landscape becoming increasingly competitive. Nevertheless, hotel owners stand to gain if they focus on acquiring and developing the right real estate, choosing the appropriate franchisors, managers, and partners, running their properties efficiently and effectively, remaining innovative and thoughtful, and maintaining that ever-needed hospitality factor.

WeChat, China’s most popular app, has infiltrated the daily lives of its nearly one billion monthly active users. The popularity and penetration of the app in the country makes it an attractive platform for global travel brands looking to unlock the China market. Without a thoughtful WeChat strategy, however, this is easier said than done.

A record amount of venture capital was invested in travel startups in 2017 driven by unicorns, like Airbnb, emerging technologies, expansion outside of core geographies, and traction in new verticals. The industry is no stranger to disruption, but we may be seeing some of the greatest changes of the last two decades, and we expect this momentum to continue into 2018.

Believe it or not, these are still early days for Google in travel. Without question, the company will continue to grow its multi-billion dollar advertising business by securing stronger direct relationships with both the supplier and the traveler.

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There is room for optimism heading into 2018 for the global travel industry. Emerging and developing markets are showing healthy signs of growth, and global consumer and business confidence is high. Policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions can’t be ignored, but outside of any major shock, we expect travel to benefit from a solid year of macroeconomic growth in 2018.