“With the like button, with Tripadvisor, and different applications… they will find their way. You can’t just dismiss the powerhouses of today just because they don’t have the right applications. That would be like dismissing Google in the past because the algorithm was a little off. You have got to understand that these companies have the bandwidth, the smarts, and the money – and travel is one of the largest if not *THE* largest online opportunity, vertical, and once they have their sights set on it, they will figure it out.”

I imagine this is one of the first mash ups of a live-twittered conference? If not the first, one of the only ones because this was massively, overly, insanely, time-consuming. I do think what came of it was worthwhile, and I hope this sort of serves as a testament to all we spoke about and considered during Eye for Travel SM SF 2010.

All this being told… I think the slide and panic is over. Our awful day at the beach is done, and what happens next is shaking out the blanket to clear the sand…. and we will see what is jarred loose from the hotel economic fabric. The problems that are still to come are not pro-longed troubles for hotels, it is simply the back end of the recession working itself out. Until then…. buckle up…. I doubt it will be too bumpy a drive home, but it’s gonna be a long ride.