The most popular articles on PhocusWire in 2018

PhocusWire's first full calendar year is drawing to a close - and what a year it's been.

Earlier this week we highlighted our completely subjective analysis of what brands became the Newsmakers of 2018.

Now it's the turn of the analytics to illustrate what our readers considered the most interesting to them during the last 12 months.

Unless there's another Marriott-style revelation of a major news story to come, we do not anticipate this list of the top 10 most popular articles on PhocusWire in 2018 to change very much between now and the end of the year.

Thanks for reading.

In reverse order...

10. Hopper introduces secret fares ... the mobile-only, AI-led ticket finder went big on its new service - although there was a sting in the tail to the story.

9.  The Power of Email Marketing in Hospitality ... our collaboration with Revinate, using the wonderful Shorthand publishing platform.

8. Google Flights: the mainstream player everyone feared? ... analytics service Jumpshot found that the search engine's platform for air ticket search was growing higher rate than it had been in previous years.



7. Amazon's options for disrupting online travel: try or buy ... Max Starkov's excellent analysis of the options open to the ecommerce giant as it eyes the travel industry (again).



6. Interview: Airbnb CEO says it's now "100%" battling online travel agencies ... in an exclusive interview, Brian Chesky told us that the company now considers the likes of Expedia Group and Booking.com as the competition - not hotels.



5. Airbnb tests eliminating guest fees in new pilot program ... guest fees are a contentious issue for customers, not least because others do not charge them. So, Airbnb quietly started seeing what would happen if it removed them.



4. Booking Holdings reveals $12.7B revenue, goes lukewarm on Airbnb threat ... the company's full year results for 2017 were an eye-opener from many perspectives.



3.Welcome to the Hot 25 Startups for 2019 ... our inaugural list of the travel-related new businesses to watch over the course of the next 12 months, produced with our friends at Voyager HQ.



2. Airbnb officially opens up platform to hotel distribution ... the story that triggered much analysis and volleys of rhetoric.



1. I was a senior VP of technology at Starwood - here’s my take on the guest data breach ... we tracked down this former exec to get his analysis on the Marriott guest data breach.