Serious PE and M&A Activity

Quantas bought out by two private equity firms, Australia’s Macquarie Bank and America’s Texas Pacific Group for $US8.6 billion.

US Airways makes $8B bid to take out Delta Airlines.

Sabre agreed to be acquired by Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group in a $5 billion private-equity buyout.

Travelport, owned by private equity firm Blackstone Group, agreed to purchase Worldspan for $1.4 billion in cash. More than 750 travel suppliers, 63,000 travel agency locations and millions of consumers globally use travel distribution serves provided by the combined companies.

Other developments include AirTran making a bid for Midwest and a potential United-Continental tie-up (more at travelmole).

Also intesting to note, Expedia announced a $30M stock buy back recently and it's stock soared to July 2005 (IPO) levels - checkout this Expe Google Finance graph.

Under the Radar Travel Sites

Brooke Dowd over at LuggageOnline pulled together a list of the 50 Best Travel Sites You've Probably Never Heard Of. I'm impressed for a few reasons. First of all, Brooke does have a solid list of innovative, next generation travel sites listed. Secondly, pretty cool marketing idea to generate awareness of the LuggageOnline brand and buddy up to potential distribution partners (sites listed). Finally, I spent a few minutes roaming around the site and it really is a clean, easy-to-use site. Next time I need luggage it will be my first stop. Here is a list of the travel sites Brooke lists in the Travel Videos & Images category:

27. Travelistic.com
Videos For Travelers

Want to see your destination before you even board a plane? Travelistic makes this possible with hundreds of traveler’s videos from around the globe. The videos are arranged by location, top ranked, and most viewed, making it user friendly as well as informative.

Don’t Miss! Videos from the Thirsty Traveler. A love for beer and a well-stamped passport make for some interesting clips.

28. Travelervideos.com
The Internet’s Largest Human Edited Travel Video Directory

Move over YouTube, TravelerVideo.com has over 5,000 travel related videos covering hundreds of top global destinations. Users can watch, upload, rate and comment videos, placing them in top rankings.

Don’t Miss! Video Contest- Win up to $500 for the best video.

29. Virtourist.com
Traveling the World

Take a photo tour of hundreds of world destinations at Virtourist.com. Users can upload their travel photos with a brief description of each. Fun and informative, it’s a great way to get a fellow traveler’s view of a location before you decide to travel to there.

Don’t Miss! Top Ten Tours.