Steve Case and Greg O'Hara bet on scarce travel assets

Steve Case, the man who taught America to log on to the internet, is now looking at bricks. Revolution, his investment vehicle, is putting money into travel assets that cannot be replicated with an app, according to Skift. The thesis is easy to tell and hard to execute: when everyone runs toward software, what runs scarce is physical infrastructure and access rights.

On the other side of the table sits Greg O'Hara of Certares, who is selling Amex GBT in a deal valued at $6.3 billion. The interesting part is not the price, it is what he says afterwards: his next opportunities are not in travel management software, but in assets with a barrier to entry. Hotels in irreplaceable locations, airport concessions, platforms with licences that are hard to get.

My read: the sector is looking at the balance sheet again, not just the pitch deck. For a revenue manager or a hotel director, this opens a clear door. If funds are hunting scarce assets, well-managed properties with clean data are worth more than ever. The key will be who can package that scarcity with a tech layer that makes it profitable. There is room for everyone there.