Announced in May, the theme for our sister brand Phocuswright’s flagship annual conference is the “Power Paradox”.

The brainiacs at Phocuswright (they are, without doubt, the smartest group of analysts looking at the digital travel economy anywhere in the industry) traditionally spend time each year trying to establish what are the key trends and developments taking place across the sector.

These discussions help form what will be the central theme that the conference will hang on.

This year’s event, taking place in Los Angeles from November 13-15, looks at one of the issues at the heart of how the travel, tourism and hospitality industry is evolving.

In short: travel’s biggest players have never been bigger, wielding tremendous power and maintaining the status quo in way that has never been seen before.

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But here is the wrinkle: as they grow, their growth can slow; their sheer size can sometimes limit their ability to evolve against smaller, nimble businesses. When they sit at the center of a complex ecosystem, which travel truly is, they can become vulnerable… especially to forces from the outside.

Over the course of the next four months, PhocusWire will dig deeper into these issues ahead of the event in November.

As a starting point, we spoke to senior director of research at Phocuswright, Maggie Rauch, to understand more about what the Power Paradox means.