The startup and investment community has become accustomed over the past decade or so to celebrating big funding rounds.
Travel is no exception, with vast levels of money flowing into new ideas and businesses long before the balance sheet comes close to ensuring they can match the claimed valuations.
But that is the ecosystem that the startup world has created. It is a landscape that has seen numerous brands come to the fore, genuinely make a difference to travelers and, in turn, change the way that the industry operates.
There are parts of the industry where this works but, some believe, where it also ignites dangerously optimistic levels of risk-tasking.
It could be argued that this is the fault of both the investors and the companies that they are backing.
Further down the lines, the ecosystem that celebrates itself also has a tendency to inspire successful entrepreneurs to give something back by backing nascent but not fully baked ideas.
There is, arguably, nothing wrong with this cycle of risk-taking and innovation, but it does perpetuate the ecosystem.
In a wide-ranging and no-holds-barred interview conducted during The Phocuswright Conference 2019 in Florida, Chris Hemmeter of
Thayer Ventures
shares some home truths about the sector and the investment world that is so keen to back it.
It's not all doom and gloom, with some analysis of the sectors where there is still plenty of opportunity.
Watch the full recording from the PhocusWire Studio at the event here.
Thayer Ventures on a reality check for travel investment (PhocusWire @ Phocuswright Conference 2019)