Wikitravel suffered from having ads (commercial) while internet brands did just enough to keep the site running. For some reason applying innovation or new features to wikitravel just didn't happen.

Wikipedia suffers from a lot of issues in terms of the constant edit wars, politics and rules. People who once edited on Wikitravel may run away from the politics of wikipedia. Wikipedia articles will no longer link to Wikitravel but to somewhere in wikipedia/media. Wikipedia will have slight edge on wikitravel. Innovation on wikipedia is mainly limited to pictures and text so any change isn't really. If innovation wasn't happening with Wikitravel it certainly isn't going to happen with Wikipedia owning it.

The only real change with what has happened is that the content that once existed on wikitravel and couldn't be commercialized, can now be integrated in commercial applications/websites.

Very soon the content will be put up on commercial sites whilst they collect further information for themselves. The top contenders at this stage are Google and Tripadvisor. I honestly can't see Lonely Planet getting their shit together, their parent company BBC don't have a clue.

I can only hope that new innovation occurs and winner of this are the users.