Arival launches Spotlight Awards - honoring outstanding and innovative businesses in the experiences industry

It’s common for visitors to New York City to look at booking a hotel within Manhattan, often sticking around touristy Midtown or maybe heading to a more stylish area like SoHo or Lower East Side.

A tourist climbed onto a historic statue in Brussels, Belgium, on Sunday and accidentally broke a portion of it, according to a report by the local newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.

Seen from Paris’s Pont de la Tournelle, the eight-story facade of the landmark restaurant La Tour d’Argent looks about the same as it did when its third-generation owner André Terrail grew up there in the 1980s, deploying toy parachutists into quayside traffic. But the interior is no longer indifferent to the 21st century: Late last month, La Tour d’Argent reopened its doors after a yearlong renovation led by the Paris-based architect Franklin Azzi. “It’s my Tour,” says Terrail, who took over following his father’s death in 2006. “The same, but more exacting, more thoughtful.” The new look draws on the outsize history of the classically French fine-dining institution, which has been serving diners since 1582, taking particular inspiration from the streamlined motifs of its Art Deco era. On the seventh floor, the redesigned restaurant — overseen since 2020 by executive chef Yannick Franques — functions more than ever as a theater. The airy dining room, in shades of indigo and silver, looks onto an open-plan kitchen and an elevated platform where the restaurant’s signature pressed-duck dish is prepared nightly. Upstairs and downstairs are new bars suited to less formal occasions: Le Bar des Maillets d’Argent, an all-day lounge with a fireplace, andLe Toit de la Tour, a rooftop terrace. Given that it has the welcoming air of a boutique hotel, it’s no wonder that the building can now host overnight visitors in a private apartment on the fifth floor, complete with a touch of Scandinavian-style minimalism attributable, in part, to Terrail’s Finnish mother.

On a sunny June day in Edinburgh, I went to see where my ancestor lost his head. A bagpiper in full regalia played tunes on the Royal Mile, and tourists took selfies beneath the castle, as I surveyed the scene at the Mercat Cross—the site where, on March 26, 1697, Sir Godfrey McCulloch was one of the last people beheaded by the Maiden, a grisly device that forced the doomed to face upwards to watch the falling blade.

The winning photos of the 2023 Siena Creative Photo Awards celebrating artistic photography have been released by the renowned Siena Awards festival of visual arts. and they are a remarkable recognition to visionary artists using photographic processes and images.

Twenty-two years ago, 19 terrorists commandeered four U.S. airliners. They crashed them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an empty field in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 Americans were killed.

When European low-cost Corendon Airlines announced on August 23 that it would reserve the front rows of its Amsterdam-Curação flights for passengers 16-years-old or older, the news resurfaced the age-old debate about how to balance the needs of traveling families with those who are flying without kids.

Soho House is a brand with bona fide British celebrity and royal bragging rights: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their first date at one in London. Soho Farmhouse, the brand's countryside inn a two-hour drive outside London, has hosted everyone from former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to Princess Eugenie and (my personal favorite) top-selling U.K. band Girls Aloud.

In the northern reaches of Lake Michigan, the Emerald Isle ferry—departing from Charlevoix at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula—takes about two hours to reach the lake’s largest island. As it approaches, homes, a lighthouse, and a red-roofed research center pop into focus amid dense forest. Docked boats herald the ferry with honks, and dogs bark from ship to shore. Upon arrival on Beaver Island, a lively community center and welcoming crowd beckon family and visitors ashore. On the island it’s customary to wave, or at least lift a finger, for each passing vehicle—every single one.

When I lived in Washington, D.C., from 1998 to 2005, I didn’t pay much attention to the Old Post Office Building. The Romanesque Revival-style structure taking up over an entire Pennsylvania Avenue block certainly had a commanding presence with its imposing clock tower, which offered incredible views of the city. But mostly, it was a tourist stop.

As any jaded traveler will tell you, there are some stays that are luxurious and a great experience, and there are others— albeit few and far between- that leave you blown away.

US and UK saw respective deal volume reducing to almost half; China emerges as notable exception.