Business Travel Is Essential But Constrained: New Skift Research

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, September 12. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Hyatt sees signs that more people in big cities are returning to offices, which could eventually translate to more business transient travel at the hotel giant.

In its annual outlook for the travel industry, Skift Research has created 2023 global revenue forecasts for airlines, hotels, short-term rentals, cruise lines, and online travel agencies. Skift also built an estimate for international cross-border travel from 2023–2025. This outlook is meant as a companion piece to our recent State of Travel report that offers in-depth coverage of all travel segments.

Skift Research has been tracking the performance of the major travel sectors in 22 countries since the beginning of the pandemic in the Skift Travel Health Index. We have seen a steady upward trend, but the final push to full recovery seems more stubborn than we initially thought.

In Skift Research’s latest report check in on the current state of Expedia Group and Booking Holdings, the big two online travel agencies in the U.S. and Europe, as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The pandemic has led to a permanent change in how we live our lives between work and the personal. No longer just a trite category called “bleisure,” the idea of blended traveling is front and center for every major travel company now. How new strategies focused on the blended traveler will emerge more clearly in 2023, as the industry recognizes the whole traveler holistically.  

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 11, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

A strategic partnership with Booking Holdings is helping expense management company Serko recover from the pandemic.

Skift Research’s latest report looks at hotel performance by chain scale in times of crisis and recession in the U.S., as well as the comparison of unit growth strategies of major hotel brands post the 2008/9 Great Financial Crisis versus their current pipelines.

Environmental sustainability is becoming more important to companies, governments, and travelers alike. No news there. But how are hotel companies responding to the changing demands and increased scrutiny around environmental reporting and emission reduction requirements?

Reporting by hotel companies on their environmental targets and abatement efforts is improving.

Recent breakthroughs in Generative AI have had an electrifying effect on the tech world in recent weeks. Many have compared these first artificial intelligence tools, which create new content, such as images or text from simple prompts, to the early days of smartphones or the internet. With the potential for such wholesale disruption, what does generative AI mean for the travel industry? And how do we separate the hype around this new tech from the reality of what it will look like in use by travel companies.Skift Research’s latest report will attempt to tackle those questions by diving into Generative AI’s impact on the travel industry. This report will focus specifically on large language models and their use cases within the travel business.We examine seven different cases for how AI will be used across travel, including its implications for chatbots, operational efficiency, and search. Across most of these scenarios, we see multi-billion dollar markets being created. Skift Research estimates that altogether generative AI poses a $28 billion-plus opportunity for the travel industry.