Hotel Companies Show Progress on Greener Emissions Accountability: New Skift Research

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.

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. 

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report by Alan Woinski from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

Travel’s performance dropped in November from 84 to 81 points, according to Skift Research’s latest analysis in the Skift Travel Health Index: November 2022 Highlights report.

Skift Research has been tracking the performance of the travel industry since the start of the pandemic, and we have analyzed all the peaks and troughs, highs and lows for three years now. The last months of 2022 saw little movement in the global Index score as continued growth in demand in some areas was counterbalanced by increased worries about the broader economy.

Entrepreneur Richard Branson and Virgin Group announced a reorganization of their hotel brands on Thursday. Virgin Group, which owns a half-dozen luxury Virgin Hotels, will take control of Branson’s private collection of hotels, retreats, and islands (including Branson’s own much-hyped Necker Island), marketed as Virgin Limited Edition.

Hotel companies have been launching new brands again. Hilton Worldwide said on Wednesday it had created its first hotel brand in the economy segment, Spark by Hilton. Accor, the owner of the world’s most hotel brands, said last week it had reorganized itself around its brands. Marriott International, Wyndham Worldwide, Hyatt, Kerzner, and Best Western have created or bought hotel brands in the past several months.

The Skift Travel Health Index is up to 89 points in January 2023, falling only short 11 percentage points from January 2019 travel performance levels. The January score is the highest achieved since the onset of the pandemic. With growing travel demand, we expect 2023 to be a powerful year for the travel sector.

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.

Global travel recovery doesn’t seem too far. The Skift Travel Health Index witnessed a month-on-month uptick of 4 percentage points (pp) in February 2023 and now stands at 93. We anticipate this year to bring recovery and growth to the travel industry.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, March 29. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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