Greg Ohara travel tips

This past summer, Instagram feeds were plastered with videos of tourists in Italy. You’d see a video of the Trevi Fountain with just a few Italian models taking photos – then a more realistic video with swarms of sweaty tourists.

Certares, a leading travel and tourism investment firm acquired FTI Group, the third-largest tour operator in Europe.

Tripadvisor announced Monday that it was forming a special committee made up of independent directors of its board to review a potential acquisition by Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, part of the Liberty Media empire run by Greg Maffei, which has long held a controlling stake in the travel company currently valued at $3.1 billion.

Tripadvisor said Monday it was reviewing a potential sale of the company to Liberty Tripadvisor, which has long held a controlling stake in the travel reviews site.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 3. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Certares Founder and Senior Managing Director Greg O’Hara will be the next chair of the World Travel & Tourism Council. He starts later this month, the organization announced on Friday.

Internova Travel Group, a network of travel agencies owned by private equity firm Certares, plans to expand its investments in the luxury space. That will help give its more than 100,000 travel advisors more boutique hotel offerings and packages to offer customers. 

The U.S. is still waiting to fill its newly-created position of assistant secretary of travel and tourism – dubbed the country’s future ‘Czar of Tourism‘. For now, Brian Beall is acting deputy assistant secretary for travel and tourism and director of the National Travel and Tourism Office, but according to investor Greg O’Hara, the role must be filled if the country wants to roll out a more inviting tourism sector.

The U.S. travel industry shouldn’t get its hopes up that the newly created assistant secretary of travel and tourism position will make the U.S. more globally competitive, said U.S. Travel CEO and President Geoff Freeman at the Skift Global Forum.

Artificial intelligence has been a major discussion in travel over the last year, and that’s why the theme of the Skift Global Forum is Connection in the Age of AI.

A senior U.S. official found himself explaining to world leaders how tourism works within the U.S. government.

There’s still something vital missing from the global tourism economy, and that’s the presence of Chinese tourists.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, November 30. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Certares, a private equity firm that invests in travel, said on Wednesday it had closed its first real estate hospitality fund, with $284 million of equity commitments.

A little more than three years and a global pandemic after becoming the largest shareholder in Wheels Up, Delta Air Lines and its highly regarded CEO Ed Bastian will now be tasked with turning around the fortunes of the nation’s third-largest private jet flight provider.