Sherry Sun travel tips

The investor mania for special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, in the past two years cooled mighty quick, with most travel companies going public through this process plummeting in value since their stock market debuts.

Southwest’s Meltdown Should Be a Technology Warning for Airlines: Instead of heeding employee concerns, Southwest focused primarily on tech for customers, leading to a worst-case example of what can happen when modernizing operations is not a priority. May other airlines learn from Southwest’s mistake.

Doing local in a more memorable way is becoming increasingly important for hotels. Marriott International VP of Design Aliya Khan and Curator Hotel & Resort Collection President Jennifer Barnwell discuss the rising demand for more lifestyle, capturing experiences through design and balancing renovations with changing consumer expectations.

Hari Nair, Expedia Group’s global senior vice president and general manager of lodging marketplace, took the stage with Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali this week to discuss big trends shaping travel for 2023 at Skift’s annual Megatrends event in New York City. The industry veteran gives his take on travel spending, talent acquisition, and opportunities for loyalty programs across Expedia’s house of brands.

Skift Megatrends Defining Travel in 2023: Here are 16 travel industry trends for the new year and beyond that we hope will help you navigate your businesses through increasingly uncertain and opportunistic times.

Las Vegas Sands is pursuing a multi-billion flagship casino, entertainment and hospitality development following its agreement to purchase a long-term lease over the home to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, opened in 1972 on Long Island in New York. This would be the company’s first entertainment project in the U.S. since it sold its Las Vegas properties last year.

Every year, the startlingly beautiful resort town of Banff in western Canada receives more than four million visitors. In July alone, Banff National Park saw a total of 694,127 independent visitors, the most it had seen for the month since 2013. Parks Canada, the government agency managing national parks, said traffic flaggers were required 24 hours a day in 2022 in response to demand for access to Moraine Lake. The parking lot also remained full for nearly 24 hours a day at the peak of summer. 

Ace Hotel Chain Acquired for $85 Million by Hospitality Firm Sortis: Ace only has about a dozen properties, but it has punched above its weight in brand impact. Here’s our analysis of whether Sortis is a good home and if $85 million is a good price.

Vacasa Slashes 17 Percent of Workforce in Second Recent Round of Layoffs: It’s clear that Vacasa’s ranks were bloated, and that the company was not very well-run in recent years. Like several other now-struggling, newly public companies, Vacasa faces a challenging road ahead.

Lyft is introducing a new sustainability dashboard for companies in the Lyft Business Portal.

Everything got scrambled by the pandemic. Skift’s Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill gives an overview of 2023 Megatrends in the hospitality space, where a great merging in customer lives will start to challenge leaders in thinking outside the box.

Hawaiian Airlines reported a net loss of $240 million for all of 2022 on Tuesday, largely attributed to a slower than previously expected return of Japanese travelers and competition for inter-island service between the eight major Hawaiian islands.

Plusgrade, a Montreal-based company that helps travel businesses persuade travelers to spend more, has acquired UpStay, a growing provider of upgrade and ancillary revenue solutions for hotels, Plusgrade said Tuesday. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Israel’s Tel Aviv could be the next stop for a Michelin Guide, following a series of inaugural editions released around different corners of the world last year. After years of planning, the Israeli Tourism Minister Haim Katz announced February 1 that the ministry would be moving forward with bringing the guide to the country for the first time.

Abel Zhao, co-founder & CEO of FreeD Group, a technology innovator that specializes in proprietary enterprise application solutions, has acquired 75-year-old Connexus Travel from the parent company of Cathay Pacific, Swire Group. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The boom of conversational AI is making so many new possibilities dreamt of for decades finally possible. The technology today is 100 percent there, what matters is whether, or when, large companies will adopt it for product development.

Hotel booking startup, Safara, is hoping to use curated lists and invite-only memberships to meet the high expectations of millennials and Gen Z travelers. 

Air Canada expects “solid” demand through 2023 as it comes off a small operating loss last year driven, in part, by operational challenges over the year-end holiday period.

Industrial actions are likely to disrupt gasoline supplies and hospitality services in Iceland’s capital region, impacting the tourism industry. Travelers may need to think of backup plans for their accommodations and transportation routes.

Cruise companies are still continuing with their new vessel orders despite choppy waters in an uncertain consumer spending environment — and face the risks of piling on more debt.

As Radisson Hotels Group continues to expand internationally through its existing brands, its strategy is to focus on service quality and consistency. For Federico González, CEO of the hotel group, having nine big global brands is better than chasing a mass of weak brands.