Podcast: Stone of Destiny

You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. Follow this link if you're listening on Apple News.

Welcome back to another episode of the TravelPulse Podcast! 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, March 5. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Saudi Arabia’s Travel & Tourism sector achieved a 156% increase in international tourist arrivals in 2023 compared to 2019.

Currently, 17 airlines operate at Quito airport, connecting to 18 international and 8 national destinations. An average of 15,000 passengers per day and 5.4 million passengers per year are transported through the airport.

Each property will feature elements of the brand’s latest refreshed prototype, where guests can now choose from three different room types containing varying exercise amenities – ranging from yoga mats to interactive spin bikes.

Dream Vacations/CruiseOne is committed to being “Rich in Diversity” and empowers all owners, franchisees and employees to reach their highest potential by leveraging their broad range of talent, experiences, personalities, viewpoints and ideas to generate business growth.

You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. Follow this link if you're listening on Apple News.

Grapes have been associated with pleasure since ancient times, a symbol of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. These days, clusters of plummy Concords, oval autumn royals and dusky kyohos are decorating dinner tables, doubling as cornucopian decorations and low-effort snacks. “You can get a beautiful, imperfect drip and drape from grapes,” says the interior stylist Colin King, 35, who overflowed a marble urn with abundant mounds of them for the launch of his furniture collection, a collaboration with the Future Perfect, in New York this past fall. Although he uses green grapes for daytime parties, for evening events he prefers the “moody, sensual vibe” of dark varieties — like the attenuated, oblong moon drops that the artist Laila Gohar, 35, mixed with red globes and flames to form an edible monolith for the recent opening of the Essentiel Antwerp clothing store in New York. The chef Mina Stone, 42 — who runs Mina’s, the cafe at MoMA PS1 in Queens, and is a go-to caterer for art gallery dinners — favors Thomcords, a sweet, seedless hybrid she often serves with dessert to “provide heft and a colorful backdrop” for daintier confections. She also likes to roast grapes alongside seared duck breast. In London, the pastry chef Claire Ptak, the owner of Violet bakery, offers what she calls fragolina cupcakes, named for the fragola (Italian for “strawberry”) grapes that she cooks down, then purées and adds to the buttercream frosting. The fragolas “taste like a berryish Concord,” says Ptak, 49, who tops each cake with a small cluster of fruit. The frosted treats “transport you back to childhood when you take the first bite,” she says, “and then you realize they’re also very grown-up.” —

Welcome back to another episode of the TravelPulse Podcast! 

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) congratulates Saudi Arabia’s achievement of welcoming over 100 million tourists, a testament to the Kingdom’s strategic reforms, visionary investments, and resilience in the face of global challenges. This milestone exemplifies the success of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to transform its Travel & Tourism sector into a key driver of economic diversification and growth.

In 42 days, a total solar eclipse will visit North America, throwing parts of Mexico, 15 U.S. states, and Canada into darkness for a few minutes during the day.