Skift Travel News Quiz for August 18, 2023

Those who love to be the among first guests to experience a new hotel have one thing going for them—the world keeps opening more. From the Maldives to Milan to Manhattan, here are the top new luxury hotels to check out (and into) this fall.

Europe’s new tourism hotspot, Batumi, Georgia and World Travel Awards (WTA) have unveiled details of the landmark 30th anniversary Europe Gala Ceremony 2023. The magnificent city will host the leading travel industry figureheads from across the continent for a three-day itinerary, culminating in the red-carpet banquet reception on 29 September.

At at time when the travel industry is still grappling with a labor shortage, you have to think some companies in the sector are “labor hoarding,” hanging on to workers that might have otherwise been downsized for costs savings or seasonality reasons, simply because of the fear of not being able to fill roles later.

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.

Last year, Skift debuted its Future of Lodging Forum in New York City – focused on what Skift has called The Great Merging of how we live, work, and travel. This year, we are bringing this event and a wide cross-section of hospitality leaders together in London on March 29th, 2023.

Sustainable travel has developed a sense of urgency post-pandemic. However, while carbon emissions, environmental degradation, and cultural sensitivity are picked apart at length, animal exploitation through the sale of captive wildlife entertainment has received less pushback.

Last year, Skift debuted our first-ever Skift Future of Lodging Forum in New York City – focused on what Skift has called “The Great Merging” of how we live, work, and travel. 

India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country later this year, as China begins to decline and India’s population growth shows no sign of slowing until 2064. That shift carries huge implications for travel across the globe, and has the potential to rewire the race for attracting global tourists around the world. Skift addressed this in its Megatrends 2023 package in the story India Becoming the New China in the Reordering of Asia Travel.

Earlier this week we did our first event on LinkedIn live, and we think it went pretty well. You can watch a recap of the discussion about what travel marketers should expect in 2023 on LI or back on Skift, too.

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.