The Biggest Innovators in Travel and Hospitality: Summer 2024

I recently went to Iceland and spent three days in the capital city of Reykjavik.

I will be the first to admit I am a huge chicken. When I watch horror movies, I do so at home with my hands partially covering my eyes. Yet somehow, I spent last weekend screaming my head off in 10 frightfully fun haunted houses at Universal Orlando's annual Halloween Horror Nights event.

Airbus is months away from launching its brand-new narrowbody jetliner, the A321XLR.

Koji, the mold that transforms soy beans and wheat into soy sauce and rice into sake, is so beloved in Japan that it has its own holiday. And lately, chefs have been finding new uses for the fungus, which has a fruity aroma and an ability to make “anything it touches better,” says Jeremy Umansky, 41, the owner of Larder deli in Cleveland. He uses koji for almost everything: to cure pastrami; to ferment Chinese-style black beans, which are ground and swirled into chocolate babka to embolden the chocolate; and to sprinkle over salads and fries in the form of what the restaurant calls Special K, a seasoning of dried ground koji. “It’s a harmonizer,” he says. Bartenders, too, are taking note. At Nancy’s Hustle in Houston, the bar manager, Zach Hornberger, 32, adds it to the nonalcoholic Silver Brining cocktail, a sweet-sour-salty mix of pickle brine, grapefruit and lime juices, koji and tonic. “It brings this umami background to beverages, and it plays well with citrus, taming the high acid notes and rounding the drink as a whole,” he says. At the restaurant Fête in Honolulu, the bar manager, Fabrice McCarthy, 41, infuses rum with shio koji (a slurry of koji, water and salt) and shakes it into a mai tai to add salinity — the effect, he says, is similar to how salted peanuts make you want to drink more beer. Ryan Chetiyawardana, 40, the owner of the bar Lyaness in London, experiments with koji in multiple forms — for one cocktail, he ferments parsnips with koji, which he says unlocks the sweetness and delivers “a huge tropical brightness.” While koji often plays a supporting role, at Paradiso in Barcelona, it wraps around the entire lip of the glass used for the Fleming, named for Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, another influential mold. For this fungus-inspired cocktail, which includes grapefruit, tequila and miso, the manager of Paradiso’s research lab, Matteo Ciarpaglini, 30, one-upped a classic salt rim with a fluffy cloud of koji, its floral fragrance accompanying every taste. —

In 1901, Gilded Age coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind and his wife, Sarah Herminie Berwind, spent $1.4 million, or around $28 million today, to build a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Thanks to my job, I've crisscrossed the Atlantic dozens of times on almost every mainline carrier. My most recent treks were in economy on UK-based rivals British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Going on a romantic escape and traveling with your partner for the very first time is as exciting as it is nerve-wracking. There is a lot of pressure associated with your first couple’s trip: There are all the typical stresses that come with traveling, plus more anxieties associated with spending uninterrupted quality time together for longer-than-usual stretches. Not to mention having to get used to the travel idiosyncrasies of another person. Below, we’ve rounded up the golden rules, according to our staff editors, that you should follow to ensure a smooth-sailing trip when you're traveling with your partner.

I love to travel. Luckily, between work and personal trips, I'm on the road for about two weeks of each month.

I was an avid traveler long before I had children. Now, one of my greatest joys is sharing my love of exploration and adventure with my family. Yet, traveling with my four kids has been an adjustment.

Six decades after hosting the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics — when Japan rapidly rolled out new infrastructure like its Shinkansen bullet train and accommodations like Hotel New Otani Tokyo to welcome the anticipated influx of foreigners — the country remains one of the most beloved leisure destinations in the world. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, 17.78 million foreign visitors arrived in the first half of 2024, breaking 2019's previous record of 16.63 million. And there are no signs of a slowdown: Japan aims to nearly double 2019's end-of-year record of 31.88 million tourists to a staggering 60 million annually by 2030.

We’re continuing our discussion of Skift Research’s State of Travel 2024 report with a look at the aviation industry. It has shown enormous progress in its recovery from the pandemic. But ultra-low-cost carriers still face their share of challenges.

Revenge travel after the darkest days of the pandemic contributed to travel roaring back across the globe, with airlines, hotels and cruises reporting double-digit growth and travelers using their savings, taking on debt or even selling their homes to splurge on bucket list adventures or multiple trips.