Names tips

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the United States named its acting head of aviation safety, David Boulter, as the permanent head of aviation safety as the administration puts more focus on investigating the recent near-misses and other safety concerns the industry has seen. 

Former SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and Visit Orlando Executive assumes newly created role to drive strategic marketing and global growth across company’s three core businesses.

Project MidX Studios, the lower midscale, extended stay property, is officially called StudioRes. Marriott describes it as a new-build, midscale extended stay development platform for owners and franchisees in the U.S. and Canada. The world’s largest hotelier said 1,800 target markets have already been identified.

Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, said on Tuesday that Omer Acar will head its brands Raffles & Orient Express as of March 1. Acar will join Accor’s other brand CEOs in its luxury and lifestyle group (Fairmont, Sofitel & MGallery, and Ennismore) — all of whom report directly to group CEO Sébastian Bazin.

JetBlue Airways will land on the European continent next summer with new flights to Paris.

Cendyn, a software company that offers customer relationship management, digital marketing, and operations tools to hotels, has hired a new chief executive. 

Tripadvisor filled in the blanks, naming two executive appointments to flesh out a reorganization of its core business that the company disclosed during its fourth quarter earnings call a week ago.

Ride-sharing firm Lyft has appointed David Risher, a former Amazon and Microsoft senior exec, as its new CEO.

The National Travel and Tourism Office has named Brian Beall as its next director. Starting May 8, Beall will lead the department toward enhancing the international competitiveness of the U.S. travel and tourism industry and increase U.S. travel and tourism exports. He is rejoining the department after spending nearly four years in the private sector as Cruise Lines International Association’s vice president of government affairs.

Accor said on Monday that it had named Gilda Perez-Alvarado as its group chief strategy officer in charge of overseeing global strategy, relations with hotel owners, and strategic partnerships.

Recently, I skipped the crowds of Lollapalooza to attend a different Midwest music festival — Iowa's Hinterland Music Festival.