Skift tips

Sun Country Airlines CEO Jude Bricker believes it’s premature to draw firm conclusions about the emergence of new travel patterns seven months into the travel industry’s recovery. But Bricker said at the recent Skift Aviation Forum that surging airfares are changing travelers’ behaviors, including driving more consumers to fly on Tuesdays instead of the weekend.

As 2022 comes to a close and we look ahead to 2023 as an industry, it is an important time for travel as we launch our first Skift Global Forum East December 13-15 at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai. 

In Skift Research’s latest report check in on the current state of Expedia Group and Booking Holdings, the big two online travel agencies in the U.S. and Europe, as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Delta Air Lines is striving to boost its customer satisfaction scores, and the effort is led by Allison Ausband, executive vice president and chief customer experience officer. Ausband oversees about 60,000 workers in Delta’s airport customer service, in-flight service, and reservations and customer care divisions.

Steven Udvar-Házy, the co-founder and executive chairman of lessor Air Lease Corporation, believes the airline industry will likely see more consolidation, especially in Europe. Udvar-Házy said at the recent Skift Aviation Forum in Dallas that while he doubts the continent’s low-cost carriers will be involved in any mergers, he sees Italy’s ITA and TAP Air Portugal as takeover targets.  

We are officially one week out for the first-ever in-person Skift Global Forum East, where travel leaders from across the region will be gathering at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre in Dubai on December 13-15.

Sean Donohue, the CEO of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, has seen his airport make a significant rebound from the pandemic, becoming the world’s No. 2 in terms of passenger count.

Skift Megatrends is arguably our largest companywide exercise every year, and we’ve been making our research-driven and editorially informed prognostications for a decade 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.

Dubai will play an outsized role in the United Arab Emirates aim to attract 40 million visitors annually by 2031, so what can it do to improve its tourism industry? Four panelists — Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, Kerzner International CEO Philippe Zuber, Emirates Airline Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim, and Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing CEO Issam Kazim — discussed at the recent Skift Global Forum East in Dubai what local tourism officials need to do to continue to attract visitors.

Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta considers himself amazed at level of growth he’s seen in the Middle East’s hotel industry during his roughly 40-year career. Nassetta described the commitment officials in the region have made to travel and tourism as extraordinary during his appearance at the recent Skift Global Forum East in Dubai, adding he views Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as markets for significant growth.

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.

It gets harder and harder with each year to put a label on the kinds of travel that Skifters love the most. We hired a bunch of new people last year and, as you will see, that has meant we are dreaming much bigger.

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.

Last year with travel and in-person gatherings beginning to slowly reconvene post-pandemic, we hit the ground running with in-person, online, and hybrid events. We even added two BRAND NEW events in 2022 – Future of Lodging Forum and Skift Global Forum East – to the Skift Live lineup, and hosted a very successful Aviation Forum, which was in-person in Dallas for the first time.

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. 

Due to an increase in demand in the short-term rental sector, Skift is back with our Skift Short-Term Rental Summit on June 7 in New York City. Building upon Skift’s comprehensive coverage of short-term rentals, this summit will focus on the forefront of the impact of technology, platforms, and professionalization on both the urban and traditional vacation rental category.

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.

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.

This year, Skift Future of Lodging Forum will be held at the 5-star, super-boutique hotel: The Londoner. We plan to welcome 250+ attendees and hospitality leaders to this luxury destination set on the iconic Leicester Square on March 29.