Travel Trends tips

The best luxury hotels obsess over just about everything: The sheets, coffee, temperature, and lighting. The fresh flowers each day.

The world’s most popular sporting events not only attract hundreds of millions of TV viewers, but they can also bring large numbers of travelers to host destinations. Skift reported that more than 330,000 people are expected to visit Las Vegas for the upcoming Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.

On Tuesday, travel metasearch engine Skyscanner unveiled Everywhere Agency, what it calls a “virtual pop-up travel consultancy.”

I last checked in at the half-year, highlighting the few brands, ideas, and services that deserved a hat tip for their executions. There were a lot of exciting ideas: At that point, we’d gone from the precariousness of a global pandemic into a full-throttle, growth sprint for luxury. Interest in high-end experiences continued to surge, along with eye-watering room rates.  

Alaska Airlines recently introduced an innovative year-end initiative for its frequent fliers. Instead of the usual “mileage runs” to accumulate miles at the last minute for elite status, the airline now allows customers to purchase carbon offsets to boost their status for 2024.

Saudi Arabia has bold ambitions to open to tourists and its airline industry is a big part of the plan. Riyadh Air, a new carrier established with support of the Public Investment Fund, ordered a large number of Boeing 787 aircraft in 2023 with the aim to start operations in 2025.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, October 31. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Privacy is premium for guests at hotels and short-term rentals. But it’s a different story for hostels. 

Florence banned short-term rentals in its historic center, guests spent over 150 million nights in short-term rentals this summer in Europe, and its cities fear overtourism.

Is Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky hinting at long-term rentals when he said to expect what could be “the biggest update to Airbnb ever?” 

Amid the experience sector’s digital transformation, a notable trend is emerging: the importance of direct bookings, with smaller tour operators looking to capitalize on the next wave for experience travel businesses.

Every company in the travel industry is racing to build a “killer AI app,” but it isn’t clear which companies will win: today’s dominant players or cutting-edge startups.

All summer, I was thinking through a few long-term themes that I am obsessed with due to their impact on the future of travel. Books, podcasts, a wide range of media sources – this was the hyper-absorption phase of my learning.

Next week will be our 10th annual Skift Global Forum, happening September 26-28, 2023 in New York City. After several years of recovery, it’s clear this year is finally a moment when the industry can finally look ahead to the long-term, while also adapting to a rapidly changing digital future that will be more autonomous and more connected than ever before in history. 

Dubai continues to pull ahead of its pre-pandemic tourism numbers. The emirate drew in 9.8 million international travelers up to July this year, according to the latest data from Dubai Tourism. For the same period in 2019, Dubai had 9.6 million international visitors, and in 2022, welcomed 8.1 million up to that point.

Life was simple in 1979 when the first loyalty program of an American airline was launched. How much you flew was the number of “miles” you earned, a currency for a free seat with the airline you were being “loyal” to. 

More Indians are taking personal loans to travel and meet vacation-related expenses, according to Madhavan Menon, executive chairman of Thomas Cook India. 

This summer has seen a surge in the highest end of luxury across the world. Some of it is about revenge travel and increased global mobility: A lot of the Middle Eastern market parked closer to home in Covid and are now shipping their Bugattis to the streets of London and other haunts in Europe. The palaces of Paris, the best hotels in Europe, and five-stars in the U.S. did brisk business at eye-watering rates.

Labor Day is in the rearview mirror but, believe it or not, travel companies have only just finished reporting their second quarter results.

The short booking travel booking windows that became the predominant mode of booking in the pandemic — for obvious reasons with lots of uncertainty around Covid & travel plan — are holding strong and in fact increasing in the 0-21 days window, according to the latest quarterly data from Expedia Media Solutions.

Join us online on Tuesday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. ET as Skift presents its most popular event, Megatrends, welcoming over 1,000 attendees tuning in globally through our online conference platform.