Travel's Great Renewal (and Reckoning) – Skift Travel Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of the TravelPulse Podcast!

The eleventh edition of Skift Global Forum commences next week in New York City and to get you excited, we wanted to prepare you for the countless exclusive insights, intuitive conversations, and world-class industry networking.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, September 10, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. Follow this link if you're listening on Apple News.

Growing up in Singapore, I thought I'd seen most of my country — a city-state just slightly smaller than the size of New York City.

Hotel earnings season has ended, so Skift reviewed what executives at hotel companies belonging to the Skift Travel 200 (ST200) said. We looked at companies beyond the half-dozen largest hotel groups.

Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.

“Experiences” are becoming a growth engine for the travel sector. An expanding segment of travelers are demanding immersive, cultural interactions at destinations as an alternative to checklist visits of famous sights.

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. —

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.

The Skift Travel Health Index has continued to trend upward: The latest reading of 104 indicates 4% growth over July 2023. Countries in the Asia Pacific dominate and China showed the biggest jump – 21% above a year ago.

Holland America Line will open up grand voyages and pole-to-pole sailings to travelers hoping to book just a segment, making it easier to explore some of the coolest regions on Earth.