Yelp Taps Turbocharged AI to Improve Online Search

In its annual outlook for the travel industry, Skift Research has created 2023 global revenue forecasts for airlines, hotels, short-term rentals, cruise lines, and online travel agencies. Skift also built an estimate for international cross-border travel from 2023–2025. This outlook is meant as a companion piece to our recent State of Travel report that offers in-depth coverage of all travel segments.

Airbnb said that the flexible search features it has rolled out since early 2021 have so far diverted bookings from destinations coping with overtourism and peak travel times, according to data it shared on Friday.

Trip.com Group said on Friday it had tapped a $1.5 billion sustainability-linked loan facility, meaning that the financing terms link the debt’s interest rates to the Chinese online travel giant’s performance against specific environmental targets.

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. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, December 23, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Luxury hotel companies could flash a half-decent report card this year thanks to a post-pandemic surge in demand. But they could do better long-term if management teams sharpen their focus on opportunities to woo well-off consumers who increasingly care about experiences.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, February 17. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Skift Research’s latest report looks at how online travel booking habits changed during the pandemic and how these behaviors will continue to evolve. Since February 2020, Skift has been regularly surveying 1,000-plus Americans about their travel behaviors first on a monthly, and then a bi-monthly basis. The topline results of these surveys are published as our U.S. Travel Tracker. However, we ask more granular travel questions that have not been published previously. 

Skift Research’s latest report looks at hotel performance by chain scale in times of crisis and recession in the U.S., as well as the comparison of unit growth strategies of major hotel brands post the 2008/9 Great Financial Crisis versus their current pipelines.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Monday, April 10. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Recent breakthroughs in Generative AI have had an electrifying effect on the tech world in recent weeks. Many have compared these first artificial intelligence tools, which create new content, such as images or text from simple prompts, to the early days of smartphones or the internet. With the potential for such wholesale disruption, what does generative AI mean for the travel industry? And how do we separate the hype around this new tech from the reality of what it will look like in use by travel companies.Skift Research’s latest report will attempt to tackle those questions by diving into Generative AI’s impact on the travel industry. This report will focus specifically on large language models and their use cases within the travel business.We examine seven different cases for how AI will be used across travel, including its implications for chatbots, operational efficiency, and search. Across most of these scenarios, we see multi-billion dollar markets being created. Skift Research estimates that altogether generative AI poses a $28 billion-plus opportunity for the travel industry.

Over the past decades, the booking pendulum has swung back and forth between online travel agents’ (OTAs) growing booking share, and hotels clawing back some direct bookings. Hoteliers have been complaining about high commissions paid to third-party travel websites, and increasingly invest in driving more direct bookings. The evolving hotel tech stack has website builders, booking engines, and direct-booking tools offering to aid this cause.