2013 Archives

Many of these angels have some big wins on their resumes, some more than one. They see a huge opportunity in vacation rentals, a high-growth market where there is tons of room for improvements both on the management end, and the guest experience.

Airline seats in coach are getting ever-more cramped as carriers leave the legroom to passengers purchasing higher-fare tickets. Anything that would make long-haul flights more comfortable to non-elite flyers would almost be like manna from heaven.

Airports, as miserable as they are in the overall travel experience these days, continue to be a place to show off, and social media outlets like Facebook are perfect venues for that.

Davies' advocacy of small airlines banding together under a single operational management to trim costs is an interesting one as traditional airline alliances are giving some ground to new kinds of groupings. His idea, though, would face regulatory challenges.

Most of these are for hotel rooms of today, smart incremental improvement in guest experience and hotel room efficiency. The Hotel Room of the Future will need a lot more than this.

The suggestions are surely well-founded, but airlines and airports in this market are unlikely to adopt policies demanding short-term investments - even if they do offer long-term returns.

American Express, other mega travel agencies and their corporate clients aren't going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle with badges and leader boards. There is a lot of turf-protection going on here.

Tapping into the eco-friendly market might help hotel chains out of their slump, but they'll have to prove that their efforts aren't merely "green-washing," and also deliver on the basics.

It's tough to say that Bloomberg's lasting legacy will be New York City's transportation transformation with so many changes taking place in the past 12 years. We can say with confidence that the improvements are still just small steps towards insuring the city keeps pace with well-designed sustainable urban initiatives abroad.