2013 Archives

Alex Calderwood grew Ace Hotel into a global phenomenon by first understanding the emerging Gen X market in Seattle during the 1990s.

HomeAway, which is way behind, but pushing hard to improve its e-commerce capabilities, is beginning to feel some heat from Booking.com on one side and Airbnb on the other. You could therefore look at this follow-on public offering as a defensive move. On the other hand, HomeAway's acquisition spree is an aggressive tack, and the public offering signals that HomeAway has no intention of slowing down.

Super Bowl attendees will need more than this map to navigate the region's far from well-designed transit network. However, this and MTA's Weekender map show a slowly improving design sensibility within the transit agencies.

Let's see: Now we have a powerful Congressman telling passengers to keep their personal lives to themselves as one of his arguments against in-flight voice calls. Passengers on European, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American Airlines have been making in-flight voice calls for years, and without major flareups.

Seven out of the 10 most popular places are sports stadiums or theme parks making the U.S. list significantly less diverse than the global list of top attractions. It is a clear sign of where Americans' travel priorities lie.

Expedia tries to sum its survey with a sunny figure that says 84 percent of passengers believe fellow flyers are considerate, but the excitement around increased in-flight device use suggests most people prefer to fly with as little human contact as necessary.

The list is a diverse set of attractions from theme parks and sports stadiums to museums and outdoor sites that shows the breadth of the global tourism industry.