A Very Good Earnings Season for Hotel Companies

First Things

It was a big week for hotel and short-term rental earnings, with a few record quarters from Marriott, Hyatt, Airbnb, Choice, and Wyndham. Overall, the outlook for 2023 is better now than the already positive forecasts from late last year.

Which is a good segue into mentioning our London event in late March. Skift Future of Lodging Forum takes place on March 29 at the Londoner Hotel (with a kick-off event the night before at a really great venue we'll tell you about this week). This week we added leaders from Marriott, Starwood Capital, and Booking.com.

Top Headlines

This Hotel Asset Manager Wants the Industry to Rethink How Hotels Run

Michelle Russo has a broad perspective on the hotel sector from her position as CEO and founder of HotelAVE (Asset Value Enhancement), a hotel real estate asset manager and advisor.

The Era of Radical Innovation in Travel Booking Has Arrived

For years, we at Skift have talked about messaging and voice search being two potential new interfaces that help change travel booking, but not much has happened. Conversational AI is very likely going to change that.

Airbnb Notches First Full-Year Profit

Cities are indeed coming back, which seemingly counter-intuitively could present an average daily rate challenge for Airbnb. These pressures, though, are manageable.

Inside Generative AI’s Promise for Travel Booking

Bumpy roads are inevitable, as is discerning the hype from genuine application, but travel companies should be considering their role in a world powered by generative AI and how to get there. If they haven't started, they are already behind.

Tripadvisor Reorganizes Operations Management to Address Its Lagging Core Business

Tripadvisor sees its future as providing differentiated trip-planning, in-destination tools and personalized recommendations for travelers. That isn't wholly different from that of its prior regime, and would be tough to achieve.

Expedia’s 3 Core Brands, Explained

Expedia Group's brand strategy makes sense to the extent that these three core brands don't detract from the company's global ambitions.

Tourism Unprepared to Accommodate Growing Segment of Older Travelers

The tourism industry still treats amenities catering to seniors as another customer preference, not as a necessity. A lot of tourism businesses likely won't get serious until they see and hear about their failures to serve this lucrative demographic shift.

Virtuoso’s Travel Agents Say Luxury Bubble Presents New Booking Challenges

Affluent travelers, prepared to spend as much as $48,000 per person this year on travel, are ironically driving a competitive price surge unlikely to come down in the year ahead.

Experiences, Not Events, Engage Attendees

Evoking emotion and stimulating the senses is the key to attendee engagement and creating positive, lasting memories, yet most planners still neglect experience and stick with convention. 

Here’s Why Actor Idris Elba Thinks Dubai’s Messaging Deserves an Oscar

With ambitious tourism targets, destinations in the Middle East would do good to pay heed to actor Idris Elba's suggestions to tap the creative sector. 

New Skift Research

Online Travel Booking Trends During the Pandemic

• How did the pandemic impact direct bookings and are these trends still in place?
• How has online travel agency market share shifted since 2020 in the U.S.?
• Did the pandemic change Americans’ trip planning process?

Click through for more insights into U.S. booking habits.