Hilton Grand Vacations’ Timeshare Test and 9 Other Top Travel Stories This Week

Throughout the week we are posting original stories night and day covering news and travel trends, including the impact of coronavirus. Every weekend we will offer you a chance to read the most essential stories again in case you missed them earlier.

How Hilton Grand Vacations Digests a $1.4 Billion Takeover Will Test Hot Timeshare Market: The timeshare sector is underway with overdue change. Chasing changing traveler tastes, millennials, and eventually Gen Z buyers means pushing into cities and offering more flexibility.

United Airlines Eyes Blockbuster 2022 With Plans to Be Larger Than Pre-Pandemic: United has big aspirations for 2022 as the travel recovery continues to accelerate in the U.S. But very real concerns about the Delta variant and the broader recovery outside of the airline’s control could set those plans back.

Tripadvisor Plus Creates Less Friction and Lower Costs for Hotels: Adding channel managers to bypass global distribution systems Amadeus and Sabre isn’t a super-duper game-changer for Tripadvisor Plus, but less friction and lower fees can lead to greater traction.

Kayak Is Missing a Golden Opportunity With Its New Corporate Travel Platform:
In what could be the travel industry’s most drawn-out launch of a booking tool, the final version will appeal to many small companies — but it could have offered so much more.

Japan’s Tourism Reality From Olympics: Build It and Maybe They Will Come Later: The 2020 Tokyo Games will be a big financial hit for Japan’s tourism sector, but vaccines now under way plus pent-up demand and infrastructure boosts could make it come out of this tough stretch a winner — sooner than one might think.

Canada to Lift Restrictions for Fully Vaccinated U.S. Travelers From August 9: The decision by Canada to open its border to fully vaccinated U.S. visitors is a massive boost for the country’s economy. While businesses in Canada have lost billions of dollars due to the absence of U.S. customers, the reopening’s timing in early August allows them to salvage something from the summer.

Travel and Fintech Are Colliding in New Exciting Ways: Fintech is trending, and likewise for superapps in certain parts of the world. Getting into travel is too delicious to resist, but the world is not ending for incumbent travel competitors.

Hilton Sees Bigger Meetings and Events Role in All-Inclusive Resort Growth: All-inclusive resorts are always going to be dominated by leisure travel, but it’s a smart move by Hilton to position these properties for some level of corporate meetings and events. Leisure traveler tastes aren’t the only ones that changed over the span of the pandemic.

Why American Airlines Lags Delta and United on a Key Recovery Metric: American likes to tout its strengths from more flights and a broader domestic network when it talks about the recovery. But with higher costs than competitors, it will continue to lag its peers even as some forecast profits in the coming months.

Hopper Sells Travel But Its Fintech Hedging Drives the Growth: Hopper makes more money on add-on, fintech-oriented services than on selling travel — even the usually juicy hotel business. The business isn’t profitable but who cares when grabbing market share is on the agenda.