Rafat Ali

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United Launches New Ad Campaign Showing Off Its Pandemic-Earned Goodwill

United Airlines has earned a lot of goodwill in this pandemic, especially in being one of the first airlines to mandate vaccines for its employees months before a federal mandate and sticking to it despite lots of vocal backlash. Now it is launching a big new national ad campaign – "Good Leads The Way" – that tells…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

Luxury Travel Subscription Service Inspirato Getting Into Corporate Incentives Market

Inspirato, the luxury travel subscription service that went public last year through a SPAC, reported a very strong Q1 2022 earnings topline, a 67% increase from its previous year quarter to $82 million; total active subscribes increased to 15,300 as of March 31, 2022, an increase of 18% year-over-year. More on its results here. Beyond…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

New York Airports Won’t Be Able to Overcharge Crazy Prices for Food and Drinks Anymore

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the body that overlooks the three New York Area airports of LGA/JFK/EWR has come down hard high prices at its airports. The new policy, it says, "caps all concession prices at local, off-airport “street prices” plus a maximum surcharge of 10 percent and requires concessionaries to…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

Inside Six Flags’ Attempt to Reduce Visitors And Go Upscale

Six Flags, the largest regional theme park operator in U.S., has been attempting a business and guest experience turnaround under its new-ish CEO Selim Bassoul, who took over in Nov last year. And it beginning to see early results -- detailed in its latest earnings call -- that gives lots of lessons for the crush…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

Consumer Adoption of Buy-Now-Pay-Later In Travel Increasing Rapidly: Affirm’s Earnings

Affirm, the public buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) fintech company just reported its latest quarterly earnings, and some hint that BNPL is being rapidly adopted by the suppliers in travel AND increasing usage by the travelers. From the earnings call transcript: "The Travel and Ticketing segment has been outperforming expectations, and volume more than doubled year over year.…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

Skift Originals

The Great Merging

How we live, work, socialize and travel have merged into each other, with profound implications for the global industry at the center of selling this dream. How will travel respond?

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

The Great Merging

News Blog

Accor Takes Over Legendary QE2 Ship For Floating Hotel in Dubai

Well, never accuse Accor of not experimenting with new things, maybe to a fault: it has taken over the operations of the legendary cruise liner and ship Queen Elizabeth 2. The cruise ship will undergo further upgrades and renovations prior to joining the MGallery Hotel Collection. Situated in Dubai’s Port Rashid, It becomes Dubai’s first…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

Amtrak To Add More Trains As Demand Returns

Good news on travel demand, of the rail kind: Amtrak has announced its summer schedule with most Acela frequencies since the onset of the pandemic and Northeast Regional departures nearing 80% of pre-pandemic service levels. The new summer schedule also includes the restoration of four long-distance trains to daily service, the service said in an announcement. Amtrak anticipates the…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

U.S. Meetings & Events Recovery At About 70 Percent Compared to 2019

Latest data from events business intelligence vendor Knowland for the U.S. market is showing meetings and events data for April had a significant increase of 323 percent over April 2021, but of course an unfair comparison when last year vaccines were just starting to roll out. Some interesting recovery data: -- Attendees were ahead of…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago

News Blog

Tour Operator Intrepid Invests in Remote Eco-Cabins Startup CABN

Intrepid Travel, one of the world's largest adventure travel tour operator is investing about $5.5 million USD into an Australian remote eco-cabins startup CABN. Currently the startup has 11 cabins across South Australia and Victoria and plans to build 70 eco cabins by 2023, with this money injection. The model involves building the eco cabins…

Rafat Ali | 2 years ago