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Skift Travel News Blog

Short stories and posts about the daily news happenings around the travel industry.

Cruises

Lindblad’s Founder to Become CEO Again

10 months ago

Lindblad Expeditions founder and Co-chair of Board of Directors Sven-Olof Lindblad will become CEO, effective June 30, the cruise company announced Wednesday. He will be replacing Dolf Berle, the current CEO, who is pursuing a non-competitive opportunity in Dallas.

Lindblad founded the company in 1979 and served as CEO until 2021. He then became a co-chair of the company’s board of directors. He will continue to hold that position.

Berle oversaw the company’s ships and tour operations return to service. Lindblad also welcomed three new ships to its fleet and acquired luxury tour company Classic Journeys under his leadship.

Tour Operators

Intrepid Travel’s ‘Planet-Friendly’ Ad Banned

10 months ago

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered Intrepid Travel to remove a misleading advert. While the Australian headquartered travel company is known for being transparent about its climate-conscious approach as a B-Corp company, the misstep points to the broader issue of how easily sustainability can lead to perceived greenwashing within the industry.

The advert featured two women in front of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt with the text, “People and planet-friendly small group adventures since 1989”. It formed part of a billboard campaign in the UK’s London Underground in November 2022.

The ASA received a complaint that the phrase ‘planet-friendly’ was misleading about the impact of Intrepid’s holidays on the environment.

While the regulator noted Intrepid Travel’s comments that it did not offer flights as part of this particular adventure tour, the understanding that the claim was a narrow reference to their tour offering was unclear.

The ASA considered the phrase “people and planet-friendly small group adventures” to be “an absolute claim”, implying “that taking part in an Intrepid tour caused no environmental damage throughout its full life cycle”. Yet, together with the presentation of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt it indicated that “such tours were international and that it would be necessary to travel, in most cases by flying, to take part in their tours,” the regulator detailed in its ruling.

“We considered that this impression was further reinforced by the claim not referring specifically to the tours offered by Intrepid Travel, and considered that, in the absence of qualifying information, “adventures” was likely to be interpreted by consumers as referring to holidays as a whole, which would include flights to and from the destination country,” according to the ASA ruling.

Intrepid responded to the ruling, with its EMEA managing director Zina Bencheikh calling it a “positive step that regulators are becoming more stringent around advertising claims related to climate change and the environment and they will investigate even just one complaint.”

“The ASA’s ruling on ‘planet-friendly’ was a good learning opportunity for us,” said Bencheikh. “This will encourage all travel companies to be more mindful of how they talk about their impact on the environment. Regulation is rapidly evolving. It’s up to us to not only do good work, but find the clearest way to communicate it to our customers.”

Intrepid’s chief customer officer Leigh Barnes further noted that when it comes to talking about environmental impact in travel advertising it was better to avoid and remove subjective and vague language like “Friendly” and “Safe”, as well as consider the entire life cycle of the trip.

Ideas

IDEAS: Airbus Shares Its Vision for the Cabin of the Future

10 months ago

Aerospace designer and manufacturer Airbus has shared what they feel will be the next generation of passenger experience, with their sustainability and tech-driven Airspace Cabin Vision 2035+.

Environmental impact is a central focus, along with consumer comfort, in their product vision. Airbus will integrate “smart systems design” to optimize energy consumption and resources, while also using lightweight materials “enhanced by bionic principals and 3D-printing technologies,” as the company aims to focus on less carbon-intensive solutions in their manufacturing in the future.

Airbus states these innovations will contribute to the industry targets of Net-Zero by 2050.


At the Skift IDEA Awards, we are looking for the projects that are defining the future of guest experience, including aviation, hospitality, and tourism innovations.

If you have an exciting project to share, head to the Skift IDEA Awards today and start your submission. The final deadline for entries is June 20, 2023.

Food and Drink

IDEAS: Putting Surprise and Storytelling at the Center of ‘Dinner’ in Dubai

10 months ago

‘Dinner’ by Heston Blumenthal, which recently opened in Dubai at Atlantis The Royal, offers guests a “relaxed” dining experience driven by spectacle and storytelling. As consumer expectations rise, chefs are constantly upping the ante for not just their cuisine, but also the dining experience in order to stand out to guests.

The menu explores “the tastes and flavors of Britain dating back as far as the 13th century, from the farmers’ table to the royal courts of England,” according to the restaurant. Similar to the elaborate feasts of middle ages in Britain, Blumenthal uses the element of surprise to delight and entertain guests.

Credit: Atlantis The Royal/Dinner Dubai

As guests enter, a giant pineapple rotisserie ‘escapement’ (clock) greets diners and features an intricate spit pulley system that also turns the roasting fruit. It was based on a 16th century clockwork design used for the British Royal Court. “Pineapples, historically, were unbelievably expensive, they were seen as unbelievable luxury… and so ours will signify adventure, exploration and discovery,” Blumenthal notes.

Dinner’s Meat Fruit is an example of edible history that employs surprise to turn a traditional medieval dish from the 1500’s called Pome Dorres, or “apples of gold,” into contemporary cuisine. One of the Blumenthal’s most iconic dishes, it is essentially chicken liver parfait disguised as a mandarin, and requires three cooks to work five hours every day to construct. No one ever said fine-dining was easy.

Credit: Atlantis The Royal/Dinner Dubai

The restaurant has already received a Michelin Star “Special Award”, which was also bestowed to two other restaurants at Dubai’s Atlantis The Royal.


At the Skift IDEA Awards, we are looking for the projects defining the future of hotels and the guest experience, including in-person experiences and activations that utilize a physical environment to impact an end user. 

If you have an exciting project to share, head over to the Skift IDEA Awards and submit your entry today.

Hotels

Choice Hotels Tech Chief Sketches Path to Tapping Generative AI

10 months ago

Choice Hotels sees a potential in generative AI (artificial intelligence) to reshape the hotel sector, according to an interview chief information officer Brian Kirkland did on Bloomberg TV right before the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend.

“To be commercially viable, and to be something that really transforms how we do business, … we need to make sure that we can securely use it. So how do we get private data sets in there? How do we curate the answers to make sure that … the right answer is coming back that’s curated and accurate, and not based on old data? That’s something we’re talking about with some of our partners. When [that’s available], it will be transformative.”

—Brian Kirkland of Choice Hotels

Kirkland speculated that generative AI could help guests find answers faster about properties and help Choice Hotels franchisees to figure out the right type of business strategy or even the policies around how they run their business.

Full interview here:

UPDATE: The original post misspelled Brian Kirkland’s name. Apologies.

Short-Term Rentals

Evolve Lays Off 14 Percent of Its Staff

10 months ago

Vacation rental property manager Evolve is laying off 14 percent of its staff — or 164 employees.

In a memo to employees, Evolve’s chief executive officer Brian Egan wrote “We are operating in a market that has become increasingly dynamic and volatile. Specifically, marketwide supply growth has considerably outpaced demand growth, which has led to average daily rates, bookings, and revenue per property coming in below our expectations,” he said. 

“This means we will be supporting fewer customers, and will generate less revenue than we planned heading into this year. As a result, we need to reduce the size of our team to align our organization and overall expense structure to this new market context.” The story was first reported by Short Term Rentalz.

Property manager Evolve’s office, as seen in 2017. Evolve

The Denver-based company announced a $100 million capital raise last February — Durable Capital Partners led the round. Evolve manages more than 30,000 vacation rentals, and it has raised $235 million. Evolve’s ​​basic plan charges a 10 percent commission and doesn’t include housekeeping or maintenance but does include all aspects of driving rental income as an on-ramp to marketing a property on major channels like Airbnb, Booking.com, and Vrbo. Services include shooting professional photos, creating a listing, offering advice on rate-setting, and handling guest interactions.

Following the raise, in August, Evolve signed a contract with Hopper to add 24,000 homes to Hopper’s app. At the time Eric Schueller, Evolve’s senior vice president of revenue said his company seeks to get incremental bookings from Generation Z guests through the Hopper partnership, and not just shift bookings to Hopper from other distribution partners. Hopper’s guests skew younger than Evolve’s core customers, he added.

Ideas

IDEAS: A Blending of Contemporary Architecture and Tradition in Marrakech

10 months ago

Maison Brummell Majorelle – an 8-room design-driven boutique hotel located in Marrakech – balances contemporary sculptural design with a traditional Moroccan undertone to stand out to design-minded travelers coming to Morocco.

Courtesy of Emily Andrews

Located across from this historic city’s Majorelle Gardens and a short walk from the Yves Saint Laurent museum, the Maison was constructed from scratch for Austrian hotelier Christian Schallert by New Zealand architect Bergendy Cooke and Moroccan architect Amine Abouraoui.

With an estimated 1,500 Riads located throughout Marrakech, Maison Brummell aims to entice global wanderlusts with its rose-hued tadelakt (a traditional Moroccan lime plaster technique), bespoke interior finishes crafted by local artisans, and a sought after neighborhood in Marrakech. However, the Maison’s unconventional design, particularly its inverted arches, was also met with resistance from the local community until the Marrakech-based architect, Abouraoui, was able to win the approval of officials and neighbors.

Maison Brummell Majorelle opened in January 2023.


At the Skift IDEA Awards, we are looking for the projects that are defining the future of guest experience, including aviation, hospitality, and tourism innovations.

If you have an exciting project to share, head to the Skift IDEA Awards today and start your submission. The final deadline for entries is June 20, 2023.

Hotels

Hotel Chart of the Week: Investors Want Wyndham to Seek Merger

10 months ago

Skift editors were struck by this chart of Wyndham’s stock price as of Friday. Investors continue to behave as if it would be a good thing for the world’s largest hotel franchisor to merge with another player. Sustained investor pressure on that score might prompt Wyndham’s management to change strategy at some point.

Shares spiked on Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal floated a rumor that Choice Hotels wanted to buy Wyndham. Analysts quickly cast doubts that any deal would materialize.

Yet Wyndham’s shares remained elevated even when analysts like those at Baird poured cold water on this rumor. Many investors seem to dare to hope that a merger or takeover by some player will happen.

So why would investors cheer an offer for Wyndham?

Baird Equity Research held meetings with Wyndham’s management team after the announcement.

“The company continues to believe the stock is trading at a ‘significant and unwarranted discount,'” wrote the Baird analysts, who agree with management’s view.

To be clear, Baird analysts like Wyndham’s management and neither call for nor predict a merger. But in a flash report, Baird analysts suggested some reasons about why Wyndham’s stock had “underperformed” before the merger rumors.

“The list of potential reasons (among others) includes: growing competition in the lower-end chain scales; recent banking/financing uncertainties that might disproportionately impact Wyndham’s development pipeline; and Wyndham’s typical customer, which has an average household income of $91K, potentially being more impacted from a disposable income perspective due to continued inflationary pressures.”

—Michael Bellisario and Jo Choy of Baird.

Wyndham’s management had retorts to every concern. They said they saw no signs of fundamental slowing in leisure travel demand or in hotel development deal flow, signings, and ability to meet announced targets. Only about two dozen deals in its pipeline appear to face any risk of headwinds because of trouble getting financing because of recent banking and interest rate turmoil.

And yet, the market continues to value Wyndham more when they believe it’s in play. That partly reflect’s an investor mentality. Analyst David Katz at Jeffries estimated this week that any takeover bid might come with a price premium of as much as 30 percent of Wyndham’s stock prices. Some investors, possibly naive, are looking for a quick gain.

Yet Wyndham has weaker earnings growth forecasts for 2024 when compared with Choice Hotels, its competitor with the most overlap in hotel profile.

To paraphrase Baird’s Michael Bellisario and Jo Choy, risks to Wyndham include:

  • the sustainability of brand equity and customer loyalty when facing the larger loyalty and co-branded credit card machines of players like Marriott International
  • the endurance of its popularity among developers especially as larger groups like Hilton and Hyatt increasingly develop brands in the premium economy sector that Wyndham has heavy exposure to
  • exposure to a more price-conscious traveler during macroeconomic headwinds in the context of rivalry from other hotel brand companies

Wyndham’s management capably managed its way through the pandemic and have consistently met their announced targets while avoiding unpleasant surprises. Yet Wyndham’s trades at a noticeable discount to the sum of its parts, according to a few investment banks that cover the stock.

It appears that some investors believe Wyndham would be stronger as part of a larger group that could have more scale efficiencies, such as in a larger loyalty program, an ability to negotiate deeper discounts on things like furniture supplies and commissions for distribution, and back-office synergies.

If investors continue to signal with their pricing behavior frustration with Wyndham for a year or longer, pressure will only grow on Wyndham’s management to adjust their business strategy in response or possibly entertain merger talks.

Ideas

Trip.com Group to Power Digital Journey of Cambodia’s New Airport

10 months ago

Online travel company Trip.com Group has joined hands with flag carrier Cambodia Angkor Air to position the new Angkor International Airport as a smart airport in the region.

As part of the agreement, Trip.com Group will contribute to enhancing the digital services of the new airport scheduled to commence operations in October 2023.

The partnership also serves to position Cambodia’s competitiveness as a global destination as it aims to strengthen collaboration in various tourism sectors. This would extend to marketing campaigns, hotel development, travel visa services, and tourism talent training programs in both countries.

Angkor Wat, Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia
Angkor Wat, Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia. The temple remains the face of tourism for Cambodia.

Expressing the significance of the new Angkor International Airport in Cambodia’s global tourism strategy, Tekreth Samrach, chairman of Cambodia Angkor Air, said the collaboration with Trip.com Group to enhance services and construct a smart airport presents an opportunity for global tourism revival.

Cambodia is estimated to have lost $3 billion of tourism revenue to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cambodia’s New Airport Worth $880 Million

China’s Yunnan Investment Group, parent company of Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport has invested in the new airport project valued at $880 million.

A steering committee for the construction of Siem Reap Angkor International Airport led by Samrach had announced in March that the airport would be ready in time for its October launch.

Once ready, the airport that would be able to handle long-haul aircraft with the capacity to receive about seven million passengers per year initially, 10 million by 2030, and 20 million by 2050.

China is a significant source of inbound tourism for Cambodia, with Chinese tourists accounting for approximately 36 percent of the 6.6 million foreign tourists arriving in the country in 2019.

Cambodia launched the “China Ready” strategy in 2023 to attract more Chinese tourists.

As of mid-May 2023, Ctrip, a Trip.com Group sub-brand, had reported that the number of users from the Chinese mainland searching for Cambodian tourism products had increased by more than 233 percent compared with the same period last year.

In 2022, Cambodia welcomed 2.28 million foreign tourists, according to the ministry of tourism.

Airlines

IDEAS: Fully Electric Seaglider Projected for Regional Travel in 2025

10 months ago

Electric seaglider manufacturer, Regent, unveiled a full-scale mock-up of its commercial seaglider prototype in April, with passenger service projected for 2025. Southern Airways is slated to receive the first 12-passenger seagliders serving coastal and island travelers.

Source: Regent

Regent also recently named David Neeleman, co-founder of Breeze Airways, JetBlue, and Azul Airlines, and Dennis Muilenburg, former CEO of The Boeing Company to its Board of Advisors. The company aims to improve regional transportation through its electric seagliders, providing fast, sustainable coastal travel.

Archer Aviation, which is backed by United Airlines and Stellantis NV, also aims to make about 250 battery-electric air taxis available for service in 2025, pending FAA approval.


At the Skift IDEA Awards, we are looking for the projects that are defining the future of guest experience, including aviation, hospitality, and tourism innovations.

If you have an exciting project to share, head to the Skift IDEA Awards today and start your submission. The final deadline for entries is June 20, 2023.