Skift Travel News Blog

Struggling Colombian budget airline Viva Air stopped flying late Monday, less than a month after it filed for the local equivalent of bankruptcy.

The Medellin-based carrier, and Colombia’s third largest, cited the delay by the country’s civil aviation regulator, Aerocivil, in approval of its proposed merger with Avianca for its closure. Aerocivil has been considering the airline’s merger, which former Viva CEO Felix Antelo said last year was critical to the airline’s future, for nearly seven months.

“Unfortunately, we are at this point due to the repeated delays of the [Aerocivil] and their inability to recognize that what is best for Viva is also the best for all Colombians,” Viva said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that [Aerocivil] will take immediate action to ensure that Viva continues to paint the skies yellow.”

Aerocivil first rejected Avianca and Viva’s merger request in November due to competition concerns. The regulator reopened the review in January after Avianca and Viva offered concessions to preserve competition. However, after JetSmart and Latam Airlines expressed interest in acquiring Viva, Aerocivil postponed a decision on the merger earlier in February.

Viva said that it will continue talks with creditors with the hopes it can restart operations in the future.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the most influential flight attendant union in the U.S., is in the running to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

The Biden administration is vetting Nelson as well as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su to head the Department of Labor once current Labor Secretary Marty Walsh steps down in March. Nelson has already been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont, who called her a leading voice for workers rights in a letter he sent to President Joe Biden. She played a key role in helping secure $25 billion in relief funds for the airline industry early in the pandemic.

Nelson, who has served as the president of the AFA-CWA since 2014, recently came out in support of the proposed $3.8 billion merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines, calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to approve the deal.

Marriott International said on Friday that its chief financial officer, Leeny Oberg, will now also lead the company’s global development organization, responsible for the strategic growth at the world’s largest hotel operator.

As executive vice president for development, Oberg will advocate for the Bethesda, Maryland-based company’s portfolio of 31 brands as the company aims to woo investors and developers to pick its offerings.

In related news, CEO Anthony Capuano on Friday became president, not just top boss. Capuano added the title after Stephanie Linnartz, the previous president, left Marriott to become CEO of Under Armour.

Marriott also said on Friday that it had appointed veteran Tina Edmundson president of luxury, and long-time leader Peggy Fang Roe as executive vice president and chief customer officer.

Leeny Oberg has long had an intimate fluency with the group’s strategic plan — regularly on display in analyst calls with investors and public presentations. She spoke on-stage in New York as Marriott International’s chief financial officer at Skift Global Forum 2019. Video, here:

Eurocamp owner European Camping Group recently completed its acquisition of outdoor accommodation provider Vacanceselect Group for $1.1 billion (€1 billion). European Camping Group owns outdoor-centered accommodation brands.

The acquisition was first announced in July and was approved by the French Competition Authority in February. With the deal, European Camping Group has more than tripled its campsite portfolio and now covers 500 destinations across France, Italy, Spain, Croatia and the Netherlands. European Camping Group is targeting a turnover of $738.4 million ( €700million) this year.

Oyo, which advertises itself online as “India’s Best Online Hotel Booking Site for Sanitized Stays,” said it is performing well in the U.S. — after de-emphasizing its U.S. presence during the height of the pandemic.

India is Oyo’s largest market.

The company said Friday that during 2022 its revenue per available room, an important industry metric, grew 18 percent in the U.S. compared with prior to the pandemic in 2019, versus an only 6 percent rise for its budget hotel peers in the country. The latter figure comes from STR data, Oyo said.

“Coastal Oregon, Miami, Myrtle Beach, Houston and San Antonio emerged as the destinations with highest RevPar in 2022,” Oyo stated. “Travel recovery was largely led by domestic travel in the U.S.”

Oyo has a potential initial public offering in the works in India.

Oyo, which is a hotel aggregator and operator, said it attracted nearly 20 percent more bookings over President’s Day weekend (February 18-20) in 2023 versus 2021.

Former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker will step down as chairman and leave the carrier’s board of directors in April. The move ends his decade-long tenure in at the airline that began in 2013 after he successfully orchestrated American’s merger with US Airways.

Current board member Greg Smith will replace Parker as the independent chairman of American’s board effective April 30, the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline said Thursday. The transition from Parker to Smith is part of the board’s long-term succession plans, American added.

“The American Airlines team will be forever grateful to Doug for building our airline into what it is today,” CEO Robert Isom said. “On a personal note, I’m thankful for Doug’s partnership over the past year as I took on the CEO role. I look forward to continuing to work with the board and Greg in his new role as we shape the American Airlines of the future.”

Parker has been chairman of American’s board since June 2014. He was CEO until last March when he stepped down and passed the reins to Isom, who was then president of American. Prior to Parker taking the lead of American in December 2013, he was CEO of US Airways and America West Airlines dating back to 2001.

It is not uncommon for a former airline CEO to chair a carrier’s board after they step down from the top management job, and then depart after about a year. For example, Oscar Munoz, who led United Airlines from 2015 to 2020, chaired the carrier’s board for exactly a year after passing the CEO job to Scott Kirby.

Smith joined American’s board as a director in January 2022. Prior to that, he was the chief financial officer of Boeing.

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp‘s new CEO John Geller said on Thursday that the company’s fourth-quarter earnings underscored continued strength in leisure demand for its timeshare properties, package tours, and other offerings for travelers, despite talk of economic uncertainty.

In the fourth quarter, the company generated a net income of $88 million off of $1.19 billion in revenue. Revenue rose 8 percent year-over-year, thanks partly to the company’s lodging averaging nearly 90 percent occupancy.

The company said consolidated vacation ownership contract sales — a key metric in the sector — was $454 million in the quarter, up from $406 million a year earlier. Executives forecasted that the company would end 2023 with contract sales up between 5 percent and 9 percent.

Thursday was the first earnings call for John Geller as the company’s CEO, president and director.

“The past two months have felt a lot like when I joined the company just over 13 years ago, full of potential and possibility. Long term, I expect our timeshare and exchange business to remain the core of our business model while we look to add to our growth by diversifying into adjacent leisure-focused businesses where we can leverage our core capabilities. And finally, I want us to find new ways to unlock the power of data through advanced analytics to improve efficiency and drive top-line growth.”

—John Geller, CEO of Marriott Vacations

Marriott Vacations Worldwide’s international active members rose 21 percent year-over-year to 1.6 million.

But average revenue per member — another key performance metric — fell by 17 percent year-over-year.

In January, the company said that beginning this summer, it would rebrand all of its recently acquired Hyatt legacy Welk resorts as Hyatt Vacation Club.

Later this year, it plans to expand the vacation experiences available to Hyatt owners with a new exchange option called Beyond, allowing them to use their ownership for cruises, tours and hotel stays.

Earlier this month, the company acquired a parcel of land in Charleston, South Carolina, where it plans to develop a 50-unit Marriott branded resort, including a new on-site sales gallery by 2025.

Travel search volume in the Asia Pacific region rose over 50 percent year over year in the fourth quarter last year, according to Expedia Group. The region’s strong performance led global travel search volume, which rose by 10 percent year over year.

Asia Pacific’s search volume boost in the fourth quarter was likely driven by China, Japan, South Korea and other countries in the region relaxing restrictions, according to Expedia. China relaxed its Covid-19 restrictions in December. For three years, China was absent from the global tourism economy.

Longer booking windows were also more popular in the Asia-Pacific in the fourth quarter. Booking windows of 61-to 90-day windows grew by 30 percent quarter over quarter. Booking windows of 31-to-60 day windows grew by 25 percent quarter over quarter.

Asia Pacific travelers also stayed at destinations longer. Average length of stay increased by nearly 5 percent year over year. For the month of December alone, Asia Pacific traveler stays rose nearly 30 percent year over year.

The largest flight attendants union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, is backing the proposed $3.8 billion merger of JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines as part of a new agreement with the latter carrier.

“The JetBlue-Spirit merger adds competition to the airline industry that creates more power for workers, along with choice and comfort that benefits consumers,” AFA President Sara Nelson said Tuesday. “We urge regulators to work diligently to ensure the financial merger closing occurs in the near term so that flight attendants, other workers, and consumers can access the benefits of the merger as soon as possible.”

AFA represents the roughly 5,600 flight attendants at Spirit. JetBlue’s more than 4,800 flight attendants are represented by the Transport Workers Union, or TWU.

Labor support for the merger is not a guarantee that the U.S. Department of Justice, which handles antitrust matters, will approve the deal. Reports indicate that the regulator intends to block the JetBlue-Spirit combination, and JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said Tuesday that the carrier was ready “to go to court” if it had too to get the deal done.

However, labor backing of a merger can make the integration process go more smoothly once the deal closes.

AFA’s support for the merger came as part of a new two-year accord with Spirit. The tentative agreement, which flight attendants still must vote on, also includes pay raises of 10-27 percent upon ratification.

Travelers are only modestly more dissatisfied with hotel stays on average worldwide than before the pandemic, according to a review of 6 million user-generated reviews and 20 million online comments. But North America stood out as a region where many guests felt hotels were underperforming compared to 2019.

Shiji ReviewPro compiled its 200-page hotel guest sentiment report for 2022 based on hotel guest satisfaction reviews and scores for the full year, including year-over-year comparisons back to 2019 and 2021 and taking into account reviews from 7,500 hotels worldwide.

The new study will highlight issues of concern to hotel owners and operators, who are debating whether they need to add back full staffing and service or whether guests will generally accept a leaner post-pandemic level of service.

In 2022, the global review index — a measure of guest satisfaction — was 84.3 percent, 1.7 points lower than in 2019, according to Shiji ReviewPro. Decreases were most pronounced among 3-star hotels, which lost 2.0 points from 2019 to 2022.

Labor challenges appeared to be a key issue.

To make the sample statistically relevant, the report looked at comparable numbers of hotels in five regions that are representative of each region’s makeup by category type.

North America saw the biggest decline in guest satisfaction of the five regions. In 2022, the Global Review Index for hotels in the Shiji ReviewPro data set was 83.3 percent, a drop of 3.5 points from 2019. Three-star hotels showed the steepest decline, losing four points. The results dovetailed with research last year from J.D. Power.

Booking.com accounted for an incredible 41.8 percent of global review volume in 2022, an increase of 12.9 points over 2019. Concerning the 66 review sites and online travel agencies in 45 languages included in the study, there has been no exclusion or bias: all reviews, regardless of platform, are included for each of the hotels the company analyzed, Shiji ReviewPro said.

Shiji ReviewPro is one of the three largest vendors helping hotels and the industry manage and understand user-generated reviews, customer feedback, and guest sentiment. Competitors include Revinate and TrustYou.