Skift Travel News Blog

Global average wait times for U.S. visitor visas dropped below 150 days in January for the first time since 2021, according to the U.S. Travel Association. They still, however, remain higher than 400 days for India, Brazil, Mexico and top inbound visa-requiring markets (excluding China).

In 2022, aspiring tourists from the top ten inbound countries outside the U.S. Visa Waiver Program couldn’t travel to the U.S. because they had to hundreds of days to get a visitor visa (B-1 and B-2) interview at their local U.S. embassy. The primary reason was inadequate processing staff amid released pent-up demand. The delays could cost the travel industry an estimated $12 billion in 2023 and cause international travel not to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2025, according to the U.S. Travel.

The recent wait time reductions have been due to the State Department’s new processing initiatives. The department’s “Super Saturdays” initiative has had embassies and consulates remain open on Saturdays to process visas. This past Saturday, for example, the consulate at Monterrey, Mexico, cut interview wait times from 545 days in mid-December to (still high) 407 days. The administration’s wavering of interview requirements for low-risk renewals of visitor visa and other categories have also helped.

Visa wait times remain absurdly high for many international tourists. In Mumbai, India, for example, wait times fell from 999 days in mid-December to 623 days—that’s more than a year and a half.

The State Department expects interview wait times will fall to under 120 days and its embassies and consulates will be fully staffed by the end of the 2023 fiscal year, according to U.S. Travel. The speed of visa wait times reductions will vary by country due local travel demand and hiring pace, according to Peter van Berkel, chairman of the International Inbound Travel Association and president of Travalco, a tour operator. 

Under 120 days is still high and underscores the Skift 2023 megatrend that the U.S. travel industry will have to continue to contend with the loss of many international travelers.

Working with the State Department to resolve the visitor visa delay issue will be the top priority for the person that fills the newly-created assistant secretary of travel and tourism position. 

Expedia Group has announced the first group of tech companies taking part in its new Open World Accelerator program.

The 12 startups were chosen from hundreds of applicants worldwide focused on building tech products meant to improve accessibility for underserved travelers. Each startup or small business must have been founded in the last 10 years and have a minimum viable product. 

The startup participants get technology and business development support, mentorship from Expedia Group personnel and outside experts, a non-equity grant, and access to the Expedia Group platform and products. 

The accelerator was announced in September. 

“Open World Accelerator is specifically designed to drive innovation in the industry, remove barriers to travel, and enable startups and SMBs to build capabilities on Expedia’s Open World™ technology platform that significantly improve the experience for every traveler,” Archana Arunkumar, Expedia Group’s senior vice president of platform, said in a statement at that time. 

Each of the startups are listed with a description on the Expedia website. 

Some of them include: 

• Becoming Rentable, a short-term rental platform focused on accessible properties
• Greether, a platform dedicated to women that connects travelers with tour guides
• Misterb&b, a short-term rental platform dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community

A laboratory study has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the UK’s travel restrictions last year.

Scientists at Bangor University in Wales tested wastewater on planes to monitor coronavirus infections and the general health of passengers coming into the UK from other countries.

Almost all aircraft arriving at the three monitored UK airports (Heathrow, Edinburgh and Bristol) between March 8 and March 31, 2022 had the virus in their wastewater, according to the study, published in medical journal PLOS Global Public Health.

“Despite all the intervention measures that the UK had in place to try to stop people with the illness getting on flights to the UK, almost every single plane we tested contained the virus, and most of the terminal sewers, too,” said professor David Jones of Bangor University’s School of Natural Sciences, reported Lab Manager.

“That might have been because people developed symptoms after testing negative, or were evading the system, or for some other reason. But it showed that there was essentially a failure of border control in terms of Covid surveillance.”

Wastewater sampling has been cited as a better method to monitor travelers coming from China, rather than requiring negative pre-departure Covid tests. Airports Council International Europe has argued this can shift the focus to genomic sequencing to identify new variants.

The British government spent around $585 million on implementing a traffic light system as part of its wider response to manage travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, but a Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons review in July last year found that it was unable to tell if it worked, or whether the cost was worth the disruption caused.

A review into Canada’s travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic also claimed they did little to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

Bangor University helped track the spread of Covid in early 2020 by testing wastewater in major cities. Scientists at the university hope wastewater sampling will extend beyond coronavirus, allowing the UK government to establish an “infectious disease transmission surveillance network” for any future viruses, Lab Manager also reported.

United Airlines took a nearly 10 percent stake in its regional partner Mesa Air Group in a deal unveiled after markets closed. The transaction is worth an estimated $10.5 million based on the closing price of Mesa’s stock of $2.61 per share on Monday.

The 4.04 million shares were issued as part of a larger deal including, additional flying for United by Mesa, that the two airlines reached in December, a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission show. As part of that agreement, United provided Mesa with a $10 million revolving loan due in January 2024, plus other financial commitments.

The equity stake comes amid a shakeup in the U.S. regional airline sector. A pilot shortage across the industry has morphed into a captain shortage at the carriers that fly small aircraft for the Big 3 — in other words, the airlines that operate American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express flights. The shortage has forced hundreds of the smallest jets to be parked. Delta President Glen Hauenstein said earlier in January he does not believe the situation will ease until 2024.

And a dramatic pay raise by American for pilots at the three affiliates — Envoy, Piedmont Airlines, and PSA Airlines — it owns last June, has reset the cost structure of regional flying. Mesa and others have matched the pay rates, which for some crew members are more than double what they were before. The reset has heightened concerns that regional airlines may shrink further, and cut air service to more small U.S. cities.

Mesa lost $10 million during the quarter ending in June, its latest financial statement shows. Costs during the period increased nearly 21 percent year-over-year on a 7 percent increase in revenues.

United’s investment in Mesa likely signals a closer relationship between the two going forward. The major carrier also owns stakes a 40 percent stake of its affiliate CommuteAir, and 19 percent of partner Republic Airways.

Indian carrier Vistara reported its first-ever net profit for the quarter ending December 2022, according to statement from the airline on Monday.  

The full-service carrier, a joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, reported break even for the first time since its inception in 2015 as it crossed the $1 billion revenue mark and remained earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization positive in the current fiscal year.

In 2022, Vistara reported that it grew its international network by over 180 percent adding seven routes including three new destinations — Muscat, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi.

The airline said that it grew its domestic network by over 50 percent, by adding six new routes and two new destinations — Coimbatore and Jaipur.

While the airline did not share numbers, but for the quarter ending December 2022, it reported a 37 percent growth in capacity and a passenger increase of 47 percent compared to the same period last year.

Since July 2022, the airline has maintained its position as the second largest domestic airline in India, flying more than 11 million passengers in the calendar year 2022.

Vistara also registered a 11 percent year-on-year growth in the member base for its frequent flyer program — Club Vistara.

The airline currently operates close to 8,500 flights per month.

“With significant network and fleet expansion and sustained growth over the last few months, 2022 has been a phenomenal year for Vistara, in terms of our operational and financial performance,” Vinod Kannan, Vistara CEO, said.

Vistara is also getting ready for a merger with Air India, the erstwhile Indian state carrier, that had been acquired by Tata Sons, via its subsidiary, Talace, early last year as part of a $2.4 billion deal.

The Vistara-Air India merger is said to be completed by March 2024, following which Air India shall be India’s largest international carrier and second largest domestic carrier with a combined fleet of 218 aircraft.

Political unrest continues to unravel tourism recovery in Peru. Tour operators were forced to evacuate tourists and halt tours to Machu Picchu over the weekend due to ongoing violent protests and widespread service disruptions.

Both Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail hike to the famous site have been closed indefinitely.

Hundreds of tourists were left stranded over the weekend as tensions escalated. Both Intrepid Travel and G Adventures confirmed to Skift they would cancel trips until 5 February, due to the ongoing political instability.

Skift previously reported how the South American country has been grappling with reactions to a destructive self-coup attempt by its impeached President Pedro Castillo.

Gary Cohen, Intrepid’s managing director for Latin America, said the company had safely evacuated one group to hotel accommodation in Cusco and plans are being put in place to rebook or refunded affected trips.

All G Adventures itineraries for travelers on the ground in Peru were being re-routed, according to its statement.

At this point, it remains unclear when tourism would return to normal as a state of emergency has been extended, affecting airport closures and overall travel to the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday unveiled plans for a high-speed train route connecting their respective capitals, Paris and Berlin, beginning next year.

“As a tangible initiative illustrating our will to push forward on decarbonizing our economies and our societies, as well as our cross-border links, we support the deployment of the high-speed train route between Paris and Berlin, as well as the night train liaison, both announced for 2024,” they said in a joint statement. They did not provide additional details, for example which country’s rail operator — France’s SNCF or Germany’s Deutsche Bahn — would operate the planned service.

A direct Paris-Berlin high-speed rail service would eliminate the need for travelers to change trains in either Cologne or Frankfurt. However, as rail blogger Alon Levy noted, without additional infrastructure improvements the new direct service will likely take about the 8 hours in travel, or about the same as the current connecting services.

Flights between Paris and Berlin take roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes, according to Diio by Cirium schedules.

Deutsche Bahn and SNCF operate 24 trains between France and Germany daily, according to the latter’s website. Trains directly connect Paris and other French cities with Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and other German cities.

While 2022 was a post-pandemic boom year for hotel demand in much of the world, total global hotel investment volume decelerated slightly to $71.9 billion, a decline of 2 percent relative to 2021. The relative lack of outbound Chinese hotel investment, the Russian war in Ukraine, and recessionary pressures in several markets tamped down the pace of growth.

That’s according to a Global Hotel Investment Outlook report released on Monday by JLL Hotels & Hospitality — an investment advisory firm that helps manage more than $6.8 billion in hotel assets.

A few charts from JLL’s report stand out.

In 2022, global portfolio transactions dropped 27 percent year-over-year, but small trades spiked. The total number of trades reached an all-time high, meaning that the market had a lot of smaller players and a lot of smaller assets being traded, compared with years with large assets and large portfolios shifted hands. CLICK TO ENLARGE.

There’s been much less ross-border investment in hotels than one might expect for quite some time. The five years before the pandemic, 2015 to 2019), saw cross-border hotel investments account for an average of 17 percent of total global hotel investment volume. Yet in that period, the investment declined as a global total year after year. CLICK TO ENLARGE.

Two of the most eye-catching data points from the report are the growing demand for hotel investment from high-net-worth individuals and the growing presence of these individuals in Singapore.

In fact, 16 percent of the year’s global investment volume was generated by first-time hotel buyers, predominantly comprised of family offices and high net-worth individuals. In Singapore, there are now an estimated 700 family offices, more than double the amount pre-pandemic. Expect this trend to continue in 2023 and beyond as lodging demand accelerates.

—Global Hotel Investment Outlook report released on Monday by JLL Hotels & Hospitality 

UPDATE: JLL released the report on Tuesday in sync with the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles.

Chinese tourists have flocked to train stations over the past two weeks, with 109.5 million journeys made between Jan. 7 and Jan. 21 in the build-up to Lunar New Year celebrations, which took pace on Jan. 22.

That figure is a 27.3 percent increase on trips made during the same 15 days in 2022, local media reported, citing data from national railway operator China State Railway Group.

The increase is attributed to the sudden easing of Covid-related travel restrictions.

The total number of passenger trips for the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush is expected to reach 2.1 billion, which is twice as much as last year, or 70 percent of 2019, the report added.

The modernization of the country’s train stations also played a role, Global Times reported, with the number of stations carrying out online food delivery services increasing from 55 to 76.

Marriott International revealed on Monday its full-year totals for hotel development in 2022. The most notable figures highlighted a further push by the world’s largest hotelier into the luxury and extended-stay segments.

The operator of brands such as Ritz Carlton, Bvlgari Hotels, W, and Edition last year signed deals to develop 42 luxury hotels — a company record — adding to its nearly 500 open luxury properties. These luxury hotels represent nearly 8,000 rooms.

Growth in Extended Stay

Marriott also had continued momentum at the lower end of the spectrum in 2022, which represents most of the nearly 8,300 properties it had open worldwide as of late December.

In 2022, the company’s extended stay brands — Residence Inn by Marriott, Element by Westin, and TownePlace Suites by Marriott brands — made up a record 30 percent of the company’s signings.

Interest in extended stay from developers is partly driven by consumers seeking more space, “driven by the blending of work and leisure trips,” Marriott executives said.

“The select service and extended stay segments continue to generate significant growth for the company, particularly in the U.S. and Canada,” said Noah Silverman, global development officer, U.S. & Canada, at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles.

In 2023, the company will particularly look at “underserved secondary and tertiary markets” for additional extended-stay growth, Silverman said.

Overall, last year was a robust year for Marriott’s pipeline expansion. It signed 726 management and franchise agreements, representing nearly 108,000 rooms. About 20 percent of these deals were conversions rather than new development.

Marriott joins other hotel companies in having a backlog of getting signed hotels built open. Last year, the company only added 394 properties, representing roughly 65,000 rooms, growing its worldwide network by 4.4 percent. But given the enormous size of its pipeline, that rollout could’ve been faster if key inputs for construction and financing hadn’t been disrupted by labor dislocations and rising interest rates.

For more context, see how the great merging between people’s work and personal lives has led Blended Travel to Come of Age, one of Skift’s Megatrends for 2023.

For context on the consumer dynamic driving the boom in luxury, see Skift’s 2023 Megatrend “A New Super Luxury Goes a Step Further.”