Coronavirus Travel News

Good morning from Skift. It's Wednesday, March 16, in New York City. Here's what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Accor continues to see bright days ahead in its recovery, but the war in Ukraine adds new challenges for Accor's already volatile pandemic recovery — especially a conflict in one’s backyard.

In January, 40% of Americans traveled, only 5 percentage points lower than January 2020, before the pandemic hit. While we expect to see even more normalcy in travel as we move closer to another travel season, where the economy is heading could have an impact, as more than half of Americans now believe the U.S. economy will get worse in the next 12 months.

Sonesta didn't go far in looking for a new CEO. John Murray's current employer, Service Properties Trust, is the lodging trust that severed contracts with Marriott and IHG and used those hotels to fuel Sonesta's ascent during the pandemic.

The Americas still takes the (slightly) biggest piece of IHG's development pipeline pie, but Greater China is vaulting forward each year with new signings and higher room counts for the company behind brands like Holiday Inn and InterContinental.

While India has set an ambitious, so-called Vision@2047 goal for tourism some two decades into the future, what’s really needed urgently right now is a long-overdue national tourism policy.

Rural destinations that have benefitted from long-haul road trippers will want to prepare for the impact of higher gas prices on consumer behavior, on the cusp of busy spring and summer seasons.

The pace of hotel development in the Middle East is picking up after a two-year dry spell. The key to making these hotels a success is showing this region is still a place to visit when the rest of the world is back to open borders and on a level tourism playing field.

February was a surprisingly strong month for hotel job gains. Companies need to continue the momentum leading into the busy summer travel season, which is only a few months away.

Eric Danziger, the departing CEO at Trump Hotels and one of the few non-family members to hold the top job at the company, is the latest drag on the hotel brand that has shed properties over the last several years.