Gallery

Inside Virgin Atlantic’s Swanky New Lounge at Los Angeles International

Grant Martin, Skift

United Updates iOS App With Multiple-Flight Award Booking for Frequent Flyers

Dennis Schaal, Skift

The Travel Wallet is a nice touch, as frequent flyers can now easily access mobile boarding passes, one-time United Club passes and flight notifications in one place. Beyond that the app has some nice additions, but nothing that knocks your socks, or anything else, off.

New York Hilton Midtown Brings Back Room Service In Paper Bags

Dennis Schaal, Skift

The limited-service concept is designed to reduce overhead at hotels such as New York Hilton Midtown, but it will only work if Herb and other guests don't tire of dealing with the midnight munchies, and decide to reserve rooms elsewhere on their next visit.

Prison Tours are Booming For Travelers Who Aren’t A Captive Audience

Kevin Murphy, Reuters

Tours of former prisons are increasingly popular and intriguing as a look into history at places where there definitely weren't any cell phones. For most of the tourists, this is a first-time look at accommodations they'd never want to sample for themselves.

How Mobile Travel Apps Have Transformed the User Experience

Dennis Schaal, Skift

How long will it be before we talk about travel websites as always having an essential, if limited place, in much the same way that we sometimes talk about print guidebooks? Smartphones with bigger screens, tablets of mini and maximum dimensions ... buckle your seatbelts.

Kayak Homepage Redesign Keeps Pace With its Biggest Rivals

Dennis Schaal , Skift

Simpler homepages have been a trend over the last few years, and lately hotel-search sites have been catching up. Kayak, Google, and Trivago are among the sites that have streamlined their hotel-search widgets into one line in a bid to get less complicated and distracting.

The 22 Most Cliched Tourist Photos Ever

Rafat Ali, Skift

Don't pooh pooh them off, whole economies have been built on them; cliches drive the travel economy ever since we started making travel brochures. They are what drive people to book these trips, and do what everyone else has done before them.

The National Park on the Tip of America That Almost Wasn’t

Manuel Valdes, Associated Press

The logistics and politics that cut the path to Shi Shi Beach are a reminder of the effort it takes to bring one-of- a-kind places to life.

Travel Photography App Trover Secures $2.5 Million in Funding from Concur

Dennis Schaal, Skift

Trover is a beautiful and fun photo-sharing app, but the company faces some of the same challenges that most startups confront: How do you scale the business so users know you exist? With an additional $2.5 million in funding from Concur, and with other well-connected backers involved, little Trover can hang around for awhile.

South Dakota Thinks $7 Million Upgrade Will Attract Tourists to Its Corn Palace

Kristi Easton, Associated Press

It's somewhat shocking that the Corn Palace attracts 200,000 visitors at all. There are surely more expedient ways to improve the economy of a South Dakota county than building domes of corn.

Costa Concordia Has One Shot at Getting Upright Before Sinking into the Sea

Frances D'Emilio, Associated Press

The wreckage hasn't deterred tourism to Giglio as previously feared, but a cruise ship partly submerged and rotting at the bottom of the sea would undoubtedly have a more significant impact on the environmental and tourism.

For the travel moments you can’t tweet, tweet them anyway

Rafat Ali, Skift

Clever use of riding on the coattails of social media, though seems a less long lasting strategy, more tactical campaign for immediate awareness.