Skift Originals

Affluent travelers’ tendency to travel and spend more than average makes them businesses’ target customers, and how and where they choose to spend are keys for companies looking to tap into the market.

Blackstone saddled Travelport and Orbitz Worldwide with tremendous debt, and greatly restricted Orbitz's freedom to maneuver. There have to be some champagne corks popping this weeks as Orbitz has a chance to taste some freedom.

Carnival Corp., which is engaged in damage control with Congress and the public, is making common-sense improvements that it should have made long ago. That being said, it appears as though these improvements could go a long way toward avoiding an encore of Carnival Triumph-like fiascos.

Air passengers in Asia are fortunate to see such robust competition where they fly. In North America, almost one-fourth of routes see just two airlines vying for passenger allegiance.

Carnival caved to intense pressure from Washington and its decision to reimburse the government for the Carnival Triumph and Carnival Splendor rescues could serve as a precedent. Carnival and other cruise lines could be getting bills in the mail from the U.S. Treasury for future incidents.

This is bound to give Burma a big boost in tourism, at least in intent, though the tourism board has been silent on this opportunity for PR. If this was Tourism Australia we would have seen 15 press releases even before the show aired, then 10 more after to show the intent increase and dollar value attached to it.

"Parts Unknown" brings the world to life in a way that CNN has largely ignored on its U.S. channel. Bourdain gets to do what the news programs on CNN can't do: Dive into how real people live without featuring the opinions of ridiculous talking heads.

The absurdity of CorruptTour is precisely the genius of this, and says a lot more about our society than the business itself.

Skiers are more affluent than bowlers, for example, so it's not surprising that lots of ski buffs are packing mobile devices. But the're not just packing, they are transacting, too.

Banff Squirrel says it best himself: “A good approach to Twitter is to have someone at the helm who loves their product.” Being able to convey a personality and passion can define a destination’s brand more than sharing events and pictures.