The Skift Travel Podcast

Who’s the first phone call when a power player wants to make something big happen in the travel industry? Who moves markets and shapes trends with a single sound bite? Skift attempted to answer these questions and more in our first ever Skift Power Rankings. Seth and Sarah are joined by Airlines Editor Gordon Smith and Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O'Neill to discuss the methodology behind the ra...

Skift Global Forum returns to New York on September 17-19, featuring top travel industry leaders in exclusive interview sessions and talks. Skift's executive editor, Dennis Schaal, joins Seth and Sarah to preview the forum's themes and speakers. To purchase tickets or learn more about the agenda and speakers, visit https://www.live.skift.com. Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/c...

Our coverage of the Skift State of Travel Report 2024 continues as Seth and Sarah are joined by Airlines Reporter Meghna Maharishi and Research Analyst Ashab Rizvi to discuss the report's insights about the aviation sector. Read the full report for FREE today at https://skift.com/insight/state-of-travel Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ X: https://twitter.com/ski...

With the Skift State of Travel Report 2024 recently published, Seth and Sarah welcome back Senior Research Analyst Pranavi Agarwal and Senior Hospitality editor Sean O'Neill to discuss the report's insights about the hotel and online travel sectors. Read the full report for FREE today at https://skift.com/insight/state-of-travel Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/...

Erik Blachford has been the CEO of companies large and small (Expedia, Terrapass, Butterfield & Robinson) and serves or has served on numerous boards (Zillow, Peloton Interactive, Glassdoor, etc). He joins Seth and Sarah to answer their questions about what exactly a CEO does, and the qualities that make someone a good candidate for the job. Looking for the perfect candidate to fill a leadership o...

Sarah and Seth are joined by Skift Managing Editor Lex Harris to discuss the recent market sell off and how it specifically impacts the travel sector. See how the industry is faring right now by checking out the Skift Travel 200, the first ever index that tracks the performance of the world's top publicly traded travel companies: https://data.skift.com/skift-travel-200/ Connect with Skift LinkedIn...

Seth and Sarah are joined by Greg Klassen, a Senior Director at Skift Advisory and former President and CEO of Destination Canada, to discuss what host cities stand to benefit and lose from hosting large sporting events such as the Paris Olympic Games. Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ X: https://twitter.com/skift Facebook: https://facebook.com/skiftnews Instagra...

Our series on the Paris Olympics continues as Seth and Sarah speak with Patrick Mendes, the CEO of Europe and North Africa for Accor—an official Olympic partner and the largest hotel group in Europe. Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ X: https://twitter.com/skift Facebook: https://facebook.com/skiftnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skiftnews/ WhatsApp: htt...

In the wake of tourists in Barcelona being attacked with water guns by protesters upset over the consequences of perceived overtourism, Oliver Martin and Aleix Rodríguez Brunsoms of Skift Advisory and Skift global tourism reporter Dawit Habtemariam discuss the situation and what can be done to strike a balance between the benefits and pitfalls of being a highly touristed city. Connect with Skift...

In the first installment of our series celebrating the upcoming Paris Olympics, Seth and Sarah speak with Ben Smith, the CEO of Air France KLM—an official partner of these games and one of the largest airlines in the world. Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ X: https://twitter.com/skift Facebook: https://facebook.com/skiftnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/...

Seth is joined by senior research analyst Pranavi Agarwal and travel technology reporter Justin Dawes to discuss the current state of venture capital investment in the business of travel. Read the full research report "Venture Investment Trends in Travel 2024": https://research.skift.com/report/venture-investment-trends-in-travel-2024/ Read more travel news at https://skift.com

Presented by Brand USA In this episode of the Skift Travel podcast our hosts are joined by Jamie Lane, Chief Economist at AirDNA, to discuss the short-term rental industry’s outlook for Independence Day weekend. Lane notes that this year’s long weekend has boosted travel compared to last year, with bookings up 15% year-over-year due to last-minute planning. The discussion reveals that popular dest...

Presented by Brand USA Wealthy travelers aren’t just looking to lie on a beach during their vacations. The super rich are increasingly eager to shell out big bucks for experiences that may shock themselves — and leave others envious. Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit and Head of Research Seth Borko discussed the latest trends with Colin Nagy, a marketing strategist who writes a regular column for Skift....

Presented by Brand USA A growing number of women have led major corporations in recent years — even in historically male-dominated industries. However, the aviation industry has struggled to close its gender gap in leadership roles. Airlines Reporter Meghna Maharishi recently examined the issue in depth, and she discussed her findings and more in this episode of the Skift Travel Podcast with Edito...

Seth and Sarah are joined by Skift Research Analyst Robin Gilbert-Jones to discuss what regenerative tourism is and how it differs from sustainable tourism, if at all. Read Skift Research's report on regenerative tourism at https://research.skift.com/report/regenerative-tourism-fact-from-fiction/ Read more travel news at https://skift.com Presented by Brand USA

Can property managers successfully build national brands? Have short-term rental businesses tilted too heavily toward travelers instead of homeowners? What has been the impact of New York’s Local Law 18, which amounted to a defacto ban of most Airbnbs, on individual homeowners? Skift recently hosted its Short-Term Rental Summit, which featured several executives addressing several these topics and...

A few months back Skift editor-in-chief Sarah Kopit wrote an article for Skift with the headline "Ozempic Made Obesity Optional. The Travel Industry Isn’t Ready". On today's episode Seth and Sarah check in on this story and the revolutionary ways in which Ozempic, and other highly effective GLP-1 weight loss medications, are changing how people travel, including which businesses might be potential...

Google Hotels is the largest and most comprehensive metasearch engine in travel. It is a core part of the online travel ecosystem but remains a black box. So Skift Research did an analysis of thousands of hotel listings on Google to learn which online travel agencies (OTAs) and direct sites are bidding for bookings – and at what prices. Seth and Sarah discuss our exclusive findings with the report...

The recent earnings seasons provided a glimpse into how the largest publicly traded travel companies are faring in one of the more "normal" quarters in a number of years. So what are the main takeaways from earnings season? And which companies emerged as big winners? Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill and Airlines Reporter Meghna Maharishi joined Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit and Head of Researc...

In this special bonus episode, Skift Meetings Executive Editor Andrea Doyle speaks with Skift CEO Rafat Ali and Skift Head of Events Programming Brian Quinn about the "State of Conferences".

Last week Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced the company's renewed focus on Experiences with its “Icons” product launch. Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit was in Los Angeles for the event and got to speak one-on-one with Chesky on a host of topics (including that pay question we promised you). In this episode we also dig into why Airbnb backed off of experiences after the pandemic, a potential Airb...

Catch up on the importance of sleep tourism as Seth and Sarah discuss its emergence and growing importance in the travel industry. Building off of Sarah’s recent article in Skift, "The Science of Sleep: How the Travel Industry is Cashing on Tourism’s Latest Obsession,” they go into the growing fascination with sleep among Gen Z, the challenges of getting good sleep during travel, and the economics...

Fresh off the heels of the release of annual financial reports, Seth and Sarah discuss everyone's favorite topic: executive compensation.  They examine how those reported compensation numbers relate to the performance of the companies in question, including Airbnb CEO and Co-founder Brian Chesky's potential $1 billion plus pay package, which leads them to the question: should billionaires exist?

Our new co-hosts, Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit and Head of Research Seth Borko, introduce themselves and talk about what Skift is, how it's quite literally defining the business of travel, and preview some of the exciting stories and research on deck for Skift and the podcast.

As we look forward to the return of the Skift Short-Term Rental Summit on June 5 in New York, today we feature a conversation with Homes and Villas by Marriott International Vice President, Jennifer Hsieh, and Skift Senior Hospitality Editor, Sean O'Neill, that took place onstage at last year's summit. To join her and many other vacation rental executives and investors at this year’s Short-Term Re...