The Skift Travel Podcast

In one year, the Walt Disney Company will be an astounding 100 years old. At Skift Global Forum, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro excitedly talked to Skift Senior Research Analyst Seth Borko about the company’s upcoming birthday and its dreams for the next 100 years.  In the on-stage conversation, D’Amaro spoke about how Walt Disney’s original business plans were far ah...

Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali interviewed Chesky on stage at the Skift Global Forum in September 2022 in Manhattan, where the Airbnb CEO detailed his vision of the new era. Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said travel experts and analysts underestimate travel’s potential, and that the industry would soon witness a new “golden age of travel.” Fueling part of the trend, he argued, is that an...

The world’s largest travel company Booking Holdings is using people’s anxieties about their trips as a lens through which it prioritizes the products and services it is refining and introducing, such as flight search and insurance or other paid guarantees to cover when things go wrong. The company wants to make booking all of the components of a trip as low-stress and seamless as Uber has made boo...

Today on the Skift Travel Podcast we feature a session entitled "The Business Advantage of Sustainability" that was recorded live during this year's Skift Sustainable Tourism Summit.  In this session, Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O'Neill spoke with Inge Huijbrechts of Radisson Hotel Group and Michel Gelobter of Cooler about a couple of issues that are very hot right now. A number of decisi...

The chairman and co-founder of Intrepid Travel has said there was too much “rhetorical flourish” from travel companies when it comes to discussing sustainability. Speaking at the Skift Sustainable Tourism Summit, Darrell Wade bemoaned how organizations were touting a “build back better” ethos, while failing to take action. “It’s disappointing, embedded into marketing, or even worse the boardroom,”...

Marriott’s Homes & Villas unit is taking a different approach to the home-sharing business than many of its competitors, focusing its growth on the company’s vast pool of loyalty members. This resource — Marriott Bonvoy — members is not a cap to Homes & Villas growth as some have claimed, Vice President Jennifer Hsieh said at the Skift Future of Lodging Forum on Thursday. Instead, she said this is...

As damaging as Covid was for tour operators, the inability to conduct trips provided companies in the sector a valuable opportunity to reevaluate their all aspects of their businesses. Ulla Heffer Böhler, chief operating officer for the Travel Corporation, and Travis Pittman, the CEO & co-founder of TourRadar, told Skift Senior Travel Tech Editor Sean O’Neill at Skift Forum Europe 2022 on March 24...

While hospitality company Sonder has a complex digital strategy in place to fill its properties, what it really wants is for its mostly Gen Z and millennial guests to brag about their cool stays on social media. Sonder describes itself as a next-generation hospitality company, and its R&D budget is wide-ranging, with marketing a key focus, according to its senior vice president of revenue. “We hav...

Blueground's Alex Chatzieleftheriou and Selina's Sam Khazary speak with Skift's Seth Borko at the Skift Future of Lodging Forum in New York City in May 2022.  The college gap year will become a “remote year” if Sam Khazary has anything to do with it. Now that virtual learning is more prevalent than ever before, Selina’s senior vice president of global corporate development sees new opportunities t...

Vacation rentals have been around “forever,” but Skift's recent feature The Definitive Oral History of Short-Term Rentals tells the story of short-term rentals as they transitioned from classified ads in newspapers and Craigslist to rudimentary websites and the momentous Airbnb IPO of December 10, 2020 — and a full-blown industry that disrupted hotels and traditional hospitality models.  This is a...

What comes next for travel loyalty? As travel returns, brand loyalty and retaining trust with long-standing customers is more important than ever. With an increased focus on the customer experience and journey, companies are reimagining points programs and loyalty efforts in hopes of stealing customers and increasing market share. Delta Air Lines' VP of Loyalty Prashant Sharma sat down with Skift'...

Hospitality is a sector that’s well placed to leverage loyalty in the coming years. Winning a bigger share of direct bookings has long been a goal of hotel companies, to ease their dependence on online travel agencies. Now IHG is using a revamped loyalty program in tandem with a new booking app to address this. The advantages will go beyond free nights and upgrades, according to its senior vice pr...

We’re looking ahead to a very exciting Future of Lodging Forum on May 11 and 12 in New York City. We will explore what we are calling “The Great Merging” between hotels and short-term rentals, driven by the merging in how we live and work and the ways this has changed what consumers need from their stays.  Listen to this mini-podcast for a synopsis of the themes and big ideas we’ll cover during th...

CitizenM is renowned not only for its design-forward aesthetic and affordable luxury ethos, but also tools such as in-room MoodPad tablets that control the temperature and blinds and lights that serve as TV remote controls. But digitization will never replace human connection, CEO Klaas van Lookeren Campagne said on March 24, 2022 at Skift Forum Europe in a discussion with Skift Senior Travel Tech...

Every weekday morning, New York City time, we publish the Skift Daily Briefing. Today we're sharing the latest Briefing on our Skift Podcast channel  Today’s edition of Skift’s daily podcast discusses Wyndham Hotel’s new brand, Asia’s tourism rebound, and the ongoing challenge of getting corporate travelers out of Ukraine. Search for "Skift Daily Briefing" in your favorite podcast app or click her...

Earlier this week we published The Oral History of March 2020: The Month Global Travel Shut Down, a feature that looked at March 2020 from the perspective of two dozen travel leaders. These people shared their personal stories of pain, shock, and of resilience as borders closed, airplanes went empty, and hotel doors shuttered. To get a sense of what things were like from many angles we captured vo...

Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta spoke with Skift CEO Rafat Ali at Skift Global Forum 2021. The two discussed what’s changed about the way people travel, work, and relax. “You’re going to be living in a world of greater mobility,” Nassetta said. “We’re going to be more efficient. We’ll do hoteling, we’ll do all sorts of things. What does that mean? It means more mobility. That means our people — th...

Earnings season is wrapping up, which means it's time to compare and contrast the performance of competing travel brands. Since Airbnb went public in 2020, it has given close watchers the opportunity to put up against other online booking giants, in particular Booking Holdings.  For this bonus episode of the weekly Skift Podcast, senior research analyst Seth Borko and executive editor Dennis Schaa...

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on with the potential to drag out, the ripple effects in the travel industry are unfolding fast as well. In my role as the dots-connector-in-chief for Skift, I run through the impact on the travel industry as we know it so far, chilling as it is coming out of the pandemic. I talk about the immediate impact on the airline, hotel and tour operator sectors and...

Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel spoke with Skift Executive Editor Dennis Schaal at Skift Global Forum 2021. The two discussed Booking's connected trip strategy. "I believe [in] this connected trip," Fogel said. "I don’t think it’s just a bunch of words. I think it’s creating something that we all want and desperately need, and it will help make travel a much better experience. And that’s what I w...

There is still a long way to go to get to recovery, but even in midst of the rise of the Omicron variant, some travel leaders were looking forward to better times. "There is this huge pent-up demand for leisure travel and destinations where there was big business demand," said Air France-KLM CEO Benjamin Smith at Skift Global Forum late last year. "This is excellent, very good news for us and a ve...

Earlier this week Tripadvisor revealed that the company was planning to spin off its tours and activity brand Viator. For this bonus episode of the Skift Podcast, senior research analyst Seth Borko and executive editor Dennis Schaal debate the merits of the spinoff.  For more coverage of Tripadvisor and its peers, follow news at skift.com/online-booking.

Accor’s CEO is steering the brand towards more luxury and lifestyle properties. Fortunately, hotel owners are more than obliging. “I’ve been at the helm of this company for the past eight years, and I’ve been trying to wake up a sleeping giant, which Accor has been for a number of years,” said Sebastien Bazin, CEO of Accor, at Skift Global Forum, in conversation with Skift’s hospitality reporter C...

“We’re moving away from a competitive house of brands,” Kern said when speaking at Skift Global Forum on Wednesday in New York City. He said he wanted “a simplifying universe of brands” that are “working toward a common goal.” Expedia Group Vice Chairman and CEO Peter Kern spoke with Skift Executive Editor Dennis Schaal at Skift Global Forum 2021. The two discussed the theme “Powering Travel Beyon...

Trivago Managing Director and CEO Axel Hefer spoke with Skift Senior Travel Tech Editor Sean O’Neill at Skift Global Forum 2021. The two discussed the future of metasearch and its ability to inspire travelers. "Travel is absolutely fascinating right now," Hefer said. "So many things have actually happened the last one and a half years. And the discussions that we are having here all day — what wil...