The Skift Travel Podcast

Each year, our Megatrends event brings together industry leaders -- the people creating and defining the future of travel -- to hear Skift’s deep reporting and research around the global travel industry. Through the thousands and thousands of hours spent by our journalists and analysts talking to you, analyzing and connecting the dots, these presentations provide attendees with a vision of what’s...

Google will put an eco-badge of sorts next to a listing if sustainability-minded firms like GreenKey or EarthCheck have highlighted a hotel for its positive impact with environmental practices. Potential guests can even find out property-specific sustainability practices through the new feature, which will also be on Google Travel. "There are a lot of aspects that go into a ranking,” Richard Holde...

Uber's CEO doesn't want to offer a super app for everything, but he believes his company is in the best position to bring consumers anything they need, from rides, to food, to medicine, and more. “Anything you want to be delivered to your home with a frequent use case, that’s what we’ll offer,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, at Skift Global Forum, in conversation with Skift executive editor...

Thanks for listening to the Skift Podcast. We have another podcast you can listen to every weekday morning. The Skift Daily Briefing podcast delivers the day's top headlines in under four minutes. Search for "Skift Daily Briefing" in your favorite podcast app to listen and subscribe. Here's the latest episode: Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, January 6, in New York City. Here’s what you nee...

Skift CEO Rafat Ali explains the underappreciated storylines from the last year that will continue to define the travel industry in 2022. The United States, Latin America, and Dubai will remain open by prioritizing keeping their economies open over everything else. Outdoor is now a permanent and premium part of the leisure and business travel industries.  Basing a strategy based on Chinese travele...

New Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan said that he sees 2022 as another “transition” year in the recovery. He is optimistic that business travelers will return — his predecessor has said this may take 5-10 years — but does not expect this to occur overnight. “I’m an optimistic guy,” said Jordan. “I’m very optimistic that we’re going to get the travel back," said Robert Jordan, incoming CEO of S...

Skift Research’s Online Travel Agency Factbook is your one-stop shop to understand the global universe of online booking sites. We collected data on and built individual profiles for the 11 largest publicly traded online travel agencies. We analyzed the scale, revenue, growth, profitability, historical performance, and customer acquisition ability of each OTA. Join Skift founding editor Dennis Sch...

Clear's previous experience vetting travelers and moving them quickly through airport security put it in an excellent position to take on the challenges of identity, health, and vaccination in the (hopefully) coming post-Covid panic world. "Cyber and privacy and data security are in our roots, but also we have a brand that’s continually communicating about privacy, data security and what we’re doi...

Cancellations and closures are on the rise as countries react to the Omicron variant. What does this mean for a recently optimistic travel industry? This special episode of the Skift Podcast features Skift founder and CEO, Rafat Ali, looking ahead to early 2022 and what impact the Omicron variant may have on the travel industry. Read more about travel and coronavirus at https://skift.com/coronavir...

Hopper has big plans ahead in its ongoing mission to continue being the best at lowering the cost of travel for consumers — it’s betting on the future of superapps for travel, which are already popular in Asia. “There will be a Western global superapp for travel — it may be owned by Google, Facebook or Alibaba, but it will be a superapp and we’re trying to become that,” said Frederic Lalonde, CEO...

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky acknowledged that enough affordable housing is a major challenge but argued that the new flexible nature of work wrought by the pandemic will see people migrating to city corridors and other less-dense locales where residences can be less expensive. In a fireside chat Tuesday with Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali at the opening event for Skift Global Forum 2021, Chesky said...

Like many airline chiefs, Doug Parker is “bullish” on the future, particularly after a surge in demand for transatlantic flights after the travel ban lifted on Nov. 8. But American Airlines is poised to begin 2022 as a larger airline — despite labor woes. Speaking at Skift Aviation Forum on November 17, 2021, Parker said business travel will return to 2019 levels, at some point. Listen now for the...

The world’s largest hotel company plans to juggle global growth over the next few decades with a major step forward in its sustainability efforts. Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano announced September 22, 2021 at Skift Global Forum a company plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. The measure would follow criteria and recommendations of the Science Based Target...

“We will win customers on quality,” Kirby said at the Skift Aviation Forum on November 17, 2021. And he had plenty of examples quality improvements to cite: The addition of premium-heavy “high-J” Boeing 767-300ERs that fly to Europe, the Bombardier CRJ-550 that met pilot contract rules while bringing a dual-class product to smaller cities, and a return of in-seat entertainment screens to its domes...

For this episode of the Skift Podcast, we're featuring a conversation between William J. Hornbuckle, Chief Executive Officer and President of MGM Resorts International and Skift Hospitality Reporter Cameron Sperance. The two discuss the return of big events and the changes and opportunities ahead for large hotels. The conversation took place online at the Skift Hospitality and Marketing Summit on...

The recent Skift Short-Term Rental and Outdoor Summit brought together leaders from online rental marketplaces, investors, startup founders, and outdoor recreation operators for interviews with Skift editors and research analysts. We uncovered what might happen next in both sectors as their growth outpaces the rest of travel and the big questions facing these sectors.  This session features a disc...

While Skift Podcast is on hiatus, we wanted to share the first episode of the Event Manager Podcast, a production of our partner site EventMB.  Julius Solaris founded Event Manager Blog in 2007, as a result of his passion for events and in the process discovered a whole industry. Throughout his professional journey he's become a master of how to build a brand on social media and is one of the indu...

Marriott Group President Stephanie Linnartz speaks with Skift Hospitality Reporter Cameron Sperance at Skift Forum Asia in October 2020. Learn more about our slate of online events in 2021 at live.skift.com.    

IAC/Expedia Group Chairman Barry Diller speaks with Skift Editor-in-Chief Tom Lowry at Skift Global Forum in September 2020. Learn more about our slate of online events in 2021 at live.skift.com.

Your daily insight into the business of travel from the industry’s most trusted authority.  We are excited to share another update from the Skift Daily Briefing. Our daily podcast tells listeners what they need to know about the top travel stories in just under four minutes. It’s available every weekday morning at 6:30 a.m. ET on podcast apps from Apple, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Overcast...

What a difference a year makes — and perhaps a pandemic. During a discussion at this year's Skift Short-Term Rental & Outdoor Summit on December 9, held online, signs of more collaborative environment emerged between cities and short-term rental operators. The discussion was moderated by Amy Hinote, founder and editor-in-chief of VRM Intel. “The industry came in and we weren’t ready as municipalit...

Since Skift's own launch it was the first media outlet to ask hard questions of Airbnb, and it has been amazing to document that journey of the company from start till its IPO day and beyond. Here are CEO Rafat Ali's thoughts in an audio essay. Read complete coverage of Airbnb at https://skift.com/tag/airbnb.

In early November Skift hosted its first Design the Future event, an afternoon of discussions with leaders in the design and creativity space. As part of this, we're posting extracts of these conversations.  Host: Robert Rosenthal, author, speaker, and journalist Guest: Aaron Walton, CEO of Walton Isaacson Diversity means harnessing the power of disruption. Differences are disruptive, and that’s t...

What a difference a few days make for optimism in the beleaguered travel industry. With the clarity on U.S. presidential election results coming this past weekend and the encouraging news on vaccine development and effectiveness from Pfizer, the travel industry is riding high, at least on optimism for rapid recovery starting second half of 2021 and after. Travel stocks, particularly airlines, are...

In the closing interview for Skift Forum Asia, Tripadvisor CEO Steve Kaufer argued that his company and its Viator brand are in the “pole position” because of the company’s vast content and international reach in tours and activities. Kaufer is interviewed here by Skift Executive Editor Dennis Schaal. Learn about and participate in future events by visiting Forum.skift.com