HomeToGo is acquiring vacation rental booking site e-domizil for about $45 million (40 million euros) to accelerate its shift toward a marketplace strategy that may end up working for holiday homes, but has failed elsewhere in online travel. Founded in 2014 as a vacation rental metasearch or holiday home comparison-shopping business that sends site visitors to third-party partners to finish...
Expedia Group’s Peter Kern is handing off the CEO title to Ariane Gorin on May 13 as the company’s annual partner conference is about to kick off in Las Vegas. But Kern is also handing off more challenges than he would have liked. On May 2, the company lowered its outlook for gross booking value and profit margin expansion: Executives pointed to subpar performance at its vacation...
A year ago, Hyatt bought the booking site Mr & Mrs Smith for $66 million. On Wednesday, it finally began letting members of its loyalty program book at about 700 boutique hotels and villas vetted by the site. “We’re expanding options for the 40 million members of World of Hyatt,” said Laurie Blair, vice president of global marketing. Mr & Mrs Smith was founded 20 years...
Egypt received a record-breaking number of tourists in 2023 despite the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a statement by the country’s tourism ministry on Thursday. The country brought in 14.9 million tourists, beating the previous record of 14.7 million tourists in 2010, said Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa. After the war broke out in October, multiple tour...
Travel News: Latest News, Breaking Stories, and Analysis of Travel
Key Points ChatGPT has introduced a browser-based search engine with real-time updates and links, enhancing its capabilities beyond pre-trained data. The new feature allows users to plan trips with detailed itineraries, utilizing information from various travel sources. OpenAI’s search engine poses a challenge to Google, with future plans to improve search functionalities, especially in...
Hundreds of new flights will serve the European Arctic region this year, collectively offering tens of thousands of additional seats. In recent weeks, major airlines from across the continent have announced a flurry of routes to destinations deep within the Arctic Circle. Notably, many of the services will be operated for the very first time, suggesting a shift in travel demand and broader...
Some countries, including the United States, have yet to make a full tourism recovery from the pandemic, and lengthy waits for visitor visas are one reason why. Several travel executives have argued that those long waits have hurt the ability to attract visitors. How do visa processing delays affect tourism? We posed the question to Ask Skift, our artificial intelligence chatbot. It used...
When it comes to international travel, this past summer has been record breaking for airlines. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines continued to see a sustained increase in international bookings, with some regions — like southern Europe — becoming year-round tourist destinations. Airlines are betting that this demand will continue into next summer. For example, American...
Travel News: Latest News, Breaking Stories, and Analysis of Travel