A Pandemic Upside Is Hotel Chains Are Being Forced to Address Management Bloat

Covid-19 is the turning point for the hotel industry to unplug, simplify structures, and redesign roles, which can all make it more attractive to future talent. -Raini Hamdi

This popular city has an enigmatic soul that extends far beyond its Communist past. CNN's Richard Quest explores Prague's built-in "magic" that even locals find too enticing to resist.

Amazon Soft Launches Virtual Tours — Can Offline Experiences Be Far Behind?

Amazon is dipping into virtual tours. Competitors should fear that Amazon is primed for disruption, virtual or otherwise. -Dennis Schaal

Skift Global Forum Video: The State of Digital Transformation in Travel 2020

In this conversation from the 2020 Skift Global Forum, we speak with Choice Hotels and Amazon Web Services about the state of digital transformation in the travel and hospitality sector. -AWS Travel and Hospitality

Hiring a private jet is easier than you think

Passengers looking for alternative ways to travel that minimize close contact are increasingly turning to private aircraft or charter flights and getting aboard one isn't as expensive as you might think. Here's how to hire a private jet.

Famed California winery destroyed as fast-moving fires take over wine country

The famed 41-year-old Chateau Boswell Winery in Napa Valley, California, was destroyed during the Glass Fire on Sunday evening, according to CNN affiliate KPIX.

Skift Global Forum Video: Creating Contactless Experiences That Resonate With Guests

In this conversation from Skift Global Forum, we hear from Medallia Zingle and MGM about how contactless technology is helping hotels recover from Covid-19 while simultaneously simplifying the travel journey and reinforcing the value of human-powered hospitality.  -Medallia Zingle

10 of the UK's best cycle trails for family days out

From forests tracks to highland lochs and coastal paths, we pick easy-to-follow bike routes through beautiful scenery The ritual of riding bikes together was a saving grace for our family during lockdown. We started cycling to give our sons some exercise in the absence of school playtime or a proper garden, but it became so much more than that. The meditative aspects of pedalling, of heading somewhere in the same direction, brought a sense of unity and calm to us all. Some days we rode through woods, others by the sea; some days we chatted, others we stayed silent. But we always returned home feeling better. Continue reading...

It’s Time to Rethink Travel’s Global Leadership — Starting With WTTC

Forced by the pandemic, the travel industry is at an inflection point. After a decade-long bender of growth, it's facing multiple crises and an uncertain future. Can the organization that's tasked with representing the global commercial travel industry adapt to the new challenge? -Rosie Spinks

$300 Million IPO Will Target Travel Company Acquisitions and Investments

Heads up, struggling booking platforms. A proposed IPO hopes to raise $300 million, and the company's founders may come looking for you. The list of pandemic opportunists grows. -Tom Lowry

The grim truth behind Britain's stately homes

Many of Britain's grand stately houses were built on the profits of slavery and colonial exploitation. Now the National Trust, the heritage body that looks after some of these estates, wants to highlight this troubling legacy -- and not everyone is happy about it.

Secret Britain: an ancient timeline through the landscape | Mary-Ann Ochota

From shamans to sacked churches, an anthropologist reveals nine atmospheric sites that help tell the British story Britain boasts a past that’s far stranger than might be expected. Those who look far enough back can discover cannibals, shamans and sun, moon and water-worshippers, Christian initiations and pagan bog sacrifices. There’s also evidence of prehistoric mummification, 20th-century magic and all manner of sites that blend old and new beliefs into complex, compelling hybrids. Maybe it’s because so many different peoples have shaped this island, making their marks on the landscape, on artefacts and on the next generation. Each generation, each wave of immigrants, each trade network has brought something new to the party. Research often focuses on how such wonders were wrought – and modern scientific techniques have answered many pressing questions. But my book Secret Britain, aims to explore the more elusive question: why? Definitive answers aren’t always easy to come by, but we can stand puzzled, moved or uplifted in the presence of this strange and secret history. It’s exactly what the ancestors were doing, too. Continue reading...

Miles and isles: our big Scottish bike ride | Kevin Rushby

A father-and-son cycling tour of Highlands and islands found the scenery, ferocious weather – and midges – all on top form It was a trip that required specific preparation. First, I checked the midge forecast. Some west coast areas on the Scottish mainland were showing maximum, but the Outer Hebrides looked less hostile. I ordered two top-quality head nets and wondered who to take along. Second, I got hold of the OS Explorer maps for my planned route and spent hours scouring them for potential wild camps. Finally, I rang Ray Mears. He’s got a new book out on wilderness cookery and was clearly the man to ask. “Take a frying pan, butter, flour and fisherman’s salt,” he advised. “They’ll be good for any mackerel you catch. Forage juniper berries, bilberries, heather tea, chanterelle mushrooms and possibly birch boletes.” Continue reading...

Australia asks Google to remove images from top of sacred site Uluru

Australia has asked Google to remove pictures on its Maps service taken from the top of Uluru, the sacred Aboriginal monolith that visitors were banned from climbing last year.

Can airport testing and Covid immunity passports unlock travel?

Both travel experts and passengers are keen to get fast, reliable and affordable Covid-19 testing as soon as possible. Here's why it's not going to be an easy road.

Ad Firms Migrate From Hotels to Alternative Lodging Along With Consumers During Pandemic

Alternative accommodations aren't very alternative anymore. It's time for the sector to get the ad tech tools it deserves. -Sean O'Neill

A local's guide to Plymouth: 10 top tips

The ‘ocean city’ is awash with new art spaces and community festivities as it commemorates the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower Everyone’s talking about The Box, Plymouth’s new, £46m “cultural destination” combining a museum, gallery and archive, plus cafe and bar, which opens on 29 September (postponed from May). A transformation of the original, Edwardian city museum and art gallery, extended and amalgamated with the former city library and St Luke’s Church, it will open with what organisers are calling a “myth-busting”, Mayflower-themed Legend and Legacy show, and Making It, a contemporary art show featuring works by Leonor Antunes, Eva Grubinger, Alexandre da Cunha, Christopher Baker and Sir Antony Gormley. Continue reading...

Wyndham Hotels’ Routine Mobile App Upgrade Turns Out to Be Not So, Well, Routine

Wyndham's upgraded mobile app may seem like it is only catching up to what other brands like Hilton already offer, but it is a significant tech move ahead for the select-service and economy scale of the hotel market. -Cameron Sperance

Saudi Arabia’s Bold Global Tourism Efforts Gain Traction But With Locals For Now

Saudi Arabia has unwittingly learned that to open its doors to international leisure travelers, a good start is to first open the hearts of its own local population to discover the country's unique destinations. -Raini Hamdi

Holiday firm Tui cuts winter schedule amid 83% fall in bookings

Europe’s biggest holiday company says changing travel restrictions are behind losses Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday company, has made fresh cuts to its winter schedule, blaming changing travel restrictions, as it reported an 83% slump in summer holiday bookings this year. The Anglo-German travel firm now expects to operate just 25% of its winter schedule, as customers continue to book holidays at the last minute to try to avoid changes in travel advice. Continue reading...

'Like a storage shed blown in by a gale' – Plymouth's new £46m Box gallery

This plain silver structure could win the port another ugly building award. But its citizens are unlikely to mind – since it showcases treasures from ancient vessels to a woolly mammoth If ever proof were needed that quality of architecture is no barrier to popularity, it can be found in the plucky port city of Plymouth. Its Drake Circus shopping centre, a car crash of cladding, was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the ugliest building in the UK when it opened in 2006. Yet it has since become the beloved, beating heart of the city. The Beckley Point student housing development, a Stalinesque ziggurat topped with an awkward spire, was also shortlisted for the hated award in 2018. Locals instantly rallied to its defence, praising it as “the best building in Plymouth for 20 years”, bringing a thrilling “touch of Las Vegas” by night. And so we come to the Box, the city’s new £46m museum and gallery, hailed as the biggest cultural centre in south-west England, and proud bearer of “Europe’s largest unsupported cantilever”. It is a fitting name for a big clumsy box that has been plonked on top of the city’s Edwardian museum and art gallery, as if an out-of-town storage shed got blown here in a gale. Continue reading...

Tourism Leaders Need to Expect the Unexpected in the Next Decade

From addressing consumer fears to sustainability trends, the business of promoting tourism just got a lot harder. -Matthew Parsons

Travel Turned Upside Down — Insights, Analysis and Actions for Executives: New Skift-McKinsey Research

Making it through the first six months of the pandemic has been the main priority of travel executives. But now it's time to begin looking forward to determine how best to grow your way out of the crisis. Now is the time to be bold — to think bigger and more innovatively given the industry’s reset. -Haixia Wang

Airbnb Dealt a Setback With Top European Court Backing Crackdown on Short-Term Home Rentals

It's a relatively small court ruling involving just two Parisian apartment owners, but potential repercussions for the homesharing giant ahead of its IPO. Europe's a big place. -Matthew Parsons

A 20-year hunt to find an extinct fruit

The Colorado Orange apple was thought to be extinct. A couple spent 20 years scouring the state to prove it wasn't.

Venture Firm Howzat Is Raising $120 Million to Find the Next Trivago or Airbnb

Here's a bright ray of positivity in a gloomy time. Howzat is raising a big fund, and it plans to make roughly half of its investments in travel and transportation startups. -Sean O'Neill

The museum of everything: do you have time to look at 150,000 exhibits?

In a world first, Rotterdam’s Boijmans museum has put its entire collection on display in a mammoth new warehouse. As the V&A considers a similar experiment, is this ‘open storage’ model the future? From a block away, it looks like a craft from a more advanced civilisation has landed in the centre of Rotterdam. The structure is futuristic, with walls of mirrored glass curving up some 40 metres, reflecting the iron-grey clouds and the fractured city skyline. It wouldn’t be surprising if it had a tractor beam instead of a door. As I draw close, a middle-aged Dutch couple are debating whether they like it. They decide not, but snap selfies in front of it anyway. Rotterdammers are used to high-concept architecture, but what makes this building unusual is its function: it’s a warehouse. Designed by the Dutch firm MVRDV and known as the Depot, it has been created for one of the most well-regarded art museums in the Netherlands, the Boijmans Van Beuningen. When I visit in mid-September, contractors are installing vitrines and polishing concrete floors; in December, art handlers will begin moving in the museum’s collection of Rembrandts, Boschs, Magrittes and Dalís – some 150,000 objects. It will open fully late next year. Continue reading...

A Lifestyle Hotel Brand Fights Through Carnage to Stay Independent

The lifestyle hotel sector is increasingly crowded with bigger brands, but Dream Hotel Group is one of the few genuinely boutique players left on the field. Independence may be its trump card for brand identity moving forward." -Cameron Sperance

What I Will Miss This Week

Media companies are only & only human capital, events are a test of human endurance & celebration of human achievement. That’s what I miss about our physical Skift Global Forum this year. -Rafat Ali

Norwegian Air Gets Loan Guarantee Lifeline For an Additional Two Months

Prayers answered. The Norwegian government listened to Norwegian Air's pleas that the airline needed more money to get through the pandemic. The money is geared to provide a buffer through the end of 2020, that is. -Dennis Schaal

Shetland: an epic landscape with a Viking soul

Closer to the Faroe Islands than to Edinburgh, Scotland’s northernmost isles are home to fascinating ancient sites and a spirit of proud self-sufficiency It takes a certain confidence for a remote community of farmers and fishermen to push for independence from the rest of the United Kingdom, but the hardy inhabitants of the wind-scoured Shetland Islands have never been short of self-belief. These are, after all, the people with the highest levels of Viking DNA found anywhere in the British Isles. Pull up a barstool in the Douglas Arms in Lerwick, Shetland’s capital, and locals will tell you they feel as distant from Holyrood as they do from Westminster. There’s no malice intended; self-sufficiency just comes with the territory when you spend 365 days a year being lashed by the wild waves of the North Atlantic. Continue reading...

Vacation Rentals Lose Pandemic Edge and 15 Other Top Travel Stories This Week

This week in travel, Skift covered how the vacation rentals' advantage over hotels during the pandemic has all but disappeared, that climate change will be travel's challenge now and after the pandemic is history, and how Delta is leveraging its SkyMiles program. -Tom Lowry

CitizenM’s Facebook HQ Hotel Deal Says A Lot About Where Corporate Travel Is Heading

Alliances like this pay off not just for the hospitality groups, but also for those companies wanting to prove to their staffs that it's not all about remote working. -Matthew Parsons

Climate campaigners condemn 'joy flights' for travellers who miss flying

Rise in scenic round-trips by air in Australia and Asia is ‘insanity,’ say environmentalists Environmental campaigners have condemned the rise of scenic “joy flights” aimed at passengers “missing the excitement of travel”. Tickets for a seven-hour round trip from Sydney with Qantas sold out within 10 minutes, making it one of the airline’s fastest selling flights ever. Seat prices on the 10 October flight range from A$787 (£607) economy to $3,787 for business class. Continue reading...

Skift Global Forum Preview: JetBlue Looks for New Opportunities Beyond the Northeast and Florida

Many U.S. airlines will change after the pandemic. But JetBlue may alter its strategy even more than most. Expect JetBlue to continue to use this crisis to gain more of a nationwide footprint. -Brian Sumers

Why UK Corp Travel Agencies May Lose Business to U.S. Rivals

A snapshot of two UK independent agencies highlights the wider sector's struggles, but the fight is far from over. -Matthew Parsons

Family fun and coasteering in Tenby, Wales

Scrambling up and jumping off Pembrokeshire’s wild coastline is an exhilarating activity for kids – but will mum also take the plunge? ‘I’ll go first,” says my eight-year-old son, the youngest of our small group, manoeuvring himself past adults and bigger children on to a slab of overhanging rock, five metres above the churning sea. He looks over the edge, starts to wobble a little, then clenches a fist and jumps. He shoots up seconds later, all smiles, his helmet-clad head bobbing just above the surface, as he moves towards the guide waiting for him in the water. His 10-year-old brother has no choice but to follow suit, as does the rest of our party, until it gets to the child before me, who is wavering. “You don’t have to jump if you’re not sure. You’re here to have fun,” says our guide, Tom Heaton. The child opts for a slightly lower jump, and it’s all the excuse I need to join him, despite knowing I’ll get a huge amount of grief from my sons once I’m in the water. Continue reading...

15 brilliant autumn UK breaks for solo travellers, couples or small groups

Part one We pick trips that take in beautiful scenery, adventurous activities, fab food, stargazing, wellness and great places to stay. Part two on Saturday Solo travellers: Chase the stars, Northumberland Unforeseen confinement this year has encouraged many of us to look to the skies for escapism, and stargazing has never seemed like a more appealing hobby. For night skies the colour of tar, there is no better place in the UK than Northumberland – home to Europe’s largest dark sky park, the Kielder Observatory and dark-sky-friendly accommodation options such as Beacon Hill Farm. Continue reading...

Demand So Far in September Leaves 2 Airlines Bullish, Sort Of

The CEO of Spirit Airlines is hopeful the carrier can get back to 2019 capacity levels by the end of next year. His airline focuses more on leisure customers than most, so maybe it is possible. But it still seems to be a far-fetched goal. -Brian Sumers

The countries that ceased to exist

Despite its exotic name, there's a very good reason you've never booked a vacation to the Quilombo of Palmeres. Same goes for the Islands of Refreshment, the Fiume Endeavour and Neutral Moresnet.

The Short-Lived Vacation Rental Advantage Over Hotels Is Almost Gone

The death of hotels was greatly exaggerated. Advantage Booking.com and Expedia — not Airbnb — if travelers indeed are now seeking out both hotels and vacation rentals in comparable numbers. -Dennis Schaal

Thomas Cook relaunches as online travel agent

Customers can now tailor their own holidays after parent company and Club Med owner Fosun gains Atol licence Thomas Cook is being resurrected as an online-only travel business, exactly a year after the 178-year-old company ceased trading, stranding 150,000 holidaymakers abroad. The relaunch comes as the travel industry faces the worst tourism crisis since records began. World Tourism Organisation figures show that international tourist trips dropped by 65% during the first half of the year, an unprecedented drop. But Thomas Cook’s UK chief executive, Alan French, said the company was taking the “long view”. Continue reading...

Island hopping in Maldives

In the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, Maldives is made up of more than 1,000 islands, which tourists travel between on seaplanes.

China takes on Airbus and Boeing

In a year of startling upheaval for the aviation industry, one seismic change, at least, had already been predicted.

Lufthansa Hikes Its Third-Party Booking Fee Despite the Crisis

If you think all airlines will lower their fees to encourage more bookings during the pandemic, think again. -Sean O'Neill

Subscription Travel Models Offer Encouraging Pandemic Resilience to Inspirato and BeRightBack

Skift cited the subscription model as one of the megatrends to watch in travel this year. So we were intrigued to see that Inspirato and BeRightBack, two pure-play efforts at being the "Netflix of travel," have withstood the pandemic assault rather well. -Sean O'Neill

Meet the Microbiologist Helping to Attract Business Events to the Canadian Prairies

Tapping into local experts like Dr. Vikram Misra, a professor in microbiology at the University of Saskatchewan, is helping Destination Canada attract meetings, break down silos, and drive long-term economic growth. -Destination Canada

Expedia Is Now Marriott’s Exclusive Provider of Wholesale Rates for Travel Agents

If the Expedia-Marriott partnership works out as promised, then there will be fewer Marriott rates on metasearch sites that are deeply discounted compared to Marriott's own websites. And bedbanks and tour operators will have to sign up with Expedia — not Marriott — to get their hands on Marriott's wholesale rates. -Dennis Schaal

Skift Global Forum Preview: Picturing a Corporate Travel Rebound — Smaller, More Efficient

The industry’s had time to reflect: what's the real value of a business trip? Join us to hear some answers. -Matthew Parsons

‘An escape route into another world’: canoeing in Suffolk

A paddle along the River Waveney offers captivating aquatic life in gin-clear waters that ripple like the colours of a painting The willows and the cattle grazing on the flood plain are as timeless and tranquil as a Constable painting, but it is the pictures beneath the water that draw my gaze. As the canoe glides between tall clumps of true bulrush, the gin-clear river reveals a secret garden – tresses of trailing waterweed, water lilies and other delicate, dazzling green aquatic plants. Between them, fish dart constantly – plump chub, red-finned perch and shoals of minnows. Continue reading...