World Tourism Day in Bangkok concluded yesterday. The last night was a night to remember for delegates to the UNWTO event.
One prominent delegate impressed with Thai Hospitality offered a toast during the Gala Night in Khon Kaen. He was Dr. Walter Mzembi who is running as a candidate to becoming the next UNWTO Secretary General.
Dr. Mzembi said:
MIAMI, Florida (August 5, 2016) - Gerard "Jerry" Inzerillo, CEO of Forbes Travel Guide, known and esteemed for his innovations and relationships in the tourism, hospitality, and entertainment communities, will be the keynote speaker opening up the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association's (CHTA) Caribbean Hospitality Industry Exchange Forum (CHIEF) in Puerto Rico from September 30 to October 2, 2016.
Inzerillo, who has a deep well of experience upon which to draw, will address the role the Caribbean plays in global tourism.
During his extensive career, Inzerillo helped to develop some of the world's most famous hospitality brands such as Atlantis, One&Only Resorts and Ian Schrager Hotels, and held leadership roles with Four Seasons and Hilton Hotels & Resorts.
Source: New York Times
Ever since Airbnb entered the lodging scene in 2008, the hotel industry has cast a wary eye, noting its popularity with young travelers. Despite a strong year for hotels — occupancy and rates broke records in 2015, according to the data firm STR — anxiety may be creeping into those corporate suites.
Airbnb, the largest home sharing network with over two million listings worldwide, is newly targeting business travelers, the bread-and-butter clientele of hotels.
Source: TravelWeekly
Facebook recently announced a change to its algorithm that will place content from users’ friends and families higher up in their News Feed than content published by Pages.
Social media experts said they were not surprised by the change and predicted it would likely affect agents who use Pages for marketing and lead generation to different degrees, depending on their usage level.
Source: Hotel News Resource
Cloud based, mobile self-booking tool saves time, helps drive new revenue growth for TMCs
Groupize and Travelport, a leading Travel Commerce Platform, have today jointly announced the launch of a new online hotel booking solution for travel management companies (TMC) that addresses the growing demand for a self-service, centralized solution to source, book, track and manage small group meetings of under 25 hotel rooms or less than 50 participants.
Source: Hotel News Resource
Travel Prices Set to Marginally Increase or Remain Flat for 2017; Geopolitical and Economic Uncertainty Mean Travel Managers Need to Remain Flexible and Agile
New research out today highlights six key risks heading into 2017 that could impact both travel industry prices and the global economy as a whole. They are emerging market performance, financial market turbulence, geopolitical risks, uncertainty surrounding Brexit, potentially fluctuating U.S. interest rates and oil prices.
Kingston Jamaica, July, 14, 2016 – As part of efforts to develop the island’s craft industry some 180 craft producers have been equipped with skills to enhance the island’s craft output. The craft producers, who were trained under the Tourism Product Development Company Limited (TPDCo), Organization of American States (OAS) Craft Enhancement Project, graduated at a Recognition and Awards ceremony at the New Kingston Business Centre on July 12, 2016.
To date Jamaica has trained just over half of the three hundred artisans from the Caribbean who have been educated under the regional programme, equipping them with the requisite skills to compete for a share of the $87 billion global market for creative exports currently produced in the Americas.
Participants in the programme were empowered through craft skills upgrading workshops and business planning training in mixed media including bamboo, straw, and textile.
Source: Travel Weekly - THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY'S TRUSTED VOICE
What’s the top influence when making travel plans? For nearly three-quarters (74%) of global travelers, it’s “going somewhere I’ve never been before,” according to the 34,000 traveler respondents of TripBarometer, a December 2015 study conducted on behalf of TripAdvisor.
Along those same lines, other answers in the top 10 included “being able to learn something new on a trip,” at 67%, and “trying something new,” at 63%.
Source: tnooz
The company has been talking about it a lot recently, not least at a conference I attended.
Whilst many gushed and appeared in awe, it gave a really great opportunity to hear, instantly and first-hand the reactions of others and how they think it might affect my own business.
Source: Global Traveler
by Holly Riddle
American Airlines, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest and Sun Country are all now eligible to fly to Cuba from Miami (MIA), Chicago (ORD), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Philadelphia (PHL) and Minneapolis (MSP).
The Department is still considering which airlines to approve for service to Havana (HAV), but it expects to reach a decision this summer.
Source: Tnooz
One of the most under-reported stories in travel is that most hotel owners have no idea what their cost per channel is and what they’re actually getting per room.
That hasn’t been a problem this year or last year, because respectable growth in demand in many markets worldwide has kept everybody happy enough with bottom lines.
New York Times - By QUENTIN HARDY
Technology has all kinds of ways to make life easier — particularly for the tech companies themselves. As Katie Benner writes, Airbnb is currently under scrutiny over the way some of its members choose who they will rent to. One study shows it’s harder for people with names that seem African-American to book stays. Yet if those people are wronged on Airbnb, there’s little they can do to seek legal redress.
When people sign up for the service, they waive the right to sue Airbnb, or join any arbitration or class-action lawsuit against the company. A few months back, Airbnb highlighted those terms, and older users were compelled to show that they were aware of the rights they were losing by listing with Airbnb.
Silver Airways Inc., a Florida-based operator of turboprop planes, said it put its planned Cuba flights on sale last weekend hoping to be the first airline to begin selling scheduled flights to the island nation in more than 50 years. It intends to operate its first flight Sept. 1.
American Airlines Group Inc. said it put tickets on sale earlier this week and plans to start flying Sept. 7 to two Cuban airports.
Last week, the Transportation Department awarded rights to six U.S. carriers to serve secondary Cuban airports. But it said it would wait until later this summer to apportion airline requests for flights to Havana, because it received three times more requests than the 20 daily flights that are available.
By NAN Travel Editor
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. June 17, 2016: A new study shows that there is one Caribbean country more than any other that U.S. travelers wants to vacation on this year.
MMGY Global’s 2016 Portrait of American Travelers annual study recently released, say a whopping 26 percent of nearly 3,000 active leisure travelers with an annual household income of at least $50,000 online surveyed during February 2016, say they plan to vacation in the Caribbean island of The Bahamas this year.
2016 African Diaspora World Tourism Awards & Travel Expo
The African Diaspora World Tourism (ADWT) Awards and Travel Expo, will once again take place on AUGUST 26-28TH, 2016 in Atlanta, Ga. (USA) at the Westin Atlanta Airport (4736 Best Road). After the success of the inaugural awards that was attended by people from around the world, the prestigious ADWT-Awards event will again be presented by African Diaspora Tourism with publisher Kitty J. Pope as the founder/director and executive producer of the historical event.
Co-presenter is the AD King Foundation and its Co-Founder/CEO Dr. Babs Onabanjo who serves as ADWT-Awards producer. Also Co-presenter and producer of this year’s awards event is socio-economic developer Rev. Dr. Eugene Franklin, founder/president and CEO of the Pan African Cultural Heritage Initiative. Lou D’Amore, founder/CEO of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) is also partnering to help with the 2016 ADWT-Awards and Travel Expo.
Like the inaugural awards event, the 2016 week-end event will include the awards gala, cultural entertainment, a Hall of Fame Luncheon and the Travel Expo. In addition, this year’s ADWT-Awards event will feature two new components where event attendees can learn more about black cultural heritage tourism and also African culture.
