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The UAE has set a bold goal to deliver half of all government services through autonomous AI agents within two years. In an announcement last week, Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the country would be “the first government globally to operate at such a scale through autonomous systems.” “Two years. Performance across government will be measured by speed of adoption, quality of implementation and mastery of AI in redesigning government work,” he wrote on X. Here's what that means for travel. hubs.li/Q04d-Dsh0

You don't tune into a Hilton earnings call to sing the blues, to paraphrase a colleague. CEO Chris Nassetta is known for his optimism in all seasons, and he delivered once again during the first-quarter call. About 75% of Hilton's business is in the U.S., and Nassetta said he expects the U.S. will be relatively insulated from global economic uncertainty this year. Nassetta's optimism rests on a thesis he has been workshopping since mid-2025: the lower and middle ends of the consumer base will spend more on hotels thanks to factors such as cooling housing inflation, anticipated Fed interest rate cuts, tax refunds, and a frenzy of data center construction to support AI. hubs.li/Q04f4th-0

The U.S. tourism slowdown is hitting vacation rentals especially hard, according to AirDNA data shared exclusively with Skift. International short-term rental demand fell 4.7% in January, outpacing the 3.5% drop in overall inbound visitation. A pullback in leisure travel from Canada is fueling the decline, with bookings down 23% year-over-year in March. hubs.li/Q04f4x6H0

Global expansion sounds simple, until you try to run a hotel in a new market. At Skift Asia Forum, @Trip’s Boon Sian Chai pushed back on a common assumption about Chinese travel demand driving growth abroad. During the session, H World’s Jihong He echoed the point more bluntly, noting that “a hotel is always a local product." The takeaway? Success abroad depends less on exporting demand and more on earning relevance market by market.

Uber’s hotel deal tells you more about Expedia’s future than Uber’s. The math suggests Uber will subsidize hotel booking at a net loss for a subscription fee. Expedia's B2B business growing five times faster than its consumer business tells you who this deal is really for.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ hubs.li/Q04f2dV70

The owner of British budget hotel chain Premier Inn, announced Thursday a major strategic overhaul that includes selling freehold properties worth £1.5 billion ($2 billion), scrapping its branded restaurants, and cutting about 3,800 jobs. “Our new five-year plan is a step change for Whitbread and completes our journey to becoming a 100% pure play hotel business,” CEO Dominic Paul said at a presentation of the company’s full-year results and business review. Premier Inn currently has over 900 properties with roughly 98,000 rooms across the UK, Ireland, and Germany, but has been under pressure from Corvex Management, the U.S. hedge fund that disclosed a 6% stake in Whitbread in December when calling for a fundamental rethink of the company’s £3.5 billion ($4.7 billion) five-year investment plan. hubs.li/Q04f24pb0

Thank you to our official translation and transcription services partner, Wordly for partnering with us at this year’s Skift Asia Forum in Bangkok!

What you get from Skift Global Forum is different. Not passive listening — real conversations. Interactive sessions. Ideas challenged. Perspectives shared. And insights you can take back to your business. Secure your seat → hubs.ly/Q04dSvsQ0

Meet Julie Lehnis, a Meetings & Events judge for the 2026 Skift IDEA Awards. Global Strategic Meetings Manager at Apple, she brings 25+ years of industry experience and led the global rollout of Eved, transforming event payments at scale. Put your work in front of industry leaders. Enter now: hubs.li/Q04dSDf90

The U.S. low-cost airline sector is under pressure. Spirit is at the center of bailout speculation. Frontier is retrenching. JetBlue is deep into a multi-year run of losses. Then there is Allegiant. Profitable, disciplined, and – with its planned acquisition of Sun Country Airlines – actively reshaping the lower end of the market. “Allegiant’s success isn’t dependent on any other carrier. We kind of run our own race,” CEO Greg Anderson told Skift. “We’re trying to separate ourselves from the pack.” hubs.li/Q04d_dcV0

It’s hard to define what makes a great city, but part of the magic lies in different kinds of people living in close proximity — with just enough friction to generate something unexpected. The great hotel lobbies of the twentieth century used to accomplish this. They were promiscuous in the best sense — places where the famous, the obscure, the moneyed, and the merely interesting collided. But the ultra-luxury market has spent a decade chasing the same guest. That's become a problem. hubs.li/Q04dRKZf0

What works well in China may not translate internationally. That’s the lesson one prominent leader of a one-stop travel platform took away after its first foray into other countries. The initial strategy was to partner with wholesalers to scale quickly and plant successful Chinese leaders in the new markets. The attempt failed. Here's what worked, according to seasoned operators: hubs.li/Q04dXWzg0

Roger Sharp has watched travel distribution get rewired before. When online travel agencies emerged in the early 2000s, they rerouted billions in hotel and airline revenue through a handful of new platforms. At Skift Forum Asia in Bangkok this week, speaking on a panel alongside founders and investors, Sharp, chair of Web Travel Group and North Ridge Partners, said artificial intelligence is about to do it again. He called it “OTA mark two,” describing the rise of a new generation of online travel agencies. hubs.li/Q04dZsNq0

G6 Hospitality, a subsidiary of India’s Prism, has launched Studio 6 Plus, a new extended-stay brand for the U.S. market. G6, which also operates the Studio 6 and Motel 6 brands, said Atlanta-based Natson Hotel Group committed to build the first 15 properties at a cost of roughly $200 million. Why it matters: The new brand is a first attempt by Prism to try to make a “premium economy” model work in the U.S. and elsewhere. hubs.li/Q04dWRsB0

Most travel brands are sitting on a goldmine of customer data — and still can't personalize at scale. Why? The foundation is broken. New research from Skift + Amperity (350+ travel leaders) breaks down what it actually takes to fix it. 👇 hubs.li/Q04dPmkL0 In partnership with @Amperity

Booking Holdings saw a negative impact from the Middle East conflict in the first quarter, but executives pointed to progress in the U.S. as a bright spot. Room night growth in the U.S. was in the low teens, the fourth consecutive quarter of acceleration. “We are taking share,” CEO Glenn Fogel told analysts during the company’s first quarter earnings call Tuesday. hubs.li/Q04dShFp0

Riyadh Air flights between the Saudi capital and London Heathrow are on sale to the general public, despite no formal announcement from the carrier that sales have opened. The kicker? The most digitally ambitious airline start-up in a generation is going on sale the old-fashioned way: through the OTAs. hubs.li/Q04dSdMW0

Minor Hotels is in the final planning phases of a private jet experience under its Anantara luxury brand, with a launch targeted for 2027, Ian Di Tullio, the company’s chief commercial officer told Skift exclusively on Wednesday. Di Tullio said the company is “looking at jets” as part of a broader effort to offer travelers seamless, end-to-end journeys across Minor’s portfolio of hotels, boats and experiential products. He provided the additional detail in a conversation after appearing on stage at the Skift Asia Forum in Bangkok, where he spoke briefly about the plan. “We’ll be flying in an Antara jet next year,” Di Tullio said at the forum. hubs.li/Q04dRT5-0

Skift Asia Forum 2026 is underway in Bangkok. From AI readiness and superapp economics to the future of luxury hospitality and China's changed outbound traveler, the day promises to be one of the most substantive conversations the industry has had about where Asian travel is actually heading. Follow along on the livestream (available to Skift subscribers): hubs.li/Q04dRM4b0

Oman has joined its Gulf neighbors in formalizing tourism regulation, with a new framework that requires every tourism business in the sultanate to obtain a government license. The rules will test smaller, informal operators far more than the large ones. “No tourism activity may be practiced, nor any tourist or hotel establishment operated or managed, unless a license has been obtained from the Ministry,” the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism said Monday. This move reflects a move to bring consistency across the sector, particularly as the market matures and attracts a more diverse mix of international operators and investors. hubs.li/Q04dLG5l0