Skift

Engine is moving deeper into corporate travel. The Denver-based startup — known for serving self-booking business travelers — has acquired Options Travel, a U.S. travel management company with ~$408M in gross sales last year. The plan: use those insights to build an AI-native booking tool that keeps corporate travelers within company policy and negotiated rates. Backed by Permira and Blackstone with 300 engineers, Engine is betting on modernizing corporate travel's aging infrastructure. CEO Elia Wallen's rallying cry after sending 500,000 faxes last month to comply with suppliers? "No more faxes." hubs.li/Q04ryWJ90

Accor has set a Q3 deadline to decide on an Ennismore IPO — with one firm condition: it won't drop below 51% ownership. Keeping majority control (it currently holds 62%) lets Accor consolidate Ennismore's full results, which CEO Sébastien Bazin calls its "fastest-growing EBITDA machine." But the timing is tough. War in the Middle East has weighed on performance, with Q2 RevPAR down 11.3% on UAE exposure and first-half EBITDA slipping to €84M. Analyst valuations for a standalone Ennismore range widely, from $3.4B to $5.8B. Bazin expects a clearer picture — and a decision — by early October. hubs.li/Q04ry_J00

With its international marketing budget slashed, India is enlisting its airlines to sell the country abroad. India's Ministry of Tourism has signed new partnerships with its two largest carriers — IndiGo and Air India — to help attract more international visitors. The airlines will tap their global networks, inflight entertainment, digital platforms, and overseas events to promote India as a premier destination. The urgency is real. Foreign arrivals fell 9.4% in 2025 to just over 9 million — the second straight yearly decline — leaving India still below its pre-pandemic levels. The bigger issue: marketing alone won't fix it. Real recovery will hinge on connectivity, smoother visa processes, and rebuilding traveler confidence. hubs.li/Q04rz1qh0

Mexico is investing $115 million through 2026 in vessels, offshore barriers, and monitoring to capture sargassum at sea before it rots on beaches, aiming to lift daily collection capacity from 1,227 tons toward 4,000 tons. The economic stakes are high: sargassum could cut 11% off affected areas' GDP, hotels are cutting rates up to 40% and considering shorter seasons, and this year's collection (96,151 tons) has already surpassed all of last year. Industry voices want more than cosmetic fixes—calling for worker safety, local health protections, coordinated long-term climate adaptation, and turning collected seaweed into circular-economy products rather than costly waste. hubs.li/Q04ryZpG0

Human connection is becoming a bigger part of the wellness travel conversation. On Good Morning Hospitality, Evermore Orlando Resort President Elizabeth Mullins shares what hospitality leaders can learn from designing for togetherness. Listen wherever you get your podcast 🎧 or watch here: hubs.li/Q04rwdbX0 In partnership with Evermore Orlando Resort

Expedia acquired Layla, a Berlin-based conversational AI trip-planning startup (founded 2023, ~25 employees, ~€5M raised), for undisclosed terms — gaining both technology and tech talent as it builds out its Silicon Valley presence. The deal advances Expedia's pivot from an all-in-one AI concierge (the deprioritized Romie) toward a 'multi-agentic' architecture of specialized agents. Expedia positions its differentiation around trust, first-party traveler insights, global bookable inventory, marketplace scale, and a rigorous 'evals' system to guard against AI hallucinations. hubs.li/Q04rwx0z0

AI is pushing hotel discovery earlier in the traveler journey, forcing commercial leaders to rethink who owns visibility, how to measure success, and whether more budget should move upstream before demand reaches traditional booking channels. Get the story here: hubs.li/Q04rs_Rc0 In partnership with Curacity

The venue selling the concert ticket captures the smallest share of the money it generates. Taylor Swift's six Eras Tour shows pushed Singapore hotel occupancy to 79.1 percent and RevPAR up 18.5 percent, a March record. Toronto saw luxury hotel rates jump 19.3 percent during the tour's run there. Airlines, hotels, and destinations capture most of that value, and most have no seat at the table when the show gets booked. That's the gap the Skift Live Tourism Summit, presented by Live Nation Entertainment, is built to close. 50 to 75 senior leaders. North Javits Center, NYC. September 22. Apply to attend: hubs.li/Q04rmPSp0

Norwegian Cruise Line's John Chidsey told analysts this week that the "vast, vast majority" of the company's problems are "self-inflicted" — a rare bit of candor as Norwegian posts the weakest yield performance among cruise operators, with declines expected to stretch into 2027. His diagnosis? The company held prices "too high, too far out," choking off early demand. The fix, as he sees it, is largely within their control: sharper marketing, better revenue management, and reconnecting the right customers with a product he says already earns strong repeat scores. A new private island opening in September could help. There's a broader lesson here for any business in a slump: it's tempting to blame the macro environment. Owning what's actually yours to fix is harder — and usually more useful. hubs.li/Q04rry5R0

Hyatt is pushing hard into mid-market hotels — but luxury is still what pays the bills. The company just backed a ~$500M credit facility to help developers finance its new Hyatt Studios brand, part of a bigger effort to grow in smaller markets where full-service hotels can't survive. Yet three years in, Hyatt Studios has only six hotels open, and the company just pushed some Q4 openings into 2027, sending its stock down more than 5%. CEO Mark Hoplamazian's message to analysts was blunt: "You can't take net rooms growth to the bank." Fees, not room counts, drive profit — and luxury has posted the highest The tension is clear: scale needs the mid-tier, but the money still comes from the top. hubs.li/Q04rrCws0

Mount Olympus just earned UNESCO World Heritage status after a 12-year campaign. Now comes the hard part: managing the tourism surge it brings. The mythical home of Greece's ancient gods already draws ~500,000 visitors a year — many of them day-trippers causing "traffic jams" on the mountain. And don't expect UNESCO to foot the bill: its World Heritage Fund invests just ~$3M a year globally. Operators are pushing for staggered departures over bigger groups, modest €2–5 entry fees, and alternative trails to ease congestion. The lesson for any beloved destination: recognition is the easy part. Protecting what made it special is the real work. hubs.li/Q04rrzx40

China's outbound travel problem has flipped: it's no longer about demand — it's about not enough planes. A new Dragon Trail survey found over three-quarters of Chinese travel agents saw outbound demand grow in early 2026. The bottleneck is flight capacity. Japan stayed a top-3 destination even after China cut half its Japan flights. Thailand topped the rankings with capacity at just 54% of 2019 levels. U.S. flights sit at 27% — yet demand holds. For years the question was whether Chinese travelers were ready to go abroad again. The answer is clearly yes. The real question now: can airlines, airports, and visa offices catch up? hubs.li/Q04rrskf0

What happens when awe becomes more valuable than excess? Lindblad Expeditions is betting that the future of luxury travel belongs to brands that create deeper connections to place, people, and purpose. hubs.li/Q04pNj0F0 In partnership with Lindblad Expeditions

Airbnb is hiring senior leaders to expand a standalone tickets business and build a guest wallet, according to job listings posted on its careers site this July. Airbnb has not announced either business elsewhere. The listings do not connect the two projects. But both fit the direction Airbnb has been moving over the past year: giving people more to buy than a short-term rental. hubs.li/Q04rqc320

Europe's wildfires are testing the travel industry's resilience — but so far, tourism is holding. Fires in France and Spain have forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate near destinations like Bordeaux and Madrid. Yet operators report the impact has been contained: British Airways is waiving change fees for Bordeaux, river cruises are making only minor docking adjustments, and tour companies say itineraries remain largely unaffected. Local voices expect a swift return to normal as the situation stabilizes. The bigger concern is what comes next. EU emergency officials warn the risk is already moving toward Greece, Italy, and Central Europe — with one stark line: if the Iberian Peninsula flares up too, "we will have all Europe on fire." With Europe warming at roughly twice the global average and 2025 already its worst wildfire year on record, this is no longer a seasonal disruption. It's a climate reality the travel sector needs to plan around. hubs.li/Q04rjVYR0

A direct booking does not always equal a direct relationship. As airlines invest in NDC, retailing, and loyalty, verified identity could help them recognize valuable traveler communities and create offers that feel genuinely personal. Read more: hubs.li/Q04rkB7R0 In partnership with @SheerID

⏰ Tonight at 11:59, the price goes up! If Skift Global Forum has been on your list, this is the moment to act. Join the industry leaders including Dara Khosrowshahi Uber, Christopher Nassetta (Hilton), Glenn Fogel (Booking Holdings), Ariane Gorin (Expedia Group), and many more for three days of conversations with the people shaping the travel industry. 🎟️Lock in the current rate before it's gone: hubs.li/Q04r77XV0

"The best advice I can give a travel startup founder, fourteen years into building Skift, is this: don’t start a travel startup. Start a startup inside a travel power struggle. "Travel is a $10 trillion industry, and every pitch deck leads with that number as though size equals opportunity. It does not. That spending is spread across a fragmented industry shaped by local rules, difficult operations, different payment systems, and emotional customer decisions. Founders see the size. They underestimate how difficult it is to reach. You don’t get to skip the complexity and keep the size. "I have been watching travel startups launch, pitch, raise, pivot, and die for almost a decade and a half, from the front row. Over those years, Skift developed several ways to understand the industry. I have adapted fourteen of them for founders and organized them into three parts. Most come back to one question: where does the next dollar go in travel, and who decides?" hubs.li/Q04rjK9c0

The AI boom isn't just reshaping products — it's reshaping who gets a seat at the table (literally). San Francisco's meetings industry has gone from asking "Can we recover from the pandemic?" to "How do we keep up with demand?" Moscone Center is on track for 38 events and 674,000+ room nights this year — a 69% jump over 2024. Nearly half of those events are tech conferences. The twist? For event planners, the competition has changed. As Anna Marie Presutti of the San Francisco Travel Association put it, you're no longer competing against another association — you're up against AI companies with seemingly endless budgets who don't blink at premium dates and venues. The takeaway for planners is simple: book early. The dates you used to count on may already be spoken for. Would you bet against San Francisco? History suggests that's a bad bet. hubs.li/Q04rdNT40

Fora keeps only a sliver of each booking dollar compared to giants like Booking Holdings, betting instead that its 15,000 advisors will keep growing their own books of business without Fora needing to take a bigger cut. Co-founder Evan Frank compares the model to Shopify, though there's a real tension in calling a commission-driven travel business "software." A useful parallel: Compass tried something similar in real estate. Skift built out its own revenue estimates since Fora doesn't disclose the numbers, and dug into the incentives keeping top advisors from leaving. The result is a sharp look at whether a billion-dollar valuation can hold up on compounding advisor productivity alone. Full breakdown here: hubs.li/Q04r60DP0