Hurricane Sandy devastates the Caribbean and the US Northeast. The Costa Concordia runs aground, costing 30 lives. Unrest in the Middle East finds travelers canceling their plans to visit. Will your organization be ready for the next crisis? Every business and organization needs a crisis communications plan, and that’s particularly true of the tourism and […]

Riviera Nayarit: Warmth of Mexico for Winter’s Reward The combination of sun, sand and Mexican culture yields to an array of distinctive holiday festivities for visitors to discover. Beginning in December, hundreds of humpback whales head to the protected waters of Banderas Bay during their migration from Alaska to Hawaii, swimming among wild dolphins that […]

A new survey by TripAdvisor shows where Americans plan to be for Thanksgiving this year – on the road or in the air. Some 35 percent of the 1,500 people surveyed said they were planning to travel for the holiday this year, up a point from last year. How are they getting where they are […]

As the World Travel Mart 2012 conference in London wrapped up this month, it had more than a few take-aways for where world travel may be headed, and how travelers are making their decisions. The “Global Trends Report” by market research firm Euromonitor International was able to pin point nine key emerging travel and tourism […]

Nicaragua is hot these days, especially for those who crave the allure of exotic travel. Think Belize in the 1990s or Costa Rica in the 1980s – places known to the jet set for the quiet beaches, the warm hospitality, and exquisite luxury all within the aura of exclusivity. In this case the spot in […]

What does it take for a tour operator to get noticed these days? How about a stack full of first-hand encounters with history and several pairs of worn out shoes… Peter Sommer walked some 2,000 miles across Turkey in the footsteps of Alexander the Great one summer in 1994 and never looked back. After earning […]

What is being tabbed as the tallest hotel in the world by some and the “hotel of doom” by others is on schedule – albeit 26 years after it began – to open next year. However, this behemoth of hospitality is not going up in Dubai, or Beijing or Shanghai. The world’s tallest hotel tower […]

By Tim Bajarin, CEO Creative Strategies With Permission from InTheBoombox.tv One of the things I have noticed as I have aged is that when I travel, I am more inclined to have all things related to it be as easy and stress free as possible. Indeed, when I was traveling in my younger years, I […]

By Lark Ellen Gould The long-haul flight may be on a trajectory toward extinction. Recent shake-ups in long-haul airline routes may be proving that, in the end, high airline fuel prices, clunky avionics, and 18-hour non-stops may not make good business buddies. The long-haul market was given a jolt last week when Singapore Airlines (SIA) […]

Interview with Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. By Bill Becken Coming down from a very tough 2012, Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., still envisions a golden future for cruising. RCCL’s brands together field about 40 ships. Its only larger rival and competitor is Carnival Corp, which fields […]