Traveling Blog: Royal Caribbean Buoyed by China + Travelport CEO Not Sweating Brexit + Qantas' Jet Lag Specialist

August 3, 2018

Editor's Note

A service economy is only as good as its workforce. At Skift, we take our coverage of workers and workplace issues in travel seriously. That coverage from time to time leads us to people in some really interesting, shocking, enviable jobs across the industry. So today we are launching a new regular monthly feature, "At Your Service," profiling one of these anything-but-boring jobs. It will publish the first Friday of every month, when employment is top-of-mind with the release of the U.S. jobs report.

Our inaugural feature comes from Aviation Business Editor Brian Sumers, who still claims HE has the most interesting job in travel. Sumers found Steve Simpson, a professor hired by Qantas to help study jet lag. Simpson started out researching locusts as a way to study human diets, but now he's tasked with helping treat a brutal byproduct of flying that most travelers have grappled with at one time. Keep an eye out each month for future "At Your Service" stories, and let me know at tl@skift.com if you come across people working in some crazy gigs in travel and restaurants.

— Tom Lowry, Managing Editor

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CEO Interview: MediaAlpha's Steve Yi on the Need for Real Transparency in Travel Search Media

It's not often these days that a cruise company singles out China as a highlight; the market has been too volatile. But for Royal Caribbean Cruises, China was one of several positive pieces that added up to an unexpectedly good quarter.

Why Travelport's CEO Isn't Worried About Brexit

In an interview, Travelport CEO Gordon Wilson strikes an optimistic tone for his company and for the negotiations at large over the fate of Britain's relationship with the European Union. We'll see if his confidence will be borne out by events.

Qantas Hired This Professor to Help Flyers Beat Jet Lag

Travelers can leverage effective strategies to limit jet lag. There's only one problem. Most people lack the willpower to follow advice from the scientific community. That hasn't stopped Qantas, which hired a specialist to help.

TripAdvisor Sees Decline in Hotel Shoppers After Travel Industry Advertising Reset

The hidden tale behind TripAdvisor's anemic revenue growth is that the online travel companies that had heavily advertised on it and similar platforms have decided to trim that spending to improve on their margins rather than chase growth. TripAdvisor executives said they planned to do the same. Quailty growth is the new new thing.

Skift Tech Forum 2018 On-Stage Videos Are Now Live

Hear from executives at Hilton, United, Kayak, and more in our videos from Skift Tech Forum.

RateGain Buys DHISCO to Expand Its Hospitality Distribution

DHISCO is not a barn burner of a hot internet company. But its acquirer RateGain has the hallmarks of becoming one in travel tech. DHISCO CEO Toni Portmann deserves praise for rescuing a company born from a troubled private equity carveout.

UK Theme Parks Operator Merlin Ramps Up Hotel Offerings

Adding more beds to your theme parks makes sense as it brings in extra cash, but Merlin needs to make sure it gives guests extra reasons to stick around for more than a day.

Norwegian Air to Rent a Superjumbo as It Sorts Out Rolls-Royce Engine Issues

Norwegian is likely paying a lot more to a rent a gently used Airbus A380 than it did for Wamos Air's Boeing 747. But passengers hated the antiquated 747, and Norwegian took some criticism for flying it from New York to London. This is probably a better approach.

Rental Management Firm Hostmaker Raises $5 Million: Travel Startup Funding This Week

Flipping property management companies may become the new house flipping — if larger startups like Hostmaker start acquiring smaller ones, as we expect they will.

Corporate Travel Sector Eyes a New Distribution Model Down Under

Qantas, Serko, and Corporate Travel Management are leading the charge toward new distribution capability adoption in Australia, promising better access to rich content. They will have to overcome plenty of confusion in the market, however, before the new distribution channels are fully accepted.

Airline passengers never know how good they have it until it's too late. Airfares are going up, and passengers are going to remember 2016-17 as the glory years for fare bargains. Of course, at the time, they didn't think so.

Hyatt's $22 Million Charge Underscores Hotels' Homesharing Struggles

Seems like both Hyatt and AccorHotels are struggling to find ways to make private accommodations work with their current business models. But we don't think they should give up hope just yet.

What It Means to Be an Emerging Destination in New Europe: A Sofia Deep Dive

While destinations with overtourism issues are getting a lot of attention, other cities are emerging as new frontiers for tourism. Sofia, Bulgaria, is one of those cities with a unique opportunity to declare to the world what it wants to be as a destination, and to define a vision and strategy for how tourism can develop sustainably.

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