PhoCusWright predicted that the craze over apps may last only four or five years, but they will be crucial. Hotels and other hospitality-related industries need to plan a smart mobile strategy that will bridge the near- and long-term.
You may be right if you think the apps for smartphones like the iPhone or Android are passing [...]

[ Read more → ]

Spending on travel and tourism fell slightly last quarter after taking a nosedive earlier in the year — an encouraging sign for the battered industry.
Travel and tourism spending dropped at a 1.4% annual rate in the second quarter of 2009 from the first quarter, following an 8.9% decline in the first quarter, the Commerce Department [...]

[ Read more → ]

The global hotel industry’s performance during the second quarter this year was down across the board. Despite pockets of resurgence, the negative performance is expected to continue into 2010, and sustained growth isn’t expected until the second quarter of 2010, according to a TravelClick webinar last week.
The global hotel industry’s performance during the second quarter [...]

[ Read more → ]

Fareologists at Bing Travel issued a preliminary outlook for the 2009 holiday travel season, uncovering a holiday season that is distinctly more traveler-friendly than the 2008 season.
This year, airfare for Thanksgiving travel to domestic destinations averages $327, down 22 percent from 2008 and virtually on par with 2007 fares. Christmas and New Year’s holiday airfare [...]

[ Read more → ]

Close-to-home holidays dubbed “staycations” by trend-watchers have proliferated in the financial crisis, but now the travel industry is gearing to draw another crowd — aging populations in countries like Germany whose spending power may outlast the downturn.
You could call them “greycationers”: the 50-plus age group mutating under a massive influx of baby-boomers who grew up [...]

[ Read more → ]