Dennis Schaal Archives

Dennis Schaal is Skift’s Founding Editor and Executive Editor. Dennis has been a reporter focusing on online travel and short-term rentals for more than two decades at Skift, Tnooz, USA Today, and Travel Weekly. He is well-known for tough one-on-one interviews on stage at Skift events, including with the CEOs and top execs of Expedia, Uber, Booking Holdings, Priceline, Kayak, Hopper, and more.

Hotels

TripAdvisor to Expand Travelers Fees for Vacation Rentals

TripAdvisor's decision to expand travelers' fees for vacation rentals will please Wall Street and could put pressure on Booking.com, which adamantly eschews such fees, to do likewise.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Airlines

Interview: Etihad CEO Downplays Rivals’ Complaints to Focus on the ‘Long Game’

To hear Etihad CEO James Hogan tell it, he's got a "business to run, whether it's economic, whether it's political, whether it's pandemic or whether it's war. You've got to tackle those issues and keep focus." On that "local" Open Skies issue in the U.S.? Hogan will deal with it, whatever comes. No big deal.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Hotels

HomeAway’s Apple TV App Provides Renters an In-Room Concierge

Turn on your hotel-room TV and you'll see property information. Vacation rentals will eventually get on board, too, and this is the start.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Online Travel

RentalsCombined Integrates Live Travel Agents With Property Listings

The idea of integrating service-fee loving travel agents into traveler apps is at least 15 years old, if not older. Still, assuming it solves a real problem for do-it-yourself travel bookers or a hefty segment of them, there is lots of room for improvement and innovation.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Tourism

Thailand’s Aviation Downgrade Contributes to Junta’s Many Tourism Woes

Thailand's tourism has been a mess for years, it's just that so many people were coming despite its problems that nobody noticed. That's not an issue now.

Jocelyn Gecker | 11 years ago

Airlines

Why Spirit Air CEO Respects Delta’s Aggressive Basic Economy Strategy

Spirit's Baldanza has a lot of respect for Delta's management, and Baldanza and the Spirit model are widely respected within the airline industry. With legacy carriers getting much more aggressive about matching Spirit's fares, the ultra low-cost carrier is definitely feeling it but Baldanza insists that Spirit can take a punch.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Business Travel

Interview: Lola’s CEO Wants to Hack Mobile Trip Planning With Travel Agents

It's a bold idea and the software might turn out to be beautiful (bold and beautiful) but do leisure and business travelers at scale REALLY want to abandon self-booking tools in favor of human travel agent interaction on a mobile app? We are going to find out.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Online Travel

Exclusive: HotelTonight Is Up for Sale Following Layoffs

The rest of the travel industry -- or at least the big players that matter -- have caught up to HotelTonight, the first mover in the same-day mobile hotel-booking space. Heavily funded, HotelTonight is seeking an exit that makes its investors whole.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago

Online Travel

Kayak Co-Founder Hiring 100 Travel Agents in Bid to Redefine Online Booking

The biggest things that Lola have going for it are co-founders Paul English and Bill O'Donnell and their track record in travel tech and mobile. Apart from that, Lola faces headwinds in really going against the grain of instant bookings and digital-only travel. It's a very ambitious project with huge challenges.

Denni Schaal | 11 years ago

Hotels

Expedia CFO: Airbnb Getting Into Hotel Bookings Is a Serious Threat

The websites that have the most comprehensive set of lodging choices, whether they are hotels, vacation rentals, apartments or igloos, will dominate. Expedia, through its HomeAway acquisition and intent to develop apartment rentals in cities, knows this and is getting ready for the future of travel in lodging.

Dennis Schaal | 11 years ago