Patrick Whyte

Gone is the buttoned-down, forced formality, and in its place comes the freedom and confidence to treat guests as individuals. A new generation of hoteliers is learning to embrace informality.

TUI Group is slowly building up quite a formidable cruise operation. How long before it starts to consider buying out joint venture partner Royal Caribbean?

The rise of uber-luxury cruise ships is well documented, but what about high-end cruising without the bling? We've said it many times before, but it is worth repeating: Experience counts much more than it used to. An intimate vacation on a tiny barge or a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica can still be luxurious.

We've been talking about overtourism for a while now and it's good to see cities getting more creative when it comes to managing numbers. Visitors are going to keep coming to the likes of Barcelona, Dubrovnik, and Amsterdam, and therefore these places are going to have to get smarter about managing the flow of people, whether they already live there or not.

The bitcoin bubble may have burst — at least temporarily — but there are still plenty of people sitting on sizable gains. The risk for any company accepting payment in cryptocurrencies is their volatility, which tells you that it is probably more about public relations than profits at this stage.

Medium-sized hotel companies know they need scale to compete. With NH Hotels open to consolidation and Barcelo still keen on doing deals, it doesn’t look like we’ve heard the end of this story.

It sounds like the potential buyers didn't accept the company's new strategy — or the buyers weren't willing to pay enough. Regardless, while it's certainly a risk, eDreams Odigeo is doing the right thing in diversifying its business and improving price transparency.

Luxury travel advisors tell us clients are getting super-specific when it comes to certain destinations. It seems "the same as everyone else" just doesn't cut it anymore.

Asset light, something with history and heritage, fewer than 200 hotels ... IHG CEO Keith Barr has quite a specific wish list. It doesn't sound like we'll have to wait too long until we find out the identity of the luxury hotel brand in question.

NH Hotels has been on a corporate rollercoaster ride over the past couple of years with HNA Group’s minority shareholding being the principle catalyst. Things have quieted down recently but harmony likely depends on the identity of the new investor.