Articles tagged “inflation”

Travelers are feeling pain at the pump and in the air after an April surge in travel costs.

Wyndham believes AI tools will eventually bring relief to franchisee P&Ls, though not immediately across the board for all hotels.

Travel demand isn’t slowing — it’s being rebalanced across markets while AI is quietly rewriting how loyalty is earned and lost.

Travel demand is holding in 2026, but growth will favor markets and brands that adapt as power shifts geographically and behaviorally.

In 2025, U.S. travelers are more confident, digitally empowered, and experience-driven — redefining how, why, and where they travel.

Michelle Russo's asset management firm oversees a $12 billion portfolio of hotels. She sees dominoes falling: Tariffs → economic uncertainty → fewer international visitors → fewer bookings → cost-cutting and marketing changes.

"Here's a mostly empty office building that we want to turn into a cool hotel" is, in 2025, an easier sell to lenders than "Here's an empty lot that we want to turn into a cool hotel." That's true because of high interest rates and construction costs.

Despite making tremendous strides in 2024, the travel industry still faces several challenges and here's a list of some of them.

It turns out that 2019 is no longer a good year to compare prices to. That should be a relief to anyone trying to explain why their travel budget looks so different now.

Today's podcast looks at July Fourth travel, Tourism Portland CEO's record, and inflation's impact on travel.