Skift Is 5 + Expedia-Hyatt Deal Is Likely + Accor Experiment's Tough Times

The Travel Industry's Daily Agenda-Setting Newsletter

July 31, 2017 View in browser

Skift Is Five and We're Just Getting Started This point five years ago, 99.99 percent of you weren't getting this newsletter. How do we know? We were sending it to a very small group of people who were all doing us the favor of reading it. They trusted Dennis because he had been breaking news and covering the travel industry for years at a broad range of B2B news sites. They trusted Jason because he had been giving them news you could use at consumer publications for many years. And they trusted our CEO Rafat because he had been exceeding expectations in vertical media for nearly a decade. This week marks our fifth anniversary and we are so incredibly happy to have had you along for the ride. We're doing a few special stories this week, launching a new series, and pulling a few things from the archives for you to add to your weekend/beach reading list. We're going to remind you of many things we're proud of and give you a few teasers of things we hope we'll be proud of down the line. But mostly we want to use this anniversary to remind the Skift team how lucky we are to have subscribers like you. We do what we do in order to make what you do easier, smarter, smoother, and more innovative. And we hope the next five years will bring you even more of this. Thanks for reading. — Jason Clampet and Dennis Schaal This Week Marks Skift's 5th Anniversary! To celebrate this milestone, we're rewarding our loyal fans with an exclusive $350 discount on Skift Global Forum tickets — that's 10% OFF! Just use code: SKIFT5 at checkout. Act fast! Sale ends Friday. Register and Save Now Top Stories On Skift Turning Five and the Magic of Showing Up Every Day "Great nations start stoic and die epicurean." Curiosity + Constraints, the Skift formula in the last five years. Travel This Week — What To Expect: Expedia-Hyatt Showdown Looms But a Deal Is Likely We are not expecting Armageddon as the Expedia-Hyatt talks come down to the wire. Hyatt wants a fair deal, and Expedia stands to gain if it can retain the broadest depth of hotel content possible. The devil will be in the details but we expect champagne glasses to be raised this week. AccorHotels Finds Competing With Expedia Is Harder Than Expected The candid comments of the Accor CFO show just how difficult it is for hotel companies to compete with the big online travel agencies. You can't do it half-heartedly and AccorHotels will have to decide how much effort it is willing to put in to the initiative. American Airlines Succeeding in Upselling from Basic Economy to Main Cabin Investing in a range of new products to entice new and existing customers looks like it is paying off for American Airlines. Its upbeat outlook bodes well for the rest of the year. Skift Global Forum Takes on the Restaurant Industry Skift's focus on guest experience encompasses all aspects of travel and hospitality, including restaurant dining. This year's speakers are at the top of the industry, and best positioned to talk about its future. Altour Joins Travel Leaders Group in Latest Travel Agency Consolidation Move The big are getting even bigger. The combined entity of Travel Leaders Group and Altour will be a strong competitor in the U.S. and abroad. A New Breed of French Hoteliers Has a Budget Response to Airbnb A beautiful, well designed room in Paris for 150 euros a night? This might be an interesting counter to the rise of Airbnb in the city. Amadeus Notches Steady Growth on Southwest and IHG Deals Amadeus continued to have strong financial performance in the first half of the year. Trends point to it continuing to be a juggernaut of travel distribution in the near-future. American Airlines Launches Enhanced Baggage Tracking as Competition Heats Up With new technology launched by American Airlines this week, tracking checked luggage will be ever-so easier. From the Archives In 2016, we debuted our many tens of thousands of word-long oral history of online travel. From Expedia's founder telling his boss Bill Gates he was going down an inopportune path to American Airlines' CEO wishing Princeline's founder would meet an untimely end to William Shatner using a poodle and a fashion model to do due diligence, we have many, many good stories. You can catch up on them with the story, below, or relive some elements of it from a one-of-a-kind roundtable at last year's Skift Global Forum. The Definitive Oral History of Online Travel Two decades after the birth of online travel, more than two dozen founders and key players exclusively tell Skift how it all happened. Video: Online Travel Founders Talk Game-Changing Deals, Big Upcoming Trends Moral of the story about the early years of online travel? Not to over-simplify, but be prepared to take risks, feel free to contradict conventional wisdom, and assemble the best damn team that you can. 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