The Skift Travel Podcast

When many people think health and wellness, they think spas, meditation, and yoga, but over the last two decades it has evolved into so much more. Now the field encompasses women-only surf retreats, health-conscious hospitality brands, a new focus on men and families, high-energy escapes, healthy cruising, on-demand massages, amid more -- all fueling a multi-billion dollar opportunity. To better understand what's happening across the sector, we talk with Jason Moskal, VP of lifestyle brands for IHG (in charge of its EVEN hotels) and Susie Ellis, CEO at Global Wellness Institute and President of Spafinder Wellness.

With our kickoff 2016 episode, Skift staffers Jason Clampet, Alexandra E. Petri, and Rafat Ali discuss highlights from the 15 big trends affecting travel in 2016. These trends are playing out across the global travel industry, from changing consumer habits, to the big marketing changes happening, to how consumer data are finally being used to understand the traveler.

With YouTube, Vimeo, GoPro, and hundreds of channels in HD, the choices of what to watch and how are greater than ever. The traditional travel programming isn’t dead, but how we see it has radically changed. And what we expect to see as viewers continually challenges media brands to rethink how they distribute their programs, how viewers discover them, and the devices they watch them on. To better understand what we see and why we're seeing it, we talk with two leaders in travel programming. Ross Babbit, SVP Programming at Travel Channel, and Betsy Sanner Ayala, VP of Programming and Production at PlanesTrains+Automobiles.

Packing is an integral part of the travel experience, one that we all experience no matter where we are going or how we get there. To talk about the evolution of luggage, and the art of packing, we’re speaking with Diego Saez-Gil, CEO of Bluesmart, which has created the first crowd-funded carryon and Brad John, co-founder of travel retailer Flight 001.

Smartphones are at the center of the evolution of guest experience at hotels. Third-party services are quickly developing apps and tools that transform personal devices into portals for the hotel experience. In this week's episode of the Skift Podcast, we talk about the future of in-room technology and the evolving guest experience, with Chris Holdren, senior vice president of Starwood Preferred Guest and Digital, and Justin Effron, CEO of hospitality engagement platform ALICE.

The humble bike is experiencing a cultural renaissance. Bike share programs are popping up in cities all over the world from New York to Medellín, city streets are transforming with the addition of painted bike lanes, and boutique bike brands are discovering a new and growing customer base. In this week's podcast, we discuss the evolution of bike transportation in the U.S. and beyond. Guests: Dani Simmons, who has worked in sustainable transportation in New York City for 11 years and currently serves as the director of communications and government affairs at Motivate (operators of Citibike), the nation’s largest bike share operator; and Dean DiSimone, who went from architect to media executive to owner of Tokyobike New York, which sells well-designed, lightweight bikes based on the concept of Tokyo Slow.

World-renowned museums will always have a spot at the top of tourists’ bucket lists. A small but growing group of entrepreneurs are responding to travelers’ changing expectations by building high-touch, low-tech experiences in these cultural institutions that share a different story the general public wouldn’t otherwise know how to find. In this week's podcast, we discuss the rise of these "untour" alternative tour companies and what's driving their growth. Guests for this episode: Nick Gray, founder of MuseumHack, which runs fast-paced tours through New York’s most famous museums, and David Behringer, founder of The Two Percent, which runs a live audio tour of New York art exhibitions.

Public relations is the invisible engine that helps control many of the messages that travelers consume about destinations, hotels, airlines and cruises. In this week's podcast, we discuss the evolution of the travel PR industry, with host Samantha Shankman and Skift co-founder and Head of Content Jason Clampet. Guests for this episode are Laura Davidson, founder and CEO of Laura Davidson Public Relations: ldpr.com/, and Jennifer Maguire, founder and CEO of Jennifer Maguire Communications & PR: www.jmc-pr.com/.

Food has transitioned from necessity to obsession in recent years. We fill our social media streams with plate photos, suss out restaurant reviews, lust after a specific cuisine, and then travel thousands of miles or just across town to taste the most authentic version of it. To discuss the evolution of travelers’ culinary expectations, podcast host and Skift reporter Samantha Shankman and Skift co-founder and Head of Content Jason Clampet sat down with Dan Amatuzzi, the general manager at Eataly, and Lionel Ohayon, the founder of innovation agency Icrave.