The Skift Travel Podcast

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discusses Uber's burn rate, AI, Uber Teens, and becoming a super app. They also talk about the importance of Uber Eats, profitability through growth, targeted advertising, credit cards, and career compounding.

This week Choice Hotels publicly offered to acquire Wyndham Hotels & Resorts following months of private discussions between the two companies. This was pretty exciting in itself, with the last major M&A deal in the hotel industry being the Starwood-Marriott merger in 2015. However, later that day, more news broke that Wyndham had rejected Choice’s offer and saw its stock being halted on the NYSE.All of this drama had Skift's team asking: Are we covering Twitter here or the relatively stable hotel industry?In this episode Pranavi Agarwal, senior analyst at Skift Research, Skift senior hospitality editor, Sean O’Neill, and Alan Woinski, editor of the Daily Lodging Report, talk us through the details of the deal, what might be motivating each side's actions, and what the story tells us about the current state of the hospitality landscape.

Today, we’re happy to share the latest episode of The Skift Ideas Podcast, which recently returned with its fifth episode. In it, host Colin Nagy is joined by Harsha L'Acqua, Founder and CEO of Saira Hospitality. Together, they delve into the past and future of hospitality, and the undeniable importance of unlocking opportunities within communities.If you like what you hear, be sure to sure follow The Skift Ideas podcast for more candid conversations on the innovations and ideas powering the future of travel.  

Today on the show, we play a rousing session from the recent 10th Annual Skift Global Forum that was held in New York City late last month. The session, titled "Travel's Future as AI Reshapes The World," features tech entrepreneur, investor, and podcast host, Jason Calacanis, along with Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley investment firm Altimeter, in discussion with Skift Founder and CEO Rafat Ali about the coming days when generative AI will become reliable and have a real effect on how the world operates. And they believe that could be the case in some areas in as soon as a year.If you enjoy this insightful and, at times, provocative conversation, learn about how to attend our next next Skift Live event by visiting Live.Skift.com. You can also find full video recordings of this session and many others at skift.com and on the official Skift News YouTube channel.

Skift Editorial Director of Events, Brian Quinn, and Research Director, Seth Borko, preview the topics and speakers of next week's Skift Global Forum.Happening September 26-28 in New York City, the momentous 10th annual Skift Global will explore the theme of "Connection in The age of AI" and feature leaders from throughout travel, deciphering the big trends facing the industry. Visit https://live.skift.com for information on speakers, schedules, and how to attend. 

We’re back from our late summer break with a special live streamed panel discussion conducted by Skift's editorial team last week on September 5, the very day that New York City’s short-term rental crackdown went into effect.Skift Hospitality editor Sean O'Neill was joined on the panel by Executive editor Dennis Schaal, Travel Tech Reporter Justin Dawes, and Short-term rental reporter Srividya Kalyanaraman to discuss the details of the new regulations and how they effect hosts, travelers, hotels, the city, and the industry at large. Since this panel, Skift has reported that Airbnb—the brand synonymous with short-terms rentals—has lost 77% of its New York City listings over a three-month period. For this reporting and all of the latest news in the business of travel, visit Skift.com. And if you haven’t already, check out live.skift.com for information on how to attend the 10th annual Skift Global Forum in New York City this September 26–28, where we’ll feature leaders from throughout the travel industry on stage, including Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who will no doubt have some comment to offer on the challenges posed by these regulations to Airbnb and other short-term rental players.Enjoy the conversation.

Today on the program, Skift Lead Producer Jose Marmolejos speaks with Miguel Neves, Editor-in-Chief of Skift Meetings and host of the Skift Meetings Podcast.This week, Miguel has been covering the sale of the core business of virtual event company Hopin—the pandemic era unicorn founded in 2019 that rose to a valuation of nearly $8 billion by August of 2021, but that by the following February had started laying off employees, culminating in its sale last week to cloud-based communications company RingCentral for a mere $15 million. As Miguel points out in his reporting: “That is billion with a b and million with an m.”In this conversation Miguel details the raise and decline of Hopin, how the established players in events never really had incentive to pursue virtual events outside of pandemic era lock downs, and the implications of the Hopin fire sale for the broader events industry. Check out Skift Meetings to find Miguel’s reporting, along with the latest guidance and inspiration for business event professionals, at meetings.skift.com.

Skift research analysts discuss key insights from the State of Travel 2023 report, highlighting the recovery of luxury hospitality and multi-day tour operators. They also explore Hopper's growth in the industry, potential risks, and the impact of AI on the travel sector, including emerging trends like blended travel and the competitive landscape between vacation rentals and hotels.

As we look ahead to the landmark 10th Skift Global Forum happening this September in New York City, today we take a look back at a panel session from Skift Global Forum 2016 correctly billed as "Legends of Online Travel".On the panel were: Brad Gerstner, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Altimeter Capital; Rich Barton, co founder and, at the time, Executive chairman of Zillow Group (he is currently CEO); Dara Khosrowshahi, then the President and CEO of Expedia (he is currently the CEO of Uber); Jay Walker, Founder of Priceline and CEO of Upside; and moderator Dennis Schaal, Skift’s Founding and Executive editor, who earlier that year had released the "Definitive Oral History of Online Travel", the authoritative account of the rise of the online travel agency. We revisit this session from nearly 7 years ago to assess just how prescient these esteemed speakers were as they discussed the future of online travel as seen from that far away time, still 3+ years before the onset of the global covid pandemic, and 6+ years from the broad release of ChatGPT, the widely-used generative AI tool that has sparked imaginations throughout the world and travel industry.As the panelists in this session point out, many of their predictions have been around since the 1990s ".com" boom and before, so what makes now the moment? The prognostications you’ll hear in this session give us some insight into the answer, and we can be certain that this question will loom large at the coming Skift Global Forum as our sessions look to tackle the theme of “Connection in the Age of AI”.

On Wednesday of last week, Skift broke the bombshell news that Expedia Group—the world’s leading Online Travel Agent—had decided to end its longstanding partnership with Hopper, a rival OTA that Expedia had nonetheless been providing hotel and vacation rental inventory for many years. What’s more, Expedia used their announcement to voice concerns about several practices employed by Hopper that they perceived to be detrimental to consumers.On this episode of the podcast Skift's Lead Producer Jose Marmolejos speaks with Skift's Founding Editor and Executive Editor Dennis Schaal (the journalist who broke that story), as well as Skift Research Analyst Pranavi Agarwal (who recently published the definitive deep dive report on Hopper’s business model and performance), about why this business relationship fell apart so suddenly and dramatically.They listen back to some clips from Dennis’ interview with Hopper CEO Frederic Lalonde at the Skift Global Forum this past September, get some unique insights from Pranavi’s unprecedented access to Hopper’s business while she authored her report, and dig into what this rupture could mean for Hopper, Expedia, and the entire online travel industry.