The Skift Travel Podcast Skift Travel News

Google Hotels is the largest and most comprehensive metasearch engine in travel. It is a core part of the online travel ecosystem but remains a black box. So Skift Research did an analysis of thousands of hotel listings on Google to learn which online travel agencies (OTAs) and direct sites are bidding for bookings – and at what prices. Seth and Sarah discuss our exclusive findings with the report's lead author, Skift Senior Research Analyst Pranavi Agarwal.
Read part 1 of our deep dive into Google Travel here: https://research.skift.com/report/a-deep-dive-into-google-travel-part-i-u-s-hotel-distribution/
Presented by BrandUSA

The recent earnings seasons provided a glimpse into how the largest publicly traded travel companies are faring in one of the more "normal" quarters in a number of years.
So what are the main takeaways from earnings season? And which companies emerged as big winners? Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill and Airlines Reporter Meghna Maharishi joined Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit and Head of Research Seth Borko to discuss the results of earnings in this week’s Skift Travel Podcast.
Read more about earnings this season at Skift.

In this special bonus episode, Skift Meetings Executive Editor Andrea Doyle speaks with Skift CEO Rafat Ali and Skift Head of Events Programming Brian Quinn about the "State of Conferences".

Last week Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced the company's renewed focus on Experiences with its “Icons” product launch. Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit was in Los Angeles for the event and got to speak one-on-one with Chesky on a host of topics (including that pay question we promised you). In this episode we also dig into why Airbnb backed off of experiences after the pandemic, a potential Airbnb loyalty program and how Icons fits into Airbnb’s broader marketing strategy. 

Catch up on the importance of sleep tourism as Seth and Sarah discuss its emergence and growing importance in the travel industry.
Building off of Sarah’s recent article in Skift, "The Science of Sleep: How the Travel Industry is Cashing on Tourism’s Latest Obsession,” they go into the growing fascination with sleep among Gen Z, the challenges of getting good sleep during travel, and the economics of sleep tourism.

Fresh off the heels of the release of annual financial reports, Seth and Sarah discuss everyone's favorite topic: executive compensation. 
They examine how those reported compensation numbers relate to the performance of the companies in question, including Airbnb CEO and Co-founder Brian Chesky's potential $1 billion plus pay package, which leads them to the question: should billionaires exist?