The Skift Travel Podcast Skift Travel News

Adam Harris, the CEO of hotel management software company Cloudbeds, has a great no-nonsense grasp of the macro – and micro – environment in the startup fundraising world.
On this edition of the Skift Travel Podcast, Harris sits down with Skift CEO Rafat Ali to get a perspective on what it means for travel tech startups across the spectrum of maturity to be raising funding in this environment.
This podcast was recorded before the Silicon Valley Bank and other bank meltdowns, which has added even more complexities to the already dicey tech startup fundraising world, and a new spotlight on venture capital world overall and its outsized role in the growth pathways startups take.

Parag Khanna is an author, geopolitical scientist and founder of Climate Alpha, an AI-powered analytics platform forecasting asset values and future-proof global real estate, as well as FutureMap, a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm. Khanna, who has also spoken at Skift events, shares in this recent interview with Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali his perspectives on travel, globalization and immigration and discusses a key theme from his latest book MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future.

Hotel earnings season has just ended, with public hotel companies reporting their end of 2022 performances. In the latest Skift Podcast, our team covers the highlights, reviews the 2023 outlook, and pinpoints one of the most critical metrics to watch.
The conversation will also bring up  topics and themes we'll focus on more in-depth at our all-day Skift Future of Lodging event, happening in London on March 29.
"Analyst guidance for 2023 was robust, even after accounting for a likely economic slowdown in the second half of the year," said Pranavi Agarwal, the London-based Senior Research Analyst for Skift Research, in her discussion with Sean O'Neill, the Washington, D.C.-based Senior Hospitality Editor.
One key theme of the brief discussion between Agarwal and O'Neill was how hotel groups may see a divergence in their performance this year as certain trends tend to favor some kinds of hotel portfolios over others. "Portfolios skewed to APAC [Asia Pacific] and lux will see the biggest uplift in 2023," Agarwal said. "Hyatt should really do well, while Choice said its domestic RevPAR [revenue per available room, a key metric] will be just 2 percent year-over-year in 2023."

Today, we’re going to look at some of the future trends happening across hospitality and the big questions facing the sector as a preview for our Future of Lodging Forum happening in London on March 29th, 2023. Join Skift Head of Research Wouter Geerts and Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill, in discussion with Skift Head of Programing Brian Quinn, as they preview the topics and themes on top of mind heading into this event.
Learn more about the event at https://live.skift.com/skift-future-of-lodging-forum-2023/

India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country later this year, as China begins to decline and India's population growth shows no sign of slowing until 2064. That shift carries huge implications for travel across the globe, and has the potential to rewire the race for attracting global tourists around the world. Skift addressed this in its Megatrends 2023 package in the story India Becoming the New China in the Reordering of Asia Travel.
For this episode of the Skift Travel Podcast, Skift Founder and CEO Rafat Ali is joined by Senior Research Analyst Varsha Arora and Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia, in a focused discussion on India's growth, the demographic and economic challenges before India could become as big a force as Chinese outbound travelers have become, what changes have come in the domestic tourism market during and post-covid, and what the global tourism community looking to attract Indian travelers has to keep in mind. 
This podcast builds off the discussion Ali and Senior Research Analyst Seth Borko had at the Skift Megatrends event earlier this month about the seminal moment of demographic switch about to happen this year, where India will become the world's most populous nation overtaking China, estimated some time this April.

For this bonus episode of the Skift Travel Podcast, we turn to our colleagues at Airline Weekly for perspective on Southwest Airlines.
As most of the traveling public knows, the airline had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad holiday season. The cancellation of 15,000-plus flights between Christmas and New Years will weigh on its fourth quarter results, but consumers' memories are short and the airline will survive. Edward Russell and Jay Shabat discuss. Plus, what European country does Eurocontrol's latest data show led the continent's air traffic recovery last year?
Further Reading:
European Airlines Could Face Steep Operational Challenges in 2023 by Jay Shabat
Southwest’s Meltdown Should Be a Technology Warning for Airlines by Justin Dawes