D/R DOWNLOAD 2.10

What’s Trending

01/ On Google

• ‘Unlimited summer flight pass’ trended +200% this week following Frontier Airlines introduction of the GoWild! Summer Pass, allowing for unlimited flights throughout Frontier’s domestic and international network from May 2 through Sept. 30. 

02/ With Media

• Tiana Attride accepted a new position as Social Media Editor at AFAR.

• This week, journalists were interested in spring break travel ideas, the best beach resorts for families, romantic getaways and retreats for couples, travel destinations featured in popular movies, and more. 

• Condé Nast partnered with the social media service Pinterest to bring video activations and other new content to the platform around major events like New York Fashion Week. Condé Nast brands Vogue and Architectural Digest will produce over 160 exclusive videos aligned with Pinterest’s key seasonal and cultural moments. 

03/ In The Zeitgeist

• A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria early Monday morning, marking it one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years. Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency as the death toll rises to more than 7,700 while emergency teams continue to search for survivors among the rubble and debris. 

• Maryland lawmakers proposed a bill that would support employers trialing a 4-day workweek. While many 4-day workweek experiments have been conducted recently in the US and Europe, no US state has offered to subsidize the cost of the experiment for its employers. 

• The 65th Grammy Awards’ viewership increased by 30% since last year, which was the least-watched ever, making this year's largest audience since 2020. 

• As Phoenix, Arizona prepares to host the Super Bowl and PGA Tournament Waste Management Open in the same weekend, the city is expecting over a million people to come through the downtown area as people from all over the country will gather to celebrate sports.

Industry Insights

• The United Nations General Assembly has declared February 17th as the first-ever Global Tourism Resilience Day in order to encourage capacity building in tourism resilience. 

• The United Kingdom will soon require all travelers to apply online and pay a fee prior to entering its borders. The UK is enforcing its Electronic Travel Authorization system and hopes to be fully digitized by 2025.

• Travel experts have created a new online calculator for digital nomads, which tells remote workers which countries they are eligible to relocate to based on income. Once users can input their annual earnings into the calculator, a list of countries that either issue Digital Nomad Visas already or have plans to do so in the near future will pop up. 

• Actor Seth Rogen’s cannabis company, Houseplant, partnered with Airbnb to offer an overnight stay in a Houseplant-inspired creative retreat in the Hollywood Hills for only $42 a night. The house comes stocked with some of the brand’s bestsellers, and guests will also have the opportunity to hang out with Seth Rogen. 

• Senators are pushing for airline passenger protections, forcing airlines to compensate flyers for delays and cancellations caused by the airline, following the travel disruptions during last year’s holidays.

• In an effort to revive its tourism industry, Hong Kong launched its new “Hello Hong Kong” initiative which plans to give away 500,000 free airline tickets. From March 1, tickets will be allocated to Southeast Asian residents, from April 1 to mainland Chinese residents, and from May 1 to residents around the world.

• Resort Wynn Las Vegas introduced Tom Brady and Alex Guerrero's custom IV therapies for guests to experience as a part of its Wynn Living Well program. The program also includes in-room workout videos from health and wellness personality Amanda Kloots.

• Booking.com is giving 50 winners $10,000 each in travel credits in an effort to help travelers go to their favorite destinations all over the globe. Travelers can enter the giveaway by following the brand on Instagram or TikTok, and commenting on the giveaway post with the hashtags #ShareYourAnywhere and #SWEEPSTAKES.

Health-Related Updates

• The United States House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday, ending the vaccine mandate for international visitors to the U.S. The U.S. Travel Association called this an “outdated policy,” saying the U.S. was putting valuable visitor spending at risk the longer it remained in place.

• President Joe Biden intends to end COVID-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11. Enhanced social safety net benefits allotted by these emergencies will no longer be provided and Americans will have to start paying for all COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. 

Best Practices

01/ The Good

• In honor of Black History Month, Pinterest and Travel Noire introduced their new Safe Black Travel Hub initiative to focus on places with ties to Black history, while simultaneously bringing attention to Black-owned businesses. Inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook for Black travelers during the Jim Crow era, the Safe Black Travel Hub will present a range of travel options with Black creators from the US, Colombia, Jamaica, Brazil, and more.

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