D/R DOWNLOAD 5.20

What’s Trending

01/ On Google

• Searches for “affordable travel club” trended +70% this week as traveler’s look for good deals ahead of summer. 

• “Puerto Rico vacation packages” trended +300% this week, indicating a surge in interest for travel to Puerto Rico.

02/ With Media

• Stephanie Wu is Eater’s new editor-in-chief and will oversee its editorial organization.

• Journalists this week expressed story interest in places to travel on a $1000 budget, lesser known U.S. destinations, and LGBTQA travel trends ahead of Pride Month.

03/ In The Zeitgeist

• Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, pledged $100 million to Barack and Michelle Obama’s charitable foundation that links education and travel with funds put towards a two-year program, titled as the Voyager Scholarship, intended to relieve college students of debt, facilitate travel experiences and provide mentors.

• The popular UK reality show, Love Island, announced they will drop all fast fashion from the show and have partnered with eBay to use all secondhand clothing during filming in an effort to air conversations about sustainable fashion and encourage contestants to repeat outfits.

Industry Insights

• The NoMo SoHo Hotel has become the first hotel in the U.S. to offer reservations via NFTs. The brand has released 300 NFTs, providing guests the ability to reserve three to six nights depending on the NFT they purchased. Booking via the NFT package will be similar to using any sort of promo code, giving buyers a seamless experience and the chance to lock in competitive prices at a time when NYC hotel rates are rising. 

• The Republic of Palau is launching Ol’au Palau, a gaming app that promotes sustainable tourism through incentivizing travelers to complete eco-friendly activities. Responsibilities include applying reef-safe sunscreen and eating local. By completing the tasks, tourists can unlock exclusive cultural experiences normally reserved for Palauans. 

• L’Oreal and Tripadvisor partnered to create the ‘Travel Essentials: Reserve + Collect’ program where shoppers can preorder travel essentials to pick up at the airport before a flight. L’Oreal product recommendations now appear on Tripadvisor’s search and book function tool, with directions to the L’Oreal branded duty free shopping sites. 

• Mastercard Economic Institute’s ‘Travel 2022: Trends & Transitions’ report found that business flyers are returning to the skies, with bookings surpassing 2019 levels at the end of March. Europe is leading the way for business travel with 550 million more flights booked in 2022. 

• Marriott partnered with Yahoo to introduce ‘Marriott Media Network’, a platform to help advertisers target consumers. Marketers will get access to Marriott's data on guests, and have the ability to launch personalized ads on hotel TVs, WiFi and more. 

• Delta Air Lines and American Express are launching a co-branded ‘If You Travel, You Know’ (IYTYK) campaign, playing on the ‘If You Know, You Know’ saying, to inform Delta SkyMiles card members about personalized travel experiences available to them. The ads are targeted toward young, well-traveled cardholders using exclusivity as a driving persuasive technique. 

• JetBlue is continuing its fight to acquire Spirit Airlines with a new offer valued at $3.2 billion. If accepted, JetBlue has the potential to control 10% of the market and become a top competitor to the four other large U.S. carriers. 

• The Biden Administration reinstated educational group travel to Cuba, allowing American travelers the chance to visit the country exclusively through purposeful group trips that “allow for greater engagement between the American people and the promotion of their democratic values.”

COVID-Related Updates

• The CDC moved South Africa, Antigua and Barbuda, Lesthoso, and Taiwan to its “high risk” Level 3 category. The Level 4 ranking category is now being reserved for new detected variants or extremely high case counts. At the moment, no destinations are ranked in this category. 

• Japan has begun a trial period of reallowing tourists from Australia, Thailand, Singapore and the U.S. who are triple vaccinated. After reaching a key milestone of three straight days with no community transmissions, Shanghai is preparing to reopen its doors in early June. On May 21, Israel will eliminate pre-arrival COVID testing for all travelers.

Best Practices

01/ The Good

• Cadbury launched its “Give a Doubt” campaign to inspire confidence in young people with limited-edition chocolate bars displaying the doubts of famous soccer players, as well as revealing insecurities of celebrities, in order to demonstrate that struggles don’t hold them back.

• United Airlines recently debuted their biggest ad campaign in over a decade. The ‘Good Leads the Way’ campaign highlights the company’s ongoing commitment to driving substantial change and going above and beyond the norm for sustainability, inclusivity, customer health and safety, and more. In addition, the company has turned trash cans in Huntington Beach, California into advertisements – noting that the garbage within, can be turned into jet fuel.

02/ The Bad

• Grubhub’s free lunch offer on May 17th for New Yorkers resulted in an average of 6,000 orders per minute and backfired after leaving restaurants uninformed and overwhelmed with countless orders undelivered as there weren’t enough drivers to meet demand.

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