Let's Talk Travel

Albania up 550%. Africa more than doubling. And a core customer who might just be getting younger. Fresh from this week's ATAS conference, James Clarke and Andy Herrington are joined by Claire Brighton, Managing Director of the Association of Touring & Adventure Suppliers, to unpack the data everyone was photographing.

Some believe that total spend on travel has peaked (and we covered this in our episode 'Have we reached peak travel'. If this is the case, just how do travel companies grow? Diversification is potentially the travel word of 2027 with many leading travel brands looking to broaden not only their customer base and destinations, but their whole business models. Today, we're looking at some of the moves made and why they're happening and what other factors outside of the control of most companies,...

After looking at how hotels manage distribution, on this episode we put the OTA in the chair. James Spalding runs flight distribution across Northern Europe for Trip.com Group — the world’s largest OTA by market share, owner of Skyscanner, and the platform growing faster than any of its Western rivals. His job is to convince hotels and airlines that OTAs are worth what they charge. So we’re going to let him make that case — and then we’re going to test it.

Has geopolitical risk become something the travel industry now has to build permanently into its strategy?

The UK hospitality industry is under pressure like never before. Restaurants are closing. Pubs are disappearing from high streets. Operators are facing rising wages, employer National Insurance contributions, food costs, energy bills, business rates and VAT. And now the industry is asking Government for help. The current campaign, #VATsTheProblem, is calling for hospitality VAT to be reduced from 20% to 10%, bringing the UK closer to rates applied in countries including France, Italy and Spai...