Luxury hotels are thriving while the mid-market weakens. Hawaiʻi luxury RevPAR is up 9% YTD, raising questions about inequality in travel demand.
Brand USA’s Shrinking Stage
Brand USA slashes 15% of staff after funding drops from $100M to $20M. With inbound tourism at 80% of 2019 levels, politics, not branding, is the issue.
Asia Travel Tech: A Blast from My Past
A travel-tech throwback worth watching, this new documentary charts Asia’s chaotic, high-growth OTA era with sharp storytelling and insider insight, capturing how the region leapt from faxes to digital dominance.
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Who’s Spending $100M, Who’s Selling Dirt, and Who Marked Us as Spam?
Waikīkī land sells for nine figures, the Green Fee brain trust is set, and yes, this newsletter might be hiding in your spam folder.
Is Google Chrome the next Netscape?
Netscape, IE, Chrome… and now Comet. AI browsers like Comet and ChatGPT are turning search into conversation, and hotels not in the chat may vanish.
A Politician with A Rationale Idea?
Sen. Wakai summed it up bluntly: HTA can’t both grow tourism and police bad visitor behavior—marketing should stay with HTA, but stewardship belongs elsewhere.
ADA Demand Letters: Pay Up or Lawyer Up
ADA demand letters are big business, but as Zarco Hotels showed, compliant hotels don’t have to pay up, fight back and you can even recover legal fees.
DirectBooker: “Direct” Bookings… Via Someone Else
DirectBooker wants to “fix” OTA dependence by becoming yet another middleman, feeding hotel data into ChatGPT and Gemini, just as Airbnb ramps up its own hotel push.
When the Airlines Call You Back
Alaska/Hawaiian’s Daniel Chun offers added context on the merger, emphasizing Hawai‘i-based A330s, expanding routes, new local jobs, refreshed tech, and a Hawai‘i-focused leadership team, promising commitment while acknowledging the road ahead.
Green Fee Gets Its Brain Trust
Hawaiʻi’s new Green Fee moves ahead with a 10-member advisory council—now tasked with figuring out how to spend the $100M a year the tax will generate, even as questions linger over where the money will really go.
