Hello everybody, and thank you so much for joining us for this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Coming up this hour. We look at the state of antitrust in America with a paramount Skydance takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery getting final approval from the Justice Department. But is it final? We'll discuss with Jenniferree of Bloomberg Intelligence. Plus, the official
start of summer is just days away. We'll look at what's in store for summer travel season with Nicki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits. But we begin with earnings because one of the big flyers in the tech space,
Micron Technology, is set to report next week. For a look at that and more of what the tech landscape's looking like about halfway through the year, we are very pleased to welcome man Deep Singh, Global head of Technology Research at Bloomberg Intelligence, along with Bloomberg Intelligence Senior tech analyst anurag Rana. It's great to have the both of
you with us on this holiday. I mean, you just think about the run, not just Micron, but pretty much all of the memory chip stocks have had this year. It has been mind boggling, Mandy, what are we expecting when we actually hear second quarter numbers from Micron in the coming week.
When it comes to Micron, they have had a phenomenal upward revision this year simply because memory demand has inflected. First we saw that with HPM, the high bandwidth memory that was used with all the accelerator chips. Now we have seen the same with DRAM and nand and other
types of memory. And you know, there is a lot of stockpiling going on, but for a good reason, because you know, when you look at the large ANGLEIG models and the inference in side of llms, there is no doubt that you know, these models are being used for you use cases like coding agents, and that has just resulted in a lot more demand for all types of memories. And that's showing up in the device upgrades, that showing
up in the new server deployments. But this is a very big secular trend and which is why you're seeing, you know, Micron probably going to post to over two hundred percent growth, you know this year in twenty twenty six.
That demand has led to huge increases as you know, in memory chip prices and huge increases in capital expenditure forecast by so many of these companies. I wonder when we start to see a top on both of those man deep do you see that on the horizon.
The way these cycles work is, you know, as you know, Memories and oligopoly with Micron, s Kehinex and Samsung, and these companies haven't really expanded their capacity in a big way.
So when you look at the capex of the memory companies, they've been more around you know, mid to high single digit type of capacity expansion and the sort of demand trends that I alluded to earlier, we have seen demand grow you know, two x three x. So when there is such big you know, supply demand mismatch, I mean, the pricing obviously is off the charge, which is a big driver of what the top line growth of over
two hundred percent. But we don't see that you know, supply demand coming into equilibrium anytime soon, simply because that capacity expansion is so muted. And until these memory companies expand their supply in a big way, or we find you know, there is a new memory player out of China or somewhere else, it's hard to imagine, you know, what will resolve this mismatch anytime soon.
I want to bring you into the conversation, Anna rog because I know you cover many of the hyperscalers that are behind so much of this memory demand, as well as the software stocks that could potentially be disrupted by what we're seeing in the AI build out. What's your view on where the demand pictures headed from here?
So it looks like that the kapex is going to be revised upward again, which is obviously good for all the semi names and memory as when he was talking about, but that's really the big you know focus right now.
We came into the ear with a very common trait that was everybody's long semis and shot software and that continues to be the case, although you know, we have seen some relief over the past few weeks for software names, but you know, the easy trade for everybody is Kapix is going up, so the hardware and the semi names should benefit because of all that's going into that realm. And we are uncertain how the software world is going to shape up because these models are getting smarter day
by day. And if that's the case, you don't need to pay so much for packet software down the road. So that still remains the case if you look at it. You know, Microsoft is down over fifteen percent this year, and yet some of the other cloud vendors such as Amazon up is up this year. So that's that's your dichotomy over there.
Well and Rock, how do you see the software name sort of navigating the potential for disruption at this point. We haven't just heard from the hyperscalers. You've heard from the likes of Adobe and Oracle as well.
Yeah, I mean each one of them has a different story that's going through it at this point. So when you look at you know, we published a big report earlier in the year. When you look at bigger companies like SAP, we think they are a little bit better protected then maybe somebody like an Adobe, where the product or the LMS can do some of that model generation or the image generation as well as the as movie generation. And I think that's where a lot of the arguments is.
We are not seeing a lot of fundamentals get eroded at this point only because we are still early in the AI model race. But down the road there is a high chance that some of them will lose business to the lower end of the market. The bigger question is whether enterprises will shift into their homegrown systems or they still depend on the likes of Workday and Salesforce
and all the other companies. At this point, we are not seeing that mass shift over because again, as I said, it's early in the game, but I think that's the big risk for them.
We're speaking with annorag Rana, senior tech analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence, along with bi's global head of Tech research Mandeep saying for a broad look at the tech space as we're
getting closer to the second half of the year. Mandeep, of course, one of the big elephants in the room in tech right now is the arrival of SpaceX in the public market, not just a rocket company, but positioning itself as a major player in AI as well with these dreams of data centers in orbit at some point, how do you see SpaceX affecting the overall AI race Now that it's in the public market, That.
Makes it even more exciting in terms of you know what we are witnessing with this big technology shift that we are talking about in terms of AI and with space really, you know, it's SpaceX with IPO has shown that it is iconic in terms of what they have achieved.
And even with the orbital data center vision, I know, you know, right now we don't have anything tangible in terms of actual compute being done in orbital data center, but as a concept, you know, it is huge in terms of meeting some of the compute requirements that we
are talking about with AI. And if that vision turns into a reality, which is what they laid out, you know with the road show, it could be huge for you know, just the technology dominance that these companies have had, and I think the aipiece of SpaceX is clearly a
vertical strategy that they are pursuing. You know, not only do they have the compute with the terrestrial data centers, they also have this orbital data center capacity and they can deploy it within their own rock model, which is what they're hoping to improve with the acquisition of Cursors. So a lot of moving parts in that company, but you know, they have a grand vision and if there's anyone who can make that space vision a reality, I would bet on SpaceX. And so it is a big bet.
And we still don't know how feasible it is to you know, send these one hundred ton loads to space because they've shown they can do that for up to twenty three fifty tons, but sending it one hundred tons of payload and then doing that in a reusable way, that is the part that I think technology challenge that still needs to be solved for, and I think SpaceX is best position to do that.
Of course, it is early days in terms of how SpaceX is going to perform in the market, and to your point on a rock about it being early days in the AI race in general, in terms of the stocks that you cover, some of those software names. Is there a SpaceX impact on your coverage area.
No, there is no SpaceX direct impact other than you know, the traders trying to you know, I would say fivoit more towards those kinds of names, and perhaps you know, selling some of the traditional technology names, whether it's in consulting or software. I mean, we have seen some pressure on that in the last few weeks, but you know, by and large, there is no direct impact.
There are so many dynamics around the tech story as well, not just this huge amount of competition, the valuations, but you know, there's been some level of pushback as well, not just from many consumers who are concerned about AI's impact on their job prospects or society as a whole, but some government pushback as well when it comes to Anthropic in particular. Man, Deep, how do you see that potentially affecting how things go in terms of the fundamentals for these companies.
Yeah, Look, Anthropic has had a phenomenal growth this year here to Their revenue has grown, you know, five x from where they were back in December, and you know, it's a forty seven billion dollar revenue run rate business. So if something like this happens where a government bands, you know, the use of its models outside the country, it is a big deal and it will have repercussions in terms of, you know, what kind of growth we can expect, especially outside the US for a frontier model
like Entropic. But it's still early days. I think Entropic being labeled the supply chain risk was always a threat. And you know, they talked about the capabilities of this Mythos model, which they commercially released under a new name called Fable. This has capabilities that could be used for all sorts of purpose is not just for useful work, but also you know, for cyber attacks, and I think
poses a lot of risks. So from that perspective, we are still learning about the capabilities of this model, and I think like all these frontier labs may have to take a pause and really highlight the risks involved in
deploying these models at scale. And that's where I think the governments will step in and make sure that sovereign element is clear, and you know, they know exactly how to regulate this, so there will be a lot more emphasis on regulation and government involvement with the deployment of these models going forward.
Really appreciate the perspective from both of you as we keep a closer eye on the tech space into the second half. That's on a rag Rana and man Deep sing covering tech for Bloomberg Intelligence. Up next, we're going to take a look at the current state of anti trust with Jennifer Reed of blaeg Intelligence. It's twenty minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg. Welcome back to this special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US
markets are closed for the Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. The Justice Departments closed, it's antitrust probe into Paramount Skydance, and it's one hundred and ten billion dollar purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery. But it's far from a done deal. For more, let's bring in Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analysts Jennifer Ree set up the leading question, Jen why is it not a done deal?
Right?
You'd think that that would be a big hurdle for them to cross, but it wasn't really much of a surprise, to be honest. But this deal needs approval from regulators in the UK and also in Europe before it can close. That's a term within their agreement, but also the laws of those jurisdictions say that they need to get clearance
before they've closed. And so those are ongoing investigations with some important dates coming up in July and August, whereby each one will decide whether or not they'll move into an in depth investigation of the deal or cleared the deal with or without concessions.
So, the UK and the EU, what are the main hurdles that they could potentially be putting up against Paramount sky Dance in that Warner Brothers acquisition, So.
They're looking at a lot of what I think challengers or complainants in this country have looked at the overlap in the movie theaters. It's really kind of Big five going down to Big four. There's some other fringe studios, but specifically, I think in Europe the concern might be
an overlap in children's television stations. Most children's television stations in both the UK and Europe are owned by American companies, And with this combination Paramount and Warner Brothers, you bring together cartoon network Nickel, Nick Junior, cartoon Nito, and they both have some international children's channels as well. So I suspect that there may be some concessions needed with respect to divesting some of those channels.
Okay, I think there'd been some Bloomberg News reporting that Paramount sky Dance might be willing to work with some of the regulators overseas on potentially divesting some of those children's channels. Would that be enough? You know?
I think it will maybe with a few behavioral concessions, like promises to license their content to other distributors. Streaming distributors in those jurisdictions on fair, reasonable and non discriminatory terms rather than favoring their own streaming products. A few behavioral concessions, but I think that'll probably be enough to get those deals over the line. You know, when Disney acquired Fox, this is what they had to do. In Europe, there was an issue there with an overlap in what
they called factual channels. These were mostly channels operated by A and E, and in order to get that deal cleared, they did need to divest I think with something five or six channels that were A and E stations.
Now, if the deal does get over the line in the UK and EU, would that be the ultimate clearance for this?
So not necessarily. You have the California Attorney General investigating the deal now with apparently a group of about ten or nine other states. The states have the right independently to enforce federal antitrust law no matter what the Department of Justice does. So if the States determined that they think the deal could harm competition, they can still bring a lawsuit. And they keep saying, hey, this isn't over yet.
We're investigating and we're not done yet, so it's possible they could still go to court to challenge the deal. Even though it's been cleared by the DOJ and will likely be cleared elsewhere too.
And to that point, the Justice Department has said they don't think that joining these two companies would be unfair to competition. So what are the potential arguments that the States could make.
Well, the first thing I'll say about this is that the Department of Justice did say that, but gave very very little detail. They basically just said, hey, it's a competitive market. And these companies have promised the world. They've promised to invest, They've promised to maintain employment, they've promised to increase their slate of movies they produce, and to
maintain theatrical distribution before going to streaming. But usually that's not those kinds of promises aren't good enough in somebody. Usually the authorities want those to be put down on paper. So it may be that the states there are a couple options here. The States just simply want to do better than saying here's what the company said they would do, and we're okay with that. You know, they might want some kind of a settlement. So the States are legally
bound to those the companies are legally bound. And again I think there's a lot of room here. You know, antitrust and harm to markets can really be very gray and can be subjective. You know, where one assessment could show unlikely harm, another could show likely harm. Because remember they're looking at what might happen in the future, if two companies come together, what might their incentives be, what
might happen in the market, So everybody speculating. Obviously it's not out of the realm of possibility that two different speculators could come out differently on that. And in the markets here, it's really very close. We tend to think of about a thirty percent combined market share as kind of being that level by which below it you're probably not too worried, but above it, maybe you have some
concern about harm. And I do have to say, in most of the overlap markets for this deal, the shares get to about that level, but don't exceed that level. So it's hard to make out kind of an initial case that this could harm competition. But in particular, I think California is concerned about labor and the labor market in those cities in the state where they're making movies and content.
Yeah, to have California potentially leading the charge on a challenge to this merger. It makes you think that, you know, this is kind of the home state, right, I mean, this is where Hollywood is. So what's the track record or is there a track recw for California when it comes to mounting challenges to mergers in their sort of home state industry.
I would say that that track record is pretty good, but it's very new.
You.
It is unusual in the past for the states to go out independently. They're generally aligned with the federal antitrust enforcers. But what we have seen as a bit of a departure in the last couple of years whereby states are striking out independently in cases where they deemed the Department of Justice having been to lax or not doing it their job, and they've had some success. So, for instance,
Nextstar Integna have merged. They were cleared by the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, but the States said, not so fast, we think this is a problematic deal. They went to court. They tried to get to court before the deal closed, but they didn't manage to do that. But they went to court and they successfully obtained a preliminary injunction stopping the companies for now from integrating until the judge can decide on a permanent block on the deal,
So that's in litigation. They also had great success in a lawsuit against Live Nation for monopolization. That was a jury trial and the Department of Justice was a plaintiff with the States there, but settled during the first week of trial. But at a large group of states said no, this is a problematic deal. The settlement doesn't resolve the concerns. They went forward. They litigated the case and they have won a liability decision, so again a big success for them,
and that's still litigating now. The remedy aspect of that is what we're looking at.
Now.
We're speaking with Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree on where the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers merger could go now that the Justice Department has approved the deal. If we do get to a point, Jen where the States bring a lawsuit and it does come to court, what are the potential arguments that Paramount Skydance could make in their defense that you know, combining with Warner Brothers wouldn't be a harm to competition.
Well, I think exactly what they've said to the Department of Justice. No, we're promising something like thirty releases, and if we're going to release that many movies, we need to maintain both of these studios and maintain the employment because otherwise we can't get to that volume that we promise a certain theatrical release window in big theaters, and so it's not going to harm theaters, and it won't
harm labor and g and streaming. When we combine HBO Max and Discovery Plus and Paramount Plus, we're still much smaller than all the other big streamers out there, Netflix in particular, and combined we only get to about I think a fifteen percent share in the United States. And these are just simply not historically problematic figures in antitrusturisprudence. So I think those are the kind of arguments they'll make.
And if it gets to that point that we do see those kinds of arguments, could we see the Justice Department looking for further commitments or even further concessions from Paramount I.
Think not at this point, because as of June sixteenth, the Department of Justice cleared the deal and issued a statement saying, you know, we're done. We don't think it would harm competition, but you could see a settlement with the companies in the States whereby they make certain promises.
Now, time is of the essence, isn't it for paramount s guidance to really get this deal done to avoid ticking fees to Warner Brothers Discovery? Right, So how does that affect things?
Right?
So, they have this ticking fee that'll kick in at the end of September. I mean interestingly, the end date in their purchase agreement it isn't until June of twenty twenty seven, so they technically have time in their agreement
to litigate if they have to. But what they're going to need to do if they get this clearance, these clearances from the UK and the EU, but the States go ahead and sue them, they're going to have to fight hard against a preliminary injunction that would be a temporary or short term block on closing the deal, while a judge can decide on a more permanent solution, because that would absolutely extend well beyond that September thirtieth date
by which the ticking fee would kick in. And I'm thinking they're probably going to want to avoid pay that, So they'll be fighting hard at that stage of the litigation or I think trying hard to settle with the States.
Could that affect the further the terms of the deal to try to get out from under those ticking fees as fast as they can.
You know, I don't think so. I think they're just going to do everything they can to fight hard and put resources into this and to be aggressive to try to prevent anything that stops them from closing before that September thirty date.
So how do you see this shaking out as we get closer to that. You mentioned the dispute in the UK and the EU trying to get through that as well. What's the timetable? How do you see things playing out?
You know, I think what the companies will do is offer up concessions in the UK and EU and get those jurisdictions to clear before going into in depth investigations, because if either one did open an in depth investigation,
it would absolutely extend well beyond September thirty. Right now, they're in what they call a phase one, whereas an in depth would be phase two, and Europe has to make a decision about that July seventh in the UK on August seventh, But the companies can offer concessions before those dates, and I think that they will do that because then they can get these clearances before September thirty for sure, and I think that's how that'll probably play out.
Do you see any chance of any of these factors scrubbing the deal? I wonder if Netflix is sort of still waiting in the wings there, or is that just way out of left.
Field, you know, No, I think Netflix might still be waiting in the wings. There's been so much vocal opposition to the deal that I think many observers might think there's some chance of getting it blocked. I would say that when you really dive into the nitty gritty, it just doesn't really raise clear cut or slam dunk antitrust issues that a judge can easily rule on against the companies.
Netflix may be waiting in the wings, but I do say Netflix has a bigger problem than Paramount on the anti trust because they are so big in streaming, so adding on HBO Max would probably be a problem for Netflix.
And in our last minute, Jen, what other antitrust cases do you potentially see coming down the pike? That could pit States against the Justice Department. What's on your radar?
Well, you know, I'm really mostly watching the litigation that's ongoing now with respect to Nextstar and Live Nation. What I think could happen down the road. We have these really big anti trust lawsuits against Apple and against Amazon. Amazon is the ftc, Apple is the United States Department of Justice, and if they follow the patterns that have been occurring since President Trump was reelected, there's some chance
those cases could settle. So my question there would be, will the States go on in those two cases, one against Apple, one against Amazon, or either one as they did in Live Nation if the federal anti trust enforces decide to settle. So that's a little bit down the road, though. We're looking more into twenty twenty seven for activity in those cases. But I'm watching those all right.
Well, it never stops, doesn't It doesn't. Thank you for this jet again, really great having you on with us. That's Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Litigation analyst Jennifer Rae And up next, we're going to look at some travel options this summer with Nicki Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits. It's thirty seven minutes past the hour. I'm Nathan Hager, and this is Bloomberg. Thank you so much for joining us for the special edition of Bloomberg Daybreak. US markets are
closed for the Juneteenth holiday. I'm Nathan Hager, and we are just days away from the official start of summer, so we thought this would be a kind of a good time to think about travel. Many of us are getting ready to head out for vacations if we haven't already, but this year is different than most. The war in the Middle East has driven up gas, oil and jet fuel prices for more. We're pleased to welcome from Bloomberg Pursuits, Nikki Eckstein and Chris Rouser. Great to have the both
of you with us. So while we think about travel, because you know, a lot of the airlines even as the war has been underway, we're predicting this summer was going to be busy, Nikki, are is that what we're seeing play out right now?
You know, people are not really willing to cut back on travel this summer. There's data showing that sixty six percent of people are still spending more on their trips, even if forty three percent of them are using their savings in order to do that. So definitely, people are still very much hitting the road near, far and everything in between.
Is it just the road or are we expecting, Chris, that the airports are going to be packed no matter what time of the summer this.
Is, the airports are going to be chaotic. And yes, we expect that airports are going to be packed. People are going to be flying and you know, people are putting a lot of trips on credit cards. People are building in extra time to be in airports. The dwell time in airports has gone up over the past few years, and people are know that there might be chaos, so they show up early, they do some shopping, they eat it, they eat some restaurants, and they just they give themselves more wiggle room.
So let's talk about you know, you mentioned how people are paying for travel with credit cards more this year, Nikki. Is there still a big need for travel points or are people sort of dipping into those credit cards to get their trips off the ground.
Here.
Oh, absolutely so. The use of rewards to pay for your travel is up eight hundred and twenty percent this summer, wow, which is a wild figure. I mean, we always have known that people love to use points and miles in order to get what they call free trips. Whether it's really free or not, you and I can just you know, we can debate that. But there's also a lot more tools out there to help you make better use of
your points and miles. There's a lot more services that are popping up to make sure that if you book, for instance, a flight on points and that cost of the flight goes down in some kind of weird miracle, you can get automatically rebooked to make sure that you're not leaving miles on the table. The same is true for hotels. So I think people are getting very wise to those tools and trying to be very smart about how they use this currency that is more valuable than
ever this summer. I would say, if that's something that you want to do, there's a website called Gondola for hotels. It automatically rebooks you when you're when your price drops if that should happen. And there's a couple also for for points and miles when you're booking flights. We've got a whole list of these, but point dot me and seats dot arrow are the two that really stand out.
Well, I can't think of how many times I've been in coach and you know, heard from the flight attendant passing around the credit card application for their loyalty credit card and the points you can get. Chris, do those kind of offers still make sense these days?
Yeah?
I mean people, you know, the airline are basically miles and rewards companies. That's where they make all their money, and their strategy is oriented towards that. But something that we learned from Brian Kelly, the points guy, is actually that you should the best rewards come from getting like a multi brand card, so like you Chase Saphire Reward or an American Express Card Platinum card. Those gives you the give you the more broad points that you can
use on lots of different things, and they're transferable. I am like a Delta loyalist and so I am addicted to my Delta Platinum card and but that really locks me in with Delta, and actually the benefits on other cards that have points and miles that you know you get three dollars for for gas purchases or grocery store purchases, that kind of stuff actually can be better.
Yeah, I'm going to be admitting a little bit of something here. When I book tickets, often I try to get the you know, the lowest economy rate that I possibly can, you know, just to get the cheapest rate. But when it comes to things like being able to rebook, does it make more sense now to try to pay up for that higher tier just in case your plans change?
Nikki, Well, certainly there's two ways to approach that question. There's the question of refundable bookings, where you can pay a little bit more. You know, it's a sliding scale cost to get a refundable either a plane ticket or hotel room, where you're not necessarily committed upfront to a locked in cost. You can always, you know, decide if your plans change, somebody get sick, the geopolitical situation evolves,
you can make a change no matter what. The other way is to pursue something called cancel for any reason. Travel insurance. It can be a bit expensive. Sometimes it goes up to like fifteen percent of your total travel cost, and you have to sign up for these policies like immediately after booking your flights and hotels. You can't really delay between when you book your trip and you book your travel insurance. So those are the two things that exist to protect you from all of the different factors
that might change your plans. I would price compare. There's a website called square mouth that helps you compare the price of various insurance policies and providers so that you can kind of just look side by side at what you're getting and what it costs. And I would do that next to your airfare search that shows you what a non refundable ticket looks like versus a refundable ticket.
Yeah, I kind of bring issues up because I'm sure I'm not the only traveler who's thinking about ways to try to save money here and there, just because you know, there are so many fees nowadays as well, and you think about the bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines and a lot of commentary that maybe that was going to have an effect on pricing power for airlines as well. So, Chris, do you see any of this sort of deterring people or having them rethink how they're booking their travel this summer?
I mean a lot of the airlines are really focused on the higher end of their travelers, so they break up the there's like elite tier, you know, there's the first class, there's you know, the second class, there's third class, and then they and then they have actually lowered what the bottom economy tier is. So like some airlines have a basic economy where you really got to look at what you what you're signing up for because it is the cheapest fair but you can't make changes, you don't
get to pick your seat. You know, there's no check bags. So what we used to think of as sort of the floor of what you have, the grace that you kept during traveling, actually they found a way to sort of remove even some of that, so you know, paying a little bit for the additional perks actually kind of only gets you to where you sort of assumed we were at base level.
Before speaking with Chris Rouser and Nikki k Stein of Bloomberg Pursuits, as we start to think about summer travel season, we've talked about, you know, some of the ways we can try to save money here, let's talk about where we can go now to put that money to you. So I want to start with you, Nikki, what are some of the best places to go this summer? Just if you're looking for value.
If you're looking for value, then it's less about where you go than about how you go. Bear with me on this one. Okay, I am not a cruiser personally, no offense to all of the many many people who are, but it is not my usual preferred style travel. That said, this is the summer where even if you're like me, you might consider a cruise. There are more high end options than have ever existed before. There are a lot of hotel lines that have introduced yacht like sailing products
on small ships. We're talking about a couple hundred passengers at most on a ship. These are not like floating megacities. And while the rates seem expensive on the surface, we're talking about maybe six hundred to one thousand dollars a
night per room. If you compare that to what you get on land in the most popular places in Europe or in the Mediterranean, where a lot of these ships are sailing, the value is actually mismatched in a way that's really really pealing to cruisers, especially when you think about food being built in. Some of your excursions may be built in. Some of the on ship amenities, for sure, are built in. You're getting a much better deal for
what is now a comparable product in terms of luxury. Certainly, trains are another thing that we don't think about quite so much. I was looking at a route on the Rocky Mountaineer in Canada, which hits a bunch of beautiful national parks as well as cities going all you know, from east to west across the lower border of Canada basically, and you can get away with paying five hundred dollars a day, which on land is a really tricky ceiling at this point to break.
Well, I got to admit, you know, across transcontinental train trip is one of those bucket list items for me for sure, and it gets you thinking about, you know, whether all inclusive is a better option this summer than you know, maybe you know, going to a luxury hotel and then you know, separating the flight that sort of thing. Chris, does all inclusive make more sense this summer than it has in the past.
You know, all inclusive has sort of been a little bit of a family secret and maybe like a bachelorette party or spring break secret. But yeah, in some cases, you know a lot of booking through a tour company that creates everything for you, working with a travel agent who can actually find you a package deal. Working with a human who can sort of steer you to something where all the costs are built in actually can be a real plus, and people don't always think of it.
It like cruising, working on a package tour all inclusive thing can get a bad rep, but actually what we think of from twenty thirty years ago, in terms of the level of amenities and the food for example, actually can be quite cheap.
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, Chris, because so many travelers these days are probably booking their trips through artificial intelligence. Vicky, does it really make more sense to still work with a travel agent than to let the chatbot do it for you?
You know what a lot of people don't realize is that it doesn't cost you anything to work with a travel agent almost you know, ten out of ten times, the cost of a travel agent is not passed on to the consumer. It's actually passed on to your hotel or different providers along the way, who pay commission to the travel agent for their services, not the traveler themselves. And what the traveler gets out of this is a
backup policy. It's a safety net if anything should go wrong on your trip, if your flight is canceled if you know, whether it gets in your way, whatever it may be. And we know how hard it is to avoid anything going wrong on your travels. These days, you have a real human in your pocket who is really well hooked up to help you out and get you
out of trouble in that exact moment. I've been caught in really tricky situations in the last couple of months, and I've been so thankful to have a real human to call who can rebook my flights, you know, whatever it might be. Gosh, it makes a huge difference.
So just to close this out, Chris, when it comes to you know, sort of out of the radar destinations, places you might want to go to just to avoid the crowds that you talked about that there are going to be at the airports this summer. What are you thinking about?
We have some great recommendations. Nikki in the BusinessWeek section of Pursuits did a whole summer travel package which has some really great ideas. One of my favorite stories was one that a writer named Paul Richardson did about Extremadura, which is in Spain. It's in southwestern Spain. You're Portugal and it's this mountainous region, beautiful towns and incredible culture, new museums, great luxury hotels. I've been to Spain a
bunch of times. I lived there for a while, and I had never been there myself, and you know, when you go to Madrid, Barcelona, a lot of those places are quite crowded now because everyone has sort of, you know, woken up to the beauties of Spain and the amazing food, and so finding places that feel really authentic but also not really overrun is very special. And Extremodora has some really beautiful towns that are really great to visit and not packed.
So great to get these summer travel ideas from the both of you. Thanks so much for being with us. That is Nicky Eckstein and Chris Rouser of Bloomberg Pursuits. We'd also like to thank Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer ree Man, Deep Sing and honorog Run. Of course, thanks to you as well for joining us on this holiday. I'm Nathan Hager. Stay with us. Top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.