Fake Listener Mailbag - 2024 Edition

Here we still have no mailbag .

Whenever we'd get together , we'd have long some say too long conversations about the hotel industry , and you , as a veteran , were able to illuminate things in such a way as to make me feel like I knew what was actually going on for once . And we've decided to carry through that tradition with fake listener mailbag . We're the listeners .

Some of these actually are inspired by friends and family who have tuned in over the last year , but a lot of them are things that we actually really want to ask each other . All right , jeff , first fake question what are some of the best travel and travel business articles you've read this year ?

It's must read as much as any material I see on where the business is going . More fun than that I think we've seen some fun things this year , like you know . A lot of focus on experiences driving leisure travel things this year . A lot of focus on experiences driving leisure travel .

What makes people get out the door is what marketers are being increasingly encouraged to go focus on in their effort . Why leave the house and with that , airbnb is hosting a gladiator fight in the Coliseum in Rome . How does that not make the list ?

Cbre did a great analysis and wrote an article on loyalty programs and I thought that was one of the better studies of the year . Dry for sure , right ? I mean , this is about the economics of the business . It's a cure for insomnia for some . I found it fascinating . Is there anything that stood out to you ?

The author's name let me look this up Raphael Kroll Zadie , I think , is his name , and it's a personal history and then an actual history of Branson , missouri , and it's an attraction that he's been going to for years . You know , when you and I were growing up , branson really had kind of a cultural moment .

I think in the 80s and 90s Branson was like a legit destination and in fact the article kind of goes into you know the acts that sort of flirted with Duny Res residency there , including Guns N' Roses at the height of their power , was actually thinking about doing like a I don't know like a three-month stint Branson , because it was sort of this you know

Gatlinburg , pigeon Forge , sort of .

You know Wisconsin Dells , ozark kind of thing , and while those places definitely have connotations with them , branson was riding high and now that's sort of crested and you know , for all of its ridiculousness , there's kind of a raw humanity to what this place was and what this place is the tackiness , the crowded nature of it , but how and why people congregated

there . And this guy really gets into it . The thing's probably like a 10,000 word article . The centerpiece of it is his interview with Yakov Smirnoff , famed 80s comic . He's actually a pretty erudite guy . He got his doctorate from Pepperdine later in his career and sits down for a couple of interviews with him that are pretty lucid and informative .

So yes , the Branson Pilgrim in Harper's for anybody who wants a journey into the heart of America . We don't get enough of those these days .

Everybody prepared , supposedly I'm not sure what they did and then all of a sudden , google's like yeah , we're going to keep it , it's helpful for us . What do we actually do about that ? This is the most core , fundamental thing in digital marketing , and it totally went 180 degrees twice .

I also want to recommend and again these are a little more travel versus travel business , but they do intersect Outside Magazine , which always does excellent travel reporting , has a writer named Gloria Liu who did a great piece on I-70 , colorado's notoriously gridlocked ski highway . Anytime that she has reportage in Outside it's worth checking out .

Also , the Washington Post has a really robust travel section which I had not really keyed into until this year . They do a lot of articles that are a little more consumer friendly .

They're not coming at it straight from the business side , but they do mix and match the personal experience of travel with the business side of it and I recommend that for anybody who can kind of hustle their way into a post subscription . Okay , here's what we'll do next here . All right , jeff , here's one for you . Inspired by my father .

He sent me an article on La Paz in Mexico and how it's going to be a hot destination . Already is a hot destination , getting hotter by the by the month . What is the next hot destination in the world for people to go to that maybe has not been hot before ?

The Year of the Snake in China probably will not be great for travel to China , at least not from the Western Hemisphere yet , but they'll be opening the world's largest indoor ski facility in Shenzhen . You know , I think Europe is probably the answer here , matt , and it will stay hot . The dollar is so strong .

Going abroad is going to remain , I think the MO for the American traveler Dollar goes a long way . Internationals are still probably staying away from the US . Right , the inbound to the US . We're still just on the value of an elevated currency , 25 to 35% more expensive than we used to be , and that'll have a negative impact .

So , america not hot , europe quite hot Within Europe , I think . The UK in particular . The inaugural South by Southwest London will take place this June and , of course , you and I will be attending the Great British Beer Festival in August , one of the world's great beer festivals . All this no-show cash , I mean .

I can't figure , any better way for us to go blow all this sponsorship money we've been raking in ?

I suspect that , paradoxically though , the UK next month or in the coming quarter will introduce an arrival processing that is elevated and a fee to go along with it . So come visit the UK . We can't wait to see you . By the way , here's more paperwork than ever and a fine for arriving . But I do think Europe will stay hot .

Italy , heather and I will be going there this coming summer . Unfortunately , that overlaps with Jubilee , which is an event that takes place every 25 years . Catholics come around the world to gather in Rome for some spiritual . We will not be joining those festivities , but I think Italy itself will stay quite hot Not hot .

We mentioned US , but I think 26 is going to be a great year . So we're probably another year away from great inbound travel . We host FIFA's World Cup . Philadelphia has the semi-quincentennial . Say that a couple times for what we've been at the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence .

So there'll be all kinds of fanfare and there'll be All-Star in Philadelphia , right . When Philly does well , america does well . Right , it's not the most visited place and so it's kind of a nice barometer for inbound US travel . If Philly is elevated in travel numbers from outside the country , the rest of the US should do quite well .

But we're probably a year away . All right , you ready for one ?

In China you can go the distance of Chicago to New York in four and a half hours . It's 700 miles between Chicago and New York . There's no reason why those two cities in particular couldn't link up with the East Coast in a high-speed train . You could be there in six or seven hours .

And the argument is never that we're going to give up our cars to take the train . America will never give up its cars . I get it . The train is an alternative to airplanes . Everybody complains about air travel . The romance of it is dead unless you're in business or first class . It's a hassle , it's expensive and it's getting more expensive by the day .

I think a train as a pitch argument of like would you rather spend six hours on a train or four hours on a flight ? I think people would choose the train because the experience would be more scenic . It might be more beneficial to the environment . But there's kind of studies out there that trump up the congestion part of it .

I think we have to kind of see what the effects of it were once we implemented it .

I just wish the country would rethink it . Southern California , they're really getting serious about this about a high-speed train as soon as 2026 for a two-hour ride between LA and Vegas . I think that makes perfect sense and I just think there's so many routes in the country where we could do it and we could do it effectively .

Part of the problem now with rethinking it is that Amtrak essentially shares a lot of its line with freight companies .

So when you start talking about high speed and when you start talking about dedicated routes , you got a lot of other players involved in making those kinds of decisions and doing extra tracks and maintenance and it's just a shame that we kind of had to sell out a little bit in order to get some of these tracks laid down , because it kind of impeded our future

thinking about what the ways that these tracks could work my formative years in travel were spent with a year rail pass in pocket and several different occasions in my life I saw the you know , nearly the entirety of the continent .

I think , as you and I talk often about the value of travel to humanity , right , the way you see the world and the way you change when you do , that training enables those benefits .

Price went up , but the service delivery has really stayed . I don't think there's much tolerance for that anymore and I think you're actually going to see , in some of the same ways that we've seen , real outlash for over tourism Right , the experience is bad , and I think over tourism , it's more like the experience is bad for the local .

Right , the experience is bad , and I think over tourism , it's more like the experience is bad for the local . I think , in this case , the experience , if it's not excellent at today's elevated prices , customers are going to start pushing back in a very meaningful and aggressive way , and they can do that . We can vote with their wallets and just not do it .

It can get surly with be it the desk agents or hotel operator , with air carriers and their representatives . I expect customers to really use their voices in a more powerful and potentially even kind of angry way . It's not new here .

Right , this has been coming , but I think you're going to see a real crunch time where product and service delivery better improve .

I think they mislead the business leaders because we're so drawn habitually to compare everything we do to year over year performance . And , matt , this year we will not have a February 29 . I mean now , practically , does that matter at all ?

It does not , but in reporting it will , and the way people are measured and bonused and the things they try to do , the tactical actions that they will go put in play , simply because one day of a calendar is missing . And so it changes the complexion of that month Easter , moving from March to fully in the back of April . It'll be on 420 this year .

Is it any different ? We had Easter every year for well , let's just call it 2000 years all round . Right , it doesn't change anything about the business , but we continue to get distracted by the silliness of the measure .

I mean , I think maybe the better or the easier example to illustrate that is in the festive season of Christmas , new Year's , jewish holidays , during that period we see . A few weeks from now , christmas will fall on a Wednesday . New Year's Eve will follow on the following Wednesday .

Two years ago they were on a Monday , and so the travel patterns were wildly different , as people took a whole week off when it was a Monday Monday , right , there was one really good week of travel in there .

But everybody is kind of expected to come back to work on January 2 , which was a Wednesday , and finish that up for a half week , whereas this year , with two Wednesday holidays and back-to-back weeks , it really messes up from a work pattern .

If maybe it's a good thing or a bad thing , take your pick right , but there are two weeks that are essentially not going to be working . That kind of thing changes the travel demand pattern significantly all right .

If I blindfolded you and walked you through the Hilton Garden Inn and a courtyard , could you tell I mean , the blindfold's probably not the right analogy , but if I stripped all the color and the branding off of those buildings and walked you through the lobby up to your room , all the color and the branding off of those buildings , and walked you through the lobby

up to your room , could you tell the difference ? I ? I like to look at merch in this way , right , uh , at the very high-end luxury places , people love to go into the gift shop and buy the merch it says . I was there , I was at the ritz-carlton , whatever , the four seasons something , the aman , whatever , uh , people like to to wear it around .

I don't know that's loyalty , though . Right , I think that's just a trophy . I want to announce to the world that we just got back from a ski vacation at this phenomenal resort . Like , I want to say that , and so I wear it , but I don't really see that , as do they care about the brand , probably not only for the way it makes them look Right .

I do this because I get a lot of points . I travel all the time for work and it just makes sense because the places I travel have pretty good Marriotts , so I'm just going to stay there or I have to go to these three cities a pretty decent amount for work , and the hotels are essentially across the street from the offices that I need to visit there .

Once you take away the functionality of the places , there are very few properties that I think people are like oh yeah , I'm oiled at that place , Just love it , I got to get back there .

And so when you think of the big hotel companies and of course there's Marriott and Hilton Hyatt rolls right off the tongue . Ihg and Choice are in there too , but of those major major players , I think Hyatt probably has true loyal guests and it's because they aren't doing . 200 million members , that's transactional .

I need my points , I'm going to travel all the time . Just give me my points . I want free wifi . Sign me up , sure . Whatever the product portfolio and the relatively small size of its loyalty program , I think you probably do find people who are genuinely saying I only travel to Hyatt because I want that , not because the rewards are so appealing , right .

I think the one thing I was thinking just in general is I've always wanted to kind of capture the colloquial kind of back and forth we have about the travel business Because , as I mentioned at the top of the show , we're able to talk about it in a way that can be deep and can get into some of the numbers , but not be so far in the weeds that you're

just at a five-day finance meeting , and I think that's something that we've improved upon . But I think that's something that we improved upon .

But I think it's something that I think both of us can probably think about first and foremost when we talk about these topics and when we we engage guests , because the guests that we talk to often are , you talk about , in the weeds .

These are people we've we've been very fortunate to talk to , people who are are the experts in their field and they will just go a mile a minute and it's impressive to kind of hear their command of the industry and command of numbers around the industry , and I think we always have to kind of remember that um and I need to do this in some of the editing

too it's it's like go back and define statistics and define acronyms , because even people in the travel business might not know everything that you're talking about . So I think , just stay curious , jeff , stay curious .

What would you like to say at the end ? Anything in particular , that's okay .