Latest news with #JamieBiesiada
Travel Weekly
5 days ago
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Trade Secrets Tech Summit: Approach Guides
Subscribe now using your favorite service: This season, Trade Secrets is hosting the Trade Secrets Tech Summit. Every Monday, co-hosts Emma Weissmann and Jamie Biesiada will feature a different travel technology company that works with travel advisors. A representative from the featured company will begin with a 5-minute elevator pitch to tell advisors about their product, followed by a 15-minute Q-and-A with the hosts. This week's featured company is Approach Guides, represented by founder and chief marketing officer Jennifer Raezer. Trade Secrets is using Host Agency Reviews' list of technology providers as a basis for this season. If a technology company doesn't have a profile, advisors are encouraged to send a link to the hosts to be added to the list. This episode was sponsored by National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions. Further resources Approach Guides on the web Get in touch! Email us: tradesecrets@ Theme song Sock Hop by Kevin MacLeod License See for privacy information.
Travel Weekly
5 days ago
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Last-minute booking surge and price-drop tool at Fora
Jamie Biesiada The 2025 trend of close-in bookings has continued into the summer. For the past few weeks at Fora Travel in New York, 45% of bookings have been for travel taking place within the month following the booking. "Summer is so last minute," said Fora co-founder Henley Vazquez said. "We had a record month in June. The bookings last week alone, we have millions of dollars booked last week for travel this week. We're just seeing this huge surge of interest in traveling." Domestic travel is growing faster than international travel, she said, but noted that Fora clients are headed "everywhere, and everywhere last minute." Vazquez largely attributed that last-minute trend to the uncertainty in the world, both economically and politically. New price-drop feature at Fora Amid all the last-minute bookings, Fora has introduced a new feature for advisors: a price-drop alert on refundable hotel bookings. Right now, the feature is applicable only to hotel bookings made via GDS, Vazquez said, which make up most of Fora's hotel bookings. Bookings are automatically monitored, and if the price a client is paying changes by more than 5% or $50, the advisor will get an email alerting them to the change. At that point, the advisor can alert their client, Vazquez said. While they could offer to rebook them at the lower rate, she said they could also encourage them to book a better room category with the money saved. So far, the feature has saved Fora clients "hundreds of thousands of dollars," she said. "It's certainly, as a travel advisor, something I would have dreamed of for years to not have a client go out and go, 'Hey, I found this better price now on this room that you booked for me,' which totally erodes trust," Vazquez said. Fora built its price-monitoring technology internally. Vazquez said it offers the host a differentiator from competitors in the leisure travel space. Additionally, she hopes it gives advisors an inroad to close sales faster than otherwise. "It also gives you the ability as an advisor, which is another big bonus, to say to a client -- as I did recently -- 'Yeah, let's go ahead and book this, because if the price changes, it's refundable,'" she said. Given the feature's popularity among Fora advisors, Vazques said price-drop monitoring will likely be built into other systems for other products outside hotels in the future.
Travel Weekly
16-06-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
A look back at predictions past
Jamie Biesiada At the beginning of every year, Travel Weekly dedicates an issue of the paper to predictions of what's to come in the next 12 months. Editors, myself included, take to our keyboards and share what we think are the logical next steps to trends we've been following, sometimes for years. It's a good exercise to take stock of where the industry is and where it might be going. I often use it as an excuse to talk to advisors and agency owners about what they're seeing on the front lines of selling travel; the prior 12 months are usually a good indicator of the next dozen. As a side note, in writing this column, I looked back on some previous Preview issues. In January 2020, I predicted that "the IC community, and the hosts and agencies that support it, face some big challenges in the year ahead and beyond." Even though I was talking about the need to educate new advisors, still a conversation worth having today -- boy, oh boy, I wasn't wrong about that one. This January, I wrote about the trend of normalization that the entire travel industry had been experiencing throughout 2024. The agency community was no exception to that. While the years immediately after Covid were marked by a frenetic pace, the growth started to slow a bit last year. But at the beginning of this year, bookings still looked strong. Now, six months into the year, it's a bit of a mixed bag. A survey we fielded last month found that 57.7% of respondents were experiencing some kind of decrease in bookings (it was a significant decrease for 27.8% of those agents, a slight decrease for the others). Another 31.3% are experiencing an increase in bookings (a significant increase for 12.8% of those surveyed). Ten percent have seen no change. Survey-takers indicated contributing factors to a decrease in bookings include the economy, consumer confidence and price sensitivity. That's not surprising: a lot has happened in the past six months, including the Department of Government Efficiency's reduction of the federal workforce, tariffs and a yo-yoing stock market, which has impacted consumer confidence. It's clear that we've entered a new period in terms of travel trends, one where consumers might be tightening their belts a little. However, history has shown that, regardless of the circumstances, people will travel, albeit in a slightly different manner. Covid was arguably the darkest time for advisors in recent memory as the industry ground to a halt. Relatively quickly, though, agencies started to pivot and offer different kinds of trips, like domestic vacations to national parks. Theme parks also did particularly well. It was a pretty big pivot (remember that word, everyone?), but for many it kept the lights on. The post-Covid boom in travel might have left agents frenzied with call after call from travelers clawing at the walls, but at least it put money in the bank and established a good base of future clients. Now is the time to tap into that base and get them thinking about their next trip, even if it's not an all-out, bucket-list vacation. As for Preview 2026, I'd hesitate to make any early predictions. We still have another six months to get through, and who knows what awaits us in the second half of the year. It's probably safe to say, though, that advisors will still be putting in the work, serving clients and keeping the world moving.
Travel Weekly
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Travel Weekly
The Last Resort: Universal Helios Grand Hotel, a Loews Hotel
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Universal Orlando Resort On this episode of The Last Resort, host Christina Jelski talks with Michelle McSorley, a concierge travel advisor with Favorite Grampy Travels, and Jamie Biesiada, a Travel Weekly senior editor and host of the Trade Secrets podcast, about their recent visits to the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, a Loews Hotel at Universal Studios Resort. McSorley and Biesiada share why the luxury property's direct access to Universal Epic Universe is a gamechanger, as well as offer details on the hotel's park views, dining options and themed How To Train Your Dragon Kids' Suites. The pair also touch on how Universal Studios' latest hotel and park expansions may change guest patterns, potentially extending Universal stays from quick add-ons to full-week experiences. Currently in its third season, The Last Resort is a monthly hospitality-focused podcast brought to you by Travel Weekly. In each episode, travel advisors share their first impressions of the last resort they visited. The seventh episode of the third season will be posted on July 14. Further resources Michelle McSorley Jamie Biesiada Universal Helios Grand Hotel, a Loews Hotel at Universal Studios Resort Epic Universe: A new era for Universal Orlando Resort (Travel Weekly) Want to share feedback on the last resort you visited? Email us: TheLastResort@ Theme Song Beachfront Celebration by Kevin MacLeod License
Travel Weekly
09-06-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
Looking inside the mixed bag of travel trends
Jamie Biesiada When it comes to where advisors' clients are traveling now, like many other trends in the agency community, it's a true mixed bag. We recently ran a survey of advisors to gauge how the agency community is faring so far this year. While the majority are experiencing some kind of booking decrease, a number are seeing more bookings than last year, some significantly more. Survey respondents indicated clients are shifting international destinations. In total, 58.9% of respondents said recent shifts in international relations or geopolitical events have influenced international bookings, either significantly (26.5%) or slightly (32.4%). A little more than one-third (35.7%) of respondents aren't seeing any shifts, while 5.5% didn't know. We also asked advisors an open-ended question: Have you noticed any shifts in the popularity of specific international destinations among your clients? A significant portion of respondents simply said no. But among those that offered observations, they fell across the board. Take Europe, for example: Many said interest in the Continent remains high, but a notable number of advisors said that interest has fallen off, clients are canceling trips and they're expressing reluctance to travel there. Italy, specifically, remains hot, according to many advisors. Yet, as one pointed out, some clients are avoiding it as it's a Jubilee year for the Catholic Church, drawing millions of additional travelers to Rome. Japan remains a standout destination in terms of popularity. Like Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean were a mixed bag, with some advisors reporting great interest in the regions and others saying client interest has fallen off. Some indicated clients are interested in domestic travel and staying closer to home. Several advisors pointed to increased client preference for cruises, including both river and ocean cruising. Concerns about anti-American attitudes abroad seem to be weighing on the minds of advisors' clients. A number said clients were concerned about how they would be perceived and treated abroad, with some concerned about safety. "They're all asking questions about, 'Is it safe for Americans? Will people be mean to me?'" one advisor wrote, noting those concerns are usually surrounding trips to Europe. Another wrote: "A handful of clients have expressed hesitation to any international country for fear of how they view Americans right now. But I will say that it is far more common for those that are less traveled."
