Tag Archives: Vacation

P&O Cruises sets new return date

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P&O Cruises sets new return date

P&O Cruises will extend its operations pause until Oct. 15, the Carnival Corp. brand said Tuesday.

“As a business, our operational focus is not when can we resume sailing but is instead of how can we develop a comprehensive restart protocol that will keep everyone onboard — our crew and guests — safe and well and still give our guests an amazing holiday,” said P&O president Paul Ludlow in a release.

The British cruise line said it is focusing on working in close coordination with relevant public health organizations to approve the enhancement of its health and safety protocols.

“Our aspiration is to be adopting best practice in managing COVID-19 within the travel industry,” Ludlow said, adding that the line already has in place many of the protocols now being adopted for social gathering venues such as hand-sanitizing stations and rigorous cleaning and disinfecting procedures.

P&O’s Iona, a 5,200-passenger ship powered by liquefied natural gas, was supposed to enter service in May. German shipbuilder Meyer Werft has not set a new delivery date.

MMGY: 2016 shaping up to be ‘remarkably positive’ year for travel

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NEW YORK — MMGY Global’s Portrait of American Travelers, unveiled Wednesday evening, suggests 2016 will be a record year for travel, barring any unpredictable disruptors.

MMGY executives presented some key data findings during an event at the New York Times building here.

Two-thirds of U.S. travelers are planning at least one leisure trip this year that requires overnight lodging, said Peter Yesawich, MMGY’s partner, industry insights; on average, they are planning four trips.

While that number remains the same from last year, the number of people traveling for business has increased by 12%.

“The outlook is incredibly positive, because you’ve got very robust demand from leisure travelers; you’ve got remarkable growth in demand from business travelers,” Yesawich said.

The data was from MMGY’s quarterly “travelhorizons” survey, which studies travelers’ intentions, using a sample of 2,300 households of active travelers that are 18 years old and older.

Steve Cohen, vice president of research and insights, said that a separate, annual study, which surveys travelers with household income level over $50,000, showed that the amount travelers are spending is also up.

The average amount travelers plan to spend on vacations this year was $5,048, compared with $4,526 spent in 2015 and $3,874 in 2010.

Additionally, Cohen said, the annual data shows the number of travelers who intend to travel more is on the rise. According to the study’s summary, 28% of travelers said they intend to take more vacations, and 14% said they plan to take fewer vacations.

“This means there is a 14-point positive variance in the market’s intention to vacation during the next 12 months, representing a 10-year high that surpasses the previous record, a pre-recession 11-point increase in travel intentions reported in 2007 and 2008,” the summary states.

The data, Cohen said, suggests a “record year” for travel.

Yesawich said that only a major, unpredictable disruptor, like an act of domestic terrorism, could shift the tide; barring that, he said 2016 was shaping up to be a “remarkably positive” year for travel.

Facebook survey shows influence of travel posts

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Facebook survey shows influence of travel posts

By Kate Rice
Travel is one of the biggest verticals on Facebook, according to a study the company conducted in Europe, with a little more than half of survey respondents listing holidays as one of the top three posts they see on Facebook.

Vacation-related posts comes above nights out, music, food, pets, babies and weddings, according to the study.

The study polled more than 3,000 Facebook users in the U.K., Germany and Scandanavia, but Lee McCabe, head of travel for Facebook, said the company would conduct a similar study in the U.S., and he said he expected the results to be similar.

McCabe said that because travel is so ubiquitous on Facebook, it’s an ideal place for travel businesses to inspire people.

“Just viewing someone’s vacation photos on Facebook is a huge influence to kick your friend into the dreaming state,” he said.

McCabe said travel marketers could use Custom Audience, a Facebook tool businesses can use to find their customers in their database on Facebook and target them with relevant ads. For example, an airline could use a database of emails of passengers who have flown to Hawaii in the past to reach that same group on Facebook and show them an ad on Facebook for a discounted rate to Hawaii.

Eighty-four percent of Facebook users in the survey said that their friends’ and families’ holidays inspire them; 65% say that without Facebook they wouldn’t know where their families have been on vacation.

Eighty-three percent said that they liked looking at photos of their friends’ and families’ vacations, even if they were not actively considering a vacation. Fifty-two percent said that when they’re on Facebook they start dreaming about a vacation, even though they don’t have one on the horizon.

And 47% said that when using Facebook they’ve scrolled through albums to find out more about a destination; 58% said that the experiences of friends and family at a destination have encouraged them to visit a place they hadn’t previously considered.

According to the study, 95% of respondents used Facebook during the booking process: They used Facebook to share links to booking sites, to contact those going with them or to post about their plans.

During the vacation, 91% said they went on Facebook at least every couple days. And when they return from vacation, Facebook is the place where 99% of respondents post something on Facebook about their vacation after they return; 32% post even before they get home from the airport.