Sonesta Cuts Jobs as a $2 Billion Bid Puts Many of Its Best Hotels in Play

Travel through the transatlantic corridor is in a transition phase. U. S. travelers still want to go to Europe, but they are spending more carefully. Canadian and American preferences are moving further apart. Travelers are searching for shoulder-season trips and easier ways to move around once they arrive. Airlines are adding routes outside the biggest gateway cities, but many of those places still lack easy connections into regional rail and ground networks. These shifts make the next source of growth harder to identify. Travel companies are competing for a large and resilient customer base that’s becoming more selective and fragmented.

Photo Caption: Lindsay Milne Grant of Meet Boston and Arnar Már Ólafsson of the Icelandic Tourist Board at Skift Transatlantic Summit in Dublin October 15, 2026. Skift / Bryan Brophy Live tourism is a force in the travel industry, with one in five travelers saying they plan trips around live events and experiences. And often, when destinations and travel companies consider the benefits of hosting high-profile events, they think in terms of increased footfall. But when events happen in high season and tourism is already at peak levels, destinations must consider success from different angles.

Photo Credit: The traditional well on Maria Mavroudi’s family property in Astypalea. Kallichoron Maria Mavroudi’s grandparents, from the Greek island of Astypalea, never wasted water. They collected rain in a sterna — a traditional cistern — to water their plants and to provide water for animals.

In this Good Morning Hospitality bonus episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Sam Shank, co-founder and former CEO of HotelTonight, at Skift Global Forum to discuss how AI agents could reshape online travel distribution. Shank explains why AI-driven booking could challenge the sponsored search model that has fueled major online travel agencies like Booking.com and Expedia, while creating new opportunities for specialized agents and booking infrastructure. The conversation explores how hotels and vacation rentals can maintain visibility as travelers shift toward AI-powered discovery, why Shank would reposition HotelTonight as a specialist agent for last-minute accommodations, and how trust, privacy, and security will influence adoption. Shank also shares his perspective on the future relationship between general-purpose AI assistants and specialized travel agents.

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner. Travel companies face a new distribution question: Will AI simply refer travelers to brand websites, or will discovery and booking move into AI conversations?

Photo Credit: A trio of travelers during a hike.  Unsplash / NEOM Travel often pictures the sustainable traveler as part of an earnest tribe that books the eco-lodge and pays a green surcharge. Our evidence strongly suggests this is a misconception. Skift’s research with 74,000 travel consumers in the top 40 outbound markets shows 77% believe travel should benefit communities and the environment, and 24% go further, actively seeking sustainable options and accepting trade-offs to get them.