Brightline’s Bright Idea Comes to Florida
Brightline, a high-speed rail line that serves south Florida’s busy tourist corridor, is up and running. Their motto -- “carefree and car-free” – sums up the vast potential for this train to succeed with business commuters and international tourists who prefer not to rent a car.
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Trends: Halal Tourism, By and For Muslims
Travel by Muslims, whether or not they are actively religious or following Islamic social laws, is a market segment known as Halal Tourism. (Halal means a code of dietary laws, similar to the kosher dietary rules followed by some Jews.) The travel industry, particularly in the Middle East and Arab world, has long recognized that even non-religious travelers have cultural preferences that can be...
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The Internet of Things Sails Out to Sea
In a technologically stunning presentation in New York, Royal Caribbean Cruises unveiled its next generation of digital innovations aimed at making the passenger experience “frictionless”—giving back to the passenger time wasted in lines, in waiting for bags to arrive, in ordering food and booking events and experiences. The program is due to roll out across the fleet by early 2018. It’s...
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Where Teens Want to Go in Philadelphia
Everyone knows if the kids are happy on vacation, so are parents and grandparents. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to learn from family travel research curated for our most recent TMS Family Travel conference that kids increasingly are influencing...
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Which One’s Right for You? Industry Experts Rank the Ski Resorts
The ski season has just begun and we already have a few surveys from industry experts to help families customize the choice of best ski resort. According to the Liftopia 2017-18 Best in Snow Awards issued Dec. 18, 2017, which used proprietary algorithms to crunch survey responses and the largest dataset in the industry, ski...
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Experiential Trips and Vacations Top Teen Travel Trends in 2017
The Family Travel Forum Teen Travel Trends Report finds teens prefer cultural explorations and vacation travel while “heritage” trips diminish in frequency. (New York, December 20, 2017) - Family Travel Forum, the vacation planning resource trusted by families since 1996, has...
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Millennial Parents Are Key To Marketing Travel Say Industry Analysts
Media Alert: The TMS Family Travel Conference presents the latest research on millennial family travel trends and how to capitlilize on them. (Clearwater, FL; December 5, 2017) Travel Marketers should be paying special attention to millennial families as well as kids, especially on social media channels, according to new research presented at the 6th Annual
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What Makes Best Western Hotels Special
When I recall the Best Western hotels we’ve stayed in, there’s always a pleasant surprise, an offbeat architectural detail, unexpected kid-friendly perk, or a free breakfast buffet worthy of a five-star resort. My husband calls Best Westerns “idiosyncratic.” He says of the lack of uniformity, “It’s so refreshing.” Having recently attended the annual Best Western Convention...
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6 Ski Destinations Worth Swapping Your House For
Lodging, lift tickets, lessons and rental equipment all make ski holidays seem expensive, so we often avoid what could be the winter trip of a lifetime due to cost. Now, home exchange is here to help the family budget, and services like GuesttoGuest make it easy. In case you're not familiar with them, GuestToGuest is the...
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Something to Look Forward to: Hotel Xcaret Mexico
Edutainment may be a tough concept to sell, yet all parents and grandparents want more from a family beach vacation than a suntan and a bunch of bills. Enter Experiencias Xcaret -- a family owned Mexican company which has successfully run innovative, environmentally-oriented amusement parks for 30 years. Begun with architect Miguel...
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