leisure-travel
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The Airline That Started With Three Planes and a Grudge Against Airfare
It began in 1996 with three secondhand jets and a plan to undercut everyone. Today WestJet carries millions of Canadians a year - and it is still arguing that cheap seats and warm service do not have to be a contradiction.
The 280 People Who Sell 75 Million Vacations a Year
It owns no hotels, no theme parks, no roller coasters. Yet Visit Orlando's small team turns Orange County's hotel tax into a $94.5 billion visitor economy - and 468,000 jobs.
The Cruise Line That Sells You the Whole Ship, Not Just a Cabin
Founded by an Italian maritime lawyer, run out of Miami, and now the quiet luxury arm of the world's biggest cruise company - Silversea bets that fewer guests and more butlers still beat the mega-ship.
The Cruise Line That Killed the Dinner Bell
How a single second-hand ship out of Miami grew into a $9.5 billion cruise empire - and why ditching the assigned dinner table turned out to be its best idea.
The Hospitality Giant That Owns Almost No Hotels
Hilton runs more than 8,000 hotels across 140-plus countries and barely holds the deeds to any of them. The real business is a fee machine wrapped around 200 million loyalty members - and it started with one man and a cheap hotel in Cisco, Texas.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings sells the same scarce commodity three ways: a week away. Its three-brand portfolio, growing fleet and private destinations reveal how a cruise company turns beds at sea into a $9.8 billion vacation business.
Travel + Leisure Co.
The company once known as Wyndham Destinations sells the same week of vacation over and over again - and turned a 30-year-old timeshare model into a $4 billion machine built on exchange networks, deeded weeks and a magazine name.
Plover
Plover is a Singapore-based corporate travel and technology company that simplifies business travel through a wholly owned, cloud-based SaaS platform. Founded in 2017, it combines a full-service travel management company (TMC) with proprietary apps for travel booking, expense management, and workspace management. Plover describes itself as builder of Asia's first fully integrated corporate travel, expense and workspace platform, offering GDS, NDC and Direct Connect airline content plus global hotel aggregators to corporates and travel agencies across the Asia Pacific region.
Cruisebound
Cruisebound is a digital-first online travel agency that makes cruise research and booking as simple as buying a flight. The platform lets travelers compare more than 27,000 itineraries across roughly 19 major cruise lines, lock in transparent prices with no booking fees, hold cabins free for 24 hours, pay in installments, and earn Cruisebound Cash rewards - all backed by a hybrid model of self-service technology and human cruise experts. Founded by alumni of Rocket Travel (a Booking Holdings company), it targets a new generation of cruisers with an e-commerce experience instead of the traditional quote-request phone call.