tourism
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The Bloomberg of Travel Was Built From a Startup's Ashes
Rafat Ali sold his first media company to The Guardian, then started over with a Nordic word for 'shift.' Skift now tells airlines, hotels, and tourism boards what's coming next - and charges them for the privilege.
Jason Krimmel Is Selling the Vacation Around the Cruise
After two decades inside Norwegian Cruise Line, Jason Krimmel’s brief has widened from selling cabins to solving the entire journey - one market, one travel adviser and one piece of guest feedback at a time.
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.
ARTOTEL Group
ARTOTEL Group is an Indonesian hospitality company that turns hotels into cultural platforms by pairing hotel design with original work from emerging Indonesian contemporary artists. Founded in 2011 by siblings Erastus and Christine Radjimin, it has grown from a single art hotel into one of Indonesia's largest hospitality operators, managing 100+ properties through four business pillars - Stay, Dine, Play, and Shop - across boutique, midscale, and premium brands.
Zeeyarah - Superior Tracks Travel & Tourism
Zeeyarah - Superior Tracks Travel & Tourism (Superior Tracks Travel and Tourism LLC) is a Dubai-based online travel agency and B2B travel aggregator that was the first company in the Gulf and MENA region to earn IATA NDC Level 4 certification. Branded as Zeeyarah in the Gulf and Flyintrip elsewhere, it connects consumers and travel-trade partners directly to airline and hotel inventory through New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology, offering flights, hotels, holiday packages, transfers, car rentals and cruises. Founded in 2016 by former Emirates Airlines executive Mohammed Gaus, the company blends deep airline-industry expertise with a technology-first distribution platform.
JAZ Hotel Group
JAZ Hotel Group is the hospitality arm of Travco Group International, Egypt's largest travel conglomerate. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Sheikh Zayed City, Giza, JAZ owns and manages a portfolio of 70-plus beach resorts and hotels concentrated on Egypt's Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts, with newer properties in Zanzibar and the UAE. Its brands - JAZ, JAZ Elite, JAZ Neo, Iberotel, Solymar and others - focus largely on all-inclusive leisure travel for European and regional holidaymakers.
Pierre-Olivier Lepage
Pierre-Olivier Lepage is the CEO and co-founder of Cruisebound, a New York-based digital-first cruise booking platform he launched in 2022 after struggling to book his own first cruise online. A Polytechnique Montréal engineering graduate who earned dual MIT master's degrees in Transportation and Operations Research, Lepage previously built operations at Rocket Travel (a Booking Holdings company) and consulted at McKinsey before betting that the $66B cruise industry — where 80% of bookings still flow through travel agents — was ripe for a tech-native overhaul. Cruisebound has since raised $37.8M in total funding, serves customers averaging nine years younger than typical cruisers, and routes 42% of support queries through AI, positioning itself as the fastest-growing national online cruise agency.
Morpho Travel Experience
Morpho Travel Experience is a Latin American travel-retail and food-and-beverage operator that turns airport corridors, hotels and tourist hubs into theatrical, locally-rooted stores and restaurants. From a single Costa Rican airport shop opened in 2001, it has grown into a roughly US$160 million operation with more than 2,800 employees and 300-plus commercial spaces across 11 countries, built on a 'sense of place' philosophy that puts regional craft, food and culture at the center of the traveler's journey.