AmaWaterways is expanding its Soulful sailings program celebrating Black heritage and culture to include Kwanza, Juneteenth and New Years sailings in Europe for 2026.

New sailings are Best of Holland & Belgium, round-trip from Amsterdam on December 27, 2025; Riches of the Mekong on October 11, 2026; and the Swiss Alps & Rhine Castles Christmas on Dec. 15, 2026.

The seven-night Best of Holland & Belgium, on AmaStella, will feature daily themes honoring Kwanzaa’s seven principles, nightly Kinara candle-lighting ceremonies, and cultural programming including an Amsterdam cultural tour. Fares start at USA $3,039 and CAD $4,117 per person, double, with Ama’s current Holiday Triple Savings offer (available through March 31, 2025). An optional two-night pre-cruise in Amsterdam is available.

Riches of the Mekong, from October 11 to 25, 2026, will focus on Vietnam and Cambodia’s connections to Black history, on board the AmaDara. It includes a four-night Central Vietnam Land Extension, a pre-cruise night in Siem Reap and two post-cruise nights in Ho Chi Minh. Fares start at USA $5,032 and CAD $6,744.

Swiss Alps & Rhine Castles Christmas, departing December 15, will combine Christmas markets and Kwanzaa celebrations on a seven-night Basel to Amsterdam cruise, with two nights post cruise in Amsterdam. Prices begin at USA $4,299 and CAD $6,071 during the Triple Holiday Savings event (through March 31).

Also returning in 2026 is Enticing Douro, June 13 to June 23, which will celebrate Juneteenth (June 19) with themed events and programming. The trip begins with three nights in Lisbon, the site of Europe’s first African neighborhood, and then sails the Douro River for seven nights on the AmaDouro. Two shoreside dinners will feature Brazilian and African food tastings and authentic Portuguese food and wines at local wine estates. Fares start at USA $4,949 and CAD $6,522.

Every Soulful Experience sailing includes select excursions and experiences that highlight the Black experience. A dedicated Soulful webinar for travel advisors, hosted by AmaWaterways senior director Jazzmine Douse, is available on the AmaWaterways Travel Advisor Portal.

Talk about a distribution channel. Thanks to 300,000 leads that came into the Travel Leaders Network website, the consortium’s Agent Profiler system delivered three-quarters of a billion dollars’ worth of new revenue—68,750 bookings at an average of about $10,000, for a total of $733 million—to its 6,000 travel agency members in 2024, at a close rate of almost 1:4.

That was the best of several great numbers Travel Leaders president John Lovell shared at the group’s annual press conference at the Ritz Carlton Nomad in New York last week. A few more: 2024 was its best year ever, with revenue up 17% over 2023 and overall sales up more than $1 billion. Land sales grew 9.7% from 2023 to 2024 and cruise sales by a whopping 25.1%, 66% more than the cruise industry as a whole, proving “the consumer is coming back in droves to the travel advisor distribution channel. It’s the golden age of travel advisors that we talked about last year,” Lovell said. “And where it stops, nobody knows.” Read the rest of this entry »

Despite some concerns about overtourism in the river cruise market, just a week after Celebrity announced its entry into the small-ship river cruising (Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Brand Roars into River Cruising | Travel Research Online, it’s fair to say response across the industry—from the consortia to the travel advisors to even competitors—ranges from the positive to the jumping for joy.

Virtuoso Board Member (and former CEO of Azamara, Seadream and Cunard) Larry Pimentel said, “As one of the world’s leading sellers of river cruise vacations, Virtuosos global network welcomes Celebrity Cruises entry into the river cruise market in 2027. As a key premium ocean-going cruise line, Celebrity’s expansion into river cruising marks a significant milestone for both the brand and the industry. Read the rest of this entry »

The swells keep coming this Wave Season, as Celebrity Cruises this week followed up its entry into river cruising by releasing details of the new Celebrity Xcel, which will debut in November. The focus, it seems, is not only on bringing the outdoors in, but on bringing the destination onboard during sea days as well.

So forget about Eden; Celebrity Xcel will replace that ephemeral concept on Decks 4-6 with a modern-day Paradise that is much more down-to-earth—and right outside those floor-to-ceiling windows: the Caribbean in the winter season and Europe in the summer.

The Eden space now will become The Bazaar—a “multilevel, multisensory space” that changes every day of each voyage to represent “the sights, sounds, flavors and traditions of the current destination. For the inaugural 2025 Caribbean itineraries, the area will rotate four festivals paying homage to the cultures of the Bahamas, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean in general.

The point is partly to change days at sea into days that feel like you are already in the destination, trying rum and chocolate, basket weaving, and browsing offerings of Mexican hats and leather from local vendors onboard as you sail the Caribbean, for example.

Guests will find themed snacks and drinks in the Bazaar, along with cooking and dance classes and entertainment. Dishes “inspired by the destination” will be the focus of the tasting menu at the Mosaic open-kitchen restaurant and its specialty Chef’s Table and Chef’s Studio cooking school, as well as the casual Spice under those gorgeous windows overlooking the sea.

Members of Celebrity’s “Dream Makers” community will help choose festival entertainment, market activities and menu items. (To join, you can register at https://www.celebritycruises.com/xceldreammakers.)

In port, new shore excursions will include food-oriented Chef’s Market Discoveries, Small Group Journeys led by local guides, and personalized, exclusive visits on Private Journeys. And in Nassau, Celebrity guests will be able to enjoy the brand-new Royal Beach Club, which will open in late 2025.

For its inaugural season (already on sale) the 3,248-passenger Celebrity Xcel will sail seven-night itineraries from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas, Mexico, Cayman Islands, Puerto Plata, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. In Summer 2026, it will sail its inaugural European season in the Mediterranean, with 7- to 11-night itineraries from Barcelona or Athens, including all new overnight stays in Madeira, Portugal.

A series of earthquakes on the Greek island of Santorini over the weekend continues into Monday, rattling visitors and residents every 10 or 20 minutes. Experts say they are likely to continue for weeks, causing hundreds of locals and visitors to flee on ferryboats or head to the airport. Aegean Airlines has added three flights a day on Monday and Tuesday in response to a request from Greece’s Civil Protection Ministry.

A prime destination for sun worshippers and newlyweds, Santorini itself sits on a volcano causing concerns that it will experience more seismic activity and landslides.

Precautions were ordered here and on nearby islands after more than 200 earthquakes, many with magnitudes over 4.5, were recorded under the Aegean Sea over the past three days. People were warned to avoid indoor gatherings, check escape routes, stay away from cliffs where rock slides might occur, and drain swimming pools to reduce potential structural damage to buildings in the event of a large earthquake.

Authorities in Santorini’s main town, Fira, designated gathering points in case of potential evacuation.

The Greek ministry also advised people to avoid the surrounding ports of Amoudi, Armeni, Korfos and Old Port (Paleos Limenas) and to immediately leave coastal areas if they feel a strong tremor.

Greece lies in a part of the world known for frequent seismic activity. The vast majority cause little or no damage, but some have been deadly. Santorini itself was formed by one the largest volcanic eruptions in history, in about 1600 BC. The last eruption was in 1950.

With tensions easing a bit in the Middle East, Delta Airlines will become the first US carrier to resume direct service from New York JFK to Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 1, in time for the busy Passover/Easter holidays that bring millions of faith-based tourists to the Holy Land.

Israel-based airline Arkia, meanwhile, will begin three weekly flights from JFK next week, on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with tickets priced from $1,199. It joins Israeli flag carrier El Al, the only airline to fly continuously throughout the hostage crisis.

Other international airlines resuming flights are: Air India, starting March 2; Air France, starting January 25; British Airways, starting April 24; and The Lufthansa Group (including Swiss, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, and Eurowings) starting February 2025.

Travel to Israel fell 68% in 2024, after the hostages were taken on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT) said, but rebounded 44% in December. Still, almost a million tourists visited the tiny country last year.

“While 2024 brought historic challenges for Israel’s tourism industry, we thank those who came to visit loved ones, participate in solidarity and volunteer missions, as well as those who supported us from near and far,” said Yael Golan, Interim Tourism Commissioner to North America at the Israel Ministry of Tourism. “Our community is incredibly resilient, and the news of a ceasefire and the ongoing return of hostages continues to bring us hope for a peaceful future. Israel’s tourism infrastructure continued to move forward during these challenging times with the introduction of new hotels, restaurants and museum exhibits. Whether you are planning a visit in 2025 or in the hopeful future, Israel looks forward to welcoming you.”

In preparation for what it hopes will be an influx of travelers in 2025, the Jerusalem Convention Bureau has launched a website for meeting planners that offers about suppliers, shares attractions in Jerusalem suitable for groups, and allows planners to submit RFPs.

Notable high-end hotel openings include the David’s Harp Galilee Resort, on the Sea of Galilee, which reopens with 18 new luxury suites and two presidential suites, plus a new spa, and the extensively renovated Galilion Hotel in the Upper Galilee, as well as the brand new adults-only Roxon Red Sea Eilat. There’s also a new national park, Yam Caesarea, Israel’s first marine national park, where guests can swim or snorkel in King Herod the Great’s Caesarea Harbor, openned in 10 BCE.

Jewish young adults are invited to visit their homeland at no cost through Birthright Israel, which will host 6,500 young Jewish adults from all over the world on internships and volunteer opportunities.

In the end, “sales is a numbers game. You keep filling your hopper. And they keep coming back,” says Carol Nunnery of Nunnery Travels & Assocs.

Nunnery is one of several top-selling Dream Vacations franchise owners who took the time during their annual conference to share ideas on how to grow your travel business. It’s a question that’s been on her mind as she launches a push to expand beyond land sales, where she is the top franchise in the network, into a new niche. One good place to start a growth spurt, she knows, always is with a group.

So she is hosting her first cruise group with the Ivas John Band, a local blues group she admires whose customer base is primarily middle-income “hippies and educators.” Read the rest of this entry »

New York City — Since the pandemic, says Hilton Hotels SVP of architecture and design Larry Traxler, “luxury and lifestyle are off the charts. It’s all about giving people a sense of place so when they wake up they know where they are.”

From the international space station, where they are partnering to design the perfect small space, to the backwoods, where they are rolling out glamping experiences, Hilton wants to be there for your luxury guests, combining comfort and service with unforgettable experiences.

For 2025, the focus clearly is in experiences in the luxury market, said Dan Reynolds, SVP of global content, media and partnerships. Hilton’s new partnerships with Small Luxury Hotels of the World has brought more than 400 boutique properties, bringing guests close to communities around the world. Teaming with McLaren gives Formula One fans private access to race weekends; its expanding roster of “Stay Like” pop-up overnights, such as “Stay Like” Wicked, lets them imagine themselves on the Broadway stage. “We’re thinking about how to bring that fandom and make it bookable,” SVP Content, Media and Partnerships Dan Reynolds told me.

And at the end of a busy day, a new partnership with Calm offers tranquility and restfulness.

Among the new properties rolling out this year, arguably the most exciting for this Manhattan crowd is the reopening of the Waldorf Astoria New York, “a flagship for our entire company, the crown of our portfolio,” said Dino Michael, Hilton’s global head of luxury.  A city block long, it will boast “all the areas you know and love, restored beyond their former glory.” Also in the lineup are new Conrads in Hamburg and Athens; Waldorf Astorias in Costa Rica, Osaka, Shanghai and Rabat; and a new Signia by Hilton in Amman, the brand’s first venture outside the United States.

But also in the lineup are great new properties including Conrads in Hamburg and Athens; Waldorf Astorias in Costa Rica, Osaka, Shanghai and Rabat; Conrads in Athens and Hamburg; and a new Signia by Hilton in Amman, the brand’s first venture outside the United States. In the Dominican Republic, the Zemi Miches All-Inclusive Resort, Curio Collection by Hilton, will offer a new-build high-end totally immersive experience, from the design to the architecture. (30% of new Curios will be resorts, SVP Jenna Hackett, Hilton’s Global Brand Leader, Lifestyle, told me.) For skiers, there’s the new ski-in, ski-out Hotel Ascent Park City, Tapestry Collection by Hilton in Utah, an all-condo property, and the Hotel Alpenrock Breckenridge, Curio Collection by Hilton in Colorado.

“I’m excited about the growth in the lifestyle space, and our goals are very ambitious. We are building teams to build out multiple experiences focused on food and beverage, design and experiences. And we’re looking to grow resort destinations with an F&B focus in the all-inclusive space,” Hackett said.

A new partnership with Autocamp, meanwhile, offers 300-foot luxury Airstream campers in eight domestic locations—perfect for families or outdoor enthusiasts who might want to add a couple of nights in a national park or hiking in the Bay Area with a stay at a more traditional Hilton luxury hotel.

For Traxler, though, “luxury” begins with a comfortable room—and that starts with smart zoning. In Amman or in the woods, across all 24 Hilton brands, it’s about an efficient triangle comprising the vanity, shower and wardrobe. “Whether it’s 1,000 square feet or 200, it’s about giving people as much space as possible to do what they want to do.”

Since the pandemic, Traxler says, guests are demanding—and property owners are willing to pay for—touches that add that unique sense of place, from indigenous plants and art or meeting rooms filled with natural light. “Everyone wants a ballroom that opens and a rooftop bar,” he said.

In short, said Hilton chief marketing officer Mark Weinstein, “it matters where you stay. And your stay will be different if it’s at a Hilton.”

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico — The mornings are cool and the afternoons are hot. The beach is empty and beautiful and free of seaweed. The signature bougainvillea is coming into fiery bloom against the poinsettia and the Christmas tree. And the food is nothing like you would expect at an all-inclusive in Mexico.

In short, there’s no better time to be in Puerto Vallarta in general, and at a Grand Velas resort in particular, than the weeks after Thanksgiving and before the Christmas rush. At just about 30% capacity and perfect 82-degree temperatures, the three properties here are friendlier than ever, their surf more inviting, their pricing more reasonable.

“Out of successful partnerships come wonderful friendships,” says AmaWaterways EVP Kristin Karst—and many travel advisors would agree that their relationships with her go a step beyond just business. So when I sat down to chat with Karst about how travel advisors might build relationships with her and the river cruise company she co-founded, neither of us was surprised when Mara Hargarther stopped by to give her a hug. Soon she joined us in a three-way conversation about how travel advisors and suppliers can best work together. Read the rest of this entry »

Focusing on the highly successful travel advisor channel, Celebrity Cruises in February will launch a new—and gamified—version of its training program and add a position dedicated to serving the trade.

In an exclusive interview onboard Celebrity Ascent, Katina Athanasiou, Celebrity’s senior vice president of sales & services for The Americas, told TRO that the Celebrity Learning program is currently in drydock—but when it emerges in 2025 it “will offer amazing opportunities to learn much more about our ships and brand.” The site’s “facelift” will add content and functionality, gamification elements, and elevated awards when travel advisors finish the courses.

“We’re going to leverage it more to be a site for resources and webinars, where you can see all the previous trainings we’ve done, as well as learn about our systems and our new initiatives,” Athanasiou said. “I’m very excited – it’s a huge investment, but it will ultimately deliver better content and ability for our agents to engage more often with the brand.”

Over the past months, she noted, Celebrity has been “watching the growth in the home-based and IC communities, and we’re working to be very intentional in building a strategy and then a structure” to work with them. “Nearly two-thirds of advisors are either home-based or ICs, and many are new to the industry. How we partner with those advisors, how we engage, and how we train is a little different from pre-pandemic.”

Also on the agenda is more collaboration among the three Royal Caribbean sister brands—Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Silversea—and “a big media push on national TV,” including new markets like professional and college sports.

Joyeux Noël from Tauck. With Christmas Market river cruises largely sold out for this year and much of next, interest has been growing in a new destination for holiday sailing and shopping: The River Seine. Jumping on the trend, Tauck this week announced its first-ever Christmas markets river cruise in France for 2025.

The five eight-day “The Seine: Holiday Magic” itineraries begin in Paris, on Tauck’s ms Sapphire riverboat, for three nights and two full days. On tap is hot mulled wine, along with roasted chestnuts, sausages, cheese and chocolate at the Tuileries Garden and other local Christmas markets.

From there Sapphire will sail to Rouen, Les Andelys and Vernon. Highlights include excursions to Gothic Sainte-Chapelle, home to Louis IX’s personal collection of holy relics; a cocktail party at the beautifully decorated Château de Bizy; a private lunch at Château Vaux-le-Vicomte; and a guided tour of Normandy’s D-Day beaches (all included in the price).

Prices range from $4,490 per person plus airfare, including all shore excursions, gratuities, all onboard beverages, meals, taxes and fees and airport transfers.

Onboard Sapphire, most cabins have French balconies, and all have flat-screen televisions, Molton Brown toiletries, cushy bathrobes and free Wi-Fi.

“The Seine: Holiday Magic” is Tauck’s fifth Christmas-market river cruise. It also offers two holiday cruises on the Danube (including a family-friendly Tauck Bridges journey, plus one on the Rhine and one on the waterways of Belgium and Holland.

Facing strong pushback from the travel industry in general, and the cruise lines in particular, Mexico has postponed a new $42 tourist tax on cruise passengers by six months, from January to July 1.

Mexico has long taxed hotel guests but exempted cruise passengers, who sleep on their ship. But a new bill that passed the Mexican Congress in December calls for a $42 tax on every cruise ship passenger entering Mexican waters, whether they disembark or not.

According to a statement issued by The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, which represents 23 cruise lines including Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian, Mexican officials have agreed to delay the new Federal Law of Rights tax on cruise passengers from January 1 until July 1, 2025. Among other things, the cruise lines had argued that just a 15% drop in calls to Mexico would result in a financial impact that would offset any gains from the tax.

In a statement, FCCA CEO Michele Paige emphasized that the temporary delay is helpful, but does not go far enough. “We thank the Mexican government for listening to our concerns and proposing a delay in the implementation of the tax that will fall mainly on American citizens. However, the removal of the in-transit tax exemption – which was provided to our industry over a decade ago for valid reasons that still apply today – was done without our prior input and after the legislation was passed. It is ironic that until this law was abruptly announced the industry was looking to grow business in Mexico, and now the opposite will occur.”

Designed to address Mexico’s enormous debt—and, some argue, to support its military rather than its tourism infrastructure—the tax will affect the more than 10 million passengers on 3,300 ships arriving in the ports of Cozumel—one of the world’s busiest ports, with 4 million visitors—as well as Costa Maya and Cabo San Lucas.

The cruise industry had strongly lobbied against it. The FCCA said in December that it was “completely caught off guard with last week’s unilateral decision to eliminate the long-standing in-transit exemption and efforts to fast-track this policy change without any dialogue with the industry.”

The group noted that the tax was a “staggering more than 213% increase over the average cost of a Caribbean port” that “could also jeopardize the cruise industry’s investments in the country, including billions in planned developments and other projects”—a serious threat given such planned projects as Royal Caribbean’s new private beach club in Cozumel and Perfect Day Mexico, for example.

It started with an article in Queens Jewish Link with the incendiary title Cruise Company To Kosher Travelers: Stay Off (queensjewishlink.com) and quickly spread across the tight-knit religious Jewish community.

Here are the facts as we know them.

The article asserted that a group of 140 Jewish cruisers on the Costa Toscana had been canceled just days before departure because “the ship’s crew refused to cooperate with the provision of kosher food” and refused to allow the use of kosher china, pots, frying pans, etc.”

No recourse was possible, the article quoted Costa as saying. “We simply will not do this,” tour operator Yossi Zablocki was told, even though he already had purchased $22,000 worth of kosher food, bought tickets to Europe for his staff, and had a history of running more than 40 high-end kosher cruises in the past, many of them with Costa Cruises, which is owned by Carnival Cruise Line.

“I thought the days of ‘No Jews and dogs allowed’ were over,” the article quoted Zablocki as saying. “I don’t think they realize what they have walked into. I will keep fighting until the world understands what they have done. The Jewish People have faced enough discrimination.”

Costa responded that it is “very familiar with Kosher meal requirements, and we have successfully supported Kosher meal requests onboard Costa ships multiple times per year for decades and will continue to do so in the future. Unfortunately, last July, Destination 631 Tours failed to reach the minimum cabin booking thresholds (50 cabins) necessary for us to provide Kosher meal service. Costa was fully transparent with the tour operator, communicating with them well in advance of departure that if the tour did not meet the required minimum cabin reservations, it would be impossible for us to provide Kosher meals.”

But Zablocki insisted the group had 140 attendees and anti-Semitism was the real issue.

Costa Replies to TRO

Approached by a travel advisor after the original story broke, TRO reached out to Costa Cruises for a comment. They replied,

“We regret that the facts of this situation have been misrepresented by Mr. Yosef Zablocki, who we have ceased doing business with as a result of his breach of our business terms and unprofessional business behavior. Each year Costa welcomes hundreds of thousands of guests from all different religions, backgrounds, beliefs, and cultures, and with proper notice and coordination, we happily accommodate a variety of special requests, including dietary requirements. We are very familiar with Kosher meal requirements and successfully support Kosher service requests onboard Costa ships multiple times per year.

“Unfortunately, for two July sailings, Destination 613 Tours and Mr. Zablocki failed to reach the minimum cabin booking thresholds required for us to provide Kosher meal service at the strict levels specified for this tour. These requirements ensure we have the adequate operational set-up to fulfill the special meal requests, as we will do this summer for two other Kosher groups organized by other long-standing reputable tour operators, who met the necessary terms without issue.

”Costa was fully transparent with the tour operator, communicating with them well in advance of departure that if the tours did not meet the required minimum cabin reservations, the full Kosher service could not be provided.

“The business decision to terminate our business relationship with Mr. Zablocki and Destination 613 says nothing of the company’s dedication to and proud service of our many Jewish guests across all our cruise lines, and to our many Jewish travel partners and employees.”

Correction: The original version of this story mistakenly stated that it was retracted by the author, Jeffrey Helmreich. This was incorrect; we inadvertently mistook him for someone else in the story. We sincerely apologize for any embarrassment this has caused Mr. Helmreich and/or The Jewish Link.

I love a good idea for growing your travel business—and this week I came across two. I was doing what I like to do best, talking to smart travel advisors, this time at the Signature annual conference in Las Vegas. I’m working on a story about what advisors are planning to do differently in 2025, so I’ve been asking attendees here what they’re up to.

I’ll include a few of those stories in a future column. But the one I heard from Amy Westerman and Dave Hoffman, of The Curated Travel Collection, was so good it deserves a story all its own. And the tips on growing your Facebook ranking made me want to marry AI guru Kha Ly so I could have his tech support 24 x 7.

Like all the best stories, Amy and Dave’s begins in a bar, where Amy got to chatting and “swapping stories” with another customer, as travel advisors are wont to do Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve never met a cruise I didn’t like. On a yacht that holds 35 or a megaship with 6,000, shaking across the Drake to Antarctica or drifting through the Caribbean, I’m happy to eat chicken and salad if the pickings are slim, or sit by the pool with a book if there’s nothing to do. As long as there’s sea air, a balcony and a cup of coffee, I’m in.

I was fine with ignoring the mixed reviews I’ve heard and read about MSC, which range from five-star raves to absolute pans, from both travel advisors I trust and posts on social media. I wanted to give MSC a try and see for myself. So we booked a quick five-night Caribbean trip out of Port Canaveral and brought along a couple of friends for a long weekend in the sun.

(Of course, we know there are two sides to every story. This is the “con” side. For the many reasons some travel advisors do choose to sell air, see “Earning an Extra $50K: Travel Advisors Who Sell Air Say It’s Worth the Effort | Travel Research Online.”)

Liability issues. Time wasted. Late night calls. And the new DOT ruling about refunds that takes effect this week just adds one more reason to the litany of why many travel advisors hate to sell airline tickets.

“Selling air? Don’t.” That’s the succinct advice from Rich Greenway, owner of Greenway Travel Group-Dream Vacations. And he is not alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Even in an AI world, competition for really smart, knowledgeable and experienced travel advisors is stiffer than ever—not just among high-end customers but apparently among host agencies as well. At its annual conference last week, Avoya Travel Network announced upgrades to the commissions it will be paying its independent advisors (IAs)—and a $5,000 sign-on bonus to newcomers bringing in a book of business of their own.

Avoya traditionally has paid its advisors 30% of the commission on bookings obtained through its Avoya Live lead program, or 80% on bookings of their personal customers. Last year, it began testing an Elite 100 program that raised commissions with preferred suppliers to 100% on bookings of personal clients. Read the rest of this entry »

Be they husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, or sisters and brothers, more and more travel advisors are finding there’s no better new hire than a member of your very own family. When you need a helping hand or a travel buddy—and when you consider a succession plan—many say home is the best place to start looking.

With no profit to show since Covid, Spirit Airlines is discussing a possible restructuring in preparation for declaring bankruptcy, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Citing “people who are familiar with the matter,” The Journal said Spirit has been talking bankruptcy since its failed merger with JetBlue Airways. The airline is struggling to compete with the big carriers, and was hard-hit when a recall of turbofan engines grounded many of its planes, including many that were supposed to fly to the new airport in Tulum, Mexico. Last month it furloughed 186 pilots.

As part of its efforts to enhance the bottom line, Spirit has been cutting flights and making changes to the services it offers. This summer it rolled out a premium “Go Big” fare class that offers a larger seat and early boarding, lifted its checked baggage limit from 40 to 50 pounds, and did away with change and cancelation fees.  Just this week it suspended nonstop service between Cleveland and Orlando, effective Nov. 5.

And still, it reported its 11th consecutive quarterly loss in August.

(Heads up: Of course we know there are two sides to every story. This is the “pro” side. Stay tuned next week for the “con.”)

When your niche is entertainment travel and your clients are ultra-high-net-worth, there’s no option but to sell air, says Ted Bradpiece. And he doesn’t really mind. It’s just another call or two a month he has to take late at night or on the weekend—and it pays as much as many travel advisors earn in a year.