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A NEW ERA OF TRAIN TRAVEL COVID CHANGED PRIVATE AVIATION PERMANENTLY

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WATCH

C ON T E N T S EDITION 01

2021

Cities across the country are showcasing safety and social responsibility in a bid to bring back tourists

Ten travel hotspots in America and abroad to put on your list in 2021

How Do Cities Bring Back Tourism?

Business Travel in the Age of Zoom Companies and executives are viewing business travel differently after a year of remote work

The Next Best Destinations

The Most Luxurious Hotels and Resorts That Have Opened Since COVID Properties from Switzerland to the Maldives used 2020 to start a new chapter and are now ready to welcome guests

68 06

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C ON T E N T S

58 The New 10 Commandments of Travel Traveling into this brave, new world comes with a new set of understandings

Could the Next Era of Train Travel Be Upon Us? Train travel in America is at a turning point, and Amtrak’s new 2035 map might just be the catalyst for it

Money From Heaven Astrotourism trends ever higher in the wake of a year spent all cooped up

The Women Revamping the Travel Industry These changemakers are using travel to benefit the lives of people and animals all over the world

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Masthead

Safe Travels

108

Chairman’s Letter Editor’s Letter

Departments

Contributors

Travel Tech Media 20 Questions Joy Falotico

Ask an Advisor

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

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CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

ake no mistake: 2020 was a tough year for most businesses, including Clarim Media. Like many companies, we had to make some unpleasant decisions, which is why you haven’t seen a print copy of Worth for more than a year. But one great aspect of the media business is that it’s filled with thoughtful and creative people, the kind who are experts in turning lemons into lemonade. Worth and Clarim are thrilled to return to print, and it’s fitting that this issue is devoted to travel—another industry hit very hard by the pandemic. Shortly after COVID hit the United States in early 2020, most travel came to a standstill. Vacations were canceled, and all non-essential business travel was called off (and Zoom showed us how little business travel is actually “essential”). Every part of the industry was affected: airlines, hotels, taxis, rental cars and, of course, the local economies dependent on tourism.

— Jim McCann CHAIRMAN

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Like media, however, the travel industry is filled with creative, resourceful people. Industries such as private aviation found ways to pivot from business travel to personal travel— some with great success, as you can read on page 36. And now, as vaccines proliferate and many borders open, there is a tremendous demand for travel; people are in a hurry to forget what we’ve all gone through. This demand is releasing yet another burst of innovation. Hotels are finding ways to minimize contact with guests but still provide first-rate experiences, cities are rethinking how they attract tourists and those private aviation companies are looking for ways to keep their new customers. Will travel ever return to its pre-pandemic levels? I don’t think anyone knows for sure—and maybe it shouldn’t. I serve on the board of several companies, and none of them stopped doing business just because the board members couldn’t meet in person every quarter. Maybe we will all travel a little less, but a lot smarter. We’ll focus less on the volume of travel, and more on the experiences that travel makes possible. In these pages, you will see a lot of suggestions from people and companies who are trying to make us all smarter travelers. Worth is looking forward to continuing to make you smarter in future issues.

I L L U S T R AT I O N : LY N D O N H AY E S

The Only Travel Trend We Can Predict With Certainty? Smarter Travel

E DITOR ’ S LE T TE R

ne of my favorite parts of traveling—whether for business or pleasure—has always been a mid-flight Bloody Mary. There’s something almost spiritual about taking that first sip, allowing all of my travel anxiety—from checking luggage and scurrying through airport security to finally boarding the plane and making it off the tarmac—to slide right off my shoulders. That specific taste at 30,000 feet gives me permission to relax, permission to literally lift off and just enjoy the act of traveling. There are actually scientific reasons why Bloody Marys (and certain types of wine) taste better at higher altitudes. As a plane rises, air pressure and humidity levels fall, and this combination of dryness and low air pressure affects our taste buds, making bolder flavors and savory tastes (such as tomato juice) more appealing. And in a way, that’s what I miss the most about traveling—not my ritualistic airplane Bloody Mary—but all of the bold and savory flavors, tastes, cultures, people and experiences you encounter along the way. Our mission at Worth is to help create impact, leading to a more just

— Emily Cegielski E D I TO R I A L D I R E C TO R

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and equitable society for all, something we’ve termed “worth beyond wealth,” and I personally believe that travel is at the heart of that mission. Traveling opens your eyes to new problems, news solutions, new people, new ways of thinking and broadens your worldview—something that I think is more necessary now than ever before. What’s truly amazing is how leaders in the travel industry have stepped up during such a devastating year that essentially brought travel to an excruciating and grinding halt. From women who are making diversity and inclusion a priority in high-end hospitality (See Page 58) to lawmakers who are pushing for more sustainable tourism practices (See Page 54), the world of travel that we are returning to postpandemic will not look like 2019. Sure, we still don’t have all the answers, and with CDC guidelines around masks and vaccines continually being updated, the situation seems everchanging. But travel is only going to get better, and I hope, within these pages, you’ll see why I’m so eager to start expanding my horizons again. Just as no website can give you the same tangible experience of holding a magazine, neither can Zoom recreate the true essence of traveling, which makes it fitting that our first post-pandemic print edition is focused on travel. For the past 14 months, Worth has been digitalonly, with the pandemic forcing us to hit pause on our magazine, our live events and our in-person community gatherings; but now—just like the travel industry—we’re back! And I don’t need to be in the sky to raise a glass to that. Cheers!

I L L U S T R AT I O N : LY N D O N H AY E S

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CONTRIB UTORS

Travis Levius Travis Levius (@MisterLevius) is a luxury travel journalist and content creator based in London and Atlanta. His writing has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, CNN Travel, Departures and other media outlets. Travis shares his ongoing adventures and takes on “life, travel & the pursuit of happiness” as a content creator on multiple social media platforms. “I remember meeting [Beks] Ndlovu years ago at a major Africa travel trade event in Durban, South Africa. He stood out as a rare Black African face in the luxury travel section, let alone with CEO credentials. I’m honored to have reconnected with him for this issue’s Q&A and hear him share his inspiring story, perspective and future vision as a trailblazer in African safari tourism.”

Pavia Rosati Pavia Rosati is the founder and CEO of Fathom (@fathomwaytogo), the award-winning editorial travel website and consultancy, and the co-author of the new book Travel North America (And Avoid Being a Tourist). She is a founder of The New Travel, a virtual conference designed to help the travel industry recover from COVID-19 and chart a course for a brighter future. She splits her time between New York City and London. “When you’re used to hitting the road every few weeks, being forced to stay home for 15 months forces you to rethink what travel means and how you move about the world. I hope that I—and everyone, really—emerge from this unexpected pause more thoughtful and careful about the impact we have and the choices we make. And that we keep these lessons close to heart long after the pandemic is a memory.”

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Federico Gastaldi Born and raised in a small town, before moving to the big city, Federico Gastaldi is a 29-year-old illustrator. In 2013, he graduated from the IED of Turin (European Design Institute) with a BA in illustration. Since 2016, he’s been represented worldwide by the American agency Salzman International. He lives and works in Milan, Italy.

Q: How did you first get into illustration? A: It was a coincidence. I accidentally found myself at an open day at the European Design Institute, and I decided to enroll in the illustration course.

Q: How would you describe your style? A: I would say essential. Q: Where did you start with this cover? A: I tried to think of the mood of the illustration. Q: Where are you most looking forward to traveling to post-pandemic? A: I had a trip to California planned for June 2020, so I’d like to go there when it’s possible.

T R AV E L / A D V I C E JENNIFER WILSONBUTTIGIEG

Ask an Advisor

Worth talks to Kimberly Wilson Wetty and Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, co-presidents and owners of Valerie Wilson Travel, about how travel is working right now. BY MICKI WAGNER

s travel begins to take flight again, travelers have a lot of questions. No one knows this better than a travel advisor. So Worth sat down with Kimberly Wilson Wetty and Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, copresidents and owners of Valerie Wilson Travel, to find out what questions travelers are asking right now, and what these travel advisors are saying. Q: Is it safe to travel? A: I think everybody is of a more heightened mindset, and I think even understanding what safe means to you as a traveler is very nuanced. Is it safe in the sense of are the borders open and you can physically get there? Is it safe in the sense that you want to know what the protocols are that the hotel or the airline or the cruise line has done? Or is it safe in the sense that you want to know how many current COVID cases they have? Safe means different things to different people. - Kimberly Q: What’s the experience going to be like? A: You’re probably going to want to have a few extra masks in your handbag or your carry-on bag. You’re going to want to bring extra wipes. We’d have never told a client to pack sanitizer wipes before when they travel. And then, you want your own small bottle of hand sanitizer that’s going to fit in the 3-1-1 bag. Explaining to them what the experience will be when you go through TSA—”will somebody actually touch my ID, should I bother to get a paper boarding pass or should I do everything on the phone to go as touchless as possible?” It’s amazing that those very detailed questions about what to expect are very top of mind for travelers. And we’re also finding that it’s that re-entry. So, the client who’s traveling for the first time after 14-

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plus months, it’s like you fell off the bike, and you’ve got to get back on it again. Once you’ve done it once, that next trip seems much more comfortable. - Kimberly Q: What’s it like going to the airport right now? A: There’s no typical day. My first flight was over Presidents’ Day week. And then, I just went again for spring break because my kids were off between Palm Sunday and Easter and Passover. Those were exceptionally busy days in the airport. And it almost felt like preCOVID numbers. I didn’t feel like people were honoring the six feet as you’re waiting to check in. Even boarding the plane, you land, and everybody stands up and you’re just like, “OK, there are way too many people for my comfort right now even though we’re all wearing masks, and we’ve all had our COVID test.” I think the airport feels different. I think they’ve been pretty busy on high peak days, but that’s not the norm. Because I’ve had colleagues who’ve gone to the airport, and they literally said they could roll a ball like down a bowling alley lane in LaGuardia. Like, not a soul. So, there’s no consistency, and I think that’s one of the things that clients are really looking for—they’re longing for a sense of consistency of what to expect. - Kimberly

Q: Does it make more sense to fly private right now? A: Ninety percent of people who can afford to fly private still don’t fly private. So, it’s a very small percentage who do utilize private aviation. What I love about it, especially in a COVID/ post-COVID world, is it really does help protect your bubble—if you’re really unsure and not ready to go into a major airport on either end, your departure or your arrival into your new destination, private aviation really gives you that ability. But I wouldn’t do it because you think the airplane is that much cleaner or healthier because I’m so impressed with what the major airlines are doing. We’ve been really working closely with Delta Airlines and American Airlines, and the investment that they have made in the air quality and the experience and the cleanliness of the flight, I feel very comfortable flying, and I would feel very comfortable recommending to somebody from a health standpoint to get on an airplane. We’ve definitely seen an increase in private aviation requests, though. -Kimberly Q: Do I get in a taxi or an Uber? A: I think one of the areas that people are still very much unsure about is, “Do I get in a taxi? Do I get in an Uber? Do they have the Plexiglas up?” Obviously, you wear your mask. “Can you keep the windows down? What would you recommend?” On that spectrum for a traveler, it’s what’s the risk level, what’s their comfort to try something? And the first thing people tend to do is take a road trip on their own. I think the next is a domestic flight or stay in a hotel. And then, as things begin to open up, it’s being able to use your passport again, which a lot of people have said, “Oh my goodness, I haven’t taken my passport out in over a year.” – Jennifer Q: How do I know my money is safe? A: A lot of clients are worried about, “Do I want to go make a deposit on a booking in the future? How do I know that I’m going to get that money back?” Those are questions that we’re now having to answer as travel advisors, which would’ve hardly ever come up preCOVID. And if you’re booking a cruise or a tour company, you have to prepay, unlike hotels where you might only put down a one- or two-night deposit, and then you pay the balance of that when you check out. So, where’s the risk of your financial investment? - Kimberly This interview has been edited for clarity.

P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F VA L E R I E W I L S O N T R AV E L

KIMBERLY WILSON WETTY

Pandemic Packing What two travel advisors recommend bringing with you now, wherever you’re heading.

imberly Wilson Wetty and Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg, co-presidents and owners of Valerie Wilson Travel, shared their thoughts on what you should be packing in your bag when you head out for your next trip. They suggested what we’ve all gotten familiar with in our new normal—sanitizing wipes and lots of masks (both medical ones and ones that show off your sense of style)—along with some ideas you might not have considered, including bringing a cape since many flights no longer offer blankets, snacks (Wilson-Buttigieg prefers almonds and Rice Krispies Treats), an easy outfit to change into once you’ve arrived at your destination and more. A CAPE

PHONE CHARGER OR HOTSPOT

TRAVEL PILLOW SANITIZING WIPES

AN EXTRA PAIR OF SOCKS

COMFORTABLE WALKING SHOES/ EXTRA JACKET OR SWEATER

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J O H N K E N Z I E

MORE MASKS THAN YOU NEED (VARIETY OF CLOTH, MEDICAL AND N95) SNACKS (PREFERABLY ALMONDS AND RICE KRISPIES TREATS) COPIES OF PASSPORTS

COPIES OF VACCINE CARDS

AN EASY PAIR OF CLOTHES TO CHANGE INTO ONCE C YOU’VE LEFT THE AIRPORT (MAYBE LEGGINGS OR JOGGERS OR A PAIR OF LOVED JEANS THAT YOU DON’T PLAN TO RE-WEAR THAT TRIP AND A T-SHIRT) WORTH.COM

SUMMER 2021

Safe Travels Everything you need to know about airport, airplane and hotel safety as travel opens back up. BY JENNIFER MACHIN

ravel and safety have always gone hand in hand, but these days, it’s more crucial than ever. COVID-19 has challenged society as a whole. What we used to consider clean and sanitary, say two years ago, looks very different now. For travelers, it’s important their needs are constantly met in order not to compromise their health, making it necessary that airports, aircraft and hotels do everything in their power to ensure safety amid the pandemic. Fortunately, almost all of these institutions have made cleanliness a higher priority than ever since March 2020. AIRPORTS Wearing masks has become a norm over the past year, and though things are starting to get better, they are still a federal requirement in American airports. “Face masks are strictly enforced throughout the airport; airline and security checkpoints have them available for passengers,” a transportation security officer who works at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., told Worth.

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Airports have also facilitated passengers’ travel experiences by accommodating them with easy-tofollow rules and guidelines to help keep them, and those around them, safe. “Multiple hand sanitizer stations have been installed as well as disinfecting wipes,” the TSA officer said. “Additionally, stickers have been placed on the floor in order to direct passengers where to stand so that there is six feet of distance from one another.”

“During the start of the pandemic, there were fewer flights and fewer passengers flying,” the transportation security officer added. “It remained that way throughout the ‘lockdown’ months, but in summer 2020, flights began picking up. Now, almost a year later, there have been more flights, which means there are more passengers. The airport has become as busy as it was prior to COVID-19.” As of May 1, 2021, TSA has reported checkpoint numbers of 1,335,535 travelers versus 134,261 on May 1 last year. This is not quite equivalent to prepandemic numbers, which report about two million travelers, but showcases how quickly air travel seems to be revving back up. And with that comes the reopening of aspects of the airport that were closed throughout the pandemic, including restaurants and airline lounges—something the TSA officer noted passengers have access to again. When keeping safety in mind, it may help to know that you’re not alone. Though it may be nerve-racking for travelers to visit the airport, most of the airport staff is just as concerned about cleanliness and their health during the pandemic. “My personal experience while working at the airport this past year has been hectic because although we are living during a pandemic, people are still traveling,” the transportation security officer said. “At first, I was nervous about working at an airport during what remains to be such an uncertain time. However, following basic safety protocols has given both the airport staff and travelers ease of mind. Those who work at the airport must wear masks and personal protective goggles at all times to ensure safety with everyone we come in contact with.”

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y F E D E R I C O G A S TA L D I

T R AV E L / S A F E T Y

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T R AV E L / S A F E T Y In order for everything to run smoothly for travelers, the transportation security officer advises to “arrive at the airport two hours prior to your flight, wear masks, gloves and socks, as shoes are required to be removed during screening. Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer are allowed in your carry-on bag.” AIRPLANES Flying can already be anxietyinducing for some, and the pandemic can add to that. Rest assured, though, that airlines are actively working toward making sure you feel comfortable flying during the pandemic. All airlines in America have been requiring face masks on board flights throughout the pandemic, though beyond that, wearing masks on all public transit, including airlines, became a federal mandate as of February. In addition, many commercial airlines will provide sanitizing wipes and/ or hand sanitizer for use aboard the plane. When it comes to flying private, Set Jet, a private jet membership program, is constantly making sure their staff is COVID-19-free. “We do test all of our staff regularly,” said Tom Smith, CEO and cofounder of Set Jet. “To the extent our members wish to be tested, we provide free onsite COVID-19 antibody testing to all of our members. In fact, we were actually the first in the aviation industry and one of the first companies in Arizona, if not the first, to do so, and we continue to do so upon request.”

“Our primary focus is to ensure our team members’, guests’ and community’s health, safety and well-being.” 22

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Set Jet is an advocate for using the best equipment and appliances to sanitize their jets for travelers. “We also disinfect our aircraft weekly with a hospital-grade disinfectant, decontaminant and biofilm, despite it lasting for 30 days per application,” Smith added. “Finally, on this issue, we use Bombardier Challenger 850 aircraft exclusively, which, unlike typical airliners, do not recirculate the air in the cabin. Accordingly, the air in our cabins is replaced with fresh air during the flight about every 30 seconds.” HOTELS Hotel safety is very important considering that’s where you may be spending most of your time. While different hotels have their own ways of operating, most follow similar protocols. “Our primary focus is to ensure our team members’, guests’ and community’s health, safety and well-being,” said Audrey Oswell, president and managing director at Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas. “Our Atlantis Clean & Safe Promise was developed in partnership with the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. Express and touchless check-in, QR codes for menus and guides, hand sanitizing and water hydration stations are just some of the many protocols instituted. Guests receive a keepsake water bottle upon check-in as well. Masks are mandatory for all guests and team members, with some exceptions, including dining and swimming. Guests must have a negative COVID-19 test valid within five days to enter the property, and team members test weekly. Team members must screen daily among other protocols, such as employing personal protective equipment and other safety gear.” Many hotels have specific rules they follow in order to make guests feel comfortable. “To ensure a healthy, safe and comfortable envi-

ronment for both guests and colleagues, we have made extensive updates to our operations and safety procedures,” Fred Findlen, general manager at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa in Hawaii told Worth. “This includes, but is not limited to, increased frequency of cleaning with hospital-grade disinfectants on all high-touch surfaces and shared spaces, prominently placed hand sanitizer stations at entrances and throughout hotel public and employee areas, protective masks and other equipment for hotel colleagues, a certified Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) hygiene and well-being specialist on staff, cleanliness accreditation by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council, colleague certification, training and recertification process for hygiene and cleanliness, enhanced food safety and hygiene protocols, capacity guidelines in elevators and throughout public spaces, contactless room service and grab-and-go meals available, plexiglass partitions in place in areas of high engagement, temperature and wellness checks for all associates, vendors and contractors prior to entering the property, contactless resort guide and menus through QR codes.” One other thing many hotels are doing is limiting guests’ contact with its staff. “If guests do not want anyone in their room, they may opt to decline housekeeping services,” says Pascal Dupuis, general manager at Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya in Tulum, Mexico. Of course, cleanliness is more essential than ever, but now that we’re living in a time where vaccines are becoming easily accessible, it makes for an overall safer experience while traveling. “Many of our team members are now vaccinated, so we are all feeling good about the return of long-time friends of Atlantis,” Oswell said.

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T R AV E L / T E C H

Travel Tech You already have your favorite headphones, camera, phone and laptop. Hopefully, you have all your chargers, as well. But before you head off on that dream trip you’ve been planning, you may want to consider adding some of these gadgets to your arsenal of travel tech. GOTENNA MESH Price: $179 If your vacation is going to take you off the grid, you’ll definitely want to pack this nifty device. Sold in pairs, the goTenna Mesh allows you to send text messages and share your location with other users—without cell service or WiFi. Sleek and lightweight, it’s the perfect travel companion for outdoor adventures, international travel and festivals.

SKYROAM SOLIS X Price: $179.99

POCKETALK PLUS VOICE TRANSLATOR Price: $299

For anyone who’s going to have to hop on a work Zoom while on vacation, a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot is a must-have, and the Skyroam Solis X is one of the best out there. With its flexible Wi-Fi plans, this device works in over 135 countries, offers an encrypted network with 4G LTE speeds and allows you to connect up to 10 devices.

GO.C PERSONAL WEARABLE HAND SANITIZER Price: $19.00 Hand sanitizer is the ultimate travel accessory nowadays, so why not take your hand sanitizer game up a notch? With just the press of a button, the Go.C device will spray the optimal amount of sanitizer right into your palm, and the fastening system allows you to clip it to belts, pockets or bags.

EPICKA UNIVERSAL TRAVEL ADAPTER Price: $20.99 It’s probably been a while since you’ve traveled abroad, which is why we’re here to remind you that different countries use different electrical outlets. With the Epicka Universal Travel Adaptor, you’ll get the most bang for your buck, fitting outlets in over 150 countries.

SCOSCHE MAGICFOGGER PORTABLE ANTIBACTERIAL SANITIZER Price: $79.99 The MagicFogger releases a fine mist of FDA-approved HOCL Electrolyzed Water, known as MagicFog. Said to be 100 times stronger than bleach but 100 percent organic, the MagicFog mist immediately kills germs and viruses, and it’s completely safe for humans, animals and the environment. Unfortunately, you can’t buy it just yet; the MagicFogger is currently tracking for a July 21 release date.

Language no longer needs to be a barrier when traveling in foreign countries. The Pocketalk device, which comes with a complimentary two-year cellular data plan that provides coverage in over 130 countries, is the equivalent of having a full-time translator. With the touch of one button, you can have a conversation in 82 different languages, plus its camera will translate written text and signs.

LECTROFAN MICRO2 Price: $34.95 Getting a good night’s rest after a long day of travel is essential, but you never know what type of unexpected noises will await you at your destination. Enter the LectroFan Micro2, an all-in-one sleep sound machine and portable Bluetooth speaker with 11 built-in sounds to help you get better sleep. Not only can you choose between five digital fan sounds, four variations of white, pink and brown noise, and two ocean surf sounds, but you can also rotate the speaker to customize the noise.

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AIRPOP ACTIVE+ HALO SMART MASK Price: $149.99 Face masks have not only become a part of everyday life, but they’ve also become mandatory for travel. This mask combines Airpop’s lightest weight and most breathable mask with a Halo sensor. The discreet sensor connects to the Airpop app and automatically tracks and monitors your breathing data, air quality, wear time and air volume. See meaningful feedback about your breathing—and get alerts when it’s time to change your mask’s filter. Sounds like a smart mask to us.

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PODCAST

CHRONICLES ABROAD Nubia and Frantzces are “two middleaged, single empty nesters” who’ve created a podcast that mixes travel stories with personal growth. Episodes focus on everything from moving to South Africa to the importance of storms in our lives. FREE, CHRONICLESABROAD.COM

WEBSITE

FATHOM

BOOK

World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

Co-created by Worth contributor Pavia Rosati, Fathom embraces all the reasons that people travel, and is filled with insights and inspiration. FREE, FATHOMAWAY.COM

hree years ago this month, the revered chef, author and raconteur Anthony Bourdain died of an apparent suicide at the age of 61. His fans were shocked and crestfallen; Bourdain’s bestselling books and his witty television series had created throngs of admirers worldwide. Thankfully, Bourdain had begun planning one more travel book with his colleague Laurie Woolever. It’s an unusual combination of Bourdain’s recollections and recommendations, interspersed with some brief essays from his friends, colleagues and family.

Here are some of Bourdain’s final tips: Take public transportation in Singapore. “Back home, I don’t look forward to the subway; I try and avoid it. Here, it’s clean, like nearly everything in Singapore, shiny and new. And most importantly, cool.” Don’t fear the street food in Mumbai. “It may seem to some people that I spend an inordinate amount of time eating guts and brains and lung, things a lot of people may call ‘gross.’ I won’t deny taking a savage pleasure in shaking people’s assumptions about food. But these neglected parts of the animals we eat are more than just nutritious. They’re really good.” Sample the cheese off the coast of Croatia. “By the time we get this selection of Pag cheeses, all made from the milk of these happy sheep, who’ve been grazing on uniquely-salty-from-thesea herbs and grasses, we are pretty goddamned happy.”

BOOK

FINDING THE MOTHER TREE: DISCOVERING THE WISDOM OF THE FOREST By Suzanne Simard

Cut loose in Chicago. “Done right, you drag your ass sleepily off to the airport, chin smeared with the grease from an Italian beef sandwich, belching mustard from last night’s red hot, dimly trying to remember to whom you must apologize for your previous misadventures.”

Not a travel book, but a lyrical and moving account of one of nature’s least understood phenomena: how plants behave and communicate with one another.

$35, ECCO, 472 PAGES.

$28.95, PENGUIN, 368 PAGES.

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CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, BLOCKCHAIN, NFTS AND HOW EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES ARE TRANSFORMING BUSINESS AND SOCIETY. (PICTURED) PAST ATTENDEES INCLUDE: JEFF WEINER, PADMASREE WARRIOR, MARC BENIOFF, PENNY PRITZKER, JACK DORSEY, ANDREW YANG, MARTIN SORRELL, MARK ZUCKERBERG, KIMBERLY BRYANT.

“TECHNOLOGY IS CENTRAL AND INDISPENSABLE TO ALL THE ACTIVITIES OF BUSINESS, AND OF HUMANITY.”

DAVID KIRKPATRICK FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DISCOVER MORE AT:

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The New 10 Commandments of Travel

With the right attitude, anything can be a travel experience that opens your heart to the wonders that abound. BY PAVIA ROSATI

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I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y F E D E R I C O G A S TA L D I

year spent limiting your movements to close to home has been more than enough time to refine that list of places you can’t wait to visit once you’re finally free and all those pesky government restrictions have been lifted. You’re ready! Ready to sail a gulet around the Turkish islands. See what all the fuss is about in Western Australia. Meet the gorillas and chimps in Rwanda. Score a reservation on that private island in the South Seas so discreet you won’t even tell your best friend what it’s called. Good for you. Also, no surprise: A life in balance needs to counter being cooped up with a mighty busting out. Heaven knows the economies in Turkey and Australia and Rwanda are desperate for your infusion of tourist dollars. They’re ready, too, and will welcome you back with open arms. But now that you’ve tackled where to travel, before you hit the road, take a minute to think about how you travel. If the upside of an unwanted pause is time to think about what really matters, put that thought into practice before you venture back out into the world. If that world feels a lot more fragile and interconnected than it seemed in those blissfully clueless days of January 2020, that’s because it is. For better and for worse, and we’re responsible for it. With all due respect to Moses (a man who learned firsthand how to guide expeditions into foreign lands), herewith are the new 10 Commandments of Travel.

TRAVEL IS A PRIVILEGE First principles first: Travel is not a right. It’s a privilege. Respect it as such.

TRAVEL LESS, BUT BETTER Instead of racking up bragging rights about the many places you’ve been, consider going to fewer places and experiencing them more deeply. If the old way was a to-do list, the new way should be an immersive novel. Yes, it sounds glamorous to hopscotch around Italy for 10 days and see five different cities. But you’ll get more out of your journey if you settle into a place long enough to learn the name of the nice lady who makes your morning cappuccino just the way you like it. Slow down, cowboy.

3. REDUCE YOUR IMPACT

Was there a better image in 2020 than seeing the canals in Venice trade hideous cruise ships for frolicking swans and happy dolphins? No. If we want those swans to stick around, we have to make them feel welcome. Who is to blame for over-tourism in Barcelona, garbage-filled beaches in Thailand, candy wrappers on Cascade Mountain trails? We are. You can go big and lobby your government to limit tourism, or you can go small and stop buying bottled water. But be the fixer, not the problem.

SPEND THOUGHTFULLY Every travel dollar you spend reinforces a set of values. What do you want those values to be? That’s where you should spend it. Does the hotel serve wasteful buffets and cool rooms with frigid air conditioners instead of cool ocean breezes? No thanks. Are you staying at a giant multinational chain hotel or a family-run inn? Guess who will treat you better. Before you make a travel decision, ask questions. When consumers demand better behavior, companies will have to adapt to our requests. This applies to who they hire, how they treat their employees and whether they care for the environment.

BE RESPECTFUL When we travel away from home, we’re guests in another place. What should guests do? Behave.

How would you want visitors to treat your home, your garden, your space? That’s exactly how you should treat theirs. The Golden Rule never gets old: Do as you would be done by.

6. BE GRATEFUL

When someone does something for you—check you in at the airport, bring you an aperitif at sunset, give you directions to the museum—show your gratitude. This doesn’t always require a cash handout. A smile, a warm thank you or a genuine gesture that expresses your appreciation will go a long way toward making it a better interaction for everyone.

GET INTO NATURE A walk on the beach, a stroll through the woods, a picnic along a river, a hike in a valley. You don’t need to be a rugged camper to experience the restorative powers, the freedom, the beauty and the simple joy you’ll feel when you spend any time in nature.

STAY HEALTHY The pandemic showed us how interconnected we are, and the risks that incurs. As we begin to travel again, health and safety— along with travel insurance, masks and medicines—will no longer be an afterthought. The months and years ahead will bring more developments around testing, vaccines, immunity passports and new technologies that keep us focused on good health.

9. GIVE BACK

The places you visit give you so much. Is there something you can give in return? Giving can take so many forms—cash, goods, time, assistance. Do what feels comfortable to you, but do something. You’ll thank yourself for it.

10.

BE CURIOUS You’re out in the world. Don’t you want to know about it? Read a novel set in the destination you’re visiting. If you see something that interests you, ask questions. You’re not being nosy; you’re being engaged. Be curious, because it will most likely lead you to interesting and unexpected places and ideas and stories that you will be happy to discover.

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Could a New Era of Train Travel Be Upon Us? Train travel in America could be at a real turning point, with President Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan and Amtrak’s new map proposing what their passenger lines could look like by 2035. But the question remains: Is America ready? BY MICKI WAGNER

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rains are, perhaps, the most romantic mode by which to travel. And in the flurry of COVID19 vaccines, rising case numbers and social distancing guidelines, train travel might be as alluring as it’s ever been for travelers. Back in November, I found myself on an Amtrak train from New York City to Trenton, N.J., making my way to New Hope, Pa., to report on a new boutique hotel. I had taken commercial flights during COVID to visit my family back in St. Louis, Mo., and every time, I was a bundle of nerves as I navigated TSA (something that already makes me nervous) and waited to see if my chosen airline would handle social distancing the way they claimed they would (sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t). So when I arrived at Penn Station to board my train, I had the same airport anxiety, not knowing how this mode of travel that I’ve seldom utilized would handle social distancing guidelines or uphold best practices for health and safety. What I found was a mode of transportation that seemed remarkably up to task in dealing with these challenges. No one was seated next to me, which made me not only feel safe, but also more comfortable, and the trip was filled with much less anxiety than what I felt going through airports. When I approached Amtrak president Stephen Gardner about how COVID has impacted train travel, he noted: “Amtrak has set a new standard of travel with enhanced safety and cleaning measures. To simplify and safeguard the travel experience, several cleaning, contact-free and convenience measures have been implemented into every part of the customer journey—from time of booking to the moment of arrival. While we introduced these measures due to COVID, we are committed to keeping them in place long after the pandemic is over. At our low-

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est point in ridership (March 2020), our ridership was down to about three percent what it was before the pandemic. As of mid-April 2021, we are up to about a third of our ridership pre-pandemic. This proves that customers feel safe and confident traveling on Amtrak. Additionally, several of our state-supported trains have returned to service levels seen pre-pandemic due to customer demand.” But I was curious how others felt about train travel right now, so I reached out to Thomas Pallini, an aviation and transportation reporter

for Insider, who has found himself on quite a few train trips during COVID, and he echoed my sentiments. “All four times that I’ve taken the train, it’s been largely empty,” he said. “So, I didn’t have to worry about someone sitting next to me; I had a whole bunch of open space, way better legroom than any airline could provide in coach. And the thing with Amtrak is that you’re on the ground, but there’s also a lot of ventilation so anytime you walk between a car and that door opens, you get fresh air coming into the cabin, into the car.” Pallini says that Amtrak has made for a good mode of travel during COVID due to the air quality (or at least how travelers might perceive it) and because of the seating adjustments Amtrak made in light of the pandemic. “The joke with an airplane is that you’re breathing in recycled air, which isn’t true, but a lot of people still think that,” Pallini said. “Train travel, it doesn’t have the same misconceptions that airline travel does. Amtrak was great because it was blocking adjacent seats, so trains were being sold at 50 percent capacity.” Back in April, President Joe Biden announced a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, in which $80 billion will be allotted to modernize rail networks, including Amtrak, throughout the U.S. Upon this announcement, Amtrak rolled out a map highlighting what the company plans to have national passenger train routes looking like by 2035. “The $80 billion proposed for Amtrak and rail is what this nation has been waiting for, but it will require Congress to act and provide Amtrak and our partners with sufficient funding to rebuild and improve the

“Train travel doesn’t have the same misconceptions that airline travel does.”

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T R AV E L / T R A I N S they’re going to need positions that allow for growth. So, as we look at the contrast between regular rail and high-speed rail—these are jobs that are going to be somewhat niche, but also that market is going to continuously expand, real markets will expand, and the demand for passenger rail will expand, and I think it’s really exciting to have leadership that wants to commit to shovel-ready projects.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Amtrak had been experiencing near historic highs of ridership before the pandemic set in. And Biden’s proposal is a step in the right direction toward helping Amtrak realize this expansion plan, but critics have also pointed out that this wouldn’t be

“No new sitting president, since the foundation of Amtrak, has made this bold of a move to develop rail infrastructure, outside of a private capacity.”

A M T R A K ’ S P R O J E C T E D 2 0 3 5 M A P. G R A P H I C C O U R T E S Y O F A M T R A K

NEC and our National Network and expand our service to more of America,” Gardner said. “Amtrak’s Corridor Vision exemplifies the kind of investments called for in President Biden’s American Jobs Plan—infrastructure investments that will spark economic recovery, help address climate change and advance social equity. Our vision builds upon Amtrak’s national network of long-distance trains, integrating new and improved corridors into our existing system. It is important to note that Congress created Amtrak for this very purpose—to connect America by rail on behalf of the federal government and state partners—and the vision leverages Amtrak’s national capabilities and expertise in place to plan, build and operate these new routes.” Madison Butler, communications manager for the Rail Passengers Association, said that this proposed plan could be very beneficial to not only the future of Amtrak and train travel, but also for developing more job opportunities. “Rail Passengers Association had a really pivotal role in founding Amtrak and creating the language around the legislature 50 years ago that brought Amtrak into existence,” Butler said. “So, the team that I work with has extensively, for 50 years, been providing feedback, then working on policy updates to procedures, making sure that accessibility was available in more communities through Amtrak. So, I would say not only just in my experience, but in the longevity of the association, we really have kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with this $80 billion plan. And while rail is just a part of that, all of these elements are going to tie in together. No new sitting president, since the foundation of Amtrak, has made this bold of a move to develop rail infrastructure, outside of a private capacity. What this infrastructure opportunity does is it allows us to take what has already been done, all the sacrifices that people had to make to create the infrastructure we have and revitalize it in a way that prepares us for the future.” “I think there are some people who are going to say, ‘well, boy, $80 billion, that’s a lot of money.’ Well, it also is a lot of jobs,” Butler continued. “We’re seeing military people coming home, so many people are going to be brought back from Afghanistan—3,500 people—they’re going to need jobs, and

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“While the pandemic has been tragic for so many people and on so many levels, it has allowed Amtrak to reassess where we are and where we want to be.” the first time Amtrak has promised expansion and not made good on those promises. When asked about the likelihood of Amtrak’s 2035 map coming to fruition, Butler said it really depends on stakeholders’ commitment to staying involved with the project. “In the past when there have been expansions, new route proposals, whatever, I think it’s fair to say in a proposal that big and grand that maybe not everything is going to happen, and maybe not everything’s going to happen on that trajectory,” Butler said. “So much can change at a federal or state level with stakeholders, with elected officials, and if they want to have the funding to do this, that funding has to be allocated by Congress to Amtrak. That means constituents, passenger association members, local businesses, community organizations, all need to be involved in saying, ‘we want this for our community,’ and to continue to just hammer at it, and it’s very easy when projects are this big to lose hope. And so, I would say, taking small steps to remain engaged over a long, consistent period of time is the best way to support it. Ultimately, don’t lose hope and don’t lose focus.” Gardner noted that Amtrak is still not a transportation option in some cities, but that there is a possibility for that to change in the future. “There are several major cities that do not have any Amtrak service today, including Las Vegas, Nashville, Columbus and Phoenix—an

enormous, missed opportunity,” he said. “There are other cities where service is woefully inadequate, like Cincinnati, which is served by Amtrak only three times a week and scheduled to arrive in the middle of the night. There are entire regions with very few Amtrak trains today but where there are city pairs that would benefit from frequent rail service, where we could connect Houston, San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth. All of these regions and communities deserve to have a real alternative to driving and flying, and Amtrak has the mandate and the capabilities in place to deliver that future. Development of corridor passenger rail service will also improve mobility for these underserved areas of the country.” One of Amtrak’s successes has been the Northeast Corridor, allowing travelers to move up and down the Eastern Seaboard easily without getting on a flight and for generally cheaper tickets than airlines. And while Amtrak has long-distance trains running throughout the country, its real strength could lie in the idea of train travel replacing short flights—something France has already voted into effect. In April, France voted to ban all domestic flights that could be reached by passenger trains in under two-and-a-half hours. Pallini told me he had recently spoken to an expert from the Rail Passengers Association, who had noted that only 10 percent of trips on long-distance lines are taken in full. Rather, train travel is great for traveling between two cities where “flying would be a logistical nightmare.” “That’s what Amtrak is thinking when it’s adding these lines, that it’ll help under-connected cities get access to larger cities or other small cities, and that’s what Amtrak was founded to do—it’s a government-owned corporation that has the mandate of connecting the U.S. via rail,” Pallini said. “But the thing is that it brings us nowhere near closer to having Europeanstyle high-speed rail. It doesn’t enable the existing high-speed Acela line to go any faster than it’s projected to go with the new train sets that are coming online either later this year or next. So, we’re nowhere near where Europe is, where Asia is, in terms of high-speed rail, and we’ve kind of let private companies and individual states create their own lines. Amtrak is still years, if not decades, away from building its own dedicated clean slate high-speed rail with actual high-speed trains that go faster than the Acela can go. So, it’s a great start. It’s great for national rail connectivity. But it’s not going to make Amtrak profitable because long-distance lines are largely money losers.” But according to Butler, Amtrak’s purpose is not aligned with profitability. “Amtrak exists as a public service, the same as a library, the same as a post office,” Butler explained. “It’s not meant to create a profit. One of the key reasons that Amtrak exists is to fill a need, and when it was privatized, the private companies historically failed in passenger rail; they did not hit the profit margins that they had projected because it’s not that kind of a service. And it’s more about the community equity, the return on investment to small and big towns that comes from Amtrak. And I think as we see growth, we’ll also see that return on investment.” As for Gardner, he says that Amtrak is evolving in the aftermath of the pandemic. “While the pandemic has been tragic for so many people and on so many levels, it has allowed Amtrak to reassess where we are and where we want to be, and [has] allowed us to change the product we offer and consumers we appeal to,” he said. “So as customers continue to return, they will experience a new, reinvented Amtrak, one they are not familiar with. This includes the Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, upgrades we have made on our app, on our trains and at our stations, as well as better pricing. We are also investing in our product by refreshing train interiors and ordering new equipment.”

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How COVID Boosted Private Aviation— Permanently

Despite the high cost, private air travel has seen a flurry of activity from new customers. BY JAMES LEDBETTER

ince the spring of 2020, about the last place in the world where anyone has wanted to be is inside a major airport, waiting to board a jumbo jet. Of all the locations where you might catch a lethal airborne virus, the place that makes you wait in long lines; that can lock you in crowded terminals with the exhaled breath of thousands for hours; and that packs you into a flying sardine can with hundreds of people is bound to rank pretty low on most people’s list—somewhere between “rush hour subway car” and “sold out arena rock concert.”

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T R AV E L / P L A N E S For that reason, private air travel—despite its high cost—has found an eager audience among cautious travelers. The appeal is obvious: No waiting in airport lines, anxiously trying to maintain social distance. No taking off your belt and shoes. And while any public activity during a pandemic is risky, many travelers are attracted to the theoretically safer private option. The Austria-based charter airline GlobeAir issued a study claiming that a passenger traveling on a commercial aircraft has 700 potentially infectious encounters; on a private jet, the company says, it’s 20. So, while fewer people overall have been flying since early 2020, the percentage of flyers choosing private jets has gone up. As a result, 2020 was not the disastrous year for private aviation one might have predicted. In 2019, the size of the U.S. private aviation market was estimated at between $25 and $30 billion. 2020 was no doubt a year of shrinkage; some companies have indicated that in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic lockdowns kicked in, business fell to 10 percent of its 2019 level, akin to the dramatic drop-off in commercial travel. But while commercial airline travel remains deflated, the private aviation industry has actually surpassed, by many yardsticks, its prepandemic level. Partly this is because there were periods of pandemic reaction in 2020 that tilted toward private aviation’s affluent demographic: Americans coming back to the U.S. from abroad; university students returning home when their campuses shut down; people leaving cities for second homes to ride out the lockdown; and holiday travel. So even while tens of millions of Americans worked from home and largely shut down demand for any type of business travel, leisure travel kept private aviation humming. VistaJet Chief Commercial Officer Ian Moore says his company had 30 percent more new customers in 2020 than in 2019. According to Doug

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Gollan, founder and editor-in-chief of Private Jet Card Comparisons, charter aircraft activity during the 2020 Fourth of July weekend actually surpassed its 2019 level. And it’s only become stronger since. “This past March was a record month in terms of charter flights,” Gollan said. “By the time we get to the summer, there could be a shortage.” This means that the profile of the typical private aviation customer has shifted somewhat, from business traveler to leisure traveler—although for some providers, this isn’t a shift at all. Aero, a San Francisco-based private jet company that launched in 2019, focuses exclusively on leisure travel and experienced almost no negative COVID impact at all. “Our business has been accelerating much more quickly than we would have anticipated had COVID not happened,” says Aero CEO Uma Subramanian. The changing dynamic in the private aviation customer base has also led to a flurry of activity in the industry. Wheels Up, for example, has been on an acquisition spree for two years, including its January purchase of Mountain Aviation, which had been the country’s 10th largest private aviation company. Gollan points out that there is still plenty of room for consolidation; he says that the top 10 carriers account for only 25 percent of the private aviation market, while the top 10 commercial carriers account for more than 90 percent of the market. The industry’s big question now is: Assuming commercial aviation bounces back, what will happen to the private carriers? Megan Wolf, COO of Flexjet, argues that private air travel is the ultimate “sticky” service; once travelers become accustomed to its comfort and convenience, they are unlikely to want to get back on a commercial plane. That’s probably historically true, although the proposition has never been tested at the scale that’s about to hit. Gollan surveyed his subscribers in January and found that 96 percent of those who began flying

private during the pandemic plan to continue when the pandemic ends, with 41 percent saying they would do so regularly. Given some predictable attrition of those newly acquired leisure customers, that still leaves a lot of private carriers betting on the comeback of business travel—which is a very open question in the COVID era. If the past year-plus has shown anything, it’s that a great deal of business that once entailed travel can be conducted via Zoom. (See ‘Business Travel in the Age of Zoom’ on page 64.) Of necessity, everything about business travel has changed—not just business trips, but even coming into an office. In early 2020, one Sili-

con Valley company weighed its options when an executive assistant—a young mother with a punishing commute—asked to work from home one or two days a week. “We almost let her go,” an executive admits, noting that just a month later, practically the entire company was working from home every day. Even hiring— which was once close to unthinkable without an in-person meeting—is now routinely done over Zoom. Of course, just because executives can conduct most business remotely doesn’t mean that they want to, or that it’s the best method. Arguably, the reliance on video meetings makes in-person meetings all the more valuable, and a lot

“96 percent of those who began flying private during the pandemic plan to continue when the pandemic ends.”

of business executives are worried about losing relationships with their customers. Historically, the most efficient use of private aviation for the thousands of businesses that don’t have their own planes has always been the multicity visit to customers. For example, a private jet rental makes it cost-effective for a

corporate team to fly, say, from New York City to Cleveland to Pittsburgh and home again in a single day, with no hotel expense. That private aviation advantage will remain even when commercial travel rebounds. Related to this is that thousands of corporate leaders have not visited their remote affiliates in person in more than a year. Flexjet’s Wolf labels this “pent-up demand” and says that her company has spoken to several corporate clients who are already planning these trips. So while COVID introduced panic and uncertainty into almost every industry across the globe, the world of private aviation believes it is flying into a very bright future. WORTH.COM

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How Do Cities Bring Back Tourism? For certain U.S. cities that rely on tourism revenue, 2020 was a devestating blow. But they’re finally bouncing back thanks to creative ingenuity. BY RICHARD BRADLEY

round the country, cities are recovering from a devastating year for business travel and tourism. Perhaps the biggest change? They’re finally showcasing the history of all the people who built them. In early March 2020, Van Johnson, the mayor of Savannah, Ga., decided to cancel the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration because of the threat of coronavirus. St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in Savannah, a weekend festival that brings in millions of dollars of revenue for the city’s bars, restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. For Joe Marinelli, the president of Visit Savannah, the city’s convention and visitors bureau (CVB), the cancellation was not just a huge economic hit, but a warning sign of things to come. Visit Savannah’s mission—like that of similar organizations in every state and big city around the country—is to drive visitation to its city through tourism, business travel and conventions. There isn’t a city in the country that doesn’t depend on visitation for revenue, tax dollars and jobs, so these organizations are important. And in Savannah, a beautiful city with an inviting blend of history, character and culture, tourism is the single biggest industry. But how could Marinelli promote visitation to a city in lockdown? 40

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NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

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T R AV E L / C I T I E S “I remember sitting down with my team and saying, ‘Gang, I don’t know how to lead in this situation,’” Marinelli recalls now. “’None of us ever have been though anything like this.’ We had no idea what we were heading into, and I had to show my vulnerability a little bit and say, ‘Look, I’m not sure how to do this, but we’re going to have to figure it out together.’” That philosophy characterized the American travel industry last year. After a decade in which visitation around the United States rose like an endless bull market, 2020 set the wrong kind of records. The coronavirus, of course, had the biggest impact; few wanted to be in densely populated areas, or planes, or hotels, during a pandemic. And in a number of cities, the protests—and, sometimes, violence—around the Black Lives Matter movement for social justice fostered the perception that cities had become places of chaos, disease and death. International travel disappeared, the convention business shut down, leisure travelers stayed away and many city residents who could go elsewhere left—if you could work remotely, why not work somewhere safe and scenic? Those who could afford to headed for more outdoor-oriented options—second homes, resort communities, mountains, anything on the water. Savannah’s Tybee Island, where the 2017 film version of Baywatch was shot, had a near-record year, according to Marinelli. Further north, “Cape Cod, the Vineyard, Nantucket, the Berkshires—they all did well,” says Martha Sheridan, the president and CEO of the Greater Boston CVB. But for Boston, 2020 was “devastating. I can’t overstate how badly the industry in Boston has suffered.” No one’s popping corks yet, but as millions of Americans get vaccinated and cities reopen, 2021 is looking vastly better. The challenge now for people like Marinelli and Sheridan is not just to encourage the return of visitors and conventions, but to compete for that business. It’s a balancing act: While cities don’t want

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to send the message that they’re not taking COVID-19 seriously, they do want to send the message that the virus, in terms of travel, is a nonissue. And there’s another important trend: People who market cities— their culture, their history, their attractions—have taken the social justice movement of 2020 to heart as both a social responsibility and an economic opportunity. Cities nationwide have begun not only promoting attractions, such as festivals, neighborhoods and restaurants, that are minority-owned or minority-centric, they’ve also begun reaching out to travelers of color in ways that simply weren’t happening before 2020. The sine qua non for travel now is safety. Even though Americans are getting more comfortable traveling again, every city is trying to strike the balance of communicating safety and responsibility, without being a downer. One example: Savannah tweaked some of its ads to show people—a restaurant server, for example—wearing masks. The message, Marinelli says: “Life’s normal here, but your server’s probably going to have a mask on.” Probably nowhere is that messaging more important than in Orlando, the home of theme parks such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld. “The pandemic shutdown caused unimaginable lows, from hotel occupancy being the lowest we ever recorded to more than 150,000 jobs lost in the hospitality sector alone,” says Casandra Matej, president and CEO at Visit Orlando. Her organization launched a safety campaign called, “Safer, Stronger, Together,” to encourage both customers and businesses to follow health guidelines. Those safety protocols, Matej says, “are a key factor for travelers when choosing a destination, so this was—and still is—an important part of our efforts to market the destination.” The most famous part of Orlando, Walt Disney World Resort, quickly moved to reduce attendance in its parks, make masks mandatory and

S AVA N N A H , GEORGIA, USA Mashama Bailey Chef/partner of The Grey & The Grey Market Best thing about Savannah: Being on the water. Best people-watching: Tybee Island, for a cast of characters different from any other beach town I’ve ever seen, and Forsyth Park to see tourists and locals intermingle. Favorite neighborhood: Baldwin Park. I don’t want tourists to know about: Picker Joe’s, the antique mall that has basically furnished my entire house. Dream meal: Narobia’s Grits and Gravy. Favorite local institution: SCAD. To have the campus spread through downtown adds so much youthful and artistic energy to this often-sleepy town. Best movie based in Savannah: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Classic. In the city escape: I take a walk through the neighborhoods downtown. It’s easy to find space while admiring the architecture and greenery. Nearby escape: Beaufort, South Carolina, a beautiful city with good food and loads of Geechee Gullah culture. No trip to Savannah is complete without: A trip to Mrs. Wilkes’ Dining Room for the food and atmosphere. Excerpted with permission from Travel North America: (and Avoid Being a Tourist) by Pavia Rosati and Jeralyn Gerba, published by Hardie Grant Books, June 2021

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introduce a new reservation system, which meant that guests needed both a theme park ticket and reservation, according to Jason Kirk, senior vice president of operations at Disney World. And Disney embraced technology as a means of facilitating safety protocols; it launched a “Disney MagicMobile Service” that allowed visitors to enter the parks contactless, simply by using their phone. (Visitors didn’t actually need to unlock or wake the phone for it to work.) It also enlarged its MobileOrder program, allowing guests to order and prepay for food from throughout the resort, then go to a restaurant and pick it up. For Disney, the stakes are especially high this year. On October 1, the resort kicks off “The

World’s Most Magical Celebration,” an 18-month long 50th anniversary party. Disney wants a smooth runway to the celebration; it’s being cautious about easing safety protocols. Much of the groundwork for the promotion of travel in 2021 actually began last year, even as many CVBs slashed their budgets and laid off or furloughed employees. In Nashville, one of the great recent success stories of American tourism, visitation revenue declined by about 75 percent for 2020, “and that’s only because January and February were pretty good,” says Butch Spyridon, president and CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. For Nashville, the coronavirus and BLM protests weren’t the only challenge

in 2020. “We started March with a tornado, then the pandemic, then 90-mile-an-hour winds and power outages for a week, then social unrest, then a bombing”—a bomb decimated a city block in Nashville on Christmas morning—“and a flood,” in March of this year. “The impact was devastating on every level,” says Spyridon. “It became survival mode for all of us.” But the growth that Nashville has experienced during the last decade didn’t stop in 2020, as the city opened some 2,500 new hotel rooms and a number of new restaurants. So Spyridon and his now-diminished team developed an ad campaign with the theme: “Come on Back.” As the NCVC website explains, “The world may

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T R AV E L / C I T I E S have paused, but Nashville continued crafting new music, new designs, new attractions…” During the Grammy Awards broadcast on March 14 of this year, the NCVC aired an ad featuring Nashville artists, cooks and designers playing music, cooking and designing, against a backdrop of local singer Keb’ Mo’ performing a song called “Come on Back.” “We had cut [spending] everywhere we could, and we cobbled together dollars from every pot imaginable and held together with Elmer’s glue and toothpicks,” Spyridon says. “But we never stopped selling, and that’ll pay off in our recovery. But that was a gamble. We were burning cash without knowing

where relief would come from.” It seems to be working. Nashville’s hotel occupancy rate, at least on weekends, is back around 40 to 50 percent—still low, but headed in the right direction—the city is planning a Fourth of July concert headlined by Brad Paisley, and the well-known Bonnaroo music festival, held in nearby Manchester, is greenlit for early September. Bonnaroo, which was canceled in 2020, had about 80,000 attendees in 2019. With performers such as Megan Thee Stallion, Tame Impala and Foo Fighters, it’s already sold out. For smaller cities without the wealth of tourist attractions that Nashville and Orlando have—and

with correspondingly smaller marketing budgets—2020 hit even harder and prompted a creativity born of desperation. While in Rhode Island, tourism is back—or never really left—in Newport, Narragansett and Block Island, the state capital of Providence is struggling to emerge from a painful year. “Downtown Providence makes its bread and butter off two things,” says Kristen Adamo, who heads the Providence and Warwick CVB. “Students and conventions.” Both disappeared in 2020. It didn’t help when a June BLM protest was hijacked by hooligans— many of whom weren’t even from Providence—who looted stores in the Providence Place Mall, a downtown

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anchor, and burned a police cruiser. So the CVB, struggling with layoffs and furloughs, launched a buy local ad campaign, largely donated by local newspapers, on the theory that “if you love these things, you need to support them,” Adamo says. For 2021 and beyond, Adamo’s organization developed a “Meet in Rhode Island” plan that asked local businesses, such as Hasbro toy company and Johnson & Wales University, to commit to hosting a trade show or meeting in Providence between 2022 and 2024. The idea, Adamo says, is “helping the place where you built your company.” This summer, Adamo has helped launch a campaign in which visitors who book a two-night hotel stay will receive a $100 Visa gift card. But there’s a catch; the card is geo-fenced and can only be used in Providence. Adamo emphasizes that all the promotional materials for the card are appearing in both English and Spanish—an attempt, she says, “to introduce new businesses to what tourism can do,” while introducing new clients to minority-owned stores, restaurants and shops they might not otherwise have patronized. One outlier to this pattern of budget-cutting is Charleston, S.C., a city known for crafting an excellent visitor experience. Like the rest of the industry, “we got hammered,” says Doug Warner, vice president of media and innovation development at Charleston’s CVB. But thanks to its climate, outdoor space and political agility, Charleston “was never a ghost town.” The city moved quickly to launch outdoor dining, for example, by saying to restaurant owners, “we’ve got all these rules and regulations about sidewalk dining, but instead of asking permission, do what you’ve got to do, and we’ll come check it out later,” Warner explains. Hotel bookings in Charleston are now back to 2019 levels or better, at least during weekends. (The slow return of business travel is hurting hotel bookings Sunday through Wednesday in Charleston and everywhere else.) But Charleston, which

typically hosts smaller conventions that are likely to return faster than the 10,000-plus giants hosted by cities such as Las Vegas and Orlando, feels that its ability to maintain its staff gives it a competitive edge. “This goes back to the reason we wanted to keep our people,” Warner explains. “People are ready to start planning a fall meeting, but their Rolodex doesn’t work anymore because [CVB employees in other cities] are all gone.” Now, Warner says, the second half of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 “look like they’re going to be incredibly busy.” Cities such as Charleston and Savannah have benefited in another way: an exodus of residents from places like New York and Boston who’ve learned that they can work remotely while paying lower taxes, enjoying better weather and getting more for their real estate dollar. And for anyone who might want to go to New York for a meeting, it’s easy enough to hop on a plane from these small city airports—a far more pleasant experience than LaGuardia or JFK—and be in the city by nine in the morning. The result is a real estate boom. The Charleston residential real estate market has less than a 15-day supply, Warner says. “In the 33 years that I’ve lived here, that has never been the case.” A final opportunity for many cities is to embrace the message of last summer’s social justice movement and integrate it into their visitation offerings. Some cities were already moving in this direction. In 2019, California’s Visit Sacramento created the position of chief of diversity, equity and inclusion and appointed longtime staffer Sonya Bradley, a Black woman, to the post. Though the title might sound like an HR role, it’s actually a job to highlight minority-owned attractions and market them with a focus on (but certainly not limited to) travelers of color. While continuing to stress Sacramento’s brand as “America’s Farm to Fork Capital,” Bradley is working to include “more cultural and diverse

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, USA A laidback, unpretentious, deepfried, honky-tonk of a good time. There’s a reason why the biggest names in country music have called this Southern city home: it’s a hotbed and a launchpad for live music—and the whiskey and BBQ that accompany it so well. Where would country music be without the Honky Tonk Highway, a four-block stretch along Broadway that runs down to the river, an area that’s been launching musicians since the 1930s? Today, the historic buildings are packed with bars and clubs where a steady stream of performers are putting on their best shows all day. The scene is informal, inexpensive and fun, and you never know which big-name act might jump on stage for an impromptu set. The spots to know are Robert’s Western World (robertswesternworld.com), for live music every night; Ernest Tubb Record Shop (etrecordshop.com), for the Midnite Jamboree on Saturdays; and Station Inn (stationinn.com), an old stone hut that hosts bluegrass and American roots music. Nashville has good reason to be mighty proud of its culinary scene, thanks in no small part to chefs who both preserve Southern culinary traditions and push it in new directions, like awardwinning chef Sean Brock, who oversees both Husk (husknashville.com), located in a Victorian mansion in Rutledge Hill (it’s an outpost of his original Charleston location), and Joyland (eatjoyland.com), a burger and biscuit joint in East Nashville. Rolf & Daughters (rolfanddaughters.com) features chef Philip Krajeck’s inventive take on small plates (and is a tough reservation to score, so plan accordingly). Peg Leg Porker (peglegporker.com) may serve the best pulled-pork sandwich you’ll ever eat. Ever. The 10 rooms at Germantown Inn (germantowninn.com), a homey, offthe-radar boutique hotel in a Civil War– era home, are dedicated to different U.S. presidents and historical female figures like Rosa Parks, Thomas Jefferson and Susan B. Anthony. The decor, a mix of new and vintage, includes patriotic pops of red, white and blue alongside funky portraits commissioned for the hotel by local designer Caitlin Mello. Excerpted with permission from Travel North America: (and Avoid Being a Tourist) by Pavia Rosati and Jeralyn Gerba, published by Hardie Grant Books, June 2021

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T R AV E L / C I T I E S attractions and itineraries,” she explains, mentioning the city’s African American, Chinese American and Latino communities. Nashville recently opened its National Museum of African American Music, which complements the city’s lineup of musical attractions yet also feels culturally important in a qualitatively different way. Next year, Charleston will open the International African American Museum, a landmark event for a city making real efforts to come to grips with its horrific history of slavery. In Boston, the CVB had been conducting market research into perceptions of the city well before last summer’s BLM protests. Their findings? Many travelers, and particularly travelers of color, perceived Boston as a racist city. “One of the questions we asked was, ‘If we told you that Boston had all these festivals, Black history assets, would you visit them?’” says CVB president Martha Sheridan. “Respondents said absolutely—they just didn’t know they existed.” So, the CVB has launched a new campaign to integrate its “traditional” tourism assets, like the Red Sox and its “Duck Tour” boats, with so-called non-traditional assets. A new section of its website highlights “All-Inclusive Boston”— get it?—and encourages visitors to “experience a side of Boston you’ve never seen before…A Boston that’s multi-cultural…” For the cities most divided by police violence, such as Louisville, Ky., the imperative is even greater. For a decade, tourism had been growing steadily in Louisville due to the Louisville CVB’s branding of the city as the “Gateway to Bourbon Country.” But the shooting of Breonna Taylor in a misguided police raid, and the subsequent murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, brought Louisville’s racial and economic divisions into painful view. “Downtown was largely boarded up throughout the summer” as the city experienced near-daily protests, says Stacey Yates, vice president of marketing and communications at Louisville Tourism. “We really

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“Even as the economic damage of 2020 recedes, the psychological toll it took on the travel industry isn’t going away anytime soon.”

couldn’t market the city—we just needed to take a pause and remain quiet for a while. To be out there with marketing messages wouldn’t have been respectful to the social justice movement.” Nor, frankly, would they have worked. What message would have persuaded people to come to a city with boarded-up stores and street protests every night? But hotels began to open again in February, and weekend occupancy rose to about 40 percent in March. In early May, Louisville successfully hosted an in-person Kentucky Derby. Attendance was much reduced, but the event was one of the country’s first big annual sporting events to take place in a post-vaccine world. The race went off without incident and garnered national media attention. “It’s starting to feel more like normal,” Yates says. Also in the spring, Louisville launched a leisure travel campaign, playing up the bourbon references, called “The Old Fashioned Road Trip.” It features two multi-racial couples driving into Louisville and doing various bourbonrelated things. The ad is part of a new focus on marketing Black cultural heritage, Yates explains, “telling Louisville and Kentucky’s authentic and unique cultural heritage stories around the Black people who have contributed so much to the culture we enjoy today.” One thing is clear: Even as the economic damage of 2020 recedes, the psychological toll it took on the travel industry isn’t going away anytime soon. As Yates says, “I think we’re through the worst of it, but we’re a heartbeat away from the next thing. The entire world just seems to be waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

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T R AV E L / FA M I L I E S

The Family Plan... Means a Lot of Planning You can still have a once-in-a-lifetime vacation with your clan, but it’s a lot of work. Here’s how to do it right. BY PAUL TUMPOWSKY

his world we share is really quite small. And I really want to see all of it. Of the many lessons that I have learned in the past year, those two have stood out the most. First, it is impossible to underestimate how interconnected our world is. Exhibit A is the microscopic terrorist known as COVID-19 that spread across the planet so quickly and brought life as we knew it to a halt. Second, there’s nothing like being prohibited from traveling to make you realize how much travel means. I’ve come to appreciate how seeing and experiencing the world is so central to who I am. (OK, I founded one of the fastest-growing luxury travel agencies in the world, so I am biased.) As the globe reopens and we enter into this post-pandemic world, there is a lot to rethink about how you plan your family’s travel. Skylark works very closely with our best clients to plan out their travels, often years in advance (and sometimes just hours). In an effort to help our clients plan their travel lives, we have come up with a list of life-changing trips that your family should take before your kids graduate high school…or college. Before going into some of the specific vacation ideas, here are some thoughts we are sharing with clients right now about travel planning for the next couple of years.

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FIND A RELIABLE SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT You want someone who can coordinate your travel itinerary and arrange the many different components of the trip while making it all feel seamless (even if it isn’t). Trip planning today is complicated by everything from international “sterile” transfers and connecting airports, to finding the right time slot for museums that have imposed new entry requirements and having the right paperwork or QR code at the ready. All of this is easier if you work with a travel advisor who has expertise in all of the different elements of your vacation planning. In particular, flights are going to be a very, very complicated part of the equation going forward, with everchanging schedules, rules, entry requirements and required documentation at check-in. Not all travel advisors are air travel experts—in fact, many of them leave flight booking to someone else. Be careful here because although we all want to avoid situations that require it, 24/7 support is a must. But with flight schedules shifting more frequently (see below), you want a single advisor to work with your airlines, hotels and other operators to modify your trip schedule as needed. If you have divided these responsibilities across multiple contacts, none of them will want to take responsibility. It’s important that your travel advisor can not only get you a great deal on airfare, but also knows which flights are less crowded, which airlines are sticking to their schedules, who’s better at social distancing and how to get you home quickly in case of an outbreak or emergency. PLAN FAR, FAR AHEAD If you are a parent of school-age children with strict vacation schedules, you will really need to plan in advance for the next couple of years. Because last year caused so many vacations to be postponed (and associated deposits held by hotels and private tour operators), there is just much less availability in 2021 and, believe it or not, 2022. You should be planning now for the end-of-year holidays and even next spring break and summer vacation to ensure your family gets to see the world. Those of you without kids in school should still be thinking ahead, too. Travelers are booking right now for late summer, fall and holiday trips. And it’s not too early to start thinking about 2022.

PACK A PLAN B In the past when you planned in advance, you could rest assured that the worldwide flight schedule was pretty stable for the next year. Not anymore. The good news is that the airlines are ready: They have their flagship long-haul aircraft being prepped and ready, and you may actually fly lay-flat in business class from Miami to JFK as these planes are put back into service. The bad news is that the airlines are going to be dropping flights into the schedule (and taking them out) with much less warning than in the past. That means there may be lots of schedule changes, possibly right up until your departure date. This does have a benefit to the traveler, if you do not approve of that change (there is fine print here), you are able to get a full refund for the tickets. That might actually be in your favor, since better flight options may have come onto the market since you first booked. We have also become accustomed to having daily nonstops to most international destinations. That’s not the case today. You may have wanted to leave on Friday, but you may just have to wait until Saturday to get a nonstop flight or that perfect connection home. For this and other reasons, many are now taking advantage of private jets (see story on page 36). Last, how about a real Plan B? For every major vacation, Skylark is suggesting that its clients have a full backup plan—that is, a safer, closer-tohome alternative. Even as the world reopens, parts of it may also reclose for short periods of time, and often lastminute. So having another plan will reduce this stress. You might even want to book that backup vacation—as long as it’s fully refundable. DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK Virtually every traditional rule is in the process of being rewritten. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. Work with your advisor to ask for enhanced, more flexible cancellation policies. We are actively working with our partners around the globe to customize vacations. While doing that, we are negotiating specific COVID-related language around deposit payment schedules, cancellation flexibility and policies on returning deposits and honoring credits. For clients who are chartering yachts this summer (think: expensive upfront payments), we are insisting on COVID addendums for all of our bookings. A simple request that ensures peace of mind.

KNOW YOUR KIDS’ INTERESTS— AND SHARE THEM Our hotel partners and private tour operators around the world are getting more creative with tailoring each client’s vacation. We have seen real improvements over the past decade with wellness, food and wine, cocktail classes and so forth. But we are really starting to see it for the next generation. By understanding your children’s interests, our partners have the ability to really take their (and your) vacation to the next level. This is not your normal kids’ club—I am talking about Malliouhana’s ice cream school, Family Twist’s canal-side painting classes and countless Paris scavenger hunts. Share your kids’ loves and passions with a travel advisor, so they can create an unforgettable learning experience for your family disguised as a vacation. NEW TWISTS TO CLASSIC TRIPS Despite the uncertainties around fight schedules, the world is easier to get around. With the introduction of the super-efficient long-haul Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, connectivity from virtually every major city in the U.S. to any major city around the globe is going to be one connection (or a nonstop) away. Also, the airlines’ traditional hub-andspoke map has been redrawn, so you may find yourself transferring through the Middle East or Turkey, instead of London or Paris. This will give you a new set of exotic options to add onto your next vacation. NEW LUXURY OFFERINGS There are also lots of new offerings in every corner of the globe. For example, consider taking part of your vacation on a small ship—a very luxurious small ship, such as Aqua Expeditions in Peru or Lindblad’s cruises in the Galapagos. Even bicycling becomes easier with our top partners like Backroads, which offers electric assist bicycles for guests— ensuring that no one is left behind. FOR THE FOODIES As I think about my travel plans, I can’t wait to visit some of my favorite restaurants and bars. Sadly, many of these establishments won’t be open on my next trip, and perhaps never again. However, we have already begun to work with our concierge partners around the world for new recommendations and are being updated as top chefs reappear and restaurants are resurrected in the top dining destinations. And, yes, Lo Scoglio will be open just like it always is in Amalfi this summer.

Top 5 Destinations for Families

FRANCE. Paris, the pinnacle of cuisine and art, is only being elevated with the new Cheval Blanc Paris opening this summer. But go further and amplify your experience: Visit Monet’s gardens at Giverny, then head to Normandy for the greatest American history lesson of your life. Oenophiles should see the vineyards in Champagne or the Loire. And art pilgrims are heading to Arles, where Frank Gehry’s Luma Tower opens in June.

PERU. Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley are life-list experiences for many— so seek out expert advice on getting acclimated, choosing a lodge and organizing hikes to maximize your time. In addition to Belmond’s exquisite collection of hotels and tours, spend a night on the Belmond Andean Explorer for a unique view of the country. From there, Aqua Expeditions will take you deep into the Amazon in unparalleled comfort, and Lima’s restaurant scene is unmissable (don’t miss La Mar or Central).

3. PATAGONIA. Journey from the

Argentine pampas to the glaciers and peaks of southern Chile—and all the hiking, fly-fishing and wildlife-watching in-between. The luxury lodges—we love Tierra across the whole country—are object lessons in sustainable design.

MOROCCO. The desert kingdom seduces with its cuisine, artistry and ineffable romance. Get lost in the souks of Fez (and reemerge with armloads of justpurchased lamps, jewelry and rugs), but be sure to spend some time at the spa at Royal Mansour. Dine on fragrant couscous in Marrakech. And spend a night in the Sahara, sheltered by a starfilled sky and enjoy your own personal kasbah at Dar Ahlam.

5. EAST AFRICA. We usually send

clients to South Africa for their first safari; it’s user-friendly and combines well with stops in Cape Town and the wine region. Repeat visitors should look at Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania, which have a vastly different terrain, wildlife and culture from the south. Plus: Kilimanjaro is a mountain that most people can climb. Singita, an amazing partner with lodges across Africa, elevates safari to a level befitting of its own profile. Think we missed something? Want help planning your family’s next vacation? Drop me a line at p@skylark.com.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

partners with South Pole, a Zurich-based project developer and global provider of climate action solutions. Through South Pole, VistaJet is able to offer customers credits equivalent to their fuel use-related emissions of a given flight; ultimately, these credits finance projects around the world that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. South Pole also conducts regular audits of VistaJet’s greenhouse gas emissions and financial disclosures. In addition, VistaJet offers all its clients access to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF is a remarkable innovation, with a carbon footprint that is up to 85 percent lower than that of normal jet fuel. Not all of that reduction comes from the fact that SAF burns cleaner—although it does—but also because the production of the fuel itself creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions. That is, SAF is not made from extracting fossil fuels from the ground. Instead, it is made from a variety of materials, including plants such as switchgrass and poplar. Other SAFs in development come from recycled waste products such as animal fat, cooking oil and corn byproducts, such as cobs, leaves and stalks. As noted above, customer demand is driving these changes. VistaJet’s customers are especially concerned with their carbon footprint; already over 80 percent of VistaJet members offset carbon dioxide emissions relative to their flights’ fuel consumption. VistaJet’s carbon offsets

are regularly audited, and those audits are available to its customers. Currently, the SAF VistaJet uses comes from recycled cooking oil and is provided by SkyNRG, an Amsterdambased SAF supplier. Stephen Wetmore, who handles business development for SkyNRG, explains that his company is also experimenting with other fuel sources. “As with all our partnerships, we will be looking to provide them with the most sustainable options. So, as we grow and diversify our range of SAF products, using different feedstocks and technology pathways, we’ll be extending that to the clients as well,” Wetmore said. The biggest barrier to greater adoption of SAF is the cost; it is about six times the cost of regular jet fuel, which is currently priced around $70 a barrel. But VistaJet hopes that its embrace of SAF will help stimulate production, which should eventually bring the price down. This puts VistaJet in company with a few larger firms who have made commitments to increase their use of SAF, including Amazon, Nike and United. Taken together, VistaJet’s pillars should mean that when it comes to reducing emissions, the sky’s the limit. For more information on VistaJet’s sustainability promise, its priority to reduce its carbon footprint meaninfully and fast, and to download the Sustainability in Aviation whitepaper, visit vistajet.com/sustainability.

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M O N E Y F R O M H E A V E N On the rise since the 2017 solar eclipse, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated even more interest in low-impact, high-benefit astrotourism— a billion-dollar economic driver that requires very little investment, and finally reconciles economic development with natural conservation. BY CHRIS ROBERTS

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n the rise throughout the 2010s, the COVID-19 pandemic failed to slow the tourist economy in Utah. Home to only 3.2 million year-round residents, visitors spent $10 billion in the state in 2019, a draw strong enough to deposit $1.34 billion in tourism tax revenue into the state treasury. In 2020, instead of dropping off, state tax revenue grew again, suggesting that COVID-fatigued city dwellers from across the country decamped to Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon or another of the state’s “Mighty 5” natural beauties. To keep that momentum going, Utah state officials are tapping another natural resource—one that, properly managed, is so renewable that it qualifies as eternal, and one that Utah has more of than any other place in the world: The dark. Utah has more “dark skies”—views of the nighttime heavens unblemished by artificial sources of light, generally 12 miles or more away from cities and towns, which grants visitors maximum ability to see planets and stars with or without the aid of binoculars and telescopes—than anywhere else in the world. That makes Utah possibly the leading destination in the United States for “astrotourism.” In the broadest definition, astrotourism is travel to a destination where astrological phenomena is part of the draw. It can be the sole reason for travel, as promoted by resorts and other tourist destinations lucky enough to be sited along the path of totality during the 2017 total

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T R AV E L / A S T R OTO U R I S M solar eclipse, widely credited as the precipitating event driving current interest in the practice. But advocacy groups like the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) have been promoting astrotourism as a low-impact, high-reward method of recreation since the 1980s. And it’s working: Both the United Nations, as well as the U.S. National Park Service, have embraced the concept and the value of dark skies. Since there is no peak season aside from nighttime, which comes very reliably at the end of every day, astrotourism is also a way for tourist attractions to draw visitors (and their money) throughout the year. Astrotourism can solve problems of natural areas being “loved to death,” with too many visitors all at once, trampling, ruining or otherwise diluting the very reason they came. “The night sky is fascinating to

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almost everyone, which is great for dark sky destinations,” said Valerie Stimac, a journalist and author of Dark Skies: A Practical Guide to Astrotourism. To get an idea of how rare a natural amenity like a dark sky is, consider: It’s estimated that 80 percent of Americans can’t see the Milky Way galaxy from their homes. These Americans are not Utahans, who live in a state with a record 23 International Dark Sky Association-certified “dark sky” areas. Astrotourism also offers a unique opportunity for concord—particularly in states like Utah, where most political alignments lean right, despite plenty of granola-favoring outdoors types. Boosters believe that night skies might be where economic development and natural conservation meet eye-to-eye—after all, excess artificial light wastes billions

of dollars in energy costs every year and also ruins this natural moneymaking amenity—and work in concert rather than as opposing forces. In Utah and other states in the Colorado Plateau, the high desert and mountainous areas of Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico as well as Utah, elected officials and economists are taking notice. According to a 2019 estimate from University of Missouri economics professors David Mitchell and Terrel Gallaway—believed to be the first economic analysis of dark skies— astrotourism could generate $5.8 billion in spending in the four-state Colorado Plateau area over the next decade, a visitor wave that could support as many as 100,000 jobs. Keen to the opportunity—and eager to encourage businesses to embrace astrotourism—Utah Governor Spencer Cox declared April 2021 Utah’s first-ever “Dark Sky Month,” highlighting the 23 IDA-accredited “dark sky places” in the state—by far more than any other U.S. state. Among at least some Utah lawmakers, dark skies are such a point of state pride that a few state representatives are pushing to allow motorists to obtain dark sky state license plates. “We get that it’s a real good addon” for national and state parks, said Flint Timmins, a destination development lead in Cox’s state tourism office. While it’s hard to quantify absent another analysis like Mitchell and Gallaway’s, the belief is that the pandemic has also encouraged more awareness of astrotourism, for both tourists as well as the businesses they support. For national and state parks that already draw crowds to ski, hike or mountain bike, astrotourism is a less physically demanding draw friendly to families with small children as well as seniors. Astrotourism also allows tourist draws to be dispersed throughout the state and throughout the year, rather than be reliant on seasonspecific conditions. A remote ski

area can attract visitors throughout the summer to look at constellations and comets; an RV park or hikers’ lodge near snowed-in trails is a fine place to observe the sky in the depths of winter. Astrotourism also appears to appeal equally to travelers and vacationers across economic classes. In Utah, astrotourism has been embraced by boutique hotels appealing to the Sundance and Park City sets, such as the luxe Compass Rose Lodge, a 15-room inn with a built-in observatory. And there are more accessible, stripped-down, blue-collar options like the Dark Sky RV Park (and its “5-billion-star campground”), located outside of Zion National Park. “It really does cater to everybody,” Timmins said. “Everybody feels the same sense of grandeur and wonder we get when we see the stars, the planets and the Milky Way.” Other states are quickly following Utah’s lead and certifying natural expanses as official “dark sky areas” to get ahead of development that might “make it too cumbersome or expensive to achieve,” explained Stimac, among them Maine and Minnesota, which certified two new parks as dark sky areas in the past year. This interest, and the swelling tourist crowds in Utah throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests that astrotourism, reliant as it is on natural areas with ample space, is COVID-proof. But John Barentine, the International Dark Sky Association’s director of public policy, also believes that the pandemic encouraged more interest at a time when it was already on the upswing. Barentine has heard many versions of a similar story: Isolated during social-distancing or quarantining, day after day and night after night, people stuck at home and looking for something to do stepped outside and gazed at the night sky “for maybe the first time in any systemic way,” he said. “And they asked questions like, ‘Where are the stars?’”

If they were in an urban area, all they could see would be a muddy, hazy mess; even people enjoying their suburban backyards might not manage to catch more than a yellowish haze over their heads where views of the heavens should be. “Then it dawned on them that light pollution exists, and it changes the appearance of the nighttime sky,” he said. The cultural impact of such a revelation should not be understated: The sky and what’s in it is part of ancient rhythms and religious traditions. If the immutable can be changed (or at least obscured), what chance do humans have? “I think when you start putting nature into that context, it’s a bit alarming for people to not see as many stars as they thought they would,” Barentine added. Astrotourism, then, is a way for agnostics, atheists and true believers to have a shared experience with the profound—if not a religious experience, then something very close to it—and that’s not something every five-star resort can promise. Like many Generation Xers, Kevin Poe became interested in the nighttime sky and the wonders it holds thanks to George Lucas and Star Wars (though his parents didn’t let him see A New Hope in theaters). During his adult career as a National Parks Service ranger, Poe noticed something interesting. Though most visitors planned their sojourns to wild areas during the daylight hours, where they could see what was around them, what they really wanted only happened at night: encounters with nocturnal or crepuscular wild animals, be they birds or fireflies, as well as solace. What was holding them back was a childhood phobia that modern developed society was both banishing and transforming into a scarce, disappearing resource: a fear of the dark, that civilization, with its floods of artificial light, had the unwelcome consequence of banishing, along with natural wonders like fireflies and stars.

“The night sky is fascinating to almost everyone, which is great for dark sky destinations.”

After a few years borrowing nightvision gear from local police departments (whose officers competed for the “duty” of accompanying night hikes to ensure the costly equipment didn’t disappear), Poe rebranded himself as a “dark ranger.” Now posted at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, Poe leads the “Dark Ranger Telescope Tours,” where visitors are presented with their choice of high-powered telescopes, arrayed on a dark plateau near the edge of the park. Astrotourism raises the value of a national park as well as the land and businesses around it—and all with minimal investment. “For the local community here in Utah, it’s a huge benefit,” Poe said. Instead of popping in and out during a day, astrotourists stay overnight. “The length of stay is all that really matters.” “And you don’t have to make streets wider, you don’t have to make as many infrastructural improvements,” he added. “It’s a good sustainable source of tourism that has the benefit of making rural areas the most valuable, which is not always the case with tourism economies.” Like the rest of Utah, Poe also notched an increase in business in 2020, though not as much as he might have enjoyed if not for the pandemic; after a few years of growing his business by as much as 25 percent, Dark Ranger Telescope Tours increased by “only” 10 or 15 percent in 2020. “It really does cater to everybody,” said the Utah tourism office’s Timmins. “Everybody feels a sense of wonder and grandeur we get when we stare at the planets and the skies.” “And not only is it a great economic driver, it’s a real great conservation effort,” he added. “Everyone’s going to win with astrotourism.”

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P H OTO CO U R T E SY O F Q UASA R E X P E D I T I O N S

THE WOMEN R E VA M PI NG THE T R AV E L INDUSTRY

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A year ago, luxury travel ground to a halt, forcing the industry to a distressing stop. Against the background of a global pandemic and an American reckoning around issues of racism and inequality, leaders emerged as advocates not only for specific destinations, but also for a reimagined kind of travel, one combining sustainability and social consciousness with the pampering expected at the world’s best hotels and resorts. From Rwanda to the Galapagos, in villas and spas, Worth spoke with the women remaking travel for a post-COVID era. BY JACKIE COOPERMAN

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n 1969, 16-year-old Quito native Dolores Gangotena de Diez, three friends and their biology teacher boarded a cargo ship bound for the Galapagos. After several dull days crossing the ocean amid sacks of sugar, rice and flour, they were dispatched into a hard wooden dinghy, gasping when a sea lion jumped right in with them. “We were so scared, but the sailors said, ‘don’t’ worry, they’re tame.’ That was love at first sight for me,” says Gangotena de Diez, speaking with an enthusiastic, clipped pace during a Zoom call from her native Quito, Ecuador. The encounter changed Gangotena de Diez’s life and influenced the course of luxury tourism in the volcanic archipelago. As a young woman, she returned several more times to the remote islands, which were then hardly traveled and had a total population of about 2,300. On a voyage with her new husband Eduardo, the couple hatched a plan to offer the naturalist adventuring they loved, but with the sorts of amenities—private bathrooms, trained chefs—that small boats weren’t offering. Their company, Quasar Expeditions, debuted three intimate yachts between 1986 and 1994, later selling

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them to focus on the 32-passenger, 200-foot-long Evolution, and the 16-passenger Grace, an elegant 1928 ship on which Princess Grace Kelly once honeymooned. Quasar is a family affair: Gangotena de Diez’s three sons Francisco, Fernando and Eduardo are all deeply involved. All along, Gangotena de Diez, a member of the Charles Darwin Foundation, has championed sustainability, not only in nature, but in commerce. She buys as much as possible of her ship’s materials locally, is working to create a hospitality training school in the islands and introduces her clients to local craftspeople throughout Ecuador. “Once you see the Galapagos, you see how badly we’ve treated so much of the planet. We need to learn to live better, to travel better, and it’s our responsibility to start teaching our clients that they need to change the way they travel. They need to become less disposed to creating waste,” she says. As she and her family come out of the “nightmare year” of the pandemic, during which they had to furlough their staff, Gangotena de Diez remains hopeful. Ecuador has committed to vaccinating all of its tourism workers by the end of May, vaccinated Americans are booking trips again, and Gangotena de Diez has rehired her beloved staff. “For the Galapagos islands, it’s a been a blessing to have a break from the visitors. There’s underwater life now like you wouldn’t believe,” she says, sounding like the excited 16-year-old who fell in love with a sea lion. “Whale sharks were seen in the northern part of Santa Cruz! Before, they were only on the islands of Wolf and Darwin.” The Humboldt Current, which runs south to north, is filling the waters with squid and shrimp, a bounty richer than Gangotena de Diez has ever seen. “Instead of feeding 280,000 people that typically enter the Galapagos every year, they’re now feeding about 200,” she says. The company’s third boat, the ninecabin Conservation, is set to debut in 2022. Gangotena de Diez has vowed to reserve one cabin, free of charge, for scientists from the Charles Darwin Foundation. “We want to allow the scientists to go anywhere in the Galapagos at no cost, and it’s mutually beneficial; without protecting this gorgeous nature, we’ll have no business and no Galapagos,” she says.

The Industry Changemaker

rina Pindar, 36, a youthful veteran of high-end hospitality, wants her gilded profession to look very different, and the sooner, the better. “The luxury travel space is overwhelmingly white. I sit on several boards where every time I look around the table, I’m either the only person of color, the youngest person, the only woman, and sometimes all three,” says Pindar, the Asian-American managing director of boutique travel agency SmartFlyer. Spurred by last May’s murder of George Floyd and the social turmoil that followed, Pindar created EQTR: Equity in Travel, a yearlong program matching BIPOC college juniors and seniors with executives at companies like JetBlue, the Four Seasons, COMO Hotels and Resorts and Marriott International, as well as in public relations and media. “We’re opening up our ‘black book’ to students and saying, ‘we see you’re talented, what do you want to do and how can we get you there?’” says Pindar, who’s currently recruiting applicants for the first class, which begins this September. Among the skills Pindar hopes to impart: networking, storytelling and the importance of pitching business and making compelling presentations. Unlike many programs for aspiring college students, EQTR includes a fully paid summer internship. “We work so hard to build talents, and we want to make sure they have places to rise,” she says.

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The Galapagos’ Fiercest Protector

“Once you see the Galapagos, you see how badly we’ve treated so much of the planet. We need to learn to travel better. ”

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THE WELLNESS WHISPERER What will the future of wellness look like? Likely a hybrid of technology and touch, says Anna Bjurstam, who oversees the Six Senses Hotels’ wellness for its resorts and spas in 19 countries. In the past year, Bjurstam and her team have played a kind of spa whack-amole, monitoring COVIDdictated closings, reopenings and sometimes closings again of properties as far flung as Bhutan, Fiji and Portugal. Bjurstam, who has worked in the wellness industry for decades, quickly adapted to the shutdowns, creating online content with experts in longevity, brain health and meditation, and

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investing in the advanced biohacking technologies her guests are craving. “Where our spas are open, they’ve never been so busy. People are longing for touch, and we’ve also seen a huge uptick in interest for our integrative screening and biomarker tests,” she says. Six Senses spas are now testing for 35 biomarkers ranging from oxidative stress to heart function and tissue oxidation. When it opens in July, Six Senses Ibiza will have a longevity clinic, where a doctor will use blood and saliva-based tests to gauge guests’ “real age” and “pace of aging” and make a plan for how they can slow that pace down.

THE MARKETING STRATEGIST Tina Edmundson, global brand and marketing officer for Marriott International’s 7,600 properties, possesses the daunting role of selling global gallivanting in an unprecedented pandemic—and she does so unflappably. “Our industry has been disproportionately impacted by COVID and the effects will be long lasting. It’s also unpredictable, because the virus and vaccination situation vary within parts of the world and within countries,” she says. “Still, we are optimistic because we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our focus is really on inspiring travel.”

To do that, Edmundson says, Marriott’s luxury brands are creating the kind of private spaces sophisticated travelers want right now, whether it’s a family renting an entire floor at the Ritz-Carlton Naples, making the hotel’s club lounge into their exclusive living room or booking out 10-bedroom buildings at the St. Regis Bahia Beach. The company is also increasing its sustainability practices. In a year of “breaking paradigms,” Edmundson says she and her colleagues embraced the volatility. Marriott’s high-end clients, she says, are “much more living in the now” and no longer relegating long-desired trips to far-off bucket lists.

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“It’s important to listen to the women working in conservation. The never get to tell their story, but they’re doing incredible things.”

The Woman Lifting Women in Africa

imbabwe-born, New York-based Deborah Calmeyer carries the weight of the African continent on her shoulders. “I’m trying to use luxury travel as a medium to help African women in tourism and, consequently, upping the conservation that’s going hand in hand with it,” says Calmeyer, whose tour company ROAR offers some of the most luxurious and thoughtful trips to Africa, all the while empowering local women and supporting animal and environmental conservation. “I live by that African saying ‘if you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.’” Through her 16-year-old company, Calmeyer supports the South African College for Tourism, a women’s college, and Kenya’s only all-female anti-poaching team. She also partners with Proof of

Impact to calculate carbon offsets for all of her clients and to fund freshwater projects in Kenya and rhino protection in Botswana. This past year, as travel came to a halt, Calmeyer kept her 25 Africabased employees on the payroll, knowing that if she didn’t, their families would face disaster. And, as more Americans—the bulk of her clientele—become vaccinated, bookings are back up, and Calmeyer’s hopeful. In March, she led her annual Women’s Empowerment Retreat, or what she calls “TEDWomen goes on safari.” “We have women bush pilots, women trackers, women anti-poachers, women leading the lodge, women as sommeliers, executive chefs,” she says. “It’s important to show that they can do these jobs and to listen to the women working in conservation. They never get to tell their story, they’re kind of invisible, but they’re doing incredible things.” Among those sharing their stories: women from the City of Joy, a program to support rape survivors in Congo, and conservationist Dr. Lucy King, who has devised a method to stop villagers from killing the elephants who used to eat their crops. By circling farms with beehives, King keeps bee-averse elephants away and helps villagers generate income from

the honey. “We engage our women travelers. We never ask for money, but these women have become major donors and are supporting African women’s education,” Calmeyer says. “The impact is exponential.” COVID forced Calmeyer to come up with new ways of exploring her beloved Africa, and she launched ROAR Villas and ROAR Privé, which provides private jet and private lodge travel. Her greatest coup, though, will be in August, when she inaugurates “the greatest and safest safari on earth.” Using an A319 Emirates plane that’s been reconfigured from carrying 150 passengers to hold just 10 first class cabins, ROAR’s Emirates Executive Private Jet trip will take five couples to four iconic destinations: Victoria Falls, Botswana Okavango Delta, the Great Migration in Kenya and the gorillas in Rwanda. “Everyone’s vaccinated. We’re in a bubble, we have exclusive use of each camp. At airports, we have complete privacy coming in and out of countries,” says Calmeyer. “People are going to be traveling by private jet more than ever, so we are showing how to do it safely and how to have a positive impact.” The 12-day trip costs $125,000 per person, and carbon offsets will be directed towards a variety of philanthropic initiatives, including the installation of 69 solar panels in Rwandan villages and the funding of freshwater access for 3,000 Kenyans. For Calmeyer, every trip advances her goal: promoting and growing a network of sophisticated travelers who will sustain African women’s livelihood and the health of the African ecosystem, even when it’s an admitted struggle. In March, as ROAR marked a year of the pandemic with its women’s empowerment trip, Calmeyer found herself navigating not only her usual responsibilities—giving interviews with anti-poachers, coordinating luggage pick-ups, rescheduling flights—but also the powerful reactions of her clients. “Africa makes you feel so vulnerable and so free. You’ve got the emotions of women who haven’t traveled in a year, and there’s tears day and night. I am the central point for everyone, and it was tough to deliver,” she says. “But then you get amazing texts from the men and women on the ground: ‘Thank you for this. I’m going to keep my job.’ ‘Thank you for giving us hope.’ ‘I’m going to keep being an anti-poacher.’ Then it’s like: Yeah, I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.”

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Business Travel in the Age of Zoom BY ALISON DAINTREE GROSS

Business travel is an important part of the economy. A study from Oxford Economics found that $12.50 of additional revenue is generated in the economy for every $1 spent on business travel. Critical to the hotel industry and to the meetings and conventions industry, it is also an economic necessity for airlines who rely on business travelers because they frequently buy tickets at the last moment, often paying top dollar. According to travel software firm Trondent Development Corp., business travelers account for only 12 percent of the passenger base but 75 percent of airline profits. When business travel returns, it is likely that it will change. For the past 15 months, the pandemic has dramatically sped up acceptance of virtual communication tools. Businesses are likely to plan for reduced discretionary spending, which may result in travel budgets being squeezed for some time. Business leaders may combine meetings so that they maximize the value of each trip for their organization. In an op-ed for Business Travel News, Scott Gillespie, the founder of travel-focused advisory service tClara, wrote about the anticipated reduction in discretionary business travel, saying there will be, “fewer but more important trips and travelers. Low-value trips will get denied by finance approvers and far fewer infrequent travelers have the need to travel. Those who do travel are deemed ‘important,’ just like their trips. The inevitable conclusion is that most corporate travel budgets will be permanently smaller. Business travel peaked in 2019.” Pre-pandemic, I traveled internationally every month. I’m one of those business travelers who kept flight numbers and schedules in my head and whose car service

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phone numbers in each country were stored in my phone favorites. Over the past few weeks, I talked to a group of similar ‘road warriors.’ These executives are among leaders who traveled almost every week, and, in the course of their pre-pandemic lives, spent between a third to a half of their time away from home. How do you feel about business travel now? How have you adapted your work in the past year? And has it changed your thinking regarding how much you traveled in the past? James Kent, who is the CEO of a global reinsurance company and is based in London, told me that his firm has effectively adopted a workfrom-home process since March 2020. He says, “Most of our offices around the world were remaining closed during this period. Naturally, this has been a dramatic change from the past where I was either working from an office or traveling to meet clients, prospects and colleagues, with perhaps a 50/50 split between the office and travel. While it is easy to reflect that travel was too extensive in the past knowing

now that my industry has managed with almost no business travel for the last year, I don’t think anyone should judge the two extremes of travel pre- and postpandemic as a single right answer. A new middle ground will emerge.” New York-based Hedieh Fakhriyazdi, who heads social responsibility and runs the foundation for a law firm, says, “My work, including programs I run and manage that require travel, has drastically changed in the past year, but I would say that it has largely been for the better. Business travel has become less of a necessity through platforms such as Zoom, and even conference platforms that allow for dynamic networking opportunities through virtual forums have worked for me. In some instances, networking virtually can be less anxiety-producing for introverts. It definitely takes the edge off when you are meeting someone for the first time on Zoom, from the comfort of your own home.” Kent Watkins, who runs his own advisory firm based in Washington, D.C., told me that he has worked from his home for many years, after giving up the office routine for a more flexible work style. He says, “The pandemic has not changed my thinking on the frequency of my travel. Sometimes it’s been 50 weeks out of 52 but averaged about every other week. Not traveling for the past year did negatively impact business, but I was ready for a ‘gap year,’ and since it also affected everyone else, I did not lose out that much. In fact, it was great to have time to catch up on a lot of backlog. I have always relied on the internet and videoing. I personally missed seeing people at receptions but didn’t miss the logistics of travel, particularly the local travel within the Washington, D.C. area—the challenges of everyday driving and parking.” José Pariente, who heads procurement for a global law firm and

is based in New York, told me, “We essentially stopped travel. This travel freeze during the pandemic has changed my thinking regarding how much my colleagues and I traveled. It became clear that much of business travel in the past was discretionary.” Pamela Thomson-Hall, who heads the region of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (CEEMEA) for a global public company and is based in London, shared that she has spent the past year working in a six-foot-by-sixfoot space, maximizing her use of virtual meeting software. “The technology of seeing people on screen and in their own homes has given me the opportunity to meet with more people and get to know them better. It has been quite leveling, with more access to senior leaders and to meet more junior people than I would have

“The ‘road warriors’ will be back, but they will be rarer, forming a more select group.” typically met on a business trip. This year has changed some of my thinking of how much my team traveled. In the future I will be much more circumspect about approving a business case for my team to travel. We cannot justify every travel request given that we now know we can do so much more remotely using new technology.” She continues, “But for myself, I already kept my travel to an absolute minimum before the pandemic, and so that won’t change. I used to fly in and out to reduce cost and time away from home, and pre-plan to maximize my time on the ground, doing breakfast meetings, back-to-

back meetings and group meals. It was exhausting. Now, I would try to be kinder on myself, not fly through the night, sleeping on planes, and focus more on quality. I would consider doing an extra day, at my own expense. I now realize how life is so short, and we need to maximize our experiences and that in the past, I never saw the towns I visited for meetings. So, I would try to be more mindful of where I am and take advantage of the experience more. I can’t say that would necessarily mean I’d stay longer for work, but it will mean I will think more about how to add this to holiday leave, which I have never done before.” We then talked about business strategy and how travel has always been thought to be perpetually linked to business development for regional, national and global companies.

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T R AV E L / B U S I N E S S Will your strategy for your business travel change in the future? And will this impact how you work, assign tasks to colleagues/ team members or delegate responsibilities? James Kent: “Looking ahead, one of the biggest changes I see is the acceptance that it is OK to arrange meetings by video conference. Previously, this may have been seen as entitled or lazy; this viewpoint should be a thing of the past. Having said this, I don’t believe the video meetings have the same impact as in-person meetings. We need to continue in-person meetings in order to nurture and develop business relationships. The area of business travel that should reduce is intercompany travel where video meetings will become a more normal way of communication.” Hedieh Fakhriyazdi: “I have no doubt that the pandemic will cause me to pause before booking my next flight for business travel—pausing to ask myself the questions: Is this trip truly necessary? And do the benefits of networking, professional development, business development, etc., outweigh the potential negative consequences related to public health concerns?” Kent Watkins: “My strategy for business travel will not change in the future. I resumed travel midApril 2021 (traveling to N.C., S.C., Ga. and headed to NYC a week later). Once I can go back to China, Paris, Berlin, London, Israel, etc., I will. I don’t think there will be a

great change to the way I work, although some meetings will change to a virtual format, which will be great.” José Pariente: “I will definitely travel less post-pandemic. In the past, I traveled for one-third of the year. I would get on a plane on a Monday and spend 10 days in Asia or in Europe. Personally, I will miss it, and I am disappointed that my work will not include as much travel in the future. During the pandemic, the pendulum swung so far to ensure safety that it I think it must swing back. I believe that there is a happy medium where we come out of this planning for more carefully thought-out travel. Business travel will not be the way it was pre-pandemic; however, conferences and internal meetings will evolve to become a new normal. They will come back as the pendulum swing happens. I think it’s going to take time, but we have short memories, and sometimes we experience collective amnesia, so people will eventually plan their business travel without remembering or considering pandemic risk.” Pamela Thomson-Hall: “For me, there will be no change in my business strategy. I only traveled when I needed to, so I had already made that quality assessment. For my team, my strategy may change because different skills are needed in order to successfully manage remotely. The lack of travel created both positives and negatives to my business. In the early stages of building a client relationship,

“This travel freeze during the pandemic has changed my thinking regarding how much my colleagues and I traveled. It became clear that much of business travel in the past was discretionary.” 66

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it is better to be face-to-face, so that was lacking and probably negatively impacted business, especially if your competition is on the ground. But for operational reasons, there was surprisingly minimal impact. Location of team will matter less, however, there are corporate tax implications based on where people work from, so this will be a consideration for companies when employees request to move their location to a different country.” Based on the opinions expressed in these interviews, business travel is pointed to a more strategic approach in the post-pandemic period, placing more of an emphasis on the decision making that must occur for each trip. Client relationship building and business development travel will take precedence in future corporate travel budgets, with internal meetings taking a back seat, perhaps shifting permanently to the virtual mode. We may see more robustly governed corporate travel policies, more accountability and therefore more analytics tools for measuring travel ROI, which is never an easy tracking task. The ‘road warriors’ will be back, but they will be rarer, forming a more select group, who will be conscious of their status and understand that they are required to prove their value to their stakeholders. As Adi Gaskell wrote in Forbes in December 2020, “There is hope across society that what returns after the pandemic is a better version of what came before. Whether it’s cleaner planes, easier transfers, greater connectivity or environmental friendliness, there is just the same hope for the future of business travel.” We agree! Given the perspectives expressed by the veteran corporate travelers we consulted for this article, we look forward to a renewed and more thoughtful approach to how business travel will evolve. This article has been edited for space. To read the full interviews, visit worth.com.

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The Next Best

PORTLAND HEAD LIGHT AT SUNRISE

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P H OTO CO U R T E SY O F V I S I T M A I N E

In the last year, travel has been a dream for all of us. Spending our days at makeshift work-from-home desks has left us musing about warm oceans, foggy mountains, exotic cuisine and memorable nights spent with the people we love. As we enter the postpandemic period, cities and towns are coming alive again, welcoming tourists in dire need of a vacation. In this spirit, Worth has rounded up 10 travel hot spots to keep on your radar. BY JENNIFER MACHIN AND MICKI WAGNER

Destinations

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Hawaiian Islands Hawaii has long been a bucket-list destination for its stunning beaches, diverse culture and breathtaking scenery. Hawaii is open for travel, but it has implemented the Safe Travels program, which means travelers must test negative for COVID prior to their visit to bypass the 10-day quarantine. This is in effect even for fully vaccinated travelers. But with all there is to do and see in Hawaii, it seems well worth it. WHERE TO STAY: The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua in Maui, Hawaii This five-star resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean will help you relax with amenities like indigenous spa treatments and houses six restaurants for you to enjoy. You can choose from residences, rooms and suites for your lodging, as well as guest rooms and suites on the Club Level. WHERE TO PLAY: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park Take in Hawaii’s mesmerizing volcanoes at this national park. The park is open to the public again, but it should be noted that there are some road closures happening throughout the year, so check its website before you go. Fascinatingly, if you go soon, you might be able to see a live show, as Kilauea is currently in the midst of an eruption. WHERE TO EAT: Waiahole Poi Factory If you’re after some tasty, traditional Hawaiian fare from a family-owned restaurant, look no further than Waiahole Poi Factory. You can try local staples like Kalua pig, salted pork shoulder that is wrapped in ti leaves and slow cooked, or poi, a paste made from steamed, pounded taro root. M By Chef Mavro Sample modern Hawaiian cuisine at M By Chef Mavro. Stop in for a five-course tasting menu or enjoy an array of options from the à la carte menu. Whichever route you choose, make sure you top it off with a vibrant cocktail or mocktail from Bar M.

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Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains is the best place to visit for a nature lover looking to explore the Southeastern United States. Rising along the Tennessee-North Carolina border, this happens to be America’s most visited national park, and one quick Google Image search will show you why. This mountain range features some of the nation’s most breathtaking views, perfect for hiking and photo ops. WHERE TO STAY: LeConte Lodge in Sevierville, Tennessee This is the only hotel in the national park. The guest lodge, located in Sevierville, Tenn., is ideal if you want to stay right in the middle of nature, but still have some basic amenities. Campsites If you want the full experience, camping might be for you. There are four different campsites throughout the park, which vary from RV and tent camping to campgrounds intended for eight or more people. WHERE TO PLAY: Horseback Riding There are numerous stables throughout the park (Cades Cove, near Townsend, Tenn., Smokemont, near Cherokee, N.C., Smoky Mountain, near Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Sugarlands, near Gatlinburg, Tenn.). Rides along the beautiful trails can last anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple of hours. Some of the stables offer carriage and wagon rides, too.

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Bicycling Bicycling is a great way to incorporate fitness and enjoy the views at the same time. Though there are no mountain trails intended for bicycling, cyclists can safely ride their bikes on the roads in the park. WHERE TO EAT: Cades Cove Campground Store There are no restaurants in the park. However, this campground store has a snack bar that serves breakfast foods, snacks, wraps and more. Chesapeake’s Seafood and Raw Bar If you’re not too deep into the park, and you want to go to a restaurant, consider visiting this seafood spot located in Gatlinburg, Tenn., where you can savor fresh seafood and local microbrews.

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Southern Maine

Southern Maine has found itself situated as one of the top trending destinations this year, according to search data gathered by Airbnb. Maine presents itself as an ideal summer destination for its picturesque beaches, gorgeous coastline and plethora of outdoor activities from hiking and biking to boat tours and long walks on the beach. WHERE TO STAY: The Cottages at Cabot Cove in Kennebunkport, Maine In a post-COVID world, what could be better than inhabiting your own luxury cottage? There are 16 to choose from, each designed by a different interior designer, yet all equally dreamy. Every cottage features a fully equipped kitchen, a private patio with views of either the cove or the gardens and a basket full of freshly baked goodies delivered every morning. The cottages are open until October. WHERE TO PLAY: Portland Head Light If Maine had a symbol, it just might be the lighthouse. A particularly notable lighthouse worth visiting is the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth. Not only can you take in the site of the Portland Head Light, but you will also be able to see four other lighthouses from here. Located in Fort Williams Park, you can also visit the Goddard Mansion, Battery Blair and Battery Keyes. The park and lighthouse grounds are open daily, but the museum and gift shop were closed at the time of publication. Ogunquit Beach There are many stunning beaches in Maine, but one of the most notable is Ogunquit Beach. Its 3.5 miles of white sand and coastline make it an idyllic spot to spend a day soaking up the sun, playing in the sand and wading in the water. WHERE TO EAT: Eventide Oyster Co. In a place like Maine, you’ve got to get your hands on some good seafood, and Eventide Oyster Co. is just the place. Grab a seat in their outdoor patio space or order an Eventide brown butter lobster roll for a picnic on the beach! Chaval If you’re looking for something a little different, head to Chaval—a brasserie serving up Spanish- and French-influenced dishes. The menu changes every day, and right now, they are operating on a pick-up or delivery basis.

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Milford Sound, New Zealand

New Zealand might currently be closed to foreign travelers, but we can only imagine that it will become a trending destination upon its reopening due to its captivating natural wonders, which allow locals and visitors alike to get away from the hustle and bustle. One of these wonders is Milford Sound—a remote destination noted for its idyllic waterfalls and mountains. WHERE TO STAY: Milford Sound Lodge in Milford Sound, New Zealand Milford Sound is a remote destination, and as such, there are not many places to lodge within Milford Sound itself. If you are set on staying in the area, Milford Sound Lodge is the way to go. Book one of their riverside or mountain-view chalets or a chalet suite to spend some quality time amidst nature. WHERE TO PLAY: Cruise Around Milford Sound One of the best ways to take in Milford Sound is through a sightseeing cruise. You can book through Milford Sound Lodge, and it will include a night’s stay at the lodge, or you can book through Southern Discoveries directly. Milford Track It takes four days to hike the 53.5-kilometer track, which will take you through lush landscapes, stopping at lodges along the way. It is recommended to visit between late October and late April, as it can become hazardous during the off-season. WHERE TO EAT: Pio Pio Restaurant Situated in the Milford Sound Lodge, Pio Pio offers New Zealand fare, highlighting local produce. Open seven days a week, you can dine from a three-course menu or à la carte in the evenings.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

If you’re looking for a tropical getaway where you can enjoy both beaches and historic sites, San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an excellent choice. The island is known for its blend of Spanish-Caribbean culture with an American twist. So, if you’re someone who tends to get homesick fast, you may want to add Puerto Rico’s capital to your list of places to visit. WHERE TO STAY: Condado Vanderbilt Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico Located in Condado, one of San Juan’s neighborhoods, the hotel is right on the beach and in the city center. Guests can enjoy a full-service spa, which features several treatment therapies, a Turkish bath/hammam and a steam room. In addition to being on the beach, the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel has four outdoor pools, including a children’s pool. WHERE TO PLAY: Casino del Mar at La Concha Resort The casino is a convenient four-minute walk from the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel. It’s a fun way to spend the night or day—since it’s open 24/7—featuring 400 gaming machines and 24 table and poker games. Castillo San Felipe del Morro The famous castle/fort, also known as El Morro, is one of Puerto Rico’s most notable historical sites. It was built between the 16th and 18th centuries by Spanish troops to protect San Juan from seaborne enemies. Now, it’s a tourist attraction where locals and foreigners come to learn some island history, take photos and enjoy the scenery. WHERE TO EAT: 1919 Restaurant If you’re looking for fine dining with beautiful views, consider making a reservation at 1919 Restaurant, located in the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel. The upscale eatery is headed by chef Juan José Cuevas, who’s worked at multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, so you can expect the best of the best. San Juan Smokehouse Want to experience San Juan like a local? San Juan Smokehouse is the place to visit. It’s a casual American and Caribbean restaurant and bar with a lively atmosphere.

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Mykonos, Greece

Mykonos is known for its summer party vibes and beautiful beaches. Therefore, the island makes for an incredible trip if you want to not only relax, but also have the time of your life. WHERE TO STAY: Anax Resort & Spa in Mykonos, Greece The five-star hotel stands out for its outstanding service and gorgeous island views. Anax Resort & Spa has access to two infinity pools, as well as a private beach made for sunbathing. WHERE TO PLAY: Little Venice Take a stroll down one of Mykonos’ busiest locations. Little Venice, located in the Chora neighborhood, is the perfect way to get a taste of the island’s city life. It’s ideal for shopping, dining and exploring. Delos For some history, visit Delos, the mythological birthplace of Greek gods Apollo and Artemis. This location features some of Greece’s most significant archaeological sites. While Delos isn’t on the island of Mykonos, it’s just a ferry ride away. WHERE TO EAT: Kastro’s This upscale restaurant, located in Little Venice, offers some of the island’s most incredible Mediterranean cuisine. Kastro’s is popular for its stunning views of the waterfront, which you get to experience at its best with outdoor seating. Baos Fine Dining For a romantic dinner with your significant other, visit Baos Fine Dining, which prides itself on delicious seafood and ambiance. And, of course, you can’t forget about the amazing views.

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Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Sink your toes into white sand beaches, splash into vivid blue waters and take in the colonial architecture in the capital city of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Located on the island of St. Thomas, Charlotte Amalie has much to offer travelers, from watersports and historic sites to scenic views and the chance to unwind.

Las Vegas

They say whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, so why not go all out and give yourself a vacation to remember? WHERE TO STAY: Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada This five-star hotel is right on the strip and offers amazing views. There are several luxurious rooms to choose from, including the presidential suite. Amenities include spas, fitness centers and in-room childcare. WHERE TO PLAY: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area This site is a must if you want to see Mother Nature at her finest. You can enjoy the amazing geological features in a number of different ways. Entry passes vary from car/truck to motorcycle to bicycle/pedestrian to commercial tour vehicles, such as bus and limo rides. Las Vegas Helicopter Night Flight If national parks aren’t really your thing, going on a helicopter ride at night is a stellar way to experience Vegas’ beautiful views. You can even get picked up at your hotel if you desire. The helicopter ride lasts 12 to 13 minutes and seats six passengers plus the pilot. It’s recommended you book the flight with a party of six, as social distancing is not practiced on the aircraft. WHERE TO EAT: Restaurant Guy Savoy This refined French dining spot is perfect if you’re looking to enjoy an intimate and romantic date night. The two Michelinstarred restaurant is located in Caesars Palace and has a gorgeous view of Paris Las Vegas’ Eiffel Tower. Nobu If you’re craving Japanese cuisine, consider dining at Nobu, also located in Caesars Palace. Nobu features a stylish lounge with a sushi bar and hibachi grills.

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WHERE TO STAY: Bolongo Bay Beach Resort in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas Experience a unique take on an all-inclusive resort at Bolongo Bay Beach Resort. The first all-inclusive resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Bolongo Bay offers guests à la carte dining, unlimited cocktails and an array of watersports gear, including paddleboards and kayaks. And if you book an all-inclusive stay for five nights or longer, you’ll get a Sunset Harbor Cocktail Cruise on the resort’s 53-foot catamaran included. And if allinclusive packages aren’t for you, don’t worry, Bolongo Bay also offers room-only plans. WHERE TO PLAY: Drake’s Seat If you’re looking for beautiful views mixed with some island history, Drake’s Seat is sure to impress. The lookout has breathtaking views of Magens Bay and is said to be named after Sir Francis Drake, who, the story goes, used this overlook to keep an eye on the harbor for enemy Spanish ships. 99 Steps Don’t let the name fool you, the 99 Steps are actually 103 steps. At any rate, these historical steps, made by the Danes in the 1700s from ballast used in ships, provide for a great photo op. The steps will lead you to Blackbeard’s Castle, a national historic landmark—though, at the time of publication, the castle was closed for renovations in the wake of Hurricane Irma. WHERE TO EAT: Hook, Line & Sinker When in Charlotte Amalie, go where the locals go. Head to Hook, Line & Sinker to enjoy freshly caught fish just 10 feet off the water. Tavern of Charlotte Amalia If you’re in the mood for something slightly more upscale, try Tavern of Charlotte Amalia. Take in stunning views of the ocean while dining on fan favorites, such as the pierogis, cabbage rolls and Caribbean stir-fry.

Quintana Roo, Mexico

Located on the Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo is a Mexican state encompassing cities like Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Tulum and more. In Quintana Roo, you’ll get to experience vivid blue oceans, vibrant culture and ancient ruins. WHERE TO STAY: Viceroy Riviera Maya in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo Escape to your private villa at the Viceroy Riviera Maya. The hotel features 41 villas, each with its own private pool, outdoor shower and patio with handmade hammock. You can enjoy a white sand beach, a library lounge and the full-service Wayak Spa. WHERE TO PLAY: Mayan Ruins You can explore Mayan ruins throughout Quintana Roo. Two notable sites are Chichén Itzá, considered one of the new wonders of the world, and the Tulum Archeological Zone, which features an ancient Mayan compound, complete with ancient temples and a breathtaking coastline. Dolphin Discovery Cozumel Head to Cozumel, an island off the coast of Playa del Carmen, to have a safe and exciting dolphin encounter; you’ll get to interact with the dolphins through an array of behaviors, such as caressing and hugging the animals. You can also swim with their dolphins, as well as their manatees and sea lions. As for the dolphins, they were all born under human care through Dolphin Discovery Cozumel’s breeding program. WHERE TO EAT: Porfirio’s Restaurante in Cancun Serving up contemporary Mexican cuisine in a high-end environment, Porfirio’s offers an array of dishes, like green enchiladas, grilled arrachera (skirt steak) with roasted nopal (the pads of the prickly pear cactus) and a whole host of taco options, including crispy crab and filet with marrow. Arca in Tulum Arca is known for serving a progressive menu of micro-seasonal food and is composed of small plates made for sharing. Try offerings like sea urchin ceviche, roasted bone marrow and suckling pig roulade.

Anchorage, Alaska

Alaska’s largest city is home to several cultural sites and amazing wildlife. It’s definitely worth a trip, especially if you love cold weather, as snow is typically present in Alaska from October to March/April. WHERE TO STAY: Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, Alaska Hotel Captain Cook is located within walking distance of several tourist attractions, including the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail and the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. The hotel varies in room type and offers either mountain views, landscape views or city views. WHERE TO PLAY: The Alaska Railroad If you want to take in all the beauty of Alaska, here’s one fun way to do it: Take a train ride on this iconic railroad, which connects several of Alaska’s best sights and landmarks, including Denali National Park and the Spencer Glacier Whistle Stop. Anchorage Aurora Quest - Northern Lights Photo Tour This tour is ideal if you love photography and have always wanted to experience the beautiful Northern Lights in person. This one-of-a-kind tour takes place at night, so you can fully enjoy Alaska’s gorgeous night sky and the nature surrounding it. You have the option to get picked up from wherever you’re staying, and then you will ride inside a tour van where social distancing isn’t possible, therefore wearing masks is mandatory until you arrive at the open areas outside. WHERE TO EAT: Kincaid Grill This is known as one of Anchorage’s best fine dining establishments. It’s also known for its amazing hospitality and seafood, so if that’s up your alley, the Kincaid Grill and Wine Bar is the place to go. Snow City Cafe For delicious brunch and breakfast foods, visit the Snow City Cafe. It’s also very convenient as this spot is a four-minute walk from Hotel Captain Cook.

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Scattered Reflections on the Year Spent Not Traveling A travel writer’s takeaways from 15 months spent at home.

make my living as a travel journalist. It’s been a really slow 15 months. Which is not to say it’s been without its Kübler-Rossian stages of drama. First came the initial shock of early 2020: How could something move so fast? Was it really coming for us? Also, what’s the right way to fold a cloth napkin to turn it into a mask? Winter was followed by the denial of late spring, best embodied by the group email I wrote in April canceling a political fundraiser, promising to reschedule it for June and signing off with “can you imagine if we’re still in this six weeks from now?” This was when the streets of New York City felt like 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day: Maybe someone was out there, but you weren’t going to see them. Then came the hope of late June when, flush with contagious enthusiasm that the pandemic had turned a corner, I co-organized a virtual conference— The New Travel, designed to help the industry recover from coronavirus and chart a course for a brighter future. Pulled together in a matter of weeks, the program included presentations by more than 100 companies—luxury hotels on Lake Como, villa rental companies in the Rockies, trip designers in Argentina—and 20 panels addressing such timely topics as, “What’s high-touch service in a no-touch era?” “How to make travel more welcoming to Black people,”

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and “We can’t forget sustainability.” More than 1,500 people attended, and everyone was thrilled to hear good news (for a change) and very grateful to see the light at the end of the tunnel and recovery on the horizon. My heart and my spirits soared. Hello, summer, my old friend. I didn’t recognize you there, all cloaked in despair. It turns out we were foiled by that early optimism: There was no happy horizon on the horizon—not only for the travel community, but for everyone. The death toll was rising, the frontline workers were exhausted and the world was stuck at home. Home, of course, was where we belonged, and there was no sense in pretending otherwise. I tried to keep the travel spirit alive by assigning

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and writing articles extolling fun travel experiences you could have from your living room: virtual reality tours of the Louvre and the orchid exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden, follow-along cooking classes with famous chefs and live safaris from Botswana. I was writing for other people, though, because these experiences only reminded me of where I would rather have been: the Azores, Norway, Maine, Sicily, the Baja peninsula. Pass the pinot gris, please. Yes, I’m still watching, Netflix. Did you notice the moment when despair turned to bored acceptance? I didn’t. The key to understanding Kübler-Ross’ phases is realizing that you don’t move from one to the other in logical progression; you zig-zag back and forth among them, pinballing along the emotions, hoping you won’t tilt. Thus, I spent autumn, winter and, now, a new spring. One of the few certainties of life as I used to know it was the fact that within six weeks, I’d be on a trip I hadn’t yet planned. I’ve been a spontaneity junkie since I was 14, and I have been lucky to carry this into my professional life. I get to explore new places, people, ideas, cuisines, histories and cultures—and share those finds with others. For an extrovert whose insatiable curiosity is coupled with a just-as-strong need to share my best discoveries, who is at her best sitting around a dinner table for five hours with new friends, traveling is an ideal way to move through life. True, I would have a much fatter 401(k) had I gone to law school, but I’ll say it again: I consider myself lucky. Yet as I write this, I have never spent so much time at home, never spent more uninterrupted time and consecutive nights with my husband. Relatively speaking, we’ve had it easy: We love our home, we get along and we don’t have kids to homeschool (though we don’t have kids to entertain us either). We’re also healthy, which is not something I take for granted. (My beloved father died at 91 in January 2020, and I will spend all

my days relieved that he didn’t live to see COVID.) No, I haven’t done the projects I swore I’d tackle by August or read the novels piled by my bed. But I bet you haven’t either, and I take great comfort knowing that what I’m feeling is not unique to me. What I hear from conversations with friends and colleagues mirrors what I read in the news (a sea of history-as-we’re-living-it articles, editorials and lifestyle features). Everyone was (and is) feeling the same thing: a daze, a stupor, a listlessness brought on by a combination of not knowing when we’ll be freed from the plight of the pandemic or, perhaps more emotionally impactful, when we’ll be reenergized by the dearly missed forces—that glorious chaos of people, ideas, inputs, diversions and, yes, travels—that only exist outside the stifling feedback loop that’s been running from our screens to our thoughts and back again. Getting out in the world is an ideal way to get out of your head. In the meantime, I’m doing my best to be patient, to stay positive, to stay put until it’s safe everywhere. Yes, it’s wonderful that the vaccine rollout has been so strong in the United States—and there’s so much to see close to home—but I miss my family in Italy. Which is to say: I miss being in Italy. But until Italy—and Spain and Greece and France and Croatia, to name a narrow circle— have made better strides with their vaccinations, is dashing off to the Mediterranean this summer the right thing to do? I know we’re all sick of our desk-turned-dinner-table and that planning a trip is about as fun as taking a trip, but is this the right plan of thinking or of action? “Right,” by the way, is relative when weighing responsible travel decisions means walking a mental tightrope between

“Getting out in the world is an ideal way to get out of your head.”

pros and cons. I spend hours every day talking with smart people in the travel industry. Everyone is looking for clear answers and guidance around what’s safe and what’s smart. Only there are no clear answers or directives. No single government body is in charge of global travel, and the circumstances are too complicated for absolutes. Everyone is confused. Now let’s be clear. Woe is us, denied our Amalfi Coast summer vacation is hardly a cause for pity when the global death toll shows no signs of stopping. But the travel industry supports the livelihoods of 10 percent of the world’s employed people, and that is a factor to consider. For every spoiled hedge funder who is missing his fourth Aperol spritz of the afternoon, there is a concierge who arranges his Riva, a captain who sails it, two housekeepers who clean his hotel room, a bellman who carries his T. Anthony luggage, a bartender who mixes those spritzes, a hotel general manager who oversees them all, a pilot who flew the plane to Rome, a team that prepared the sandwich he bought at JFK, all the families who depend on their paychecks, and…you get the idea. Multiply this for the 150 other guest at his Amalfi Coast hotel, only one of many nearby, and then raise that to the power of thousands upon thousands of hotels worldwide, and the economics of the travel industry amplify exponentially. The tip of the iceberg may be a privileged tourist, but the support underneath is a community, and without travelers, that community is in crisis. The way to fix that crisis is through a recovery that will begin with slow steps. That the travel and hospitality industry attracts relentlessly sunny and optimistic people is one of many reasons why I love being part of it and why the rest of the world misses traveling so much. And that optimism is why I have no doubt that once we all start traveling again, we will do it with the near-religious fervor of the born again, with a gusto that’s fierce and beautiful. As befits triumph over tragedy.

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Why Now Is the Time to Buy a Luxury Branded Residence With vacation properties on the rise, branded residences offer all the excitement of a vacation home with none of the maintenance, while still being a valuable investment.

hen the pinnacles of luxury in hospitality, automobiles, fashion and beyond expand into the real estate space, chances are their aspirations will take the form of a branded residence. From breathtaking locations to top-of-the-line amenities and VIP perks to ultra-personal service, branded residences offer a lifestyle aligned with the ideals each brand represents. For buyers, that can mean securing a second, third or fourth home that is backed by the prestige of a worldrenowned company. At the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, the brand’s name doesn’t just carry cachet, it’s preloaded with almost a century of cultural history. “It’s simply a name that cannot be replicated,” says Dan Tubb, senior director of sales for the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria, which is scheduled to open in early 2023. Branded residences also give luxury brands that don’t already focus on hospitality a chance to translate their trusted reputations into real es-

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tate. The Fendi Château Residences in Miami, for example, serve as a livable extension of the fashion house’s signature aesthetic. The Fendi style and vision trickle into every element of the residential experience, from the building’s architecture to interior design choices like textiles, finishes and furniture, says Monica Venegas. As the founder of the Venegas International Group, she oversees sales and marketing for branded residences by Fendi, Armani and Missoni, among others. But no matter the product, brand affinity is an emotional driver. Some buyers have extraordinary experiences that lead them to personally trust and admire a particular brand, while others might be more attracted to the prestige-by-association that comes with buying a home that carries a venerated name. “There is pride of ownership of something that is well-known by others, yet is still extremely exclusive,” says Gil Dezer, whose newest project as CEO of Dezer Development is the Bentley Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.

THE PORTECOCHÈRE AT THE TOWERS OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

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BY CHLOE OLEWITZ

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Whatever their reasoning, buyers interested in branded residences open the doors to definitive luxury lifestyles. In residences put forth by hospitality brands, that lifestyle often hews closely to the experience you might expect from a high-end hotel stay. “When you purchase a Marriott branded residence, you’re not only getting a vacation home,” says Dana Jacobsohn, senior vice president of mixed-use development at Marriott International, “you’re buying into a lifestyle that offers you unmatched services and amenities that are consistent around the world.” Marriott International’s branded residences include St. Regis and Ritz-Carlton properties, to name a few. Those amenities and services are far-ranging, though, and they are guided by both the specific residence and the brand behind it. Silversands Grenada, for instance, chooses to highlight the appeal of the property’s stunning location and resort-style living: “Silversands residents can wake up and head to the spa, take a stroll on the beach, work out at the gym or

THE WINTER GARDEN AT THE TOWERS OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

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have a chef-catered breakfast,” says Kandace Douglas, real estate sales and marketing director at Silversands. “Everything residents would normally do at a hotel, they can do from the privacy of their own home.” Some branded residences tap into their extended networks to offer perks that keep it all in the family. Marriott International’s owner recognition program unlocks celebrity status around the world. “Owners receive VIP treatment both at home and when they travel across our portfolio of 7,600 hotels globally,” Jacobsohn says. “This is our way of both thanking and recognizing our owners for their commitment and confidence in our brands and the lifestyle that they have chosen.” Other branded residences augment access to hotel amenities with services and facilities that cater to long-term residents. The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria, for example, has doubled down on its wellness focus. In addition to unfettered access to every Waldorf Astoria hotel service, Towers residents can also

utilize 50,000 square feet of private residential amenities, including an exclusive fitness center, a 25-meter pool with a double-height skylight, wellness lounges with saunas and steam rooms and private training studios and spa treatment rooms. Tubb says the Towers interprets wellness “not just as fitness, but the ability to pursue every aspect of wellness, with regard to nutrition, physical therapy and anything a resident needs to live their absolute best life.” That exclusivity is another dealmaking perk of branded residences. “We’re finding residents are very focused on privacy at levels we haven’t really seen before in superluxury real estate,” Tubb says. In response to that trend, every Towers residence features its own private concierge closet built seamlessly into the home’s entry area with locks on the inside that only residents control. “Anything residents would have picked up in the lobby can be delivered to them 24 hours a day,” explains Tubb, “whether it’s packages or grocery delivery, valet laundry, even in-room dining from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.” The Towers’ concierge closet was prescient, pointing to the increasing importance of discretion and the premium the global pandemic has come to place on privacy. While we dream of having face-to-face conversations and personal connections with our family and friends once again, contact-free interactions are likely to become a long-term or even permanent part of our post-COVID reality. And as it turns out, luxury residences and personal space fit together quite easily. Take the Porsche Design Tower, for example. When it was first announced in 2016, long before the pandemic, one of the residence’s hottest selling points was the Dezervator, a patented automobile lift system. “Our residences are the only ones in the world designed to allow residents to get to their apartment without being in an elevator with anyone else,” Dezer says. “Our residents can go directly to their apartment in their own car without mixing

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THE STARLIGHT LOUNGE AT THE TOWERS OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

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FOYER OF A RESIDENCE AT THE TOWERS OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

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with anyone else in the building. No valet. No elevator ride home. The automobile is the key to your apartment.” It’s a fitting development for a branded residence by Porsche, but it was also conceived and implemented long before living in a residential high-rise suddenly felt like a risky proposition. Yes, the pandemic has elevated interest in personal health and privacy. It’s also safe to say that every branded residence has amped up cleaning protocols to keep residents confident and comfortable that their safety remains top priority. But beyond luxury living requirements and expectations around physical health and safety, the pandemic has also shifted buyers’ fundamental consciousness about the purpose of each home they own. The imaginary lines between primary and vacation homes have been irreparably blurred over the past year, as remote work has become the norm and lockdowns have forced us to focus our attention inward. “Primary homes and vacation getaways have meshed, so occupancy levels are higher than ever in our branded residences,” Jacobsohn says. “We expect to see more vacation homes becoming a primary place of residence.” As people have become more accustomed to doing everything from home, the places we live have become ever more important. By necessity, our homes have become our offices. But by choice, vacation destinations can become residential addresses. Dan Tubb says that residents see the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria as somewhere they can live, work and play. Buyers’ motivations run the gamut; where some residents are interested in securing a premium residential address, others are in the market for an urban pied-à-terre with high-level service, privacy and exclusivity. Tubb sees that as a sign of the branded residence’s success. “When you come home to the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria,” he says, “your vacation never has to end.”

THE PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AT THE TOWERS OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

“Branded residences serve up home without the headache, familiarity without fear and are investments made to thrive.”

Location plays a key role in setting any given residence apart from the pack. “You think of a legacy asset as something that you would purchase with pride or passion,” Tubb says. “Something that you would want to hand off to your family when you’re gone.” At the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria, there’s no risk of new neighboring developments popping up on Park Avenue in a few years that might block views or deflate the residences’ value. The Waldorf Astoria has also been a recognized and protected city landmark since 2017, further securing its 90-year legacy as the unofficial palace of New York City. Branded residences also boast specific advantages over more traditional vacation home investments, specifically because of the flexibility

they offer. Maintenance, management and upkeep are taken care of with a branded residence, which simplifies the experience for multihomeowners. “If residents happen to leave for two or three months, or even longer, they are reassured that the moment they come back, their home will be ready to enjoy,” Jacobsohn says. “They have a trusted staff that will check in on their home, whether it’s watering their plants or sorting their mail.” The promise of service at branded residences means those same staff members greet residents by name and remember their preferences, no matter how much time has passed since they were last in town. The rude awakening of the pandemic has shown us that we live in a world where anything can happen. As the pressures of life on our planet accelerate and escalate, both lifestyles and investments must shift. Today, it makes sense for home to be here, there and everywhere. Branded residences serve up home without the headache, familiarity without fear and are investments made to thrive in our ever-changing world.

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WALDORF ASTORIA MALDIVES ITHAAFUSHI

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THE MOST LU XUR IOUS HOTELS AND R ESORTS *

( ) *That Have Opened Since COVID

BY MICKI WAGNER AND EMILY CEGIELSKI

e don’t have to tell you that hotels were hit especially hard when COVID started spreading across the globe and travel was largely tabled. Many hotels started acting as temporary housing for health care workers. One Forbes article from April 2020 noted that over 3.4 million hotel rooms and over 15,000 hotels had joined the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Hospitality for Hope Initiative, giving health care workers a place to stay while they were on the front lines of the pandemic. Despite the adversity COVID presented for hotels, many were incredibly resilient during this time. A number of hotels and resorts used this time to renovate their properties or to open a brand-new space. Properties across the globe are now opening up and are ready to welcome travelers once again. Here, you can find luxury accommodations ranging from Switzerland to the Maldives to Florida to consider for your upcoming trips. WORTH.COM

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Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi Location: Maldives Rates: Available upon request In January 2021, the award-winning Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi unveiled its exclusive Ithaafushi – The Private Island, the largest Maldivian private island spanning 32,000 square meters in the heart of the Indian Ocean. This is the ultimate escape, offering unparalleled levels of privacy and personalized service that create unforgettable experiences for guests seeking only the most prestigious and coveted accommodations. The sprawling private island estate accommodates 24 guests across two elegantly designed villas and one sweeping four-bedroom residence—all of which include basically anything your vacationing heart desires: indoor and outdoor rain showers, pools, jacuzzies, lush gardens and direct access to the beach. “Our dedicated team is devoted entirely to ensuring every moment is absolutely personalized, with exceptional service and unsurpassed attention to detail,” explained Etienne Dalancon, general manager of the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi. “We will pull out all the stops to ensure the most memorable stay for our guests, every single time.” WALDORFASTORIA3.HILTON.COM/EN/ HOTELS/MALDIVES/WALDORF-ASTORIAMALDIVES-ITHAAFUSHI-MLEONWA

Notable Amenities: Personal concierge team Direct access to mainland via speedboat Dedicated culinary team Private sandbank in the middle of the ocean Wellness concierge Overwater spa, meditation and yoga pavilion and fully equipped gym with ocean views l l

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Pendry West Hollywood Location: Los Angeles, Calif. Rates: Start at $635/night Encompassing a full city block along the famed Sunset Strip, Pendry West Hollywood offers 149 luxury guestrooms, as well as a collection of 40 luxury residences, embracing the best of California’s modernism and glamor. Perched on a hilltop with sweeping views, the hotel’s interiors were inspired by ocean waves and dusky California skies, yet maintain the sophisticated tradition of grand hotels. The April 2021 opening of Pendry West Hollywood also heralds the return of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck to West Hollywood with the debut of Merois and Ospero. PENDRY.COM/WEST-HOLLYWOOD

Notable Amenities: The Britely Social Club, a private membership-based social club, offering access to the full spectrum of hotel amenities Spa Pendry and fitness center Private bowling alley Rooftop pool Screening room Curated art collection featuring works from LA’s most exciting emerging artists and acclaimed international names Chef Wolfgang Puck’s Merois and Ospero l

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Paradero Todos Santos Location: Baja, Mexico Rates: Start at $550/night One of the most unique aspects of Paradero Hotels is the attention to landscape design. The Todos Santos hotel is actually 80 percent landscape, and the company describes its design ethos as “a high-design landscaping project with luxurious suites.” The design of the 35 suites seems to be inspired by the landscape itself, evoking a rustic, bohemian feel. Opened in February 2021, the Paradero Todos Santos offers not only a peaceful aesthetic, but also an assortment of exciting and revitalizing amenities. PARADEROHOTELS.COM

Notable Amenities: Spa and wellness center Infinity pool Indoor-outdoor rain showers Hammocks or heated soaking tubs Experiences like a surf session, guided hiking and biking, learning to garden and farm and a Baja taco tour l l l l l

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PARADERO TODOS SANTOS

White Elephant Palm Beach Location: Palm Beach, Fla. Rates: Start at $650/night Opened in November 2020, the White Elephant Palm Beach now inhabits what was originally the Bradley Park Hotel. The hotel dates back to the ‘20s but has now been reimagined to embrace a modern Mediterraneanrevival style with a soft neutral palette. It houses 13 deluxe rooms and 19 suites with an array of luxe amenities.

L’ŒNOTHÈQUE AT LA MAMOUNIA

WHITEELEPHANTPALMBEACH.COM

Notable Amenities: Pre-arrival concierge, a White Elephant signature service, where hotel concierge will reach out to guests prior to arrival to help book anything from dinner reservations to airport pickup Daily White Elephant ice cream cart on the beach Complimentary Wi-Fi Hourly complimentary treats at the pool l

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La Mamounia Location: Marrakech, Morocco Rates: Start at $775/night Renovated in 2020 and reopened in October, the almost-100-year-old La Mamounia is as vibrant and magical as ever. The palace houses 136 rooms, 71 suites and three luxe riads, along with four newly renovated restaurants, four bars and two tearooms. La Mamounia provides guests an oasis from the city, offering quite a few relaxing and enchanting experiences. MAMOUNIA.COM

Notable amenities: An in-house cinema L’Œnothèque, an intimate wine bar Outdoor and indoor pools Les Jardins, eight hectares of stunning gardens Macarons Experience at Le Salon de Thé par Pierre Hermé l l l l

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Hotel Eden Roc Ascona Location: Ascona, Switzerland Rates: Start at $1,335/night Already one of the most awarded holiday hotels in Switzerland, Hotel Eden Roc, nestled on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Ascona, has unveiled a series of 20 new suites and rooms right in time for the 2021 summer season. Capturing the Mediterranean spirit and boasting magnificent lake views, the new accommodations have been designed by Ascona native Carlo Rampazzi, and each features large south-facing terraces and wide windows providing stunning views of nature. Not only does the hotel offer a wide variety of activities, but it also prioritizes sustainability; since 2019, Hotel Eden Roc has been completely carbon-neutral, reducing CO2 emissions thanks to sustainable construction activity, the optimized use of resources and local connections. EDENROC.CH

NOTABLE AMENITIES: Eden Rock Spa Kayak tours, paragliding and guided hikes Private beach Cause We Care Initiative, which gives guests the opportunity to offset the emissions generated by their journeys to and from the hotel. The money paid to offset emissions will be donated in full to the myclimate mountain gorilla project in Rwanda. Two indoor and outdoor pools Complimentary e-bike rentals Water sports school l l

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Also Notable With so many hotels and resorts pulling out all of the stops to bring back guests, we had a hard time narrowing down our list. Specifically, when it came to places to stay in California and Florida—two of the most popular states in the U.S. for travel. In case Palm Beach and Los Angeles aren’t your scene, here are two additional options.

Stanly Ranch Location: Napa Valley, Calif. Rates: Start at $1,194/night Set to open this summer, Stanly Ranch is expected to change the way visitors explore wine country. When complete, the 500,000-squarefoot development will include a luxury 135-room resort and spa, 70 vineyard homes and 40 villas with integrated vineyards, gardens and a public winery, creating an unmatched community and resort destination for food and wine country. AUBERGERESORTS.COM/STANLYRANCH

Timbers Jupiter Location: Jupiter, Fla. Rates: Start at $1,095/night While not renovated or opened in 2020, Timbers Jupiter, a private residence club in Florida, did do something unprecedented during the pandemic—it opened its doors to guests for the first time, allowing those who are not owners to stay on the property and play on its Jack Nicklausdesigned golf courses. Of course, you can still own a luxury residence, but you can also simply drop in for a minimum of four nights to enjoy the luxury residences and world-class golf. TIMBERSJUPITER.COM

TIMBERS JUPITER

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Revenge Travel: The Post-Pandemic Trend That’s About to Explode According to a Global Rescue survey, the majority of respondents expect to go on their next multi-day domestic trip greater than 100 miles from home by June 2021. BY DAN RICHARDS

y summer 2021, travelers will be less worried about safety and ready for revenge travel—trips and vacations planned as a form of pandemic payback. Three out of four travelers (77 percent) are less or much less concerned about travel safety for the last half of 2021 (July to December) compared to 2020, according to a Global Rescue survey of more than 2,000 of its current and former members. Traveler confidence is growing stronger, and that’s good news for the travel industry. What has changed? The global vaccine rollout is helping boost consumer confidence. The number of COVID-19 cases is lower, hospitalizations are down and positive tests have decreased, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The majority of survey respondents expect to go on their next multi-day domestic trip greater than 100 miles from home by June 2021. International travel will pick up soon after, with nearly six out of 10 respondents (57 percent) expecting to travel abroad sometime between spring and winter 2021. Traveler sentiment is at odds, however, with government and health officials’ air travel requirements. Government and health officials from several countries, including Canada, the U.S. and the UK, have implemented requirements for residents and nonresidents to have a negative COVID-19 test before entering or reentering those countries. Travelers must find, schedule, complete and get the results of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of air travel. Depending on the country a traveler is visiting, this can be a challenging list of tasks to complete. As of publication, proof of vaccination against the virus has not been approved as a substitution for a negative COVID-19 test. Unfortunately, negative COVID-19 tests do not inspire traveler confidence, certainly not nearly as much as the coronavirus vaccination, according to the survey. By a 2-to-1 margin, negative COVID-19 tests do not make travelers feel safer compared to getting a COVID-19

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vaccine. Seventy-three percent of respondents would feel safer during a trip if they had a vaccine compared to only 36 percent who would feel safer if they had a negative PCR COVID-19 test result before reaching their destination. Traveler trust in the efficacy of a vaccination understandably surpasses that of a negative coronavirus test since the former prevents against an occurrence and the latter only detects if an individual has been infected by the virus. Precautions to prevent the spread of the disease are only as good as the ability of travelers to access fast, reliable and convenient testing options. Authorities must make accommodations for people who have been vaccinated or have antibodies from the disease. Finding a testing facility in a foreign country worries travelers. When asked how they would find a facility, 21 percent said they would rely on tour operators, another 21 percent would ask their travel agent, 18 percent would rely on

destination resources, 16 percent would find one on their own and 9 percent would ask their insurance provider. Fifteen percent of respondents admitted they don’t know what they would do. Testing should also be expanded to include loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and nextgeneration antigen testing, both of which are suitable ways of determining COVID-19 status. Traveler confidence to begin taking trips and planning vacations abroad hinges on two conditions. According to survey results, getting a COVID-19 vaccination (47 percent) and border openings (34 percent) are the two most important requirements travelers need in place to feel safe enough to travel internationally. Travelers will feel safe enough to plan trips and vacations when they are vaccinated, when borders are open and managed in a predictable way and when they know they’ll be able to get home if the worst happens.

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C U L T U R E The Lake District in North West England is the perfect destination for travelers seeking both the solace of nature and cultural inspiration. BY ALISON DAINTREE GROSS

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efore the pandemic, I would travel at least once a month, typically for business, however some were leisure trips and many combined both. After a year without seeing an airport, I’ve been thinking about travel and reconsidering my priorities. I count myself lucky. Throughout the pandemic I’ve been able to drive to the beach and to local parks. I’ve watched videos about museums and art, architecture and history, and I’ve read countless books. Still, my thirst for cultural experiences has been difficult to virtually quench. It’s the sights, sounds and smells that I yearn for. It’s the wind in my face or the sun dappling though the trees or the rain dancing on the pavements that creates the sensory experience and imprints the memories. Now I realize that I’m not looking for a beach where I can stretch out with a good book. I need something else to nourish the other part of me. I am craving culture! The English Lake District The Lake District is a national park of outstanding beauty located in Cumbria in the North West of England. It is famous for its lakes, forests and mountains, or fells, to use the local term. Small compared to American national parks, the area is just 912 square miles, and the fells and gentle valleys make for wonderful driving, cycling and hiking. Bordered by hedgerows, ancient lanes that wind their way up the fells, visitors get stunning views across the moorland. For me, renting a car to drive these winding country roads is the best way to explore the history, the stunning scenery and the inspiring regional architecture. The Lake District is home to six Michelin-starred restaurants, including the restaurant ranked number one in the UK by the Good Food Guide 2020. This trip is an experience for all the senses!

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The area is intimately associated with English literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, together with Robert Southey, became known as the Lake Poets. On this trip, I will follow some of these prestigious writers’ literary footsteps. The Dream Itinerary William Wordsworth published his first Guide to the Lakes in 1810. Given his widespread recognition during his career, he was probably the key influencer of the day, inspiring tourists and popularizing the region. My driving tour takes us exploring the little towns and villages in the region, with Bowness-on-Windermere being a great place to start. To get a genuine feel for the place, I walk the main street and along the lakefront to catch a boat ride on the lake.

After a 90-minute trip across the lake, we take a short drive from the lakeside up to Rydal Mount, the home where Wordsworth lived with his family. Wordsworth designed the gardens at Rydal, and he said that those grounds were ”his office” as opposed to the office/writing room in his house. He built the “Writing Hut” where he spent most of his time overlooking the two nearby lakes, Windermere and Coniston. After a tour of the house and grounds, I’m on to the village of Grasmere and to Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth spent over eight years living with his sister Dorothy in what she called “plain living, but high thinking.” This is where he wrote much of the poetry for which he is remembered today, including his famous ode to daffodils, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Next, our literary trip connects us with the life of the poet John Ruskin, who lived at Brantwood house, overlooking Coniston Water. The beautiful house, now a museum, is situated on a steep hill and commands a breathtaking view. There is also a Ruskin Museum in Coniston that covers the history and heritage of Coniston Water. Ambleside is another village that’s a must-stop on the road. Its unique Bridge House was built over a stream more than 300 years ago as a summer house for Ambleside Hall. An engineering marvel, it is a National Trust building and a great spot for a photo. We continue further into the Lake District, to the village of Hawkshead, best known as the home of my favorite children’s writer Beatrix Potter, most famous for her 23 children’s tales beginning with Peter Rabbit. With the proceeds from her writing, she bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in 1905. Over the following decades, the tales of Peter Rabbit and his family enabled her to purchase additional farms to preserve the landscape. Potter died in 1943, leaving almost all her property to the National Trust. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now constitutes the Lake District National Park

and with leading what has become modern day sustainable land preservation in the UK. Hill Top Farm is now a perfectly preserved museum. According to her wishes, it was left exactly as it had been when she lived there. A littleknown fact is that she illustrated her books herself. For me, a joyful part of exploring the house is identifying the various scenes that she painted in watercolors for her books. After a year without travel, this will be the perfect way for me to begin traveling again. Revisiting my favorite part of England as a precursor to new explorations and more cultural adventures.

GETTING THERE, PLACES TO STAY AND PLACES TO EAT Manchester is the closest international airport. A car rental is a must for this trip, and it’s a two-hour drive from the airport to The Lakes. HOTELS The Samling Hotel, Windermere thesamlinghotel.co.uk Armathwaite Hall, Keswick armathwaite-hall.com Gilpin Hotel, Windermere thegilpin.co.uk Linthwaite House, Windermere leeucollection.com/UK/linthwaite-house

MICHELIN-STARRED RESTAURANTS IN THE LAKE DISTRICT L’Enclume, Cartmel, lenclume.co.uk Rogan & Co, Cartmel, roganandco.co.uk Henrock at Linthwaite House henrock.co.uk Cottage in the Wood, Whinlatter thecottageinthewood.co.uk HRiSHi at the Gilpin, Windermere thegilpin.co.uk/eat-and-drink Forest Side, Grasmere theforestside.com The Old Stamp House, Ambleside oldstamphouse.com Allium at Askham Hall, Penrith askhamhall.co.uk/restaurant-with-rooms

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Staying Put This Year Helped Me Stay Ahead BY DORON GERSTEL

For more than two decades—22 years, in fact—I’ve been CEO of a number of global, high-tech companies. Over that period, I estimate I have traveled more than five million miles. That’s a mere 200 times around the earth. Or over 800 roundtrips between New York and San Francisco. It’s certainly scary when you look at it that way! I did this traveling—technically called schlepping—for so long that my mind and body didn’t know any other life. I would travel from Israel to the U.S. and Europe for key meetings, not-so-key meetings and, of course, end-of-year financial announcements. It’s not that I looked forward to the travel—far from it—but I did look forward to what happened after I got there. The vibe, for me, was everything. I loved to “manage by walking around,” creating an informal culture, popping into

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offices for the kind of spontaneous conversations where ideas spark and bubble. I believed it to be important to show my commitment and was also convinced that the only way to establish a genuine rapport with the team—and gauge the pulse of the company—was through casual but revealing communication with all levels of the team. No dashboard can deliver those insights. Back when I was CEO of Syneron, a company that makes devices used by cosmetic surgeons, I implemented a routine I called “CEO in the City.” I would let a sales rep know on Sunday evening that I would be in town on Monday morning. I’d show up, and I’d spend a day trailing her or him to all of their meetings. The amount I learned—about the business, about how my sales rep positioned the company, about the chemistry in the room—was invaluable. At the end of the day, there would be a dinner, usually with his or her spouse. For more than 20 years, I thought that was the best way to run my life as a CEO. I never would have changed my mind on my own. It took the pandemic and a forced lockdown to prove me wrong. Since March, I haven’t been pulled out for a random search by TSA, set foot on a jetway, had a yogurt at the airport or struggled to find my Uber driver. But guess what? I’ve achieved an intimacy and connection with my far-flung teams that I never thought possible. I know Zoom has taken its hits lately, with complaints about Zoom fatigue. But for me, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Here’s why I find Zooming and FaceTiming on my laptop to be a better CEO solution than zooming around the planet. You can achieve intimacy if you allow a few minutes at the beginning of each call for a human exchange. I avoid back-toback Zoom calls precisely for that reason.

Those few moments at the start of each call go a long way to making people feel recognized and not just like faces on a screen. Think of it as “managing by Zooming around.” In fact, watching the dog run by and listening to the kids fighting—seeing the way your team members actually live, outside of the artificiality of the office—is actually more intimate and revealing than being faceto-face in a sterile conference room. You can have more casual interactions remotely than you can on a condensed business trip. As I said, I love managing by walking around, the classic “water cooler conversations.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my time at various business locations was so pressured I didn’t have the luxury of as many casual interactions as I wanted. It turns out, though, that FaceTime is a fabulous tool for creating spontaneous interactions. I love to surprise people with an unexpected FaceTime call. It’s fun to catch people in the moment and share what’s on their minds, and on mine. (Yes, most people tend to answer when it’s the CEO, but I make it clear that no one is obligated to answer.) You can be more productive and more relaxed at the same time. The amount of actual time travel steals from your life— including “brain time”—is far more than we usually imagine. It’s not just getting in the car, driving to the airport, going through security, waiting for the plane, flying—and then doing that all again in reverse. What is also draining is the sheer amount of time it takes to think about traveling, to wrap your mind around the dislocation, to emotionally prepare for it. I now use this time I’ve recaptured to think more broadly and creatively about my business. The last point I want to make is that none of this would be possible without the agility, resilience and emotional openness of my team at Perion, the digital advertising company I now lead as CEO. Everyone here has been just extraordinary since the new world forced itself upon us last March. What’s more, I am firmly convinced that all the benefits I’ve gained from staying put have been shared by my team. They’ve become even more productive, more contributory and deeper original thinkers than before. So, when we go back to whatever awaits us—I’ve actually heard some people go beyond “the New Normal” and describe it as “the New Strange”—I can guarantee that I won’t be spending nearly as much time in the air, or in the office. I’ve learned that being in one place can now take your business any place.

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Reclaiming the African Safari with Beks Ndlovu The trailblazing safari CEO spoke to Worth about diversity in the African tourism space and his ideal future of conservation tourism.

P H OTOS CO U R T E SY O F A F R I C A N B U S H C A M P S

BY TRAVIS LEVIUS

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eks Ndlovu’s evolution as a luxury safari hotelier is more remarkable than most. Raised in a small village on the fringe of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, he started his 25-year career in the bush as a parks guide. Becoming more aware of the impact (for better or worse) of the safari tourism ecosystem, Ndlovu took a more hands-on approach to matters of conservation and community and launched African Bush Camps, an award-winning upscale safari camp collection—and one of very few owned by Black Africans on the continent—with 16 lodges in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In spite of the pandemic’s devastating impact on African tourism, his sustainability-driven company opened the contemporary tented camp Khwai Leadwood in early 2021, sat on Botswana’s lush Okavango Delta. Celebrating 15 years as a trailblazing safari CEO, Ndlovu talked to Worth about his journey as a safari entrepreneur, his nonprofit foundation, diversity in the African tourism space and his ideal future of conservation tourism. Tell us about the impact the pandemic has had on both your company and the safari parks in which they’re based. We, like most other safari companies, have been severely impacted by the pandemic, and in a year’s time, I expect some companies to disappear from the scene. We don’t know how much longer it’s going to be until we have the international visitors needed to revive our industry. The governmentrun parks now have fewer resources to protect the land. Through our foundation, we’re doing what we can to counter the damaging effects and divert some of our resources to bolster conservation efforts and extend a hand and take care of the very people that we entrust to look after these wilderness areas.

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You started your nonprofit African Bush Camps Foundation the same time you launched your camps in 2006. Why is this a long-term passion of yours? One of the greatest inspirations for me starting my first camp was realizing that Africa has a lot of challenges, a result from previous dispositions of, basically, a lack of participation in the economic world in order to get out of the poverty cycles in our communities. I asked myself: How can I use tourism as a tool to tackle the health, education and conservation issues? So, it was a natural step to make sure that in tandem of growing this commercial side of the business, we could also grow an entity that would allow us to make the greatest impact.

What would you say has been the greatest achievement thus far in the foundation initiatives you’ve created? We’ve been involved in over 72 projects since we started the foundation, and we plan to limit our projects moving forward so we can really make a long-term impact on people’s lives. I would say that the biggest move towards that is our education programs. Having students be able to choose and make the right decisions and understand when we talk about regeneration of land: What does it mean? What does tourism mean, and what is the impact of that revenue stream? That type of education is going to transform people’s thinking. What do you hope your camp guests, both past and future, take away from the experiences you’ve created with African Bush Camps? There’s no doubt that when people come to Africa, the first thing on their mind is wildlife and the Big Five. But we hope that by the time people leave the camp, they’ve got

a deeper understanding of our people, their cultures and the need to hopefully participate in solving the challenges that Africa has, which in turn are going to be global challenges. Moreover, we want their contribution, or at least them to feel a sense of contribution, that allows them to call themselves our partners in saving the planet. You’re currently based in Cape Town. What are your thoughts on the new and controversial South African Tourism Equity Fund (a governmentbacked initiative providing financial assistance to majority Black-owned tourism enterprises to level the playing field)? I think it’s very positive, and it’s a great opportunity for the government, stakeholders and other fund contributors to go beyond simply handing out capital. They should ensure that there’s adequate training of tourism skills and resources so that the newly welcomed players can actually succeed, making sure that they have a sustainable business model. WORTH.COM

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weaving and designs of traditional Botswana mud huts for the tented camps. It’s on the Khwai River, and you’ll see epic sights of elephants swimming back and forth. Khwai is probably one of Botswana’s prime wildlife areas where you have a great chance of seeing all the predators and big game. There’s a lot of flexibility: You can do night game drives, you can do walks, you can also get on traditional canoes (mokoro) and, of course, tribe interactions with the local community.

During your transition from a guide to a safari hotelier, did you have any Black industry leaders to look up to or seek guidance from? When I entered the safari industry some 24 to 25 years ago, it was still a very white-dominated industry, and to some extent it still is. I had a lot of good Black guides as mentors starting out—all my mentors were guides because I was training to be a guide and not a manager. But by the time I was looking to learn safari marketing and sales, Black presence in senior levels became fewer and fewer... but that didn’t stop me from learning from others. What’s been the most important or hardest lesson you’ve learned as an African safari entrepreneur? Coming from a lack of capital or resources when starting a business can pose a real challenge delivering a quality product. It can also cause you to work with partners who may not necessarily share the same values. In the early days, I got an investor at some point, and over time, it became very clear that there was a misalignment in values. Lines can be very blurred when somebody comes with a big fat check, and it almost cost me the entire business. So, I think understanding what your vision is and what your purpose is and standing firm on your values is a very big start. What’s special about the new Khwai Leadwood camp, and what can guests expect? The design is pretty amazing. We had fun making sure that we incorporated some of the local architecture and textures, like basket

Based on where your camps are located, which is your favorite park? From an aesthetic point of view— and I’m probably biased because I love the diversity of dry land and water—I would probably say Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, and the Khwai Concession area because it’s part of Botswana’s Okavango Delta system. As all-year-round destinations, I’d say those two areas are probably the most striking. What’s next for African Bush Camps over the next five years? Pandemic challenges aside, we want to remain in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, and partner with other lodges in South Africa and Mozambique. We want to limit the number of beds we develop in those three countries, and we certainly don’t want to “take over Africa” as others might call it. We want to really perfect what we do there and have deeper and meaningful offerings and experiences, from a tourism point of view and from conservation and community engagement. Imagine a perfect world scenario of the safari industry in the year 2030. What would that look like to you? Doing business with the sort of clientele or guest that sees Africa as not only a place to find restoration, but also as a place of opportunity to learn what the challenges are and how they can contribute to making it a better place. Those types of people would allow us to make a far greater impact in terms of the work of the foundation. This includes the strategic partners who support us, educating their guests that staying at Beks’ camps is encouraged because the work he does on the ground is very important, and that they themselves can contribute. That, to me, would be my perfect world.

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T The Vacation Home Has Taken on a New Life Because of COVID Worth Chairman Jim McCann discusses the pros of buying into a private resort community with real estate developer Mike Meldman. BY JIM MCCANN

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he COVID-19 pandemic has instigated many lifestyle changes over the past year. Despite the deadly disease, flights are still being booked, private jets chartered and beachfront vacation homes occupied. In fact, these things are becoming even more commonplace. Many professionals are taking advantage of remote work to get away from big cities and virus hotspots in favor of sun and sandy beaches. Recently, I had the pleasure of talking to Mike Meldman, a good friend of mine and a real estate developer. As founder and chairman of Discovery Land Company, Meldman builds and manages private resort communities, and he gave me insight about new patterns in the industry. Meldman has been in the industry for more than 30 years, and Discovery Land Company has built more than 25 exclusive luxury residential resorts, including Yellowstone Club, Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club, Troubadour Golf & Field Club, Silo Ridge Field Club, Barbuda Golf & Ocean Club, Driftwood Golf & Ranch Club and now the first European community, CostaTerra Golf & Ocean Club. He has found his success in teaching families how to relax by selling a lifestyle, not a house; membership is real estatebased—members first buy their land, then build their house, followed by joining the club. “These people, they work hard, they’re ‘Type A.’ They’re so busy that they don’t have time to organize family fun or even ask for it,” Meldman said, describing his clientele and his services. “We also create family fun in places where they want to be with their kids because I think a lot of people regret not spending enough time with their families.” Discovery Land Company communities are the perfect blend between a five-star hotel and a comfortable vacation home. A dedicated member services team takes care of all the upkeep that comes with homeownership—the home cleaned, the refrigerator stocked, the lawn mowed. There are endless activities for kids through Discovery’s signature concierge activities program Outdoor Pursuits, offering fun local adventures led by knowledgeable professionals. The communities also include worldclass gym and spa facilities and incredible farm-to-table restaurants for those looking to dine out. It can be argued that these properties improve residents’ livelihoods and day-to-day health. And family time is much more

convenient when you’re all in the same beautiful place. I, too, have been taking advantage of a place we have in Florida. We’ve had this property for more than four years now, but frankly, it saw little use until this past pandemic winter. Luckily, we were able to work for several weeks from there, which was an anomaly. Properties like this have become much more valuable to me and have completely altered how I will approach future decisions for my real estate portfolio. For those with the freedom to work from anywhere there is Wi-Fi, there is no reason not to work from home anywhere, says Meldman. The children in online school would undoubtedly be happy to attend math from the beach. Even as jobs and schools begin to reopen, the new remote working infrastructure obviates returning offices to 100 percent capacity— there’s just no need for it. The hybrid lifestyle is efficient; virtual meetings are productive. Why commute an hour to sit in a cubicle office when you could instead spend that time going for a morning swim, or even better, sleeping in. It’s easy for me to run my businesses remotely, and frankly, it’s more enjoyable. These hybrid lifestyles are here to stay, and they are an acceleration of the natural progression of modern technological innovation. City living is no longer synonymous with success, and we witnessed that migration take place even before the pandemic. I’ve met many residents of these resorts, and I’ve seen the pride and sense of community that they have formed. Meldman has had more than 10,000 families become part of his communities, showing no signs of slowing down—especially with the current culture shift as younger families eye properties for their potential for family bonding, and Discovery’s unique vertical membership allows more generations in on the fun. And with lockdown, residents are using their vacation homes more than ever, which has been good for the local economy of the surrounding communities. Already, the construction process has a positive impact, largely due to the massive amounts of money poured into these projects, creating hundreds of jobs and the assurance of environmental protection and sustainability. The beauty of residential clubs is that you’re buying into a community— rather than just a piece of real estate.

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20 QUESTIONS

Favorite city? I love London and Paris in the early summer, two fantastic cities.

How many days a year do you travel in normal times? I was traveling 50 to 60 days a year.

4. How much do you travel now?

Joy Falotico In the wake of the pandemic, travelers are looking to take to the streets. A study done by Erie Insurance found that 56 percent of respondents said they are planning on going over 100 miles from home, with 80 percent stating their intended mode of travel was by car, truck or SUV. President of the Lincoln Motor Company, Joy Falotico, told Worth about the new 2021 Lincoln Navigator, her favorite road trip destination and what’s making travel easier for her right now.

Minimal...Year-to-date, I’ve only taken three trips.

5. What do you drive?

I recently upgraded to the new 2021 Lincoln Navigator Black Label with Special Edition Monochromatic Package. Not only is it a serene and effortless ride, but I also love how purposeful the designers and engineers were with their style and tech decisions. Plus, I get compliments wherever I go!

Favorite road trip destination? Sea Pines in Hilton Head Island.

7. Favorite travel snack? Roasted almonds.

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13.

Hotel preference right now? Of course, I love luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. However, Lincoln has an incredible hospitality partnership program. I am so grateful that this has provided me the opportunity to experience some of the most exquisite hotels across the U.S.—from Rosewood Miramar Beach to Dream Nashville and SLS South Beach.

14. What keeps you up at night?

Work. We have a lot of disruption in our industry right now, and we have to make the right choices and move with speed.

15. What makes travel easier for

you, especially now? When a road trip isn’t on the itinerary, Delta safety protocols have been my savior.

16.

Favorite movie? Life Is Beautiful with subtitles is one of my all-time favorite movies.

17.

you never travel without? My electric toothbrush, makeup and Apple Watch are travel must-haves.

18. Who is your biggest influence?

8. Other than your phone, what do

Favorite car for road trips? That’s easy, my Navigator.

10.

Favorite podcast for long car rides? I’m a bit more of a casual podcast “surfer.” But I do regularly listen to the New York Times’ The Daily. to overcome in the last year? Like many people, sheltering in place and work from home was very difficult last year. However, there were some benefits to sheltering in place, as it allowed me to spend more time with my family and two daughters. Work from home required new muscle and working together with our team to identify new ways of working that still allowed for collaboration.

SUMMER 2021

United Way, Girl Scouts and Pope Francis Center, a Detroit-based organization that provides food and shelter for the homeless.

Your most treasured possession? A vintage Chanel black quilted bag that my mother and sister purchased for me when I got my MBA. And what’s cool is it’s still in style, and my 19-yearold daughter likes to borrow it.

11. The biggest challenge you’ve had

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12. Favorite cause to give to?

I have had the opportunity to work with so many great leaders throughout my career, but my mother is my biggest influence because she has shaped who I am as a person, as she always encouraged me to persevere and not give up on my goals.

19.

Three words to describe what makes for a great road trip? Family, good music and good weather.

20.

Favorite piece of advice? Early in my career, I had a special leader who told me to “play my long game,” meaning do the right thing for the long term versus optimizing for the short term, and I believe this has served me well.

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y LY N D O N H AY E S

What are you currently reading? I am currently reading Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights, but one of my favorite books is Randi Zuckerberg’s Pick Three. It serves as a good reminder that “you can have it all, but you can’t have it all every day.”

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