Category: Travel

Travel trends in the industry

The west coast is the best coast

On By jeffgrilloIn TravelLeave a comment

I moved back to PDX with my wife on June 30th and it really is great to be home. While I miss NYC and consider it to be the best city in the world, it is one of the most difficult places to live. Thankfully my wife is from the borough of Queens, so I have the luxury of going back there on a regular basis to visit friends and family.

A few of the reasons why it is so great to be back on the west coast (best coast) is because the summers in the PNW kick butt. Thinking back on my life in NYC, I would fear those sleepless nights dreaming about forced air while I was curled up in front our AC unit hoping that mosquitoes would not attack me. Speaking of unwanted visitors, I’ll never forget about the mouse that was living in our apartment. The little one would come up through our stove burners day or night and run across our kitchen counters without a fear in the world. The day that we moved out we caught him which is good for the new tenants.

Life is so much better here partly because my wife and I are living on the Oregon Coast. My parents have a condo in Cannon Beach, and they kindly allowed us to use it temporarily while we transition to an apartment in the Rose city. We consider ourselves to be extremely lucky especially given what life was like stuck in a 600 sq ft apartment in Brooklyn Heights for 4 months during the pandemic. Now we have just under 1,000 sq ft., people that speak with us in our condo complex, a small garden to maintain, and the beach within walking distance, it is hard to complain. Additionally, we have access to incredibly fresh food at half the cost and many of the restaurants are understanding of my gluten allergy.

Below are a few pictures of our favorite beaches including Tolovana Beach (left) and Chapman Beach (right)

Intro to Booking.com

On By jeffgrilloIn Tech and Customer Success, TravelLeave a comment

For those of you who are not familiar with Booking.com hopefully, this helps. To be honest, until recently I was unaware that they were owned by Priceline, began as a startup in Amsterdam, and that the brand employed over 15,000 across 199+ offices worldwide. It really goes to show how much impact Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) have in the travel industry.

“Our approach to innovations is to fail fast,” said David Vismans, global director, and chief product officer, in a post by The Nation. For example, they will test features like the “Only 1 room left on our site!” on a small segment of users and assess it through A/B testing before it is officially launched.

Screenshot 2017-06-30 12.37.19.png

I think that is one of their greatest features because it pushes (almost forces) the consumer to make a decision in place of lollygagging. And because the website features free cancellation options and there’s no requirement for pre-payment the user’s room selection is not set in stone.

Screenshot 2017-06-30 12.50.49A couple days ago I noticed that Booking.com changed their homepage and it now features tabs for flights from Kayak, rental cars from Rentalcars.com, and Restaurant reservations from OpenTable (my personal favorite), as you might expect all these companies fall under the Priceline Group.

This is definitely a competitive move against rivals like Expedia, who prides itself on being the world’s largest full-service travel agency.  C-Trip also offers a wide range of similar services primarily for the Chinese market but the company is looking to expand overseas, according to The Wall Street Journal. We can’t forget about TripAdvisor who is heavily invested in hotels, restaurants, flights, vacation rentals, tours, and more.

Research says New York is #1!

On By jeffgrilloIn Past life in NYC, TravelLeave a comment

For many years, I’ve been an active subscriber to the weekly newsletter sent by Resonance and it has never disappointed me. The company offers impressive research, strategy, and storytelling for all types of brands around the world. Their most recent report is about America’s Best Cities.

Early in the report, Andrew Nelson from National Geographic has validated the research by saying, “the list is an invaluable guide to authentic, surprising and engaging places well worth visiting.” He noted that Seattle is a place where “millions can build and realize their dreams outside an imperial orbit.” Later in the one-pager titled The Rise in American Cities (on page 4) Bend, Oregon is recognized as a place to “grow and showcase best practices for sustainable growth in urban areas,” and as a local born and raised in Portland, Oregon I can validate that statement.

It is worth noting that the researchers surveyed more than 1,500 “Mobile Millennials” (Americans aged 20-36 who have traveled in the last year) in both 2014 and 2017 to monitor and identify 27 factors. The four most interesting factors to me included affordability of housing, diversity of people, economic prosperity, and quality of the arts (culture, restaurants, and nightlife).

I was very happy to see that New York was ranked #1 as the best large city followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. New York is first in the prosperity category due to its #1 ranking for Fortune 500 Companies and then when you look at Broadway and the 40 new shows that are launching this year, the most in three decades, it really can’t be beaten. Next, they looked at the culinary offerings and NYC also ranked #1 because of the 77 of its restaurants that boast one, two, or three Michelin starts. And, earlier this year Eleven Madison Park was named the best restaurant in the world, which has not happened for a restaurant in the United States since 2004. The word on the street is that the restaurant had a killer invite-only closing party headlined by Questlove.

The research is really well written and I highly suggest downloading one of their many great reports before you begin your next adventure within the United States or abroad.

Why has my bagel guy never left NYC?!

On By jeffgrilloIn Past life in NYC, TravelLeave a comment

Almost every morning I purchase either a toasted poppy seed bagel with bacon, egg and cheese or poppy seed bread at my local bagel store. I mean, who can beat spending only $3-$5 on breakfast. Back in 2012-2013, it was only 50 cents more for a cup of coffee, but recently the owner raised his prices and you can believe that I give him a hard time about it J. As you might imagine, I’ve gotten to know the owner and all the people that work for him, so when I enter the building they start my order right away.

We regularly have interesting conversations about the weather, sports and how much he enjoys hanging out on his balcony on sunny days. Given that he lives very close to Coney Island he spends a lot of his free time walking the boardwalk, so midway through the summer, he has secured a killer tan that makes all the girls jealous.

One of the conversations that I’ll never forget was about how he dreams of boarding a plane for the first time in his life. Naturally, as a single 40 year-old born in Brooklyn, I had to ask him where he spends his time on vacation outside of traveling on a plane. His answer was that he has only been to Queens twice to see the Mets play, Staten Island once and the Bronx to see the Yankees. At this point, I was so intrigued that I could barely leave the store. So, before I left, I reminded him of the 5 reasons why traveling is finally affordable.

  1. The rise in the sharing economy with brands like AirBnb and HomeAway has made it easier to find cheaper travel alternatives with the main benefit of connecting with locals for a more unique experience.
  1. New search apps like HotelTonight, Kayak, Expedia, Booking.com, GTFO App, Hopper App and many others allow travelers to find flights, hotels and package deals, often at the last minute.
  1. The rise in International Budget Airlines has made it easier and cheaper to fly around the world on a budget. Norwegian Air serves both coasts with connections in Europe and Asia, and WOW from Iceland has started to offer cheap flights to Europe.
  1. There’s a ton of ways to get points and miles using royalty programs. One of the most famous is The Points Guy who can help a user decide which credit card will work best them and their needs. I personally have the Delta Sky Miles card because Delta has some great international flights and daily direct flights to/from my hometown of Portland, Oregon.
  1. There’s a ton of information on the web that has really made traveling so much easier. You can find train schedules, bus times and ferry schedules to name a few. Let’s not forget about sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp that have millions of reviews to help consumers make all their decisions along the way.

I hope sometime in my lifetime the bagel guy will finally board a flight for his dream destination of choice which is Las Vegas. I did tell him that I am always here for him if he needs me to help him do any of the research and my hope is that he takes me up on it.