followsummer travel news for April 9th, 2016

Air France Is Trying to Woo Young Travelers with a Discount Loyalty Program

Air France will introduce loyalty cards offering 30 percent discounts on domestic routes to passengers aged 12 to 24 as it seeks to lure young travelers away from trains, long-distance buses, and low-cost carriers. The cards will sell for 49 euros ($73 CDN) and run for a year, Air France President Frederic Gagey said Friday at a Paris briefing. They’ll be valid for bookings with Air France and regional arm Hop!, though not at discount unit Transavia. Air France faces a crunch in the domestic travel market as EasyJet Plc and Ryanair Holdings Plc add flights and train services get quicker. While state rail operator SNCF has been offering youth discounts for decades, they’re not yet widely available with airlines.  →Read more

Travel to Iran: Is It the Next Cuba?

The U.S. State Department may be warning travelers against traveling to Iran, but no one’s listening. Americans are heading to Iran in droves and now that sanctions have been lifted, more will be on their way. Hotel companies are racing to get in and tour operators can’t create itineraries to the country fast enough. Airlines are beginning to offer easier access for travelers into Tehran, with new flights and increased frequency. More and more it appears that the interest of travelers wishing to travel to Iran has been piqued and the nation has the potential to be the next Cuba and experience exponential growth. → Read More

Europe Mulls Requiring Visas for American and Canadian Visitors

The European Union executive is considering whether to make U.S. and Canadian citizens apply for visas before traveling to the bloc, a move that could raise tensions as Brussels negotiates a trade pact with Washington. Only Britain and Ireland have opt-outs from the 28-nation EU’s common visa policy and the European Commission must decide by April 12 whether to demand visas from countries who have similar requirements in place for one or more EU state. Washington and Ottawa both demand entry visas from Romanians and Bulgarians, whose states joined the EU in 2007. →Read more

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How Long Can Hotel Guests Go Without Wi-Fi?

A majority of hotel guests can’t even wait 10 minutes to connect their device to the Internet.According to a recent survey conducted by British hotelier Roomzzz, 65 percent of hotel guests admit that they can wait no longer than seven minutes to log onto their hotel’s Wi-Fi. What’s more, one-third of surveyed guests said they request the Wi-Fi password at check-in. →Read more

Expedia Chair Barry Diller: Artificial Intelligence Will Be Travel’s Next Big Thing

This year won’t be the year of artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s coming and artificial intelligence will be transformational. That summarizes the sentiments of Barry Diller, the chairman and senior executive of both Expedia and IAC/InterActiveCorp, who says that machine learning and artificial intelligence will combine to manage companies’ big data troves and there will be layers of innovation “tacked onto distribution systems.” He argued that there won’t be a single next big thing but there will be several tracks, including mobile, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data. →Read more 

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