Rafat

New Skift Podcast Mini-Series: How I Travel Listen to Skift's podcast mini-series "How I Travel."

Experimenting with a new podcast mini-series at Skift: “How I Travel”, on the personal philosophies on travel.

We are kicking off with the closest global philosopher-muse I know, Colin Nagy, probably the best travel interview you would have heard in recent times. skift.com/2024/12/26/n...

Our goal is to use AI for one its best features today mixed with our expect editorial insight and unearth the tech opportunities these documents reveal.

New Skift Feature: Uncovering Tech Vendor Opportunities Using AI Analysis At Skift, we recognize that corporate financial filings of public companies—including earnings-call transcripts, quarterly 10-Qs, and annual 10-Ks—provide

We’re starting a new feature on Skift: using AI + our edit expertise to analyze public travel cos earnings calls & 10Q & 10K SEC filings to unearth tech opportunities: upcoming system upgrades, emerging RFPs, or digital transformations. We’re kicking off with Soho House. skift.com/2024/12/26/n...

Listings Were Never the Answer In this fast-dawning age of AI answers as the default construct for what we are searching for, the traditional listings paradigm that has dominated online

Listings were never the answer, the days of endless scrolling through similar travel listings may soon be over. One of the first travel sectors to become answers driven is the experiences sector, followed by hotels & airlines in hybrid. I argue it out: skift.com/2024/12/24/l...

Publishers Battle for the C-Suite Numerous media outlets, looking for new lucrative lines of business, are pursuing newsletters and events aimed specifically at top executives.

The context. I think this is a thinking of a media-dominated age and we aren’t in that age anymore. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/b...

YouTube video by Bg2 Pod AI Semiconductor Landscape feat. Dylan Patel | BG2 w/ Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner

The more I think about it, the more these CEO/CEO suite newsletters by mainstream media will have a hard time in this media-obsolescence age. If you are a CEO and want to learn cutting edge AI and implications would you learn from a journalist or BG2 pod? www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVcS...

How Two Little Letters Made Anguilla into a Hidden Caribbean Goldmine Anguilla is a small island with a big secret. It owns one of the most lucrative pieces of digital real estate in the world: the .ai domain.

Anguilla is a small island with a big secret. It owns one of the most lucrative pieces of digital real estate in the world: the .ai domain. Now that ChatGPT brought artificial intelligence mainstream, it could transform the island's tourism economy – and its future.

skift.com/2024/12/22/h...

Reporting is not threatened by AI, writing out of the reporting is, I 100% believe. Of course humans will do storytelling better but humans instructing AI to do it will only get better & better so I won’t discount that part out yet.

Still forming my thoughts on it as I test it out myself daily.

Remote Year Shuts Down Despite New Owners’ Earlier Promises of a Bright Future Remote Year, the travel startup that pioneered month-to-month work-and-travel programs, is shutting down after nearly a decade in operation. The company

Well this is a bummer, Remote Year was a small but pioneering company with an outsized impact on the edges. At least it was trying something different. Sad to see it end like this, in acrimony. skift.com/2024/12/21/r...

Publishers Battle for the C-Suite Numerous media outlets, looking for new lucrative lines of business, are pursuing newsletters and events aimed specifically at top executives.

Meanwhile a media company with favorite chosen poster boys launched a freakin newsletter in 2025 and that merits a trend story in NYT. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/b...

Sean’s last day at IndustryDive is today, he has created about a billion dollars in enterprise value profitably in media in a decade flat with little initial money raised, more than all of the false prophets NYT media folks have fawned over the last decade. Sorry this harsh words needs to be said.

The fact that NYT/WSJ/FT or any big mainstream media reporter has NOT done a single detailed profile of @seangriffey.bsky.social says *everything* that needs time said about how clueless they are about what is real business value in media.

After Overtourism: Pivoting from Traveler-Shaming to Systemic Solutions The world is on the cusp of a technological renaissance in climate solutions. These breakthroughs can transform the way we travel.

I am betting on technology to solve climate challenges in travel, first, then policy and then traveler responsibility. It is time for a solutionist mindset in travel. skift.com/2024/12/19/a...

This one made me quiet popular in travel media community: skift.com/2024/12/18/t...

This street art in Maarif area of Casablanca definitely gripped me like few others, mostly because maybe the kids look like mine. Gorgeously done.

Here an idea: Cold/lukewarm food for kids at restaurants.

Cooling down fresh hot food for kids becomes a whole thing for parents, might as well make it easy, and you have my loyalty.

I said this almost 15 years ago giving the example of TIME, when everyone was high on iPad magazine versions. 15 years later, the lesson still applies: just because you add AI summaries to your articles, doesn't make it better, no one will give a shit: time.com/7201556/gene...

The prescient Tourist Gaze, 1990…

Wild sage grows unbothered on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, silver leaves braving wind and salt.

Western tourist gapes in amazement, locals think he’s an idiot for taking a photo….

For he who waits….

One thing you learn if you travel in Middle East or Africa or Central Asia: how dominant Turkish consumer products are, they are cheap and reliable enough and very well distributed. Check for BIM grocery store and brands in Morocco, you would be surprise how ubiquitous it is.

Marriott Buys Startup Postcard Cabins to Help Create Outdoor Lodging Brand Marriott International. is pushing into the outdoor hospitality market with the acquisition of the startup Postcard Cabins, formerly Getaway.

This is a fascinating buy from a big brand hotel chain, worth watching how it keeps the core of the brand (outdoor in-the-nature tiny-house stays) promise.

Travelers are craving for a different immersive experience, challenge is it is hard to scale it with consistency. skift.com/2024/12/12/m...

How Tourism Homogenizes Cuisines and What Are Possible Solutions To cater to tourists, cuisines in some destinations get boiled down to the same, overly familiar dishes. Here's how to avoid that.

"There is a lot that can be done, both from an awareness and, even more importantly, from a policy perspective. Most of it requires changes that the travelers of today, seeking more authentic experiences, would welcome." skift.com/2024/12/12/h...

Flattened Food Cultures: What’s Lost When Tourism Sets the Menu Tourism shapes what gets cooked, grown, and served. And over time, certain cuisines get boiled down to the same, overly familiar dishes.

Tourism shapes what gets cooked, grown, and served. Over time, it even shapes what locals think their own cuisine is. My video diary story how tourism flattens diverse food cultures and what can be done about it. skift.com/2024/12/09/f...

Skift Travel Megatrends 2025 Welcome to Skift’s 2025 Megatrends, which reveal that the travel industry, like everything else, is moving at a frenetic pace. Here's what to look for in the new year.

Welcome to Skift’s 2025 Megatrends, which tell us that the travel industry, like everything else, is moving at a frenetic pace. In 2025, global politics, technology, and the very human need for connection will converge in a battle for customer dollars.

Read on now:

skift.com/megatrends-2...

Obsolete on All Fronts: How Mainstream Media Lost Its Way Mainstream media today exists in a precarious space, navigating its decline across four essential vectors: economic, structural, cultural, and moral. The problem isn't that this decline is...

This is the most important media analysis story I have written in my 25 year media career.

It is over. I wrote on mainstream media's decline across four essential vectors: economic, structural, cultural & moral. It’s the rightful conclusion of an outdated model. rafat.org/post/7693255...

Obsolete on All Fronts: How Mainstream Media Lost Its Way Mainstream media today exists in a precarious space, navigating its decline across four essential vectors: economic, structural, cultural, and moral. The problem isn't that this decline is...

This is the most important media analysis story I have written in my 25 year media career.

It is over. I wrote on mainstream media's decline across four essential vectors: economic, structural, cultural & moral. It’s the rightful conclusion of an outdated model. rafat.org/post/7693255...

Google should be really scared of its usage dropping. My last two weeks, ChatGPT clocking 2 hrs/week, Google 10-20 mins (out of Top 10). This would’ve been ALL Google until recently. Getting answers, translating (extended stay in Morocco), helping think thru work and writing help, my ChatGPT usage.

The Rule, the Exception, and the Structural Obsolescence of Mainstream Media I’ve been thinking about the structural obsolescence of mainstream media and, specifically, the fate of the story format that they depend on for their existence. There’s a rule I see unfolding—and an...

No surprise that I am also writing on the obsolescence of media, and why the story structure may become obsolete for majority of work: rafat.org/post/7689166...

The Rise of Live Tourism: How Shared Experiences Shape Our Future We live in an era that, paradoxically, is both hyper-connected and deeply fragmented. Social media bridges continents, yet loneliness and polarization

Then I wrote a long framework piece defining a new phrase in travel industry: Live Tourism. And why it is ascendant in a fragmented world: skift.com/2024/12/05/t...