Each year around Memorial Day, some theme park—likely in central Florida—jacks up ticket prices by a few bucks, prompting the competition to follow suit with their own price hikes. This year, like last, it’s Universal Studios Orlando leading the charge.
hotels
Strange Bedfellows: 4 Companies Surprisingly Getting into the Hotel Business
What do a toy company, a supermarket, a low-cost furniture chain, and a movie studio have in common? They’re all trying to extend their brands—perhaps in embarrassingly awkward fashion—into the hotel business.
Marriott & IKEA Launch a Hotel Brand for Millennials: What Does That Even Mean?
Most hotels are marketed to a specific group: travelers. Not Baby Boomer travelers or Gen X travelers or millennial travelers—but all travelers. But a new hotel brand called Moxy has been specifically “designed to capture the …
9 Easy Ways to Save Money on Your Next Vacation
In travel, cheap doesn’t have to mean bad. No matter where you’re going, there are plenty of simple ways to cut expenses and still enjoy the quality vacation you desire.
PayPal Ups Ante in Holiday Season Price-Matching Wars
The battle for holiday shopper dollars continues with the launch of the most impressive-sounding price-matching policy offered yet. As it turns out, the policy isn’t being offered by a retailer, but the payment processor PayPal.
What’s New in Spoiled Children, and Spoiled Pets
Time and again, consumer trends point out that people are increasingly pampering their pets as if they were children. Or is it the other way around? In any event, they’re both pretty spoiled.
It’s Not Just Airlines: Hotel Fees on Pace to Reach Record High in 2012
In the travel world, fees charged by airlines get the most attention, and for good reason: Fliers forked out $22.6 billion in airlines fees last year, on top of flight prices that seem to be hiked higher every other month. …
Bonus Season: Plenty of Freebies Awarded With Fall Hotel Deals
To boost bookings during what’s normally a slow season for travel, major hotel companies routinely roll out special promotions at about the time that kids are heading back to school. This autumn, hotel guests are being wooed with …
Why You Shouldn’t Trust Positive Online Reviews—Or Negative Ones, For That Matter
Researchers and online review sites alike are trying to root out efforts to manipulate the system. By outing dubious, planted, solicited, and otherwise inauthentic reviews, consumers will have more reason to trust the reviews …
4 New Ways Travelers Are Being Tempted Into Spending More
Travelers naturally get agitated when they’re asked to pay for services that used to be provided at no extra charge—airline baggage fees being the most obvious example. While price hikes and new fees are rampant in the travel …
Wanna Tick Off Hotel Guests? Charge for Wi-Fi
Turns out hotel guests don’t like getting charged for something they can widely get for free outside the hotel. In the latest hotel-satisfaction survey, properties that charge for wi-fi received significantly lower ratings than …
9 Ways to Beat the Hotel Rates Shown at Orbitz
Reactions have been mixed to the Wall Street Journal’s story revealing that, in some cases, Orbitz shows Mac users higher-priced hotel results than those displayed to people searching with PCs. The practice seems to unfairly …
