Skift Take Sessions

In this Skift Take Sessions episode, recorded at the Skift Creator Summit at Skift Global Forum, Katie Cline sits down with Laura Troy, Senior Director of Creative and Content for the U.S. and Canada at Marriott, and Sanjay Bhatia, Managing Director and Head of Industry at Meta, to discuss how creator marketing is evolving into a measurable driver of travel bookings.

They explore why authentic storytelling and long-term creator relationships matter, how brands can balance creative freedom with business goals, and why engagement is often more valuable than follower counts. They also discuss how creator content...

Recorded live at Skift Global Forum 2026, Jeremy Kressman talks with Heather Balsley, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Peter Manoogian, Partner at ZS, about hotel owner profitability, conversions and the changing economics of hotel growth.

They also discuss how AI is reshaping hotel search, loyalty and distribution, and why machine-readable, accurate and consistent hotel content is becoming a critical demand driver.

The conversation closes with a look at where hotel companies should focus their technology investments and why AI initiatives need to deliver more than marketing hype.

At Skift’s Data + AI Summit, Wil Slickers sits down with Rob Drotar, Industry Principal at Thoughtworks, to unpack one of the next major shifts facing travel: the rise of AI agents as a new customer interface.

The conversation moves beyond chatbots and automation to the bigger commercial question: what happens to customer ownership when an AI agent starts discovering, comparing, recommending, and potentially booking travel on behalf of the traveler?

Rob explains why business-to-agent matters, how OTAs and suppliers may approach the shift differently, and why direct booking strategies could face new pr...

Recorded at Skift's third annual Data and AI Summit in New York City, David Peller sits down with Teresa Mackintosh, CEO of Aven Hospitality, to talk about what it actually looks like to build an AI-first company from the ground up. Just 11 months after being carved out of Sabre, Aven Hospitality is already seeing tangible results from its proprietary AI-powered Unified Hospitality Engineering Execution Platform, CodeNova, including a 30% increase in development capacity and over 50% improvement in code quality. Teresa also breaks down the build vs buy decision, why change management is the hardest part of any AI rollout, and ho...

Intrepid Travel is proving that you can build a mission-driven travel company and still be more profitable than ever. In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers tees up a Skift Global Forum conversation moderated by Skift Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kopit with Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton. Thornton breaks down how Intrepid uses a balanced stakeholder model and its B Corp framework to keep value in local communities while delivering an outstanding customer experience. He explains what is powering growth right now, from baby boomers chasing immersive experiences to younger travelers prioritizing trips over traditional milestones, and why the American...

Destination marketing is changing fast, and this session makes it obvious why. In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Skift tourism reporter Bailey Schulz to unpack the biggest takeaways from Skift Global Forum, where Skift CEO Rafat Ali speaks with Fred Dixon, CEO of Brand USA, and Miguel Sanz, President of the European Travel Commission and Director-General of Turespaña. Wil and Bailey break down the three shifts that matter most right now: why the next battleground is influencing how AI models recommend destinations, not just buying ads; why airlift and new point-to-point routes are u...

AI is becoming the new front door to travel, and consumer behavior is moving faster than most companies can keep up.

In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Skift Head of Research Seth Borko to break down what matters most from Rafat Ali’s Skift Global Forum conversation with Sierra AI CEO Bret Taylor, who also chairs the OpenAI board.

Wil and Seth unpack why distribution is the first battleground, why travel brands need to start building and cleaning up their data now, and why the real upside is not just co...

OYO is now Prism, and the strategy is bigger than a name change.

In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Skift hospitality reporter Sean O’Neill to break down what Prism CEO Ritesh Agarwal is really building after years of pivots: a business that is now essentially split between India and the U.S., anchored by the Motel 6 acquisition and a push to modernize the budget experience with a tech rebuild. 

Wil and Sean unpack why “iconic” matters for Motel 6 despite its baggage, what a real turnaround would require (digital, standards, and pro...

In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers sits down with Skift hospitality reporter Sean O’Neill for a quick, high-signal setup on what mattered most from IHG CEO Elie Maalouf’s Skift Global Forum appearance. Wil and Sean break down three big themes listeners should be paying attention to: why IHG believes the center of gravity in travel is moving east and what that means in real numbers, the playbook differences in Japan versus India, and why IHG’s Ruby acquisition is a strategic bet on conversion-friendly, design-led urban hotels.

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Alaska Airlines is in one of the most important transition moments in its modern history, and it is happening under real operational pressure. In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers opens with a quick setup conversation with Skift Airlines reporter Meghna Maharishi before rolling into the on-stage session with Alaska Airlines COO Jason Berry from the Skift Aviation Forum. Meghna and Wil break down what matters most: why Alaska’s recent IT failures became a leadership-level issue, what it actually takes to build resilience (not just prevention), and how the Hawaiian integration is reshaping Alaska’s ambitions through Seat...

This episode starts with a quick setup conversation between Wil Slickers and Skift’s airlines editor Gordon Smith, teeing up why this JetBlue session hits differently: it opens with a real-time operational disruption and a leadership test you cannot spin your way around.

Then we roll into Gordon’s on-stage conversation from Skift Aviation Forum with JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty, covering what happened, what JetBlue learned, and how the airline thinks about making high-stakes calls when customers only remember the day something breaks.

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If AI becomes the front door to travel, who wins and who pays?

Wil Slickers sits down with Dennis Schaal for a sharp, no-fluff breakdown of the biggest takeaways from Skift Global Forum, including the question everyone is asking: Is ChatGPT a paid marketing channel yet, or just the start of a new distribution shift?

Dennis and Wil unpack what matters for the future of travel discovery, how monetization pressure could reshape the funnel, and what it means for platforms like Booking when the interface changes.

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In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers opens with a quick conversation with Skift’s airlines editor Gordon Smith to break down the real story behind Breeze Airways, and why most people misunderstand what the airline actually is.

Then we roll into Gordon’s on-stage session from the Skift Aviation Forum in December 2025 with Breeze founder and CEO David Neeleman. Neeleman walks through Breeze’s thesis of connecting overlooked secondary cities to major leisure hubs, shares his view on how hard it is for new airline challengers to survive today, and delivers a moment that lit up the...

In this Skift Take Sessions episode, Wil Slickers opens with a quick conversation with Dennis Schaal to break down what mattered most from Skift Global Forum, before we roll the full on-stage session featuring Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in conversation with Skift CEO Rafat Ali at Skift Global Forum.

Wil and Dennis tee up the two storylines listeners should watch closely: Airbnb’s push into services and experiences, plus the bigger strategic play around hotels, and Chesky’s belief that AI will turn travel search into “matching,” not just a chatbot. Then Chesky explains how Airbnb is thinking...

Southwest Airlines is rewriting its identity, and the story is bigger than “assigned seating” and “bags fly free.”

To kick off the first episode of Skift Take Sessions, Wil Slickers sits down with Skift airlines reporter Meghna Maharishi for a quick pre-session breakdown of why these changes are happening now, including activist pressure from Elliott Investment Management and the post-pandemic shift toward premium demand.

Then we roll into a live session from the Skift Aviation Forum in December 2025, where Tom Doxey lays out the transformation in plain terms: assigned seating, extra legroom, bag fees, basic economy...

Skift Take Sessions is a new weekly podcast for anyone who wants to understand how the global travel industry really works.

In this trailer, host Wil Slickers introduces the show and explains what listeners can expect each week — candid, journalist-led conversations with CEOs and senior leaders across airlines, hotels, and travel platforms, recorded live at Skift events.

Rather than headlines or press releases, Skift Take Sessions focuses on how decisions are made, how companies compete, and what these conversations tell us about where travel is headed next. You’ll hear directly from leaders at companies like...