The travel industry has had pretty much everything thrown at it in the first six months of 2025. It has faced ongoing global conflict, economic instability, political uncertainty and challenges related to climate change.
The second quarter earnings of online travel agencies (OTAs), hotel groups and airlines reflected some of this turmoil. Airlines blamed macroeconomic factors
for revenue losses and demand uncertainty, while the CEOs of hotel groups and OTAs were cautiously optimistic.
The constant in travel that leaders come back to again and again is its resilience—bounce-backs after an ash cloud, stock market
crashes and a pandemic spring to mind. While travel was down in certain regions of the world, travel companies are often quick to pivot to other destinations and products to compensate.
Go City offers attraction passes in 28 cities spread evenly between the United States and Europe. In an interview in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright Europe 2025,
Go City CEO Jon Owen said that Europe is having a great year, with some cities seeing an increase in visitor numbers.
"I think ultimately what you need to do as a business is just keep going—you can't affect European reluctance to travel
to California at the moment, but what you can do is keep building the right products for customers, and those market trends will change," he said.
He was joined in the studio by Linda Bryndísardóttir, vice president of business development
for Dohop, who said that the situation was not as "bleak" as it might sound.
"If you look at numbers from IATA, for example, the number of passengers is growing
year over year, even in the U.S. Asia is growing quite fast. We're increasing our partnerships in Asia," she said.
"So, like you just said, hedge your bets. Make sure that you're operating in each continent. You want to be where the customer is, for sure. The customer is going to travel. They are traveling, even though economic growth has slowed down."
Owen
and Bryndísardóttir agreed that while forecasting is challenging, the travel industry is used to changing strategy, directing marketing to where demand is and focusing on the elements that it can control.
Watch or listen to the full discussion with PhocusWire's
Linda Fox:
Phocuswright Europe 2025 Executive Interview: Travel in turbulent times