The State of Travel Is Getting Harder to Control

August 14th, 2026 at 4:00 AM EDT Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS Sarah Kopit and Seth Borko unpack two forces reshaping travel: the creator economy’s impact on hotel brands and Skift Research’s State of Travel 2026 report. They discuss the Aman creator controversy, why hotels need a new playbook for independent reviewers, and the new Travel Stack framework showing how consumers, commerce, operations, and experiences are changing across the industry. Watch This Episode Key Points The creator economy is disrupting how hotel brands manage reputation, with the Aman controversy highlighting the need for a fresh strategy toward independent reviewers and influencers. Skift Research's State of Travel 2026 report introduces the Travel Stack framework, mapping change across four dimensions: consumers, commerce, operations, and experiences. Hotels and travel brands require updated playbooks to navigate independent creator relationships, as legacy PR and marketing models no longer suffice. Summary In this Skift podcast episode, Sarah Kopit and Seth Borko examine two converging forces reshaping the travel sector: the rise of the creator economy and its impact on hotel brands, and the findings of Skift Research's State of Travel 2026 report. The discussion centers on the Aman creator controversy, which underscores why hotels need a new playbook for engaging independent reviewers and influencers rather than relying on traditional PR and marketing approaches. The hosts also introduce the new Travel Stack framework, which maps how consumers, commerce, operations, and experiences are simultaneously evolving across the industry—offering executives a structured lens for understanding industry-wide transformation.