Our group business is strong; we did more in 2025 than 2024. The group business is strong with all-inclusives, except weddings. Weddings have just fallen off the map.
In cruise, we've seen a drop in bookings in the contemporary category. Lowest I've seen in 10 years. But our luxury business is still strong across the board, and for the luxury cruiser, we're booking more Ponant, more Scenic, and river cruising is stronger than it has ever been.
The booking window, however, is shorter than ever. We just did a booking for a 20-something-thousand-dollar stay at St. Regis Aspen Resort. The client normally books a year in advance, but we had to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait until the last moment.
So the luxury segment still has money, but the pinch for them occurs if there's no availability or no availability on flights because they've waited too long.
I'm concerned about the number of layoffs that are occurring in a relatively short period of time. No one wants to really say anything about it, but I am here to tell you that this is absolutely affecting business. When someone gets laid off, you don't get notified; you just don't hear from them.
When you see that a million people were laid off in a 10-month period, it makes you concerned about what's going to happen over the next year. Leisure travel is built on discretionary income, so this is worrisome.
We're also seeing corporate clients cutting back on regional flights. Some are turning to rental cars, which we're booking for them, but one large account actually bought cars and hired drivers to move their employees over shorter distances that they used to fly on the regionals. We are feeling the pinch. We still get their long-haul to Europe, but we're missing that steady regional business.
As regards destinations, the news can take a toll, and it affects the Dominican Republic more than Mexico. One little thing -- a cup could fall off a table in the D.R. -- and someone will say, "I can't go there." But when things happen in Mexico, I don't seem to lose bookings. I think people are kind of trained to understand there are multiple places you can go in Mexico.
I'm concerned by what might happen in the Caribbean near Venezuela, like Aruba and Curacao. There are luxury destinations that will be affected if there's military action or even airspace being closed.
We've built concierge level AI tools into our agency website and our OTA website, Odyssey. They can assist and guide consumers depending on their travel needs and habits -- it's pretty intuitive. The Odyssey app can interact through natural language; you just talk into it about the things you want to do and when you want to do it. It can give recommendations, pull hotel and car services and book them. It's fun to use, and we're probably a year in advance of Expedia and other OTAs.
This interview was conducted by Arnie Weissmann for our annual Preview issue.