TravelTube Podcast Transcript

Host: Mark Murphy

Hi folks, it's Mark Murphy with TravelTube.com, the travel expert channel — that's travel advisors and, you know, travel suppliers, because the people on the supplier side are experts in many ways too. They might be experts on just one part of the business, or many of them are pretty good all around. But what none of us have is a collective experience that's current and up to date — like what you see when someone visits a property that's been renovated, or a new brand, or a destination that has a new attraction, and so on. The travel industry is always getting reinvented.

So one of the things we try to do here on TravelTube is bring all that knowledge together. We can't do it in real time, but we try to do it as quickly as possible by posting your videos and creator content — which I'd encourage all travel advisors to do. You should always be snapping photos, or worst case shooting short clips, and sharing them on TravelTube.com. There's a way to do that — just give us a heads-up and we can take that content and put it out there, or we can editorialize it and pull it from TikTok or wherever. Just give us a heads-up if you want your content featured here.

Now, with that said, we're in the doldrums of summer, right? So this is when not a lot of business is happening. Kids are getting ready to go back to school — I've already gone back to school — so there's a lot going on, and people probably aren't thinking about travel. But we're going to make sure they are, because I'm going to get into:

• What's going on with airfares and how that's going to impact travel this winter and beyond
• What you shouldn't be doing when you're traveling as a tourist — and how to avoid getting put in prison (it happens)
• What's with all the cruise fee hikes — have you seen what the cruise lines have been proposing and bringing on board? More gratuities, changing the packages, changing deposit requirements. What's that about?
• Keeping your stuff — and passengers — safe when you fly. Things like laptop fires. That just happened on a recent flight. It was handled in-flight, but it's scary. With lithium batteries — and all of us have them, we carry phones, laptops, battery pack chargers (I know I do when I travel, and I think most of you do too) — in fact, some of us have an iPad, an iPhone, a laptop, and battery packs. That's a lot.

All right, let's get into it. And remember, please do me a favor and subscribe at TravelTube.com. Follow us on your favorite podcast apps — we're on all of them. And also follow us on all the social media apps, because the more we bring visibility to travel experts — the travel advisors — the better it is for your business. That's what I do here.

Airfare Trends

All right, so what's the trend we're seeing? It started this year with rising fuel prices, which translated to slightly higher ticket prices, and it looks like that trend is going to continue into the holiday travel season.

One thing you can do is look at Google Flights — I've shown this many times in the past. You can look out months and months in advance, put in your parameters (point A to point B, economy, non-stop, whatever), and you'll see fares show up by airline. What you won't typically see is Southwest — I don't think that's changed — but you'll see a lot of the various opportunities to travel and what those ticket prices look like from a trending standpoint.

That's always good, because that predictive algorithm looks at search behavior: if more people are searching for airfares around a certain time, the airlines hold the prices up. If search traffic and inquiries are down, they lower the prices. So as people wake up to the fall and winter travel season and think, "Holy cow, Labor Day's late this year, so by the time I get the kids off to school and do all the things I've got to do, I might wake up mid-to-late September and go, 'Oh my gosh, I've got to plan my Thanksgiving travel — I've got to plan my Christmas vacation,'" they may take a hit.

Here's the consumer message, and here's what you should be thinking about as a travel advisor: airfares were up throughout the summer, and they're going to trend higher again into the fall. This would be a really good time — even though it's quiet — to send some messages, pick up the phone, and call your best clients. Reach out in advance and check the places they typically go.

I used to take 20 people every year over Christmas to Cancun, and we'd have a great time for up to two weeks over the holiday — that was a big-ticket item. You have clients like that. You have clients who might do a high-end cruise, or a multi-family trip, whatever it is. This gives you an opportunity, while things are quiet and no one's rushing, to reach out and say:

"Hey, I just want you to know the trend for airfare is up. I know you traditionally do this type of trip, so I want to give you a heads-up that right now the fares still look good — but the trend is that they're going to go up, and they could go up as high as 30%."

You look like a hero when you do that. You're not saying "you have to buy from me right now" — you're just giving them good information they can act on. And if they choose to, great. But now you've got it in your back pocket that you gave them the heads-up. If they don't act on it because they're not ready to talk about it yet, and then you come back and tell them that four, five, six tickets that were going to be $1,000 each are now $1,300 each — times six, that's an extra $1,800.

You also know that if the trend holds those fares higher, that route is in demand — which means it's a peak period over the Christmas break, and that means hotels and resorts are going to be more expensive too. Say that's three rooms for six people: an extra $1,800 in airfare, and you could easily see an extra $1,500–$2,000 per room. So if we round that up to $2,000 per room, extra incremental cost you weren't considering — times three rooms, plus the $1,800 in airfare (we'll round that to $2,000) — you could get hit with an extra $8,000 in charges. That's just theory, but if you're following industry trends and watching where demand is, you'll know these things.

It's a great tool, and it gives you another reason to do outreach — another touchpoint for your customer. That's what builds loyalty and long-term customers. So I'd encourage you all to spend the last week and a half of summer break picking up the phone, sending emails, posting on Facebook, etc. Feel free to tag TravelTube.com as the source if you'd like — but definitely subscribe.

Travel Legal Trouble: The Bali Prison Sentence

Did you hear about this Bali prison sentence? A Swiss tourist is going to spend one year in Bali, Indonesia, for flouting and insulting a sacred Hindu Day of Silence ritual. I have no idea what this guy did — it just popped up in my feed, not even worth reading the full story — but it sounds like a dumb tourist doing dumb things, not respecting local culture, and probably not thinking it was an arrestable offense that could result in a year in prison.

I'm sure he went to Bali thinking, "Indonesia, it's going to be wonderful — the culture, the beaches." Yeah, now he's got to spend a year there. Maybe he planned to stay two or three weeks — well, call it "extending your trip." And the best part: the Indonesian government's not going to require him to renew his visa, since, well, he'll be there anyway — overstaying his visa while in prison.

So the message is: understand and respect the laws and culture of the countries you're visiting, because if you don't, you can end up in a bad place.

Did you ever see Midnight Express, folks? "Want to spend a night in a Turkish prison?" — that line's actually from an airplane movie joke, I think Leslie Nielsen said something like that about spending a night in a Turkish prison with a kid in the cockpit. But the real Midnight Express was about a guy smuggling hashish — brutal, brutal conditions.

And remember WNBA star Brittney Griner? She was sentenced to around 10 years in a Russian prison for having a vape cartridge with cannabis oil — it was for medical use, but that didn't matter. They arrested her, quickly tried and convicted her, and sentenced her. The U.S. ended up trading a convicted arms dealer — nicknamed something like "the Merchant of Death" — to get her released. Not exactly a great trade, but publicly, that's what happened.

The takeaway: don't bring drugs when you travel, even with a medical prescription. Make sure the substance isn't an issue in the country you're visiting — always check. If you have a medical marijuana card and travel to certain countries, say in Asia, with your card and a bag of weed — you're going to jail. They don't care about your prescription.

Also, sign up with the State Department's travel program so there's a record of your travels, and use their app to understand any warnings for where you're going. And don't get scared off by a general warning, like the "do not travel" advisory for Mexico — Mexico is a huge country, and there are certainly places you shouldn't go because they're dangerous, just like I wouldn't go to certain parts of the south side of Chicago at night, and I'm from Chicago; my grandparents lived there.

Understand the context behind these warnings — the State Department might flag a favorite Caribbean island as "Level 2: exercise increased caution" because of crime in specific areas, not the whole destination.

And listen to the people on property. Here's an example: back in the '90s, I worked at a magazine and we'd take our whole team — sales, marketing, etc. — on trips. One time we were at a Sandals resort in Jamaica, I believe Sandals Dunn's River. One of our sales reps, from Hawaii, was very outdoorsy and loved running in the mornings. She went to run along the beach just like she would back home.

An armed guard at the end of the beach, where the fence met the water, stopped her and asked what she was doing. She said she was just going for a run, no big deal. He asked for her room number and name. She asked why. He said, "In case you don't make it back." She turned around and stayed on property.

That was Jamaica — and I love Jamaica, but I don't wander off property there, and you shouldn't either, unless you're on an organized tour. Understand the laws of wherever you're going.

One last tip: if you're a hunter, or a strong supporter of the Second Amendment (I own guns myself), be careful with your gear when you travel. I was flying somewhere about six months ago, heading to airport security, when I remembered I had a magazine loaded with hollow-point rounds sitting in a backpack I rarely use. I had to go back to the car and leave it behind — because getting caught with that in some countries could mean serious jail time. Even domestically, security would have flagged it immediately. Double-check your bags before you head to security, especially ones you don't use often.

Cruise Fee Hikes

Let's move on — what do you think about the cruise fee hikes? Cruise lines seem to be doing quite well, and they're driving incremental profitability by raising fees and changing requirements. Are you against it? I want travel advisors to share feedback: are your customers pulling back? What's the adoption rate you're seeing when you propose a cruise to a family or couple who's never cruised before?

Are you hearing the same old objections — "I don't want to be confined," "I saw that documentary about the 'poop cruise,'" "I still have PTSD from the Costa Concordia" — or concerns about seasickness? Or is it about the fights people have seen on Carnival and Royal Caribbean — mostly Carnival, it seems — breaking out near the registration desk, on pool decks, in hallways?

Here's what I'd tell you: that craziness gets amplified by social media. Don't assume every cruise has fights breaking out — that's nowhere near the truth. It reminds me of when I went to Egypt during the year of the uprisings, Tahrir Square, all the protests. When I got there, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop — nothing like what the media portrayed. They zeroed in on one area in a city of 20 million people. There might be 10,000 people acting up somewhere, but what does the rest of the city look like? Egypt was totally fine.

That's the same story with these cruise videos. I don't have hard statistics, but my gut says these incidents aren't happening that often — though they could still be a deterrent because they're all over social media. I'd be curious whether that's actually impacting bookings, or whether people understand it's just isolated incidents. It's like saying a fight broke out at a restaurant in downtown Boulder, Colorado, so you should avoid the entire city of Boulder. Doesn't make sense.

In-Flight Laptop Fire

An American Airlines flight had a laptop start smoking — this is more of a PSA. Most people keep their laptops, phones, etc. on their person, under the seat in front of them, or in the seatback pocket. That's where I'd keep my laptop and iPad, with my phone in hand, and any spare batteries in my bag under the seat — not stashed in an overhead bin where you wouldn't notice a problem developing.

The good news, and why incidents like this shouldn't worry travelers: airlines are well aware of the risks with lithium batteries. I've reported on this for 15 years, including issues with the batteries airlines use in their own aircraft. They have procedures in place — when that laptop started smoking, it went straight into what's called a "burn bag," which seals up airtight so no oxygen gets in and the fire can't escape. No diversion, no emergency landing needed. Totally contained, totally safe.

That said, keep your electronics somewhere you can see, touch, and monitor, so if something does start, you can catch it early. I've flown millions of miles with phones, laptops, and batteries the whole time, and I've never personally experienced this — or seen it happen to anyone else on a flight. Nearly everyone travels with lithium batteries now. Even my 88-year-old mother-in-law has a phone and an iPad (my wife has to coach her through using it — she has the patience of a saint).

The Delta Hat Incident

Last story: there's an old clip going around — from a Delta flight back in 2022 — of a passenger who was asked to remove his hat. It had some text on it that referenced sitting on your "ass" (spelled out) along with other wording — it wasn't simply a plain MAGA hat, though it got portrayed online as if the passenger was just wearing a pro-Trump hat and someone got offended by that alone.

For context: I don't think "Make America Great Again" is inherently offensive — Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton used similar phrasing in speeches. It only became controversial once Trump used it in his campaign. That's a broader debate about political speech, and reasonable people can disagree on where airlines should draw the line — a shirt or hat expressing a political opinion is different from one using crude or explicit language.

In this case, the hat reportedly crossed into language the crew felt was inappropriate for the cabin, and he was asked to remove it. When a flight crew — think of them as "the police in the air" — asks you to do something, you're not going to win that argument in the moment. The better move is to comply, note your flight details, and file a formal complaint with the airline afterward if you feel it was unwarranted. Arguing with a pilot or crew member on board is a losing battle every time.

A lot of people reacting to the clip online — "I'm never flying Delta again," piling on with complaints — didn't seem to realize it was from 2022, not a recent event. It's a good reminder to verify context (dates, sources) before reacting, especially with how easy it is now to fact-check a story using AI tools or a quick search.

Wrap-Up

That's it for this episode. I hope you have a great rest of your week and a great weekend. Remember: subscribe to our newsletter at TravelTube.com — it comes out once a week, and we don't spam you. And support us on your favorite podcast apps and social media apps — we're all over them, TravelTube.com. Check out the logo, you can't miss us.

Catch you later.