The intersections of identity and trust inherent in blockchain with travel and travel as a counter to the isolationism of metaverse makes for interesting applications in the coming future.

The pandemic caused massive disruption for travel industry financials, decimating balance sheets and driving large debt loads. Yet travel demand is coming back more quickly than expected, and companies that take advantage of strategic financial opportunities now will be in a position to control their own destinies through the recovery and beyond.

This was the year of the travel IPO with 10 market debuts. But at least 10 more travel companies are likely to go public in 2022. Investors, despite disappointing Covid setbacks, continue to bet on the long-term strength of the travel industry.

We could have filled a multi-volume encyclopedia with everything that has happened in the past 12 months. Instead, we settled for 12 telling charts.

Big names drove many of the top 10 travel mergers of the year. But among the largest deals, aircraft lessors, rail manufacturers and an online travel agency used the pandemic to scoop up infrastructure and technology to shore up their positions.

This column has always celebrated the innovators and those who elevate hospitality to new levels. This year, I made it a point to try a lot of new things and break out of my normal patterns. Here are the great products, places, and people that I have found to be exceptional.

A wave of CEO departures swept across the entire travel industry this year. But new names in the top office don't always translate to major changes in how some of these companies will operate going forward.

In a year when travel's recovery began, only to sputter, the pandemic was still a story for Skift that just kept giving. Our reporters and editors kept their heads down on crisis coverage, but shared some of the adrenaline too, on other worthy travel topics. Here's our team members' favorites, and how those stories came to be, in their own words.

Asia experienced a tumultuous 2021, and travel on the continent is still facing enormous uncertainty heading into the New Year as the Omicron variant threatens to derail its tourism recovery.

Sometimes, delivering on the promise for change is not about adding a chair to the table, but in giving the chair already in place to someone entirely different and new.