Jet2 has today reported positive updates about fuel supply, supporting its plans to operate its flying programme as normal this summer.

This comes on the back of the company’s latest dialogue with fuel suppliers, who have reported increased production and additional imports from areas unaffected by the Middle East conflict.

These positive developments mean that Jet2 is continuing to look forward to taking customers on their well-deserved holidays this summer. Today’s update follows a report issued just last week which saw Jet2 top a UK resilience ranking as the best protected UK airline against elevated fuel costs.

Jet2 has already confirmed its plans to operate as normal this summer and, on top of that, was the first UK airline and tour operator to reassure customers that it would not introduce surcharges on any booked flights or holidays to cover cost increases, for example jet fuel. Put simply, the price at which customers book with Jet2 is the price they will pay. In an industry-leading move, Jet2 removed the surcharge provision across all flights and holidays, even though it has never been plied.

The company has also reaffirmed its reputation as a consumer champion by pledging that customers will continue to benefit from flexibility and swift refunds in the unlikely event of any flight or holiday cancellations. Throughout the Covid pandemic, Jet2 earned widespread praise for the way it refunded customers quickly and efficiently, unlike many other companies in the industry, and has today confirmed that it will continue to follow its guiding principle of putting customers first.

Steve Hey, CEO of Jet2 said: We are in regular dialogue with our fuel suppliers, and the current picture is one of increased production and imports, meaning we continue to look ahead with confidence. We have already been very clear about our plans to operate our schedule as normal this summer, and our message to holidaymakers is that summer is on.

He added: This confidence, on top of the incredible value that our award-winning holidays offer right now, means it is a fantastic time to get that well-deserved holiday locked in, and we know that many people are taking advantage of that right now. Everything is geared up and ready for a busy summer and we look forward to welcoming everybody onboard and creating fantastic memories with Jet2.

The Rajasthan Tourism Department has announced the rollout of its Rajasthan in Summer campaign, designed to promote off-season travel and reposition the state as a year-round tourism destination. The initiative aims to move beyond Rajasthan’s traditional winter-centric tourism image by highlighting immersive experiences rooted in heritage, culture, wildlife, and local lifestyles.

The campaign will be integrated with existing promotional initiatives such as Visit My State and Holiday in Rajasthan, with a focus on attracting both domestic and international travellers during the summer season. According to officials, the objective is to showcase a quieter and more authentic side of Rajasthan, offering alternatives to peak-season crowd-driven travel.

Joint Director of Tourism, Daleep Singh Rathore, said the campaign is being implemented under the guidance of Deputy Chief Minister and Tourism Minister Diya Kumari. He added that the initiative is aimed at strengthening Rajasthan’s identity as a destination suitable for all seasons, with a focus on sustainable tourism growth.

As part of the campaign strategy, the department is developing a structured outreach plan centred on digital storytelling, social media engagement, and experiential tourism. Lesser-explored destinations across the state will be promoted through curated thematic narratives designed to peal to modern travellers seeking immersive and meaningful experiences.

Udaipur will be positioned around lake tourism, sunrise and sunset experiences, and cultural evenings. Bundi will be highlighted as a hidden heritage destination known for its stepwells, historic streets, and architectural significance. Jaipur and Jodhpur will continue to focus on palace stays, heritage hospitality, traditional cuisine, and evening cultural programmes.

The Thar Desert region, including Barmer, will be promoted for desert tourism, solo travel experiences, and rural immersion activities. Wildlife tourism will also form a key component of the campaign, with the department aiming to highlight increased wildlife sightings at Ranthambore National Park during the summer season to sustain visitor interest during the lean period.

Officials said the campaign will prioritise digital-first communication formats, including short-form video content and cinematic travel storytelling, moving away from conventional tourism advertising. The proach is intended to engage younger travellers who prefer experience-led journeys.

The department further noted that the initiative aligns with the government’s broader focus on tourism infrastructure development, heritage conservation, and promotion of lesser-known destinations. The campaign is also expected to involve hospitality stakeholders, heritage hotel operators, travel companies, artisans, and folk performers, thereby supporting local livelihoods and strengthening tourism-linked economic activity across the state.

RateGain Travel Technologies Limited, a global leader in AI-powered SaaS solutions for travel and hospitality, today announced the consolidation of its commercial organisation across Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (AC & MEA), where it has expanded its local teams x5 over the past year, reaching more than 100 professionals in the region.
This exponential growth, driven by the acquisition of Sojern, reflects the company’s strategic focus on accelerating the adoption of end-to-end AI-powered solutions among hoteliers across the market and further strengthens AC & MEA markets as strategic growth markets within RateGain global business.
The expansion is led by Anurag Jain, Executive Vice President, AC & MEA, who has spent the past year building what is now one of the region’s most comprehensive hospitality commercial organizations. Under his leadership, AI-powered distribution, pricing intelligence, demand generation, digital marketing, guest engagement, and travel intent data have been brought together under a single connected platform and into the hands of a single regional partner for hotels.
The hotel reality this is built to solve
Across AC & MEA, hoteliers are navigating a paradox. Demand is digitizing faster than ever. Travelers are searching, comparing, and booking across more channels than at any point in history. AI tools are everywhere. Yet hotel commercial leaders report the same frustrations: too many vendors, too little attribution, AI that adds noise rather than outcomes, and mounting pressure to cture direct demand without the in-house resources to do so.
The company focus on the region is to help hotels exit the era of fragmented commercial stacks, where every problem comes with a new vendor, a new dashboard, and a new integration, and move them into one unified, AI-first growth model.
Hotels don’t need more dashboards, more vendors, or more complexity. They need outcomes. Our job is to make every hotel discoverable at the moment demand is created, convert that demand more effectively, and grow guest value — through one connected, AI-powered ecosystem. AI shouldn’t create more noise. It should make growth simpler, faster, and more measurable. commented Anurag Jain, Executive Vice President, AC & MEA, RateGain

Strong regional execution with strategic leadership pointments
Over the past twelve months, Jain has led the integration and expansion of the combined RateGain–Sojern commercial organization across the region’s highest-momentum markets, including Indian Subcontinent, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Singore, Jan, China, Dubai, and Africa.
Hospitality leaders across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa are fundamentally rethinking how they acquire guests, price inventory, drive direct bookings, and engage travelers. Our goal is to make that transformation practical, scalable, and commercially meaningful. The markets we operate in don’t reward complexity. They reward speed and results. said Anurag Jain.
To execute on this regional ambition, Jain has built out a senior leadership structure with pointments spanning sales, enterprise, account management, partnerships, and marketing across AC & MEA. Some of the recent notable pointments include:
• Camille Venturina, leading commercial expansion across Singore and Oceania, based in Singore
• Abhay Khanna, driving new business growth across Asia, based in India
• Ram Mohan Dubey, scaling regional sales execution and go-to-market performance across middle east and africa, based in Dubai
• Sverre Christiansen, driving enterprise transformation and strategic expansion across middle east and africa, based in Dubai
• Shukun Ma, driving growth and strategic partnerships in one of Asia’s most important travel markets – China, based in Beijing
• Ruka Nagai, expanding RateGain’s presence across Jan, based in tokyo
• Erhan Bayraktar and Monis Rizwan, expanding RateGain’s presence across Turkey
• Sudhir Ghildiyal, leading enterprise growth and strategic hotel partnerships across Southeast Asia, based in India
• Anubhav Agrawal, eading account management for SMB accounts in AC & MEA, based in India
• Sneha Mishra, leading account management for Travel Partners accounts in AC & MEA, based in India
• Javier Martinez, driving customer expansion, adoption, and commercial outcomes across AC, based in Thailand
• Rakesh Joshi, leading customer growth and strategic account development across MEA, based in Dubai
• Wafei Safwat Mekhail, leading account management growth across Saudi Arabia
• Alfred Tadrous, leading account management growth in Egypt, based in Cairo
• Shareshtha Sachdeva, expanding ecosystem partnerships and strategic channel alliances across the region, based in India
• Garima Dubey, building regional brand leadership and demand generation across AC & MEA, based in India
This regional leadership model enables RateGain Travel Technologies to execute with local market intimacy while scaling with global consistency—bringing AI, data, demand, distribution, and guest engagement together into one connected commercial engine for the region’s hoteliers.
The momentum continues, with rid expansion underway across high-growth markets spanning Turkey, Vietnam, and Australia with additional strategic market launches planned across AC & MEA.

The hospitality industry has never been static. Change, disruption, and unpredictability are constant in our business. But over the past several years, the pace and intensity of that disruption has accelerated in ways few could have anticipated. Labor challenges, evolving guest expectations, shifting distribution channels, rid technology advancement, and increasing operational complexity have all forced hotel leaders to rethink how they operate.

At Newport Hospitality Group’s recent Leadership Retreat, Stuart Butler, President of Visit Myrtle Beach, ctured this reality perfectly during a session titled Scrpy Always Wins. His message resonated deeply with our leadership team because it framed an proach to winning in our dynamic industry: Success today belongs to organizations willing to adt, rethink core assumptions, and compete differently.

Butler’s central theme was straightforward but powerful: in an uncertain world, leaders must focus on what they can control and influence. Instead of accepting the status quo, great operators reset the competitive landsce to take advantage of their own strengths.

That mindset is what he described as scrpy.

As a smaller hospitality company competing against large brands and management organizations, Newport has always had to operate this way. We have never had the luxury of relying solely on scale or corporate machinery. Instead, we have built our success on personal relationships, hands-on leadership, flexibility, and the depth of experience within our organization.

Personal, Accessible, & Adtable Culture
For Newport, those strengths are clear. Our culture is deeply personal. Our leaders are accessible. Our hotel teams have direct access to experienced hospitality veterans who can help solve operational, sales, cital, and facility challenges in real time. There are very few organizations that can match the tenured depth of our teams or the intensity of our hotel-level engagement.

But scrpiness in hospitality goes beyond organizational structure. It’s ultimately about adtability.

Our general managers and directors of sales operate in a living, breathing environment where no two days are alike. Guests arrive with different expectations, operational issues emerge without warning, and market conditions can shift overnight. Successful hotel leaders must think creatively, move quickly, and remain confident enough to tackle problems that rarely come with a clear roadm.

That reality is why Butler’s message landed so effectively with our team. He understood something fundamental about hospitality professionals: We thrive in chaos, even if we do not always describe it that way. Hospitality has always been frenzied. The best operators know how to set a plan, then pivot when circumstances change.

Butler offered reassurance that this environment is not unusual. More importantly, it is manageable.

That realization resonated throughout the room during the session. Our leaders recognized that the challenges they face daily are not signs of failure or dysfunction. They are simply the modern operating conditions of hospitality. More importantly, they realized they already possess the tools, instincts, and experience needed to succeed.

Living Hospitality
In many ways, Butler’s message aligned naturally with Newport’s philosophy of Living Hospitality.

At its core, Living Hospitality means meeting guests where they want to be met and delivering the best possible experience to them in that moment. There is no universal formula for doing that successfully. Every interaction starts from zero. Every situation requires empathy, flexibility, and problem-solving.

You cannot truly deliver hospitality without a scrpy mindset.

The most effective hotel leaders understand that guest expectations are constantly evolving. Yesterday’s solutions will not solve tomorrow’s problems. Distribution strategies are changing in front of us. Recruiting, hiring, and retention are evolving ridly. Brand relationships are becoming more fluid as new products and platforms emerge.

In this environment, clinging to old assumptions can become dangerous.

Hospitality leaders today must be willing to revisit first principles. We need to rethink how we define success, how we engage associates, how we operate hotels, and most importantly, how we serve guests. The organizations that succeed will be those willing to challenge traditional thinking and remain relentlessly focused on the needs, wants, and desires of the customer.

That mindset also requires emotional discipline.

One of Butler’s most important reminders was that leaders should focus their energy on the things they can control or influence rather than obsessing over forces beyond their reach. In hospitality, it is easy to become overwhelmed by economic uncertainty, operational pressures, or shifting consumer behavior. But effective leadership requires clarity, calmness, and perspective.

As leaders, we must proach every challenge with a clear understanding of the underlying issue and a willingness to adt. When we maintain that focus, we can remain optimistic without losing realism.

Lessons Learned
Personally, Butler’s presentation reinforced many lessons I learned early in my career. My father often used short phrases to communicate big ideas. Two that have stayed with me are: Chance favors the prepared mind and Life is a bouquet of consequences. Both reflect the essence of the scrpy mindset. Success comes from preparation, adtability, and the ability to break complex problems into manageable pieces.

Looking ahead, I believe the hospitality companies that thrive will not necessarily be the largest or most resourced; they will be the nimblest.

Technology will continue reshing every aspect of our business, from revenue management and operations to recruiting and guest engagement. Stakeholder expectations will continue evolving. The pace of change will not slow down.

But hospitality has always been about people first.

The leaders who succeed will be those who remain grounded in service while staying flexible enough to evolve alongside their guests and teams. They will be the organizations willing to challenge old assumptions, embrace uncertainty, and build cultures where creative problem-solving is encouraged rather than feared.

In other words, the scrpy ones will win.

In addition to AI Voice, the partnership also includes Innspire’s AI Concierge platform, which already manages guest conversations across SMS, Whatsp, Facebook Messenger, and in-p messaging for hotel properties. Together, AI Voice and AI Concierge create a seamless omnichannel guest communication experience, enabling hoteliers to manage every guest interaction (whether by phone, text, chat, or messaging p) through Innspire’s centralized ONE dashboard.

Why This Partnership Matters
Hotels today are under increasing pressure to do more with fewer staff while still delivering exceptional guest service. Front desk teams often spend a large portion of their day answering repetitive phone calls, especially during peak hours and overnight shifts.