Expedia Says Travelers Use AI to Plan Trips but Still Trust Brands to Book

Spain has set a new record in the 2026 Blue Flag program, earning 794 awards across beaches, marinas and tourism boats and strengthening its position as one of the world’s most reliable destinations for coastal travel. The country received 677 Blue Flags for beaches, 111 for marinas and six for tourism boats, putting it ahead of Greece and Türkiye in the latest international rankings.

The result marks a sharp gain from 2025, when Spain received 750 Blue Flags. It also means that Spanish beaches now account for about 15% of all Blue Flag beaches worldwide, a striking figure for a country that already relies heavily on coastal tourism. With nearly 8,000 kilometers of coastline, Spain has long been associated with beach holidays, but the latest awards underline more than scenery. They point to water quality, accessibility, safety, environmental management and visitor information – the factors that increasingly shape how travelers choose where to swim, stay and spend.

The Valencian Community led Spain’s beach rankings with 151 Blue Flags across 48 municipalities, followed by Andalusia with 143, Galicia with 118, Catalonia with 101 and the Canary Islands with 52. For marinas, Catalonia, Andalusia and Valencia received the strongest recognition, while the six tourism boat awards were shared between Andalusia and Valencia.

For travelers, the numbers create a useful map for planning 2026 trips. Valencia’s Playa de la Malvarrosa remains one of the country’s most accessible urban beach options, combining a wide stretch of sand with a promenade, restaurants and space for volleyball, swimming and water sports.

In Andalusia, El Encinarejo offers a different model: an inland Blue Flag beach set by a reservoir in Jaén province, where calm water and rural scenery make it a quieter alternative to Spain’s busier coastal resorts. Near Madrid, Playa de la Virgen de la Nueva on the San Juan Reservoir shows how the Blue Flag program now extends beyond classic seaside holidays, with kayaking, wakeboarding, hiking and mountain biking available nearby.

The Blue Flag label has become more important as travelers look beyond postcard beaches and ask harder questions about sustainability and safety. The program, first created in France in 1985 by the Foundation for Environmental Education, is now active in more than 50 countries and covers more than 5,000 locations worldwide. Each year, an international jury evaluates beaches, marinas and tourism boats against environmental and operational standards.

Spain’s latest result is also a reminder of how competitive Mediterranean tourism has become. Clean water and safe beach infrastructure are now part of the destination economy, not just background services. For Spain, the 2026 record gives coastal regions another advantage as they compete for summer visitors, while also reinforcing the idea that beach tourism can be measured by management standards as much as natural beauty.

A hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius has escalated into an international public health response after passengers who may have been exposed left the expedition cruise ship and returned to several countries. At least three people have died, and additional passengers have been treated or monitored after the ship’s medical situation came to light during a voyage that included South America, remote Atlantic stops, and a planned arrival in the Canary Islands.

The case has drawn unusual attention because the vessel is not a mass-market cruise ship but an expedition ship operating on a remote itinerary. The MV Hondius, run by Oceanwide Expeditions, had been carrying passengers across isolated regions when illness linked to hantavirus began spreading concern on board.

Health authorities have since focused on tracing passengers who disembarked during an April stop in Saint Helena, including travelers who returned to Europe, North America, Australia, and Taiwan before they fully understood the scale of the exposure risk.

Passengers Returned Home Before Contact Tracing Expanded

The situation became more complicated after reports indicated that at least 23 passengers had already left the ship and traveled home. One Swiss passenger later tested positive for hantavirus after returning with his wife, despite initially testing negative. Hantavirus can have a long incubation period, which means people may not show symptoms for several weeks after exposure.

The outbreak has also raised questions about how quickly passengers were informed. Some travelers reportedly said communication arrived only after several people had already dispersed internationally. That timing has placed pressure on health agencies and the cruise operator to reconstruct who was on board, who disembarked, and who had close contact with confirmed or suspected cases.

Investigators are examining whether the virus may have been introduced before the ship left Ushuaia, Argentina. One theory centers on a bird-watching excursion near a landfill, where two Dutch passengers may have encountered rodents carrying the virus. Both later died. Officials have not fully resolved the origin of the outbreak, and the case is more complex because the suspected strain is the Andes virus, a rare form of hantavirus that can spread between people in close-contact settings.

A Stress Test for Remote Cruise Health Protocols

For the cruise industry, the MV Hondius case is a reminder that expedition travel carries distinct medical and logistical risks. These ships often operate far from major hospitals, across jurisdictions, and with passengers from many countries. When an outbreak occurs, decisions about evacuation, quarantine, port access, and onward travel become both medical and diplomatic.

Health officials have stressed that the broader public risk remains low, because hantavirus does not spread as easily as respiratory viruses such as COVID-19. Experts have said transmission generally requires close contact, not brief casual interaction. Even so, the outbreak has caused concern because of the severity of the illness and the number of countries now involved in monitoring passengers.

The ship’s expected disembarkation in Tenerife has also become politically sensitive, with Canary Islands officials seeking clarity on screening and quarantine procedures. Spain’s central authorities have supported a managed arrival, arguing that passengers need a controlled medical response.

The episode is likely to push expedition cruise operators to review how they communicate risk, track passenger movements, and coordinate with health authorities when itineraries cross remote regions. For travelers, it underscores a basic reality of adventure cruising: access to rare places can also mean slower access to medical systems when something goes wrong.

Aman Sveti Stefan, one of Montenegro’s most recognizable luxury resorts, is set to reopen this summer after a five-year closure that turned a postcard-perfect island into a flashpoint over public access, coastal development, and the future of high-end tourism on the Adriatic.

The resort’s mainland Villa Miločer is scheduled to welcome guests from May 22, while the island of Sveti Stefan is expected to reopen for the summer season from July 1.

The reopening brings back a property long associated with old-world glamour and exclusivity. Set on the Budva Riviera, Sveti Stefan is a small stone-built island connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus, with terracotta roofs, fortified lanes, and the sea on nearly every side.

Before it became an Aman resort, the former fishing village had already built an international reputation as a retreat for prominent guests, including Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.

A Landmark Returns to Montenegro’s Coast

The site’s modern luxury chapter began after Aman transformed the island into a resort, pairing restored stone cottages with a mainland estate at Villa Miločer.

For Montenegro, the property became more than a hotel. It helped position the country as a serious player in the European luxury travel market, alongside destinations such as the Amalfi Coast, the Greek islands, and the French Riviera.

Its closure in 2021, however, exposed a deeper tension familiar across popular coastal destinations. Local residents objected to restrictions around beach access, arguing that parts of the shoreline should not become effectively reserved for high-paying hotel guests. The dispute centered on beaches near the resort, including areas historically used by the public before the luxury redevelopment changed how the site operated.

Under the new arrangement, local residents will retain access to two beaches, while Queen’s Beach will remain reserved for Aman guests. That compromise appears to have cleared the way for the phased reopening, beginning with Villa Miločer and followed by the island itself in July.

A Test Case for Luxury Travel and Public Access

The return of Sveti Stefan is likely to draw strong interest from luxury travelers, but it also arrives at a moment when destinations are facing closer scrutiny over how tourism benefits are shared. Montenegro has spent years building its profile as a high-end Mediterranean alternative, supported by new hotels, marina developments, and growing international air links.

For Aman, reopening Sveti Stefan restores one of the brand’s most distinctive European properties. For Montenegro, it revives a landmark that carries both tourism value and cultural symbolism.

The bigger question is whether the new access agreement can hold. If it does, Sveti Stefan could become a more balanced model for luxury hospitality in a destination where the coastline remains central to both the visitor economy and local life.

A viral online campaign to buy and revive Spirit Airlines is quickly becoming about much more than one failed carrier. What began as a TikTok pitch from content creator and voice actor Hunter Peterson has turned into a surprisingly large public reaction to the loss of one of the country’s last true low-cost airlines.

In the days after Spirit announced it was shutting down, Peterson proposed a crowd-backed “Spirit 2.0” owned by ordinary people rather than Wall Street investors. The idea was half joke, half provocation at first, but the response has been serious enough to reveal something deeper: many American travelers feel they are running out of affordable ways to fly.

Peterson’s argument is simple and intentionally populist. Inspired by the Green Bay Packers’ fan-ownership model, he says Spirit could be rebuilt as an airline owned “by the people,” with each verified member getting one vote on major decisions regardless of how much they pledged. Profit sharing, under his proposal, would still scale with investment, but control would not. That framing has clearly resonated. Within days, his site drew well over 100,000 people willing to make non-binding pledges, with totals climbing into the tens and then hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on when the figures were cited.

The campaign remains highly unlikely to succeed in any practical sense. Spirit is already in the formal liquidation process, and aviation analysts have pointed out that the airline’s assets will be handled through bankruptcy court rather than handed to an internet movement. Even supporters of the idea acknowledge that reviving an airline is a very different task from rallying online attention. But the scale of the response still matters, because it shows how many consumers feel emotionally attached to the idea of low fares, even when those fares came with a rough-edged product and a famously stripped-down experience.

Why the Campaign Took Off So Fast

Spirit had plenty of critics, but it also served a real purpose in the U.S. market. For many travelers, it represented the last semi-reliable way to get somewhere quickly and cheaply without turning every trip into a major financial decision. That made it easy for the airline to become a symbol after it collapsed. Social media users described it as the “Costco of the sky,” a “sky bus,” and “the airline for the people.” Those phrases are simplistic, but they capture what many budget-conscious travelers feel they are losing.

That loss comes at a moment when the largest U.S. carriers are leaning harder into premium travel, more upselling, and higher fares. Even where cheap tickets still exist, they often feel more conditional and less abundant than they once did. Spirit’s disappearance sharpens that anxiety, especially for families and leisure travelers who relied on the gap between Spirit pricing and the fares offered by legacy airlines.

A Fantasy Buyout With a Real Message

Peterson’s site argues that Spirit did not fail because people stopped flying, but because debt, private ownership pressures, and poor management pushed the airline into a position it could not escape. That interpretation may oversimplify the collapse, but it reflects a broader public distrust of how the airline industry is run. The enthusiasm behind the campaign is less a sign that Americans believe a crowdfunded airline takeover is around the corner and more a sign that they want a different model from the one they see now.

In that sense, the “buy Spirit” movement is best understood as a protest wrapped in a startup fantasy. It may never produce an airline, but it has already succeeded in exposing a real gap in the market: people still want cheap, simple air travel, and they are increasingly worried that nobody is left to provide it.