How a Doomsday Meteorite Inspired Tulum’s Mystical Spa Escape

How a Doomsday Meteorite Inspired Tulum’s Mystical Spa Escape

Conrad Tulum

https://www.fodors.com/news/hotels/how-a-doomsday-meteorite-inspired-tulums-mystical-spa-escape

Amber C. Snider & Esme Benjamin 

At Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya, wellness is inspired by the Yucatán’s sacred cenotes and Mayan architecture.

Arriving in Quintana Roo’s Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya, travelers enter through towering wooden doors in an open-air lobby that combines the elements of earth, air, and water. A polished stone floor extends to a colossal center pool, while intricate wooden slats adorn the 30-plus-foot vaulted ceiling. Monumental is a word that not only describes the design of this new five-star resort, but also the architecture of the ancient Maya people, whose intricate structures have rivaled those of the Pyramids of Giza and beyond.

It’s not only the reinterpretation of Mayan architecture that makes the hotel stand out, but also the large-scale design that seamlessly integrates the native jungle landscape, populated with mangroves, fronds, and wildlife. It’s still luxury at every turn, and although this immersion in nature is intentional, these subtle nods to Indigenous designs echo the essence of the land. The on-site spa, for instance, is a space where ancestral healing practices are integrated into the wellness experience and also connect back to the land. And of course, the design mirrors that sentiment.

For instance, one of the most prominent ecological features of the Yucatán region is its cenotes. Formed over 66 million years ago by a meteorite (the one most likely to have swept out the dinosaurs), these underground freshwater pools permeate the region, with over 7,000 cenotes and counting. These natural wonders held deep spiritual significance for the ancient Maya, as they were used in ritual sites and provided access to fresh drinking water that helped sustain communities.

While travelers in Quintana Roo’s Riviera Maya can explore cenotes through group tours, solo trips, and even deep diving or cave exploration, the truth is, those experiences aren’t for everyone (especially the less-adventure-minded traveler). Since many cenotes were ritual sites, some of which included human sacrifice, they hold tremendous spiritual power. They are best approached with a sense of respect and reverence for the land’s heritage and spirits. Conrad Tulum’s onsite spa pays homage to the geological features of Yucatán’s cenotes, just without extreme depths of dark water, bats, and lingering spirits (perhaps).

Upon entering the airy entrance, you’re led to a dome-like structure vaguely reminiscent of a temazcal (a stone sweat lodge). This is the central area of the spa, marked by a large, circular open-air portal to the sky, outlined by a thatched bamboo canopy. Mirroring the sky overhead, a small fountain pool sits directly below the sky portal, as the faint sound of bubbling water permeates the space, rather than your typical, run-of-the-mill spa music. Here, the natural surroundings serve as the primary soundscape.

Sunbeams mark the stone walls of the circular space with shadows at different times of day, similar to the experience of visiting a semi-enclosed cenote. At noon, the sun is directly overhead, reflecting the fountain, but the half-moon sunbeams slowly travel the room throughout the day, marking time and creating a natural ambiance rarely seen in contemporary spas.

On the walls, trellises of foliage cascade towards the dark stone floor, like tree roots at the edge of cenotes reaching down, adorning the cave enclosure in their pull towards the water. Within this area, guests can glide between a vapor steam room (lightly scented with eucalyptus), a traditional hot sauna, a cold plunge, and a hot bath. Outside the central dome-shaped area, a winding path carved through the jungle leads guests to a larger “cenote” pool, complete with water jets designed to target specific areas of the body. In truth, one could stay under these jets for long stretches of time, not only for hydrotherapy, but also as a soul-nourishing meditation.

This space is mildly reminiscent of an enclosed or cave-like cenote, with a towering thatched-like roof, but it’s still open-air, so sunlight drizzles in at every angle, offering views of the surrounding jungle and the natural soundscape of birds, wind, and water movement. It feels like a natural pool, especially with the occasional drifting leaf or twig — just without any fish, creepy crawlers, or potential dread of the bottomless abyss below that can sometimes accompany visiting an actual cenote.

Off to one side, a meditation area awaits with several cushions, a large conch shell, and small musical instruments. And across the pool, an outdoor Juice Bar serves up aqua frescas, elixirs, coffee, and teas, which are included in the 1,500 MX peso (roughly $150 USD) fee to access the spa facilities. Travelers can also book one (or more) of the 16 separate spa treatments, each based on ancestral healing. The treatments are further anchored in the Four Directions of Wellness, drawn from Mayan cosmology (East/Renewal, West/Release, North/Clarity, South/Balance). It’s this nod to the ancestral healing lineages and mystical energy of the Riviera Maya that makes the experience more than just another spa.

These nods to the land’s heritage continue throughout the resort. At Autor, an onsite restaurant with a Michelin nod, each dish tells the story of Mexico’s rich culinary history, with flavors inspired by Peruvian and Chinese influence, as well as the micro-diversity across Yucatan, Oaxaca, San Pedro Actopan, and the banquets of Moctezuma. Even the garlic-infused butter pads are tiny dinosaurs, reminiscent of the original inhabitants of the land millions and millions of years ago.

And before you leave paradise, be sure to stop by the Casitas Aluxes — tiny stone houses meant to honor the mischievous little guardian spirits of the land — and leave a little offering. A flower will do, or a shiny trinket, to give thanks for the journey.

This Airline Is Dropping All Routes to the U.S.

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/air-transat-to-drop-all-u-s-routes-by-summer-2026

Scott Laird

Canada’s Air Transat will end all flights to the United States by June 2026, cutting its final routes to Florida amid declining Canadian travel demand to the U.S.

One foreign carrier will end all flying to the U.S. by June. Canada’s Air Transat announced reductions to its services that will ultimately end all transborder flights in the early summer.

The Montreal-based airline will end services at its last two American destinations: Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, for the 2026 summer season. Flights from Montreal to Orlando will end on May 3, and flights from Quebec City to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale will end in May and June.

Air Transat has also operated flights between Florida and Canada during the winter season; whether or not U.S. service will set to resume then will be decided at a later date, a spokesperson told The Montreal Gazette. Air Transat has not maintained a large presence in the United States, primarily flying Canadians to leisure destinations in Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Air Transat flew to nine destinations in the United States as recently as last March.

The news comes after WestJet, another Canadian airline, announced it would exit ten nonstop routes between the US and Canada, reducing its transborder seat capacity by over a quarter for the month of July. Cuts included service to Raleigh/Durham, Chicago O’Hare, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma, Orlando, Los Angeles, Boston, Nashville, and San Diego. Many of the cities with flight cuts retained WestJet flights to other cities in Canada.

Air Canada has also made a schedule cut for summer, quietly removing its seasonal Seattle/Tacoma-Montreal nonstop. That flight had previously operated on a summer-only basis. Passengers between the two cities can still connect to Montreal on Air Canada flights via Vancouver or Toronto.

In 2025, the transborder market hit a milestone it hasn’t reached since 2006—more Americans visited Canada than Canadians came south. Approximately 90% of Canada’s population lives within 100 miles of its border with the United States, while the US population is far less concentrated near the border with Canada.

Demand by Canadians for travel to the U.S. has been down since last year, following US President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada, and airlines based in Canada have reduced flights throughout the year.

Even with 2025’s significant downturn in visitor arrivals from Canada, the US remains Canada’s top outbound travel market, with Canadians preferring sun destinations in California, Florida, Hawai‘i, and Arizona. In a movement informally known as “Elbows Up”, Canadians have been pushing back against perceived U.S. government aggression by instead choosing sun destinations outside the United States.

Air Transat operates leisure flights on a low-cost model, charging for extras like checked bags and seat assignments, and for meals and snacks on shorter flights. The airline once touted its connections via Montreal and Toronto for US-originating travelers bound for destinations in Europe, but that option will be suspended until the airline resumes service to US airports.

Air Transat was founded in Montreal and began service in 1987. A 2019 buyout of the airline by Air Canada was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and ultimately scrapped in 2021 after it failed to secure the approval of the European Commission. Air Canada had stated its intention to continue operating Air Transat as a separate brand had the acquisition been completed.

The airline operates a fleet of 43 Airbus aircraft, including the widebody Airbus A330 and the narrowbody Airbus A321. The airline has also ordered the long-range Airbus A321XLR, which can fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

On April 1, 2025, Air Transat jokingly announced it would start referring to the Atlantic Ocean as the Canadien Ocean, in reference to President Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Wyndham Hotels chief talks up AI as a moneymaker, cost saver

https://hotelsmag.com/news/wyndham-hotels-chief-talks-up-ai-as-a-moneymaker-cost-saver/?

For all the discussion around artificial intelligence and how it will remake the way customers book travel, there’s another side: the presumptive cost savings to franchisees. That’s how Geoff Ballotti, president and CEO of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, framed it during his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. The first three slides of an investor presentation highlighting Wyndham’s AI endeavors bolsters its approach to it.

One thing is clear: Wyndham’s use of AI is out of beta and into practice. “We’re no longer piloting these,” Ballotti said, referring to Wyndham Connect, a trained large language model in partnership with Canary Technologies that allows more than 5,000 of Wyndham’s hotels today to talk to guests via AI.

Wyndham has put more than $425 million of investment toward AI. With Anthropic Claude, users can enable Wyndham’s connector, which allows for a fully conversational experience and direct-booking on Wyndham’s platform. Last November, Wyndham and Google partnered to create an agentic booking experience on AI Mode in search. During Q2 2026, guests will be able to discover Wyndham properties through natural, conversational interactions.

While AI sets a new way for customers to find and book hotels, the intent remains for them to book direct. “In Claude today, the guest receives a link to complete the transaction on our brand.com site—ChatGPT works the same way,” Ballotti said.

AI, Ballotti said, is also a tool to derive more spend out of each booked guest. Wyndham Connect monetizes upsell requests, including early check-in/late check-out, room upgrades and dining. It received around 885,000 upsell requests in

2025. At the same time, it’s removing costs. Wyndham Connect selef served around 25% of guest inquiries in 2025 without on-property staff intervention.

“It’s taking costs for our franchisees and small business owners out of their front offices,” Ballotti said. “It’s allowing them to make extra money by selling early check ins and late checkouts and upgrades and amenities. And it’s providing them with an economic platform free of charge that they did not have before to monetize that platform.”

Ballotti said that a Howard Johnson in Anaheim, Calif., by using the platform is making over $10,000 a month in incremental fees that are going to that hotels bottom line. “That’s $120,000 a year,” he said.

AI agents, Ballotti said, are also handling numerous guest calls that are saving franchisees on labor costs.

Later this year, Wyndham will unveil next-generation, cloud-native mobile and web platforms, that is says will reshape the guest journey with AI-powered, intent-driven discovery that expands languages, payment options and personalization.

Technology, however, isn’t a panacea. Wyndham’s fourth-quarter global RevPAR decreased 6% compared to the same period last year, reflecting declines of 8% in the U.S. and 1% internationally. For the full-year, global RevPAR decreased 3% compared to 2024, reflecting a 4% decline in the U.S. and flat growth internationally. U.S. results reflected a 270 basis-point reduction in occupancy and a 120 basis-point decline in ADR.

The start of 2026 remains negative, but should pick up later in the year, aided by such events as FIFA World Cup and America250. For full-year 2026, Wyndham expects a global RevPAR range of down 1.5% to up 0.5%.

System-wide rooms grew 4% YOY in the fourth quarter 2025. The development pipeline grew 3% YOY and 1% sequentially to a record 259,000 rooms.

Wyndham cited softer results in Florida, Texas and California, though Ballotti said Texas saw improvement in Q1 of 600 basis points compared to last year, while Florida also saw growth. The Midwest has helped soften the blow. “We’re seeing continued strength, as we talked about in the Midwest, with Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Michigan all up mid-to-low single digits,” he said.

Ballotti remains optimistic going into the new year. “It’s starting to feel like demand is beginning to really improve, that those green shoots are beginning to come with rate. Upscale hotels have been able to price much more aggressively than our chain scales, where the guest is obviously more price sensitive,” he said.

While conversions have been a large mode of addition for lodging companies, Ballotti said he was encouraged by trends in new construction. “There’s been a lot of talk across the industry that new-construction pipelines are pressured. We’re not seeing it. We’re seeing growth in our new construction executions,” he said, up 15% versus 2024 and new-construction openings domestically increasing 50% YOY.

During the preparation of Wyndham’s year-end 2025 financial statements, its largest European franchisee, Revo Hospitality Group, filed for self-administration, which is the equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. As a result, Wyndham wrote down $160 million in charges tied to the collapse. Starting in the fourth quarter of 2025, Wyndham began deferring all revenues related to Revo due to uncertainty around collectability.

“It’s really early to speculate on what potential outcomes could look like,” said Kurt Albert, interim CFO of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. “They want to emerge from insolvency this year, but we also believe these proceedings could last months.”

The Louvre Paris Lost $12 Million Due to a Ticket Scam

Shutterstock / NaughtyNut

https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/france/paris/experiences/news/louvre-ticket-scam-may-have-cost-museum-12-million-over-a-decade

Apeksha Bhateja

French police arrested nine suspects in a ticket fraud scheme that allegedly cost the Louvre $12 million. The scandal adds to a string of recent security and infrastructure issues at the museum.

The Louvre has a new scandal in the headlines. The French museum uncovered a ticket scam in 2024 that may have cost it $12 million over a decade, according to recent reports. Police arrested nine people last week who may have been involved in running the scam and laundering money. It is the latest blow in a series of events that have plagued the popular museum in recent months.

The ticket scam came to light after the museum filed a complaint in December 2024 alleging that Chinese tour guides were reusing tickets for different visitors. Other guides were reportedly participating in similar practices. Authorities suspect the tour guides brought in up to 20 tours a day and used the same tickets for multiple individuals. They also allegedly bribed museum employees with cash to avoid ticket checks and split up groups to avoid paying additional fees.

Last year, a judicial investigation was opened on multiple charges, including organized fraud, corruption, money laundering, the use of forged administrative documents, and aiding illegal entry into the country as part of an organized group. Investigators seized $1 million in cash and $500,000 from bank accounts. It is also suspected that the suspects invested money in real estate in France and Dubai.

In total, the museum lost more than $12 million over a decade due to the scheme. The Louvre acknowledged it was facing multiple ticket fraud cases and said it has worked with police and staff on an anti-fraud plan.

Two Louvre employees, multiple tour guides and one individual believed to be the mastermind were arrested. One person remains in custody, while the others have been released under strict conditions.

A Series of Tragedies

It has been a difficult few months for the Louvre. In October, the art world was rocked by a brazen daytime heist at the world-famous museum. Thieves made off with valuable imperial pieces worth $100 million after just four minutes inside the museum, reportedly using a mechanical lift. The incident was deeply embarrassing for the museum and the country. The jewels — apart from a crown that the thieves dropped — have not been recovered.

In the coming years, the Louvre will undergo renovations to address several issues, French President Emmanuel Macron announced last year. The Mona Lisa will be moved to another room to give visitors a chance to see the painting without crowding, and failing infrastructure will be improved. To help fund the more than $1 billion renovation, the Louvre has begun charging non-EU visitors higher admission fees this year, prompting labor unions to strike in protest.

Employees who say they are understaffed and overworked have been vocal about their working conditions. The museum shut down multiple times last month after trade unions staged walkouts. They have also raised concerns about security lapses and infrastructure problems.

In November, a water leak at the world’s most visited museum damaged between 300 and 400 pieces, mostly books. It was later revealed that the cause of the leak had been known for years. Meanwhile, a structural issue prompted the closure of a gallery housing Greek vases and offices. This month, another leak from a heating pipe damaged a 19th-century ceiling painting by Charles Meynier.

The Louvre welcomes more than 9 million visitors each year, the majority of them foreign nationals.

Related: The 15 Ultimate Things to Do in Paris in 2025 (And the Top Things to Avoid)

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