What’s a Better Value: A Cruise or an All-Inclusive Resort?
What’s a Better Value: A Cruise or an All-Inclusive Resort?
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https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/whats-a-better-value-a-cruise-or-an-all-inclusive-resort
How to weigh the pros and cons between each type of trip.
If you’re craving a stress-free, sun-filled and low-key vacation—and who isn’t?—there are typically only two categories: a cruise or an all-inclusive resort. Both are sold as a package, meaning the room, food and drink, as well as some activities like fitness classes and live music, are included in a flat fee, with options to upgrade accommodations or add-on various dining experiences from there.
These types of trips dominate warm destinations, such as Mexico’s coastlines and islands throughout the Caribbean, whether you’re parked at the same property all week or booked on a cruise, which is essentially a floating hotel. Making these trips even easier to book is the ability to tack on a flight to your reservation, so it’s a one-stop-shop. But before you nail down the details, here are 10 factors to consider, plus the pros and cons of a cruise versus an all-inclusive resort.
1 OF 10
Dining
Cruise
Pro: These days, cruise lines partner with celebrity chefs—like Jacques Pepin (Oceania Cruises), Thomas Keller (Seabourn), and Daniel Boulud (Celebrity Cruises)—to offer more elevated options than a main dining room or buffet.
Con: Because most ports of call are no later than 6 p.m., this kills any chance of margaritas while watching the sunset in Cabo or dinner on a Caribbean beach with your sweetie. You’re stuck with the ship’s restaurants.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: An all-inclusive has at least five restaurants—usually an all-day eatery, breakfast buffet, poolside café, and a fine-dining option (such as a steakhouse or Italian concept), so you can never get bored.
Con: Unless you choose a resort with easy access to a town or village, you’re resigned to the resort’s dining options.
2 OF 10
Access to Culture
Cruise
Pro: Most week-long sailings visit more than two countries, and some as many as five, so you’re constantly dipping in and out of cultures, sampling a lot of diversity in a short period of time.
Con: Culture isn’t on the ship with your fellow North American travelers—it’s in port. Unless you choose a sailing with more port days than sea days, or a shore excursion interacting with locals (not just a booze cruise).
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: All-inclusive resorts are doing more to invite culture on property, in the form of arts and crafts, live music, or dance. You just have to confirm that’s the case at the resort you choose.
Con: If you want less of a prescriptive culture offering, and enjoy hunting down culture yourself, expect to pay pricey taxi rides into the nearest town.
3 OF 10
Pools
Cruise
Pro: Nearly every ship has an “exclusive” quieter pool area that’s adults-only and often linked to a spa. It’s worth splurging on this.
Con: There are usually only one or two pools on a ship—for several thousand people to share—so expect crowds, especially on sea days.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: There isn’t an all-inclusive out there without at least three outdoor pools—and they are sprawling. You won’t be elbowing your way through.
Con: Rarely does an all-inclusive have an indoor pool. Instead, they are entirely outdoors. Failure to check the season’s weather patterns means you might not get into the pool at all if it’s rainy season.
4 OF 10
Flights
Cruise
Pro: To board a cruise sailing to a sunny climate, all that’s needed is a domestic ticket, departing from within the U.S., at ports of call in Florida (Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Tampa), Texas (Galveston, by way of Houston) and California (Los Angeles). You might even be able to drive to a port, paying only for gas.
Con: There isn’t any wiggle room with dates as the cruises have set departure and arrival dates.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Unlike a cruise, you can fly any day of the week and stay as many nights as you like, providing flexibility with booking a flight.
Con: As there are few all-inclusive resorts in the U.S., you’re most likely paying for a costly international ticket, to Mexico or within the Caribbean.
5 OF 10
Family-friendly
Cruise
Pro: With kid clubs and teen clubs included in passenger fares, parents get lots of built-in free time, including romantic date nights.
Con: If you don’t read about the cruise line carefully, you may be one of the few families on board, with bored children under your care.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Like cruises, all-inclusive resorts feature kids and teen clubs.
Con: Unlike cruises, they often carry an additional fee.
6 OF 10
Beaches
Cruise
Pro: Especially if sailing to Mexico or the Caribbean, every port has dozens of beaches within a half-hour drive. The only question is which one will you choose?
Con: As ships aren’t spending the night in port, forget about watching a sunset from the beach. You might also have to book a taxi or group tour to get to the best beach if it’s not nearby.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Almost all all-inclusive resorts are along the coastline, so you need only walk a few hundred yards to the sand.
Con: Just because it’s on the beach doesn’t mean you can swim in the water. There are parts of Los Cabos and Hawaii, for example, that are too rough for swimming. Research the property carefully if you want to swim.
7 OF 10
Wellness
Cruise
Pro: Given the number of sea days and that you’re spending every evening on the ship, there’s more than enough time to take use of the spa.
Con: On most ships, a spa is almost an afterthought with only a handful of treatment rooms, unlike what you’d find at a resort, and the amenities (such as a sauna, steam room and relaxation lounge) compressed in size.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Every all-inclusive has a spa and it’s several thousand square feet, with treatment rooms, pools, steam rooms, saunas and relaxation areas, and sometimes even its own restaurant or café.
Con: Prices for massages and other treatments can be high at an all-inclusive—but worth it if you get access to the spa’s facilities for the day.
8 OF 10
Room Size
Cruise
Pro: Who cares about the cabin size? There’s an entire ship to explore that’s all yours, with few areas closed off to passengers. And, with housekeeping and room service, the vacation vibe is real and you don’t have to lift a finger.
Con: Anyone who has tried to shower on a cruise, or shared the cabin with another person, already knows these are tiny, and cramped.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Resorts that operate as an all-inclusive are known for hotel rooms that rival the size of those in Vegas. Features like a soaking tub and a private terrace are also quite common.
Con: There aren’t any budget options for rooms at an all-inclusive. Expect to pay a lot—and especially because the room rate includes all of your food and drink.
9 OF 10
Entertainment
Cruise
Pro: With a theater that can accommodate around 1,000 passengers and hosts Broadway-style shows, along with a handful of other venues for trivia nights, karaoke, singer-songwriters and bands, there’s no shortage of activities on a ship.
Con: You’re stuck with the same entertainers all week, with few—if any—changes to the list of performers.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: Because the resort isn’t out at sea, a week here might mean different entertainment every night, and some resorts invite folklore dancers and singers from the local community to perform a show.
Con: If you’re looking for a high-quality musical or play, you won’t find it. The entertainment is more like poolside DJs and cover bands.
10 OF 10
Cost
Cruise
Pro: Cruises cost as low as $70 to $200 per night (for an inside cabin), or between $150-$500 a night for a cabin with a balcony, according to CruiseSolutioner.com.
Con: Passenger fares include food but rarely include tips, WiFi, drinks and shore excursions, which can easily add up and double the total amount.
All-Inclusive Resort
Pro: All-inclusive resorts don’t charge extra for alcohol, coffee or sodas, unless you desire top-shelf liquor. It’s included in the room rate.
Con: The average cost for a night at a mid-range all-inclusive is $120-$400 per night, with luxury resorts costing upwards of $600 per night, according to allinclusiveresorts.blog.
With Soaring Oil Prices, Should You Buy Airline Tickets Now or Wait?
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https://www.fodors.com/news/news/with-soaring-oil-prices-should-you-buy-airline-tickets-now-or-wait
Oil prices are rising amid global conflict, but will airfares increase too? Here’s how airline pricing works—and why demand, not just fuel costs, drives ticket prices.
The timeline cost of a barrel of oil looks like a game of Pong these days. Around $70 before the Iran conflict began, the price has seesawed up to $120 and down to $90 over the past week. In either case, the price of oil is higher, which drives the price of jet fuel higher, and jet fuel is the airlines’ largest expense after labor.
American carriers have not yet announced an across-the-board fare increase, but it’s also worth noting that airlines are more surgical about pricing than they used to be. With sophisticated inventory management systems, they can limit the availability of lower fares on each flight without cancelling or raising the fares outright. The result is more onboard revenue, without any apparent change in fares (tracking the fare on a single flight using a service like Google Flights isn’t the most accurate barometer of industry-wide trends).
How Airline Pricing Works
Airline pricing is also speculative, meaning airlines are selling seats before they know how much it will cost them to fly, so airlines are always selling their inventory with the same objective: to maximize the revenue onboard the aircraft—regardless of costs. But airline seats are a limited commodity with a set expiration date. Once an aircraft departs, the opportunity for unsold seats is gone forever. Because of this, the major driver in airline pricing is demand, both currently and for the period remaining before the flight departs.
Because of this, demand rather than cost drives how airlines price flights, but it’s also worth noting that the closure of Middle East airspace has knock-on effects around the world. Some airlines, including Qantas and Air New Zealand, have announced price hikes, but the effects on seat availability are the real issue.
With large global hubs in Dubai and Qatar largely offline for the time being (only a limited number of repatriation flights are being offered), passengers traveling on a number of international channels are now looking for alternatives. Passengers traveling between Europe and Australia or New Zealand, for example, have long connected in Qatar or Dubai. The closure of those two hubs is forcing passengers on that channel to look elsewhere, including flights via the United States. That means fewer seats for sale on flights outside the Middle East, including flights between Oceania and the U.S., and onward from the U.S. to Europe. That means fewer seats for sale on those flights, which helps drive fares higher, even though both flights are nowhere near the conflict zone.
Airlines can also increase revenues without increasing fares. Airlines that charge for seat assignments often don’t have set amounts they charge for seats (the fee changes based on demand; a practice called “dynamic pricing”) so they can also sneak price increases in there. Airlines can also slightly boost first and business class fares, which are already higher (and their buyers are less price-sensitive) so minor increases are less conspicuous.
But all that assumes demand for air travel remains healthy. If flyers stop flying, the situation changes. During the pandemic, there were two schools of thought among airlines: some chose to keep fares lower, hoping they could stimulate some demand with an attractive price point, while other airlines assumed demand was more fixed, and that the remaining pool of buyers needed to go, and would pay more—and feel safer on an emptier aircraft.
Should You Book Now or Hope for Prices to Come Down?
Travelers unsure about whether to book now to lock in existing fares or wait to see if fares drop don’t have much to go on beyond blind luck. The unknown x-factor is how long the conflict will drag out, and whether the markets’ current concerns about the availability of crude oil will ultimately restrict supply enough to create a lasting price increase in fuel costs.
Flyers buying basic economy fares are locked in—they can’t change their tickets, not even to take advantage of a fare drop (although federal law requires airlines to fully refund ticket purchases regardless of fare type within 24 hours of purchase, with some exceptions). Nonrefundable discounted tickets that are not basic economy tickets can generally be cancelled or exchanged for credit if the traveler elects not to fly on the original dates, or if the fare goes down after purchase. And, of course, refundable fares provide refunds for passengers who cancel or rebook at a lower fare.
Rules vary by airline (airlines outside the U.S. are less likely to offer credits if fares go down after purchase), so be sure to read the fine print before buying the ticket.
United States Tourism Numbers Slump While These Destinations Surge, Says New Report
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https://www.fodors.com/news/news/united-states-tourism-numbers-slump-while-these-destinations-surged-in-2025
The new UN report reveals travel winners from last year.
More than 1.5 billion people traveled in 2025, according to the United Nations World Tourism Barometer Report. The organization noted an increase of more than 60 million travelers from 2024, despite geopolitical tensions and rising travel costs. However, the Americas saw mixed results. Even with 218 million international tourists, the region recorded only 1% growth compared with last year. The report states that outcomes in the United States were weak, and the region experienced a decline in travelers in the second half of the year.
According to the report, South America and Central America posted positive numbers, with 7% and 5% growth, respectively. Brazil, in particular, had a standout year with a 37% increase in arrivals, followed by 8% growth in Guatemala.
North America, by contrast, saw a downward trend—1.4% fewer international travelers visited in 2025. Mexico’s tourist numbers increased by 6%, yet the region overall lost momentum in the third and fourth quarters.
The report does not specify reasons—and there may be many—but it is clear that policies implemented by President Donald Trump have had a chilling effect on travelers since the beginning of his term. The United States is becoming less attractive to visitors, as recent analyses show.
Last year, Canadians distanced themselves after tariff wars and disputes over making the country America’s 51st state. Immigration crackdowns have not helped—many travelers have faced long detentions and eviction from the country. Several countries have also issued advisories against visiting the United States because of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments. Increased visa costs may have also dampened tourist numbers.
Amid these developments, Canadians are even opting to travel to Paris for Disneyland instead of taking the shorter flight to the United States, and sports fans are calling for a U.S. boycott of FIFA events, which include the World Cup. Moreover, experts are warning that a new social media policy requiring visa-exempt travelers to share their social media history may make the country unwelcoming to many. The United States could potentially lose $15.7 billion in tourism revenue if travel numbers drop.
THE WINNERS
The UN World Tourism Barometer Report details that Africa outperformed all other regions with an 8% increase in tourist arrivals. In total, 81 million people visited the continent last year, and interest is rising. Morocco led the region, hosting nearly 20 million foreign tourists.
Europe remains a crowd favorite, with 793 million international tourists in 2025—a 4% increase over 2024. The countries experiencing the most growth were Iceland, Uzbekistan, Norway, and Cyprus, which recorded double-digit year-over-year figures, while the Netherlands saw a 6% rise in international tourism.
Meanwhile, the Middle East and Asia continue to recover their tourist numbers after the pandemic slump. More travelers are exploring Egypt, Jordan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, and both Korea and Japan welcomed more tourists in 2025 than in 2024.
In 2025, travelers spent $1.9 trillion on tourism, up 5% from 2024. The outlook for 2026 remains optimistic, provided that economic conditions are favorable and geopolitical stability is maintained.
Going Solo: The power of being an independent hotel
https://hotelsmag.com/news/going-solo-the-power-of-being-an-independent-hotel/?
Story contributed by Philipp Weghmann, CDO, Preferred Travel Group/President, Beyond Green.
As traveler expectations continue to rise and pressure on hotel performance intensifies, the value of independence is even more evident. Around the world, independent hotels are demonstrating remarkable agility, cultural relevance and long‑term resilience. And in 2026, the power of being independent has never been stronger.
TRAVELERS CHOOSE INDEPENDENT EXPERIENCES
Across every major market, high‑end travelers are signaling a decisive shift in what they value. They want hotels that feel personal, unexpected and deeply connected to their surroundings. Consider Preferred Hotels & Resorts’ first-ever Luxury Travel Report, created in partnership with The Harris Poll, which underscores this movement:
- Nearly 70% of luxury travelers believe modern luxury hotels have become “beige” — standardized to the point of losing their identity
- Over 90% say the best journeys feel effortless yet expertly curated
- 89% want hotels that reflect local charm and cultural authenticity
- 82% say loyalty programs are essential to ensuring quality, and nearly two‑thirds say a great past stay is the single biggest driver of repeat bookings
Independent hotels are uniquely positioned to deliver on these expectations. Properties like the Post Ranch Inn in California, The Mark in New York City, The Thief in Norway or The Alpina Gstaad in Switzerland show how individuality, design and a strong sense of place can create the “legacy moments” travelers now consider the new luxury currency.
We also see a growing appetite for discovery. Luxury travelers are increasingly seeking emerging destinations—smaller cultural cities, up‑and‑coming resort areas and remote natural landscapes where unspoiled environments still exist. This trend has been especially powerful for hotels rooted in nature, culture and community, including many within the Beyond Green portfolio.
This desire for discovery is matched by an equally strong desire for trust and consistency, which is where loyalty programs play an increasingly important role. With more than six million members enrolled in I Prefer Hotel Rewards, Preferred Travel Group’s global loyalty program, we see firsthand how loyalty, personalization and curated experiences drive repeat business for independent properties.
INDEPENDENCE DOESN’T MEAN DOING IT ALONE
Many of the most successful independent hotels today pair their individuality with the right strategic affiliations. Collection brands, such as Preferred Hotels & Resorts and Beyond Green, offer a model of support that enhances independent identity. Rather than imposing rigid standards or costly franchise requirements, these affiliations provide global reach, commercial strength, and a community of like‑minded owners and operators.
Affiliation can provide:
- Global visibility, scale and credibility, including access to high‑value distribution channels and elite programs such as American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts and Virtuoso
- A strategic alternative to traditional franchise models, offering notably shorter agreements, lower costs and far greater flexibility
- Quality assurance without sacrificing individuality, enabling hotels to maintain their character while benefiting from shared expertise, best practices, and performance insights
- Proven performance uplift: A recent HVS Performance Report found that Preferred‑affiliated hotels outperformed competitors in key performance metrics across resort, primary and tertiary markets
- Cost efficiency. The same HVS study showed that the average cost of affiliation is less than 1.7% of gross rooms revenue, compared to roughly 11% charged by other luxury and upper‑upscale brands
For owners and developers, the math is compelling: Independence paired with the right affiliation delivers both freedom and financial advantage.
INDEPENDENCE AS A STEWARDSHIP MODEL
Independent hotels are often the most deeply rooted in their communities. They hire locally, source locally, and preserve cultural heritage in ways that large brands struggle to replicate. This is especially true within Beyond Green, where hotels commit to community engagement, cultural celebration, and environmental stewardship as core business principles.
In a world facing climate risk, regulatory shifts, and rising traveler scrutiny, sustainability is no longer a marketing angle; it is a business imperative and independent hotels are uniquely positioned to lead:
- They can make long‑term decisions without corporate bureaucracy
- They can localize supply chains, strengthening resilience
- They can invest in community partnerships that enhance both guest experience and destination health
- They can adapt quickly to new sustainability standards and reporting requirements
Stewardship is not only the right thing to do; it protects asset value, reduces operational costs, and drives revenue by aligning with what travelers increasingly demand.
THE INDEPENDENT ADVANTAGE
As we look ahead, the hotels that will thrive are those that embrace independence as a strategic asset. Independent hotels can move faster than brands weighed down by rigid standards. They can express local identity with authenticity; they can adapt to shifting traveler values—purpose, culture, community—with agility; and, most importantly, they can own their narrative and shape their future.
In 2026, independence is not a niche. It is a competitive advantage. And for owners, operators, and developers around the world, it represents one of the most powerful opportunities in hospitality today.
DUHC&S | Strategic Hospitality Consulting & Advisory
We transform hospitality and tourism businesses through strategic solutions, operational efficiency, and comprehensive renovation. With over 40 years of experience working with brands like Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, and Sonesta, we enhance asset value and profitability through:
*Operational excellence and brand standards (GSI +90%)
*Market penetration and commercial strategies
*Key partnerships and disruptive innovation
*Hotel openings and repositioning
Proven results :
✅ 48% GOP |
✅ +120% asset valuation growth
✅ Successful projects across 6 Latin American countries
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