Trump’s Face to Feature in Some 2026 U.S. Passports
Trump’s Face to Feature in Some 2026 U.S. Passports
Daniel Torok
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/new-250th-anniversary-u-s-passports-to-feature-trump-special-coin-and-bold-memorial-plans
The passports will be issued at the Washington Passport Agency.
Travelers applying for a passport at the Washington Passport Agency this year might receive the 250th anniversary special document. The U.S. government plans to release a limited number of passports with President Donald Trump’s image on the inside cover.
This year marks 250 years since the U.S. gained independence from the British monarchy. The new designs will feature the Declaration of Independence in the background of the president’s photo, his signature in gold, and the American flag. A White House spokesperson told the BBC, “President Trump’s new patriotic passport design provides yet another great way Americans can join in the spectacular celebrations for America’s 250th birthday.”
Up to 30,000 of these passports will be issued to American citizens, with their launch set to coincide with July 4. Anyone applying in person at the Washington Passport Agency will receive this edition by default, while online applicants can opt out, NPR reported.
U.S. Department of State
The cover will display “The United States of America” in gold print, “passport” at the bottom, and a small gold American flag with “250” encircled in stars on the back cover.
Current passports feature images of popular attractions such as the Statue of Liberty, significant events like the moon landing, and quotations from former presidents.
Living Memory
President Trump has already left his mark on the White House. Last year, the president ordered the demolition of the East Wing to build a ballroom. The historic wing, which housed the offices of the first lady, was turned to rubble without necessary approvals, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to stop the construction. A judge halted the work, but an appeals judge has since allowed construction to resume.
The administration initially proposed that the ballroom would be funded by private donors, announcing a cost of $250 million. However, Republicans are now advocating for $400 million in funding, shifting the cost to taxpayers.
Additionally, President Trump has proposed building the world’s largest arch in Washington, D.C. The 250-foot “Arch de Trump” would stand taller than both the White House and the Lincoln Memorial. The project faces backlash from the public and various agencies, but the Commission of Fine Arts is moving forward with the plans.
President Trump’s name has also been added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In December 2025, the arts center’s board voted to name it after both presidents, “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Critics argue that the board lacks the authority to rename the memorial, which was designated by Congress.
Furthermore, America’s 250th birthday will be marked with a 24-karat gold coin featuring President Trump’s image. Federal law prohibits living presidents from appearing on currency, but commemorative coins are exempt. The coin, measuring three inches in diameter (a dollar coin is just over an inch wide), will depict President Trump with his fists on the table and the word “Liberty.” The reverse side will show the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence.
The current president will also become the first sitting president to have their signature printed on future U.S. paper currency.
A range of events is planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary. The celebrations come at a time when travelers are looking elsewhere, and the U.S. faces a decline in international visitors.
Want outstanding guest experiences? Start backstage.
https://hotelsmag.com/news/want-outstanding-guest-experiences-start-backstage/?
Stacey Carey is co-founder and president of design at Magnifica
The most memorable stays share something difficult to describe but impossible to forget. The room is beautiful, yes. Every aspect of the property feels intentional, composed, and refined. And the people who welcome you make you feel genuinely known, remembered, and present in a way that turns a luxury property into something that actually feels like a home.
That quality of welcome is the true measure of luxury. And it begins backstage.
The Standard Starts with the Team
The modern luxury experience is not more, but better. Better experiences begin with better care for the people who create them. A guest does not experience an org chart; a guest experiences the emotional condition of the people serving them. When that condition is strong, and team members feel supported, recognized, and genuinely cared for, it’s felt in every action. The welcome feels warmer. The service feels more intuitive. The standard holds across shifts, across days, across the full arc of a stay.
This is the principle at the heart of luxury service: the guest experience rises only as far as the team experience does.
Culture is Built in Layers
A strong internal culture is not built all at once. It’s built in sequence. The most visible expressions of care—wellness activations, community rituals, moments of enrichment—can be meaningful. They work best when layered on top of a solid foundation.
- The employee experience can be built in three layers, each dependent on the one before it. Foundation is dignity made operational. It begins with fair pay benchmarked to a high local standard, genuinely usable healthcare, nourishing daily meals, predictable scheduling and real room for recovery. These are the non-negotiables—the conditions that allow people to arrive at work with full attention and real capacity for care. When the foundation layer is strong, everything built on top of it becomes meaningful.
- Craft is the mastery layer. Luxury service should be treated as a discipline worth learning deeply. Mentorship and cross-training. Certification programs in wine, culinary, spa and service. Visible advancement pathways so every team member can see exactly what growth requires. Recognition tied to the specific values and behaviors worth multiplying. This layer transforms a role into a craft and raw talent into lasting expertise.
- Sanctuary is where belonging takes shape. Not through excess, but through a small number of meaningful rituals: movement, recovery, community and signature moments where team members experience the property as guests do. This is where culture stops being stated and starts being felt. It is also where team members experience firsthand the quality of care that the brand promises its guests.
Each layer depends on the one beneath it. Sequence is the strategy.
What Great Operators Already Know
The line between how a team is treated and how a guest is served is shorter and more direct than the industry has historically acknowledged, and the research bears it out.
Cornell research found that voluntary turnover rates are negatively correlated with guests’ perceptions of service quality. Separately, Cornell found that employees’ sense of standards and support connects to a service mindset, which in turn drives guest satisfaction.
The scale of the problem makes those numbers matter. Hospitality still sees roughly 66 separations per 100 jobs annually. The investment in keeping great people is a fraction of the cost of replacing them. It is one of the highest-return decisions a luxury operator can make.
Culture, at its most practical, is how a standard scales across a team, across shifts, across years.
“To Know and Be Known”
At the center of this philosophy is a simple idea: genuine luxury feels like being known. Not recognized by a system, but truly known by a person.
That experience —being welcomed by name, remembered across days, noticed in the small details—is what separates a beautiful property from a truly memorable one. It cannot be staged from the surface. It is cultivated from within through teams that are stable enough to be present, developed enough to be excellent, and supported enough to care.
High luxury should feel like home. Creating that feeling begins long before the guest arrives. It begins with how the people responsible for the welcome are cared for every single day.
Sonesta expands in Dominican Republic with La Romana MOD Collection
https://hotelsmag.com/news/sonesta-expands-in-dominican-republic-with-la-romana-mod-collection/
Sonesta International Hotels Corporation announced the execution of a franchise agreement for a new construction hotel in La Romana, Dominican Republic. The project adds to two properties currently under construction, The James Larimar City and Sonesta ES Suites Jarabacoa, as the company continues to expand its presence in the region.
The agreement will add a 168-room MOD Collection property owned by Sonesta to the company’s portfolio upon completion. The hotel will be developed in two phases, with building one scheduled to open in fall 2027 and building two in fall 2028.
La Romana is located on the southeastern coast of the Dominican Republic and serves as a major port city and tourist destination. The area includes luxury resorts, golf courses, the village of Altos de Chavón and Caribbean beaches.
“We are excited to see Sonesta’s expansion throughout the LATAM region, specifically the Dominican Republic, as we now have several new properties in development,” said Keith Pierce, co-CEO of Sonesta. “MOD Collection by Sonesta debuted in 2023 with the intention of appealing to a range of full-service hotel owners, minimizing conversion timelines, simplifying brand standards, emphasizing the inclusion of local influences in the property design and embracing the local reputation in the naming. We are thrilled to see the brand continue to grow and will be proud to have it join the nine MOD hotels currently open and operating across the Americas.”
MOD Collection by Sonesta is a growing brand focused on flexibility for owners and guests. The brand incorporates curated food and beverage offerings and design elements aligned with contemporary travel preferences.
Guests at the La Romana property will be able to earn and redeem points through the Sonesta Travel Pass loyalty program.
An Airline Wants to Build a Database of Bad Passengers
surachetsh/iStock
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/an-airline-wants-to-build-a-database-of-bad-passengers
A British airline wants a national database so unruly passengers can’t fly.
A British low-cost airline is calling for a national database of disruptive passengers—something that does not exist in the U.S. either. Jet2, known for its marketing jingle on TikTok, wants to implement this measure to ensure that disruptive passengers are banned from all U.K. airlines after an intense fight caused a diversion this week.
A Jet2 flight from Antalya, Turkey, to London was diverted when a drunk couple began fighting on the plane. They were traveling with two children and became disruptive. When a fellow passenger tried to intervene, the man shouted racist rants. The Sun reported that a woman in her 60s was punched by accident, prompting the pilot to make an unscheduled stop in Bulgaria to remove the family from the flight. The pilot called for police and medical services to meet the plane when it landed, and the couple was removed from the flight along with their children. Passengers alleged the couple was visibly drunk and disruptive even before boarding and should not have been allowed on board.
In a statement, the U.K.-based airline confirmed the incident and said it has banned the two passengers for life. The airline also said it will seek to recover losses due to their behavior and take them to court. Furthermore, Jet2 stated, “In addition, we are lobbying for the creation of a national database so that as well as being banned from flying with us, disruptive passengers will also be banned from flying with other U.K. airlines.”
It is not an industry-wide practice to share data on disruptive passengers. However, Dutch airlines KLM and Transavia announced in 2022 that they would ban unruly passengers from both airlines for five years to broaden the scope of their no-fly list. In 2021, Delta also called for airlines to share their no-fly lists with each other so disruptive people are prevented from flying. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA has also advocated for a similar measure.
Airlines in the U.S. maintain their own no-fly lists, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation has its own list of individuals who are not allowed to fly commercially if they are considered a threat to the country.
Flight Fury
Unruly passenger incidents in the U.S. surged during the pandemic. In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 5,973 incidents, compared to 1,009 in 2020. Since then, incidents have significantly dropped, but they remain higher than pre-pandemic numbers; for example, in 2025, there were still 1,621 passengers reported to the FAA. The FAA enforces a zero-tolerance policy toward unruly passengers, and bad behavior on flights can lead to fines and jail time. Offenders can also lose access to Global Entry and TSA PreCheck.
Airlines are also taking steps to prevent disorderly behavior on flights by punishing such actions. Apart from banning passengers for life—which can be evaded by flying with a competitor—they are dragging them to court.
Airlines incur significant losses when a flight is diverted for any reason. Now, they are pursuing passengers who cause unscheduled stops through preventable actions. Last year, budget airline Ryanair filed multiple lawsuits against unruly passengers and demanded they cover the costs of diversions. It also announced that it will impose a fine of €500 ($580) on those who display unacceptable behavior on flights, along with legal proceedings for the worst cases.
Airlines define unacceptable behavior, and you could be banned from a flight or airline for reasons other than violent conduct. Interfering with the crew or not following instructions can result in removal. British Airways warns that filming the crew without consent may lead to serious consequences, including being removed from the flight or reported to authorities. Ryanair has similar carriage terms that prohibit unauthorized recording of personnel. Meanwhile, United is addressing the issue of loudcasting—those who play videos or audio without headphones on a flight may be removed by the airline.
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