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1. Eurozone inflation rises to 3.2%
Inflation in the Eurozone increased to 3.2% in May, an increase from April's reported 3%, according to CNBC. The increase met expectations from Reuters' forecast and is expected to result in an interest rate hike at the European Central Bank meeting next week.
"Energy costs represented the highest annual rate of inflation in May, according to the flash data, with prices rising by 10.9% — a slight rise from the Eurozone’s 10.8% energy price growth recorded the previous month," CNBC reports. "Services inflation rose to 3.5% from 3% in April, while food, alcohol and tobacco prices cooled to 2% from 2.4% the previous month."
2. CoStar bumps up US hotel forecast
At the annual NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum, Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, revealed the updated 2026 U.S. hotel revenue per available forecast. The new expectation for RevPAR is 2.8% growth, a significant increase from its previous projections of 0.6% back in February, the CoStar News Hotels team reports from the conference.
"We're projecting that this year is actually very much a reversal from last year, and that room demand is going to continue to grow and that gives us some pricing power," Freitag said during the conference.
3. Marriott exec points to development strength, Middle East headwinds
Jen Mason, the recently appointed chief financial officer at Marriott International, said at a Morgan Stanley investor conference that travel demand is healthy, group bookings are strong and the Middle East is Marriott's biggest challenge, MarketBeat reports.
In her remarks, Mason pointed to April RevPAR growth in the U.S. and Canada of 1% and 4% respectively, while international RevPAR fell 6% in April, due mostly to the Middle East.
Commenting on Marriott's development pipeline, Mason said the company is targeting 4.5% to 5% net rooms growth for the year and that the development pitch to owners is “stronger than ever,” according to the article.
4. Egyptian self-driving monorail set to become world's longest
Egypt's self-driving monorail launched in May in Cairo has an an additional line under construction that is slated to unseat China's monorail as the longest in the world, according to CNN Travel.
The Cairo Monorail is Africa's first driverless monorail network and the first line, the East Nile route, currently runs about 35 miles between Cairo International Stadium in the city’s Nasr City district. The second line in the network, the West Nile route, is around 27 miles long and currently under construction. Together, the network would edge out China's 61.2-mile Chongqing system, currently the longest in the world.
5. National park misinformation tarnishes summer travel, hotel bookings
Hotels near Crater Lake National Park in Oregon are struggling as potential guests change or cancel vacation plans due to confusion about the park's operations, SFGATE reports.
Liz Ashley, the general manager of Crater Lake Resort, told the news outlet that she is getting calls asking if the park is open. The national park is open — as is the Rim Village. However, the Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only publicly accessible path to the lake’s shoreline and boat tours, is closed for a rehabilitation project expected to last several years.
“I’ve had to correct people week after week, day after day,” Ashley told SFGATE. “People are canceling their trips to the park because they aren’t sure what’s going on — they’ve just read incorrect headlines. When I travel and get to telling people what I do for work, I always get, ‘How are you going to manage over the next few years if the park is closed?’”