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In nonmetropolitan pharmacy deserts, residents have an average round-trip travel time of 85 minutes to reach a pharmacy. That compares with 53 minutes for residents in metropolitan pharmacy deserts. People in some rural areas face extreme challenges: 87,000 residents in Arizona’s Apache County have an average travel time surpassing 3 hours to get to a pharmacy. Wait, there’s more!

For example, Citi linked its installment offering to its travel booking platform in September 2024. And Chase launched a Travel Now, Pay Later program in July. Consumers tend to use these in addition to fintech-based plans, which could tamp down BNPL spend per user. Read the full report.

The new park in Abu Dhabi represents a major global play for Disney, especially as development of the Middle East’s tourism infrastructure accelerates. By pursuing a capital-light model, Disney is expanding its global footprint without overextending financially during a volatile period. Still, results from its Asia-based resorts highlight real macroeconomic pressure.

JetBlue said it would not reaffirm its full-year guidance due to macro uncertainty after demand softened in February and March, particularly for off-peak travel. The airline expects the trend to continue into Q2. Kraft Heinz cut its annual sales and profit outlook, citing worsening consumer sentiment and rising tariff costs.

and spirits, and consumer electronics; includes goods sold in owned stores, department stores, and outlets, as well as travel retail, through online and offline channels; excludes secondhand sales of luxury goods.

If consumers are banking, shopping, and booking travel in the same ecosystem, they’d likely be spending more time in that app than they might in an individual banking app. That means the commerce media ads featured there could be even more powerful. Lessons for the US.

The AI model excels at controlling web browsers and automating tasks such as restaurant or travel booking and online shopping, per TechCrunch. Nova Act is expected to be the key AI component of the Alexa + voice and smart home assistant. Amazon is following in the footsteps of other Big Tech companies releasing AI agents that are ripe for add-ons to existing products and services.

Our take: Healthy demand for concerts could offer some measure of relief for retailers and restaurants, particularly as more consumers use events like Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour as an excuse to travel. At the same time, the cohort driving the spending boom is vulnerable to inflation, which could force them to reevaluate how much they spend on experiences.

The travel and retail industries will post healthy digital ad spending growth figures this year, but many other verticals we track will underperform compared with the national growth average. Next year is looking better for almost all of them.

Most industries hover near that format split, but travel and healthcare and pharma are major outliers in favoring search:. Travel customers often perform dozens of searches and click on dozens of results before finalizing their plans. Search spending is a priority in that kind of decision-making environment.

Travel continues to trail other industries. The pandemic significantly affected the travel industry’s ability to invest in advertising. Digital outlays halved in 2020, and despite an impressive and continued rebound, spending hasn’t caught up with that of other industries.

That’s especially true in the travel and lifestyle verticals among younger demographics, highlighting the platform’s potential to drive consumption in China. The social platform has proven to be a tastemaker, inspiring travel and other lifestyle aspirations. This comes at a time when more tourists from China are flocking to overseas destinations, with the platform fueling travel ideas.

In addition to Manus, startup Zhipu AI offers a free AI agent that can conduct research, perform web searches, and plan travel. And in March, Alibaba launched a new AI multimodal model that can be deployed on edge devices as a powerful way to build cost-effective agents. China’s significant spending on AI will help spur the intense global AI arms race.

Services spending is also under serious pressure: Travel demand and restaurant spending are both tanking as slumping confidence saps consumers’ desire to splurge. Our take: Consumer spending has been resilient over the past few years as rising incomes and a growing economy helped offset inflationary pressures.

Travel demand is particularly high this year, in part because Beijing extended the public holiday period by an extra day. An estimated 9 billion trips will be made across China between January 14 and February 22, according to government officials. That’s an increase of nearly 7% YoY. Consumers are taking advantage of the longer holiday to travel further, both domestically and internationally.

Rappi and DiDi go even further, operating across retail, banking, and travel. The super app model captures behavioral, transactional, and loyalty data across multiple verticals—giving advertisers a multidimensional view of consumers. Unlocking this opportunity, however, requires overcoming significant internal challenges.