A new season of The White Lotus means a new resort—or in this case, three—to wanderlust after. For Season 3, the series is set on Koh Samui, the second largest island in Thailand, and the properties are as thrilling as the plot twists. Once again, the Four Seasons is the official hotel partner of the Emmy-winning HBO show and the Four Seasons Koh Samui features villas with private pools and panoramic ocean views. But there are two other properties featured in the new season: Anantara Bophut Koh Samui and its sister hotel, Anantara Lawana Koh Samui. Here’s what you need to know about the luxurious resorts on Season 3 of The White Lotus.
Golden visas offer EU residency through investment, but rising concerns over housing, security and fairness have caused many countries to shut them down or tighten regulations. In April, Spain will end its golden visa option, which has caused demand in Greece and Portugal to spike. (Portugal even introduced a digital process to fast-track applications.) Here’s what it takes to get a golden visa in Portugal and Greece.
Plenty of vacation destinations can be described as “out of this world” but some are considered ideal for visitors from another planet. With UFO sightings becoming more common in mainstream media and with many alien festivals being staged around the world, UFO tourism is booming. From China to Chile, here are 15 UFO hotspots around the world for E.T. seekers who know the truth is out there.
European Best Destinations just released its annual report on the top places in Europe to visit this year, based on recommendations from more than 1.2 million travelers across 158 countries. The top 20 were chosen for their quality of life, sustainable development, cultural offerings and other factors. This year, Monaco was named the top destination in Europe with Riga, Latvia and Dubrovnik, Croatia rounding out the top three.
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Wego India Innovates with Technology to Streamline Travel Search, Address Trends, and Drive Post-Pandemic Growth
Friday, July 11, 2025
Wego India, a prominent metasearch engine in the travel industry, is revolutionizing the way Indian travelers plan and book their journeys by leveraging cutting-edge technology. According to Bernard Corraya, General Manager of Wego India, the company’s focus on technology and customer experience has been pivotal in enhancing travel search and expanding options for Indian users.
In an exclusive interview with TTW, Bernard Corraya, GM of Wego India, discussed the company’s innovative approach to revolutionizing the travel experience for Indian users. He highlighted Wego India’s integration of real-time APIs, offering seamless flight, hotel, and train bookings. The platform now features flexible fares, multi-carrier itineraries, and a growing focus on experiential accommodations. Corraya also emphasized Wego’s efforts to deliver personalized travel recommendations using machine learning. As India’s travel industry recovers post-pandemic, Wego is contributing to both domestic and outbound tourism by offering flexible, competitive options and a streamlined travel ecosystem.
Wego’s platform aggregates real-time data from airlines, hotels, rail operators, and OTAs through API integrations, ensuring users have access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive options available. This enables the search for flights, hotels, and trains to be smooth and seamless. A significant addition in early 2024 was the integration of a train-booking service, which directly pulls IRCTC availability, allowing users to search for train tickets alongside flights and hotels. The service is designed to allow users to filter by various preferences, such as class, departure time, and fare type, and even complete payments without leaving the platform. Underpinning this service is a robust infrastructure that ensures that search results are up-to-date, reducing booking friction and improving the user experience for Indian travelers.
Looking ahead to 2025, Wego India has observed key trends in travelers’ preferences. Indian users are increasingly opting for flexible fares, which offer refund and rescheduling options, as well as multi-carrier itineraries for better convenience. Additionally, premium-economy seating is gaining popularity for medium-haul flights as travelers seek more comfort. On the hotel front, there is a growing demand for experiential and long-stay accommodations, particularly in tier-II and tier-III cities. The preference for boutique properties and serviced apartments—combining home-style amenities with hotel services—reflects a shift in how Indian travelers want to experience their stays.
To ensure competitive pricing and a wide array of options, Wego India utilizes a dynamic pricing engine that aggregates fares from multiple sources, including direct airline APIs, global distribution systems, and third-party OTAs. This ensures that Wego India users have access to the most competitive prices, along with the flexibility to explore both standard and exclusive package deals.
The company has also embraced the demand for personalized travel recommendations. Wego employs machine-learning algorithms that analyze a user’s past searches, bookings, and travel preferences to present more tailored options. This creates a more personalized experience, allowing users to discover flights, hotels, and destinations that match their individual needs. Additionally, the homepage features “inspiration modules,” offering curated destination guides based on collective trend data.
As India’s travel industry recovers post-pandemic, Wego India is playing a crucial role in facilitating both outbound and domestic travel. With the rise in domestic tourism and outbound travel, Wego India has integrated self-drive rental services through a partnership with Zoomcar, further enhancing the convenience of travel. The company has also worked to make the booking process contactless, ensuring safety and flexibility for travelers. By aggregating multiple travel services—flights, hotels, trains, and self-drive rentals—into a seamless ecosystem, Wego India is paving the way for future growth in both leisure and business travel.
1. How is Wego India leveraging technology to enhance the travel search experience for Indian users?
Wego India operates a robust metasearch engine that aggregates live inventory from hundreds of airlines, hotels, rail operators and OTAs via real‐time API integrations. In early 2024, Wego introduced an integrated train-booking service—pulling IRCTC availability directly into its app and website—to complement flight and hotel search, allowing users to filter by class, departure time and fare type, then complete payment without leaving the Wego platform.
Under the hood, a combination of low-latency caching, incremental data polling, and predictive algorithms for ticket-confirmation probabilities ensures that search results remain both comprehensive and up-to-date, significantly reducing booking friction for Indian travelers.
2. What trends are you seeing in Indian travelers’ preferences for flights and hotels in 2025?
Users increasingly prioritize refundable or “flex” fares, multi-carrier itineraries and premium-economy seating for greater comfort on medium-haul routes. Meanwhile, hotel searches reflect a clear shift toward experiential and long-stay accommodations: demand for boutique properties in tier-II and tier-III cities is rising, and extended-stay travelers are booking serviced apartments that blend home-style amenities with hotel-class services.
3. How does Wego India ensure competitive pricing and comprehensive options in a highly dynamic market?
Wego’s dynamic pricing engine continuously polls multiple fare sources, direct airline APIs, global distribution systems and third-party OTAs, refreshing rates every few minutes to capture flash sales and limited-time bundles.
By presenting these aggregated deals side-by-side with standard fares and surfacing exclusive package rates, Wego India guarantees that every search surfaces the broadest choice at the most competitive price.
4. Can you share how Wego is addressing the growing demand for personalized travel recommendations in India?
To move beyond generic search results, Wego deploys machine-learning models that analyze each user’s past searches, bookings, trip durations and demographic signals. These algorithms rank flight and hotel options in order of likely affinity considering preferred cabin classes, budget bands and even seasonal travel habits, while “inspiration modules” on the homepage deliver hand-curated destination guides based on collective trend data. The result is a bespoke planning experience: rather than wading through hundreds of options, users are presented with personalized suggestions that align closely with their unique preferences and travel histories.
5. How is Wego India contributing to the recovery and growth of India’s outbound and domestic travel markets post-pandemic?
As India’s travel industry rebounds, with outbound trips climbing sharply throughout the year and domestic tourism leading the recovery, Wego has expanded its rail-booking service to capture intra-India travel demand and partnered with Zoomcar to integrate self-drive rentals directly into its platform.
By aggregating flights, hotels, trains and self-drive vehicles into one seamless ecosystem and by championing contactless booking pathways and flexible cancellation policies. Wego is empowering both leisure and business travellers to plan safe, autonomous journeys across India and beyond.
The Foreign Office has detailed advice for people travelling to Egypt this summer
Kieran Isgin Money & Lifestyle writer
16:16, 10 Jul 2025
Some areas in Egypt are advised against travelling to(Image: Getty Images)
Many people planning their summer getaways this year should be aware that there are many areas in the world where Bris are advised to not travel.
This can be for a variety of reasons, including political tensions and risks of terrorism that could pose a threat to British travellers. Furthermore, if you choose to ignore advice from the Foreign Office, you could be at risk of invalidating your travel insurance, potentially leading to costly fees in the case of a medical emergency.
The Foreign Office also warns that there is a “high threat of terrorist attacks globally affecting UK interests and British nationals”. Additionally, it warns that terrorists are “likely” to attempt an attack within Egyptian borders.
Official guidance adds: “Terrorist attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreign nationals. Stay aware of your surroundings, keep up to date with local media reports and follow the advice of local authorities. Be vigilant in crowds and large gatherings.”
All the areas in Egypt where you shouldn’t travel
A wide variety of areas in Egypt are warned against travelling to, with only a few exceptions being made for essential travel. This includes:
Egypt-Libya border – all travel within 20km of the border, except for El Salloum for essential travel
North Sinai
Northern parts of South Sinai – except essential travel beyond the St Catherine-Nuweibaa road and South Sinai Governorate and coastal areas along the west and east of the peninsula
Easten part of Ismailiyah Governorate – all but essential travel east of the Suez Canal
Hala’ib Triangle and Bir Tawil Trapezoid – except essential travel
The FCDO also advises against all but essential travel to west of the the Nile Valley and Nile Delta region, except for the following exceptions:
the coastal areas between the Nile Delta and Marsa Matruh
the Faiyum Governorate
the White Desert and Black Desert
the oasis town of Siwa
the oasis towns of Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla (Mut) and Kharga
Luxor, Qina, Aswan, Abu Simbel and the Valley of the Kings
the Marsa Matruh-Siwa road
the Giza Governorate north-east of the Bahariya Oasis
Official guidance also provides the exceptions for the following roads between the desert area and the Nile valley:
the road between Kharga and Baris
the road between Baris and Luxor
the road between Farafra, Dakhla (Mut) and Kharga
the road between Giza and Farafra and within 50km either side of this road (but FCDO advises against all but essential travel on the road between Bahariya and Siwa)
All-inclusive family package holidays booked from the UK have been getting more expesive, according to new data that has shown a surge in prices at some summer hotspots favoured among Brits.
Figures collected by TravelSupermarket for the BBC show that the top five most-searched holiday destinations – Spain, Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Portugal – have all experienced price rises
Trips to the UAE have seen the largest spike in price, rising 26 per cent from £1,210 in August 2024, to £1,525 in August 2025.
The figures are based on online searches made on TravelSupermarket from 18 April to 17 June, for all-inclusive, seven-night family holidays in August 2025, compared it to the same month in 2024.
Popular holiday destination Spain has seen a jump in the average cost per person from £835 in August 2024, to £914 in 2025.
The average price in Greece has risen from £926 to £1,038 per person, while Turkey has surged from £874 to £1,003.
Meanwhile, the average price for a week in August in Cyprus, which was number nine in the top 10 most searched, has seen a large jump of 23 per cent from £950 per person to £1,166.
Based on these price hikes, travel agents said they have seen families booking shorter stays or travelling mid-week to try to keep the costs lower.
“Last year we did a lot for 10 nights and this year we’ve got a lot of people dropping to four or seven nights, just a short little weekend vacation, just getting away in the sun,” Luke Fitzpatrick, a travel consultant at Perfect Getaways in Liverpool, told the BBC.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of travel agent industry group Advantage Travel Partnership, told the news agency that the jump in price for package holidays could be for a range of reasons.
“These increases simply keep pace with the broader cost of doing business and reflect the reality of higher operational costs, from increased energy bills affecting hotels, to elevated food costs impacting restaurants and rising wages across the hospitality sector,” she said.
She added that despite the rise in price, the industry group was seeing that some holidaymakers are still willing to put money towards a trip and even splash out on extra perks.
Some customers have been upgrading to premium all-inclusive packages, as well as booking more expensive cabin seats on long-haul flights to destinations such as Dubai, she explained.
While some areas of the world are seeing the price of a package holiday soar, not all destinations popular among Brits are experiencing a surge in costs.
TravelSupermarket says that out of the top 10 most searched countries, Italy and Tunisia have actually seen prices drop by 11 per cent and four per cent, respectively, compared to 2024.
Earlier this year, research by holiday company On the Beach found that all-inclusive package holidays have appealed beyond families to Generation Z. The study found a four per cent year-on-year rise amongst Gen Z travellers, with them accounting for 55 per cent of bookings.
