Skift CEO Rafat Ali: New Foundation Found Inspiration in Puerto Rico
*By Amanda Weston*
Puerto Rico ー still recovering a full year after Hurricane Maria's lashing ー was the inspiration for travel insight company Skift's new foundation, according to the company's CEO.
"\[We\] saw the destruction and the recovery firsthand. Our whole team went," Rafat Ali, CEO of Skift, told Cheddar Friday.
The top names in travel gathered in New York this week for the Skift Global Forum to talk travel industry trends, and Ali's company unveiled its new [Skift Foundation](https://skift.org/), which the CEO said will award grants to underfunded tourism destinations.
"We were very moved by it and said, 'We know what we need to do,' which is, let's create a Skift Foundation that ties up with under-resourced destinations like Puerto Rico and others that we can give either our services, our access to high-priced research which they may or may not be able to afford, to our services, marketing, design. We know the best practices in travel," he said.
The new foundation is not the only headline from this year's forum.
Delta ($DAL) CEO Ed Bastian said on Friday that [free in-flight Wi-Fi](https://skift.com/2018/09/28/delta-ceo-declares-free-in-flight-wi-fi-is-coming/) is on the way.
Bastian did not provide an exact date for when the service might debut, but said a new wireless entertainment system is currently in testing mode on new Airbus A220 planes.
Skift reported that JetBlue ($JBLU) is currently the only large, U.S.-based airline that offers free in-flight Wi-Fi.
On the ground, Hyatt Hotels ($H) CEO Mark Hoplamazian announced Thursday the company will [ban hate groups](https://skift.com/2018/09/27/hyatt-ceo-says-hotels-will-ban-hate-groups-we-need-to-draw-the-line/) from its properties.
"That’s really where we need to draw the line," he said. "We’re going to apply our values to making these decisions along the way."
Hoplamazian and other industry CEOs met with President Trump earlier this month to discuss the importance of international travel.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/skift-ceo-talks-travel-tech-new-foundation-at-forum).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
