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1. Fire shuts down Heathrow Airport
A fire overnight at one of London Heathrow's electrical facilities has shut down the airport, resulting in more than 1,350 flight cancellations, HNN's Terence Baker reports. Emergency officials have asked travelers with booked flights not to come to the airport “under any circumstances.”
While the airport has backup electrical systems, it takes time to restart them safely.
In 2024, the airport serviced 83.9 million passengers, and it manages on average almost half a million flights each year. The airport handles so many flights that connecting flights can't all be diverted to nearby airports, such as London Gatwick or London Standstead.
2. Countries issue travel advisories for trips to US
Germany and the United Kingdom have issued travel advisories to their citizens regarding trips to the U.S. after several European and Canadian residents ran into problems entering the U.S., Reuters reports. Both countries are telling their citizens to make sure to comply with all entry and visa requirements as rules are strictly enforced at the risk of arrest or detention.
An article by the Associated Press outlines several occasions when U.S. border agents detained foreign visitors attempting to enter the country who say they were in compliance with entry requirements.
3. Hotel industry prepares for tariffs
The implementation of tariffs on goods from China, Mexico and Canada will raise costs on U.S. hotel companies who source equipment and food from the affected nations, but there are strategies they can take to try to mitigate the higher prices, HNN reports. Those include looking to different sources of goods as well as understanding how the tariff process actually works to know if, when and how they might apply.
“The best advice I would tell people is, there’s no reason to panic,” said Alan Benjamin, president of hospitality furniture, fixtures and equipment procurement firm Benjamin West.
4. US hotel performance for February 2025
For the month of February, U.S. hotels reported occupancy increased 0.5% year over year to 59.1% while average daily rate increased 1.4% to $159.39, resulting in revenue per available room growth of 1.9% to $94.24, according to data from CoStar.
Among the top 25 markets, Tampa had the highest occupancy level, growing 9.2% to 86.4%. Minneapolis and St. Louis had the lowest occupancy levels, hitting 49.5% and 50.7% respectively.
5. Inflation slows in Japan
Consumer inflation slowed its pace from January to February in Japan, but the overall upward trend in prices will likely lead to further interest rate increases, the Wall Street Journal reports. Overall consumer prices rose 3.7% year over year in February, down from 4% the month before.
“The strength in underlying inflation in February suggests that the Bank of Japan could hike rates at its next meeting in May,” said Marcel Thieliant, head of Asia-Pacific at Capital Economics, adding that U.S. tariffs may lead the central bank to delay that until July.
“Either way, the continued strength in inflation supports our view the bank will tighten policy more aggressively than most anticipate,” he said.