Things To Do In SW Florida

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading and setting up the Federal Reserve for an interest rate cut in September.

Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose just 0.2% from June to July after dropping slightly the previous month for the first time in four years. Measured from a year earlier, prices rose 2.9%, down from 3% in June. It was the mildest year-over-year inflation figure since March 2021.

The ongoing inflation slowdown could affect the presidential campaign, given that former President Donald Trump has highlighted rampant inflation as a key failing of the Biden administration and its energy policies. Vice President Kamala Harris has said she would soon unveil new proposals to “bring down costs and also strengthen the economy overall.”

The government said nearly all of July’s inflation reflected higher rental prices and other housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing. As a result, housing costs should rise more slowly in the coming months, contributing to lower inflation. read more

By Abigail Glickman, Bloomberg News

If you’ve lost track of how many people in your orbit have recently posted pictures of themselves at a Formula One race or Taylor Swift concert, chances are you’re not alone. According to new research from Collinson International Ltd., which owns Priority Pass and LoungeKey airport lounges around the world, sports and music tourism are growing at unprecedented rates and are forecast to represent a $1.5 trillion industry by 2032.

Sports tourism represents the overwhelming majority of that figure. Valued at $564.7 billion in 2023, it’s expected to skyrocket to $1.33 trillion in the next eight years. Music tourism, meanwhile, is projected to contribute an additional $13.8 billion, more than doubling its current valuation of $6.6 billion.

For the purposes of its report, published on July 29, Collinson defined travelers as anyone who flew to an event, whether internationally or within their own country. Of 8,537 surveyed travelers from 17 countries, more than four in five (83%) have flown to a sporting event while 71% have boarded a plane for a concert in the past three years, or plan to in the next 12 months. read more

By Lebawit Lily Girma, Bloomberg News

Ask a luxury-minded globetrotter to name their favorite hotel brands and chances are you’ll hear some combination of the following names: Four Seasons Resort & Club, Aman Resorts Group Ltd., Marriott International Inc.’s Luxury Collection and the Ritz Carlton Hotel Co. LLC, or Rosewood Hotels & Resorts LLC.

Now, Hilton Hotels Worldwide Holdings Inc. is doing its best to get on that list. Some loyalists would say it already belongs there — if only for its best-known Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts and Conrad Hotels & Resorts brands.

But even Hilton’s top brass concedes that the hotel behemoth’s reputation lies mainly with road warriors rather than luxury seekers. While Marriott has been busy expanding into luxury all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean and Ritz-Carlton yachts, Hilton has spent the past year focusing on new corporate-leaning brands, such as Tempo by Hilton.

“Here’s the irony — Hilton didn’t have a full category’s worth of luxury brands a few years ago,” says Dino Michael, senior vice president and global head of Hilton’s luxury brands. “But if you look back before today’s proliferation of luxury brands, Hilton was the international hotel brand,” he says, citing its prominence from the 1950s to 1970s. “We have legitimacy in this space, we just changed focus for a while.” read more

A new audit of Visit Orlando, conducted at the urging of Orange County commissioners, found the destination marketing agency again failed to provide details of how it spends millions in public money, engaged in lobbying activities without county permission and did not follow rules as it promised five years ago, according to a memo issued Monday by Comptroller Phil Diamond.

In the three-page missive to commissioners, Diamond listed “significant issues” identified by his auditors and questioned some of the agency’s financial practices, while also alleging Visit Orlando wrongly treats interest earned from millions in tourist-tax money as if it were privately donated.

He termed the audit an interim report which is not finished.

Visit Orlando’s private funds face less scrutiny than its public funding, which comes from Orange County’s Tourist Development Tax, or TDT. Those public funds are the overwhelming bulk of its budget; Visit Orlando’s membership dues accounted for less than 3% of the agency’s $109 million funding stream, according to its 2022 federal tax return. read more

Matthew Goldberg | (TNS) Bankrate.com

Savers, take note: Your options for high-yielding certificates of deposit (CDs) are getting fewer by the day. What’s more, high-yield savings and money market accounts – variable rate deposit accounts that are prone to change in lock step with changes to the federal funds rate as set by the Federal Reserve – could see their yields drop before the Fed’s next interest rate meeting on Sept. 18.

Financial pundits and market prognosticators are confident that the Fed will lower interest rates in September. As of Aug. 8, the CME Group FedWatch tool, which is based on federal fund futures contract prices, projects a 100 percent likelihood of a rate cut. Inflation is down and unemployment is up, two reasons for the Fed to lower rates at its next meeting.

But the latest performance in financial markets has also affected some yields on deposit accounts, most notably CDs. In the course of a few days late last week, economic uncertainty in the U.S. over inflation, a weakening jobs report and fears of a possible, yet unsubstantiated, recession, sent financial markets roiling, particularly in Japan. read more