52 things I learned in 2020–Medium, December 1, 2020 A yearly celebration! Always fun to read with invariably a few insightful snippets like: “For the first time ever, Americans are saying they want more immigration, not less,” or “For VC companies in 2004, the average time from first contact to funding was 90 days. Today, it’s just nine days.” Our favorite: 10% of the GDP…
The Evolving Travel ‘Experience’: Virtual, Actual and In Between–New York Times, November 12, 2020 Guided excursions have long been at the heart of travel, but like everything else, the pandemic disrupted such experiences, and many went virtual. But as travel begins to tick up, tour companies are adapting to social distancing in numerous ways. Some are complementing virtual experiences—for instance, guided chocolate tastings with chocolate shipped…
Last week, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the large, historical organization that promotes social and economic development across Asia-Pacific, held a webinar on how investing in wellness could speed both economic and social recovery in Asia in the wake of COVID-19. The economists shared how the wellness economy accounted for an incredible 11% of developing Asia’s gross domestic product in 2017 and how the overall wellness market has…
How a Covid-19 vaccine could change travel for good–CNN, November 14, 2020 On November 9, it was announced that one of the candidates for a COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech) was over 90% effective in preventing the virus. The hard-hit travel industry immediately got a boost, with airline and cruise company share prices rallying and tour operators seeing upticks in 2021 bookings. This article explores some ways that travel…
Presidential Elections May Be Bad for Your Health–New York Times, October 20 The stress of presidential elections may increase the incidence of heart attacks and strokes, say researchers from Kaiser Permanente looking at the 2016 US election. The study, in PNAS, found that hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease in the two days following that election were 61% higher than in the same two days of the preceding…
The largest-ever study on touch, developed by Goldsmiths University London researchers and conducted by the BBC, happened—ironically—right before the pandemic hit. It surveyed 40,000 people across 112 countries on their attitudes about interpersonal touch—and the findings suggest the huge cost to wellbeing in our long social-distancing era, where so much human touch has been lost. Studies have long shown that touch is essential for physical…
