American Express Travel President Talks About the Post-Pandemic Vacation Boom

Audrey Hendley, as the president of American Express Travel, is attuned to how trips have evolved in recent years and what vacationers are seeking on those getaways.

The organisation is one of the largest travel and lifestyle networks in the world and spans 7,000 travel consultants in 23 countries. Its global footprint includes 1,400 lounges in 140 countries and more than 1,500 properties in its collection of Fine Hotels + Resorts.

Business at American Express Travel is bouncing back from the pandemic slump: In the second quarter of this year, bookings through the network across 138 million American Express cards that are currently in use reached pre-Covid levels.

Hendley, who lives in Westchester, New York, speaks to Penta about the most in-demand travel destinations, the new movement of traveling with a purpose, and her top advice for maximising any trip.

Penta: What are some travel trends you’re seeing this year?

Audrey Hendley: We have seen a notable shift in people’s interests driving travel decisions. Travellers are booking “set-jetting” trips that are inspired by shows like The White Lotus and Emily in Paris because they are increasingly inspired by pop culture.

Food also continues to impact booking decisions, with people building entire trips around reservations at incredible restaurants like Noma in Copenhagen or blocking off afternoons to do a taco tour in Mexico City. Travel has become less about the “where” and more about the “why.”

Which destinations are the most popular and what’s up and coming?

We put out a Trending Destinations list every year that highlights the places our card members are traveling to; 2023 is a mix of perennial favourites like Paris and the Florida Key, and some lesser-known destinations like Woodstock, Vermont, and Montenegro. While people are still revisiting the cities they love, we are also seeing an increase in trips to places that are off the beaten path. And as borders have opened post-pandemic, we’re seeing more trips being booked to places like Asia and Australia.

How do you think the rising cost of travel will impact decisions in 2023?

Our 2023 Global Travel Trends Report found that 80% of travellers would rather take a dream vacation than purchase a new luxury item. Our values have fundamentally shifted since the pandemic, and now, people want meaning in everything they do—travel included. They’re more purposeful.

Pre-pandemic, travel was about checking off a list of destinations you wanted to see. Now, it’s about really exploring and seeing a place in depth. Travelers will go to fewer places but see more where they do go. And they’re willing to spend on experiences and memories—what better way to create those things than travel?

How are younger generations shepherding the travel trends that we are seeing today?

As they continue to gain independence and financial freedom, millennial and Gen Z travellers are putting their stamp on modern travel trends. They want experiences, especially ones that look good in photos on social media. We are also seeing that they are extremely conscious of the impact their trips have on the environment and the communities they visit. They are pushing the industry to be more purposeful—they want hotels that prioritise sustainability, support local economies by employing locals, and value inclusion and diversity.

Can you speak to the hallmark of a great hotel and a great hotel stay?

It’s a property that knows you when you’re there. The staff addresses you by name and makes you feel at home. They offer exceptional service, a luxury that’s relaxed and infuses your stay with personal touches. I was in Paris on a recent work trip, for example, and stayed at the Maison Delano, one of the newest properties in the city. I walked into my room and found a charger that worked in France waiting for me as a welcome gift. It was such a simple gesture but meant so much on a work trip.

The Centurion Lounge Network has been regarded as one of the most luxurious airport lounge experiences. What sets it apart from other airport lounges?

I think it’s the quality of the product. We try to offer elevated food and local flavours. The lounge at San Francisco Airport, for example, features wines from nearby Napa Valley, and in Seattle, home to a big coffee culture, we have a coffee and espresso bar. With cuisine, we try to use chefs from that location to create menus, and they’re all different by location. We also try to use as many local producers as possible.

In addition, we offer high-touch services like chair massages and manicures in some lounges.

As a globetrotter yourself, what are some of your best travel tips?

I like to travel like a local, especially to touristy destinations. I always look for the small shops and restaurants that give me the true flavour of a destination rather than the big names where all the tourists go.

I also enjoy visiting popular destinations during the so-called off-peak season. I was in Venice [Italy] in February where the weather was glorious, and there weren’t nearly as many crowds as there are during the summer.

On business trips, I love carving out some personal time to balance the intensity of long workdays. I also start the day with some form of exercise whether it’s a run or jog—this also gives me an opportunity to see the destination.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OpenAI says it is scrapping the release of its next-generation AI model over safety concerns that researchers raised during internal testing, in one of the clearest signs so far that agent misbehavior could stymie the industry’s rapid progression.

The move follows a summer punctuated by reports of artificial-intelligence systems industrywide going rogue, and marks a rare case of a major AI developer ditching a new release because of safety concerns.

The company had planned to launch the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra, in the coming days or weeks, aiming for an October debut. The model was more capable than the company’s previous models in completing challenging tasks from end-to-end without human assistance, as well as writing.

The company instead will focus on improving the safety of future models, which it expects to be even more capable.

Saachi Jain, OpenAI’s head of safety systems, said in an interview that GPT-6.1 Astra regressed in two areas. Compared with its predecessor, GPT-6 Astra, the model performed poorly on tests measuring alignment, or how well the model adheres to what humans would like it to do. Specifically, GPT-6.1 Astra showed higher levels of deception: It wasn’t always honest about telling users of the actions it did or didn’t take.

Another issue was what OpenAI calls “scope authorization,” meaning that GPT-6.1 Astra would push ahead on a task without asking the user for permission, and would at times reach for external tools and services even if it might be unsafe.

“For anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s a trade off,” Jain said. “You really do need to find what’s the right line between staying within scope, but also avoiding laziness in terms of how the model actually pursues tasks even when it hits friction.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended a United Nations Security Council meeting about AI last week. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

While GPT-6.1 Astra improved in areas such as “model laziness,” Jain said it didn’t quite meet OpenAI’s bar for safety and alignment, so the company decided not to launch the model publicly.

The announcement comes one day ahead of OpenAI’s annual developer conference in San Francisco. In the past, OpenAI has used the conference as an opportunity to launch new models and services that reduce costs for software developers—a segment the ChatGPT-maker competes with rival AI company Anthropic to win over.

In recent weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have called on industry partners to slow down the development of cutting-edge AI models and invest in safety standards, noting they will temper the pace of their own internal AI progress.

OpenAI says it is working to investigate a range of agent security incidents that it has discovered in recent months, and address the safety issues underneath them. As part of the work, the company has implemented a new monitoring system to catch AI-agent misbehavior more quickly, and started requiring engineers to use stronger security guardrails for testing its AI systems.

Earlier this summer hundreds of OpenAI’s internal agents, which were tasked with completing a cybersecurity test, ended up hacking into the AI company Hugging Face. Since then, high-profile organizations such as the Australian government and United Nations discovered that OpenAI’s agents used similar, but less extensive, techniques to gain access to their websites.

Many of the publicly known agent-security incidents involved OpenAI’s internal AI models that were never slated for public release.

Last week, OpenAI said it paused training on its most capable AI models after an AI agent slipped through a gap in the company’s internet restrictions to query a public chatbot. The company said its new monitoring systems flagged the incident within 15 minutes, and training on these models remains paused.

GPT-6.1 Astra isn’t one of those models, but a different case, the company said.

“We want to make sure our model development is safe no matter whether that’s in the company, or when we ship it to users,” Jain said. “But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment.”

While the company decided not to ship GPT-6.1 Astra, it hopes to use the same base model to do additional reinforcement learning runs, and create future generations of its GPT-6 models.

OpenAI plans to conduct several deep dives to identify the root cause of the problems identified in GPT-6.1 Astra, Jain said. The work includes ensuring that OpenAI’s reinforcement learning environments are rewarding the right type of behavior, Jain added, though she noted the company would investigate all stages of model development.

AI companies have begun to draw scrutiny from policymakers and public officials, who are paying attention to the rapid development of the technology. Later this week, a Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing with third party AI researchers titled, “Rogue AI: Securing the Homeland Against AI Agent Attacks.”

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, a Republican, sued OpenAI in June, claiming that the company and Chief Executive Sam Altman knowingly released an unsafe product and ignored warnings that it could harm users.

In a motion for temporary injunction filed Monday, Uthmeier sought to prevent OpenAI from developing new AI models without third-party approved safeguards, stop ChatGPT from soliciting user engagement and limit the company’s ability to advertise ChatGPT as safe.

Tech companies claim they “cannot stop barreling forward with their potentially civilization-ending endeavors unless they are forced to do so by the government,” Uthmeier said in the filing. “The Florida Attorney General is answering your cry for help.”

An OpenAI spokeswoman said that people want to know AI is being developed safely, “and that starts with what companies like ours do ourselves.”

“Governments have an important role to play in setting robust safety standards for AI, and we’re committed to working with Florida and other states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry—not just one company,” she said.