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☆ Rory McIlroy Just Misses a Hollywood Ending at the U.S. Open
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( Bill Pennington | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It might have been fitting if someone from Holywood won this year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. But Rory McIlroy, born in the Northern Ireland town by that name, is not having that kind of year. On Sunday, McIlroy was chasing his first major championship title in nine years, a drought that continues to shadow a luminous career that began with four major titles from 2011 to 2014. McIlroy, like almost all of the PGA Tour’s players, felt blindsided. But on Sunday, a buoyant, smiling McIlroy, 34, was again enthusiastically chasing another major title, in the final round of the 123rd U.S. Open.

Persons: Holywood, Rory McIlroy, McIlroy, LIV, Wyndham Clark, Rickie Fowler Organizations: Los Angeles Country Club, Sunday, PGA Tour, PGA, 123rd U.S . Locations: U.S, Northern Ireland, Saudi

☆ For PGA Tour Players, Betrayal and Confusion in Saudi Deal’s Wake
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour was changing. Then came the tour’s surprise announcement on June 6 that, after it had lobbied players to forsake the Saudi money it had associated with human rights abuses, the PGA Tour and the wealth fund would join forces. None of the five players who sit on the tour’s board learned of the deal more than a few hours before it became public. June 6, he said, showed that the voices of tour players had suddenly been “thrown out the door a little bit.”Woodland is not an outlier. In interviews and during news conferences at the Open, top players described a shaken faith in a PGA Tour they believed had recently offered them more meaningful agency and greater influence.

Persons: Gary Woodland, LIV Golf Organizations: U.S, PGA Tour, Los Angeles Country Club Locations: Saudi, Washington

☆ PGA Tour’s Deal With LIV’s Saudi Backers to Be Investigated by the Justice Department
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Andrew Beaton | Louise Radnofsky | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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Persons: Dow Jones

☆ PGA Tour-Saudi deal scrutiny intensifies as Senate Finance Committee investigates
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Samantha Delouya | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The backlash to the proposed merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf intensified as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, opened an investigation into the deal on Thursday. The committee will probe the deal between the US-based PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed LIV Golf and assess what the deal means for national security. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. The surprise deal this month between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, competing tours locked in a legal battle before the merger announcement, has faced growing opposition from lawmakers. The US-based PGA Tour said the merger would “unify the game” and all pending litigation between the tours would be dropped under the new agreement.

Persons: LIV Golf, Ron Wyden, ” Wyden, Wyden, Mohammed bin Salman, Bin Salman, Jamal Khashoggi, Elizabeth Warren, LIV, “ Organizations: CNN, PGA, Saudi Public Investment Fund, Saudi, of Justice, PGA Tour, DOJ, Democratic, Senate, LIV Locations: Oregon, United States, Saudi, Saudi Arabia, U.S

☆ Pros Won’t Be Hitting Golf Balls This Far Forever, Whether They Like It or Not
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

is also concerned about the millions of golfers who are not professionals and neither he nor Perpall indicated plans for a wholesale surrender. The announcement that Monahan had stepped back followed seven days of turmoil in professional golf. Monahan, who helped to negotiate the deal, was criticized as a cash-hungry hypocrite, but he has retained at least some crucial allies inside the tour. “Jay is a human being,” Webb Simpson, the 2012 U.S. Open winner and a member of the tour’s board, said in an interview on Wednesday. “Golf is a game, and oftentimes, we make golf into something so much bigger than it is and we dehumanize people.” Perhaps, he said, Tuesday’s announcement would give “people a little perspective.”

Persons: Mike Whan, ’, Perpall, ” Whan, “, Jay Monahan, Ron Price, Tyler Dennis, Monahan, “ Jay, ” Webb Simpson, ” Organizations: PGA Tour, U.S, LIV Golf Locations: Saudi

☆ Congress Prepares to Tee Off on the PGA Tour’s Saudi Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Louise Radnofsky | Andrew Beaton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ US Senate opens investigation into new partnership between PGA Tour and LIV Golf
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Matt Foster | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The US Senate opened an investigation into the proposed merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s owners, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), on Monday. The letter to the PGA Tour is addressed to its commissioner, Jay Monahan, while chief executive Greg Norman received the letter to LIV Golf. Both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have until June 26 to hand over the requested documentation, per the letters. Brooks Koepka putts on the 18th green during a LIV Golf event on October 30, 2022. “I think the commissioner has been so discredited that he can hardly present a credible voice for [the PGA Tour].

Persons: LIV Golf’s, Democratic Sen, Richard Blumenthal, LIV Golf, Jay Monahan, Greg Norman, “, ”, LIV, Brooks Koepka putts, Eric Espada, Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, “ I’m, ” Blumenthal, Monahan, ” Sen, Chris Murphy Organizations: CNN, Senate, PGA, Saudi, Public Investment Fund, Democratic, Investigations, PGA Tour, Tour, Justice Department, of Justice Locations: American

☆ Golf’s Titanic Deal Stokes Anger on Capitol Hill
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The trouble for the wealth fund and the tour is that Washington also has a bipartisan affection for lawmakers imitating sports executives, and browbeating actual ones, in public and in private. The tour and the wealth fund can take some comfort in history, which suggests a successful congressional effort to thwart the deal directly is unlikely. The Hill, though, could still seek to make the transaction painful beyond a feisty public hearing or two. Groups like the PGA Tour have combated legislative headaches surrounding their tax-exempt status in the past, with one effort to end the practice for sports leagues vanishing from a 2017 tax bill at the last moment. In the past 18 months, years after the N.F.L.

Persons: Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, “, ” Organizations: Major League Baseball, Democrat, Senate Finance Committee Locations: Washington, Oregon

☆ First Came Golf’s Flash Grenade. Now, Here’s the U.S. Open.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For the first time in generations, the PGA Tour was not the unrivaled signature show in American men’s golf. How might players who defected from the tour to LIV be allowed to return? And what about all of that money, said to be $100 million or more in some instances, that the wealth fund promised LIV golfers? Much about the framework agreement, though, is unclear, with bankers and lawyers still rushing to fill in blanks on matters as weighty as asset valuation. (“I don’t have enough information about the deal yet to have an unfavorable or favorable view about it,” Patrick Cantlay, a player who is on the PGA Tour’s board, said on Tuesday.)

Persons: Lyndon, Johnson’s, LIV, ” Patrick Cantlay Organizations: Torrey, PGA Locations: Torrey Pines, San Diego, Sea Pines, Hilton Head, Saudi, London, Venice, San Francisco, New York

☆ Senate Opens Inquiry Into PGA Tour Deal with Saudi-Funded LIV Golf
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Kevin Draper | Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have not yet closed a stunning partnership agreement announced only last week, but vows from Washington to slow or stop the deal — or at least make it uncomfortable for golf executives — crystallized on Monday, when the Senate opened an inquiry into the arrangement. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and the chairman of the chamber’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said Monday that he had demanded that both the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian-funded LIV give up a wide array of documents and communications tied to the agreement. Blumenthal also asked for records related to the PGA Tour’s nonprofit status, suggesting an appetite to challenge the tour’s tax-exempt standing. In a statement issued three days before the start of the U.S. Open in Los Angeles, Blumenthal decried Saudi Arabia’s “deeply disturbing human rights record at home and abroad” and said the agreement raised concerns “about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”

Persons: LIV, Richard Blumenthal, Blumenthal, Saudi Arabia’s, ” Organizations: Senate, Investigations, PGA Tour, PGA, U.S, Saudi Locations: Washington, Connecticut, Saudi, Los Angeles, American

☆ LIV Golf’s al-Rumayyan and the PGA Tour’s Monahan Make Strange Bedfellows
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( John Branch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After more than a year of high-stakes jockeying and long-distance accusations, Jay Monahan and Yasir al-Rumayyan finally met in May, an arranged blind date in some Venice cafe or hotel. The 53-year-olds in charge could not be more different: Monahan, the American commissioner of the PGA Tour since 2017, and al-Rumayyan, the trusted confidant of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and overseer of his country’s massive Public Investment Fund. It is that fund, claiming to be worth somewhere close to $700 billion, that bought its way into golf last Tuesday. It ended a sniping, court-complicated fight between the PGA’s American and European tours and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour. It instantly solved the PGA Tour’s financial struggles.

Persons: Jay Monahan, Yasir al, Rumayyan, bedfellows, Monahan, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, LIV Organizations: PGA, Saudi Arabia’s Crown, Public Investment Fund Locations: Venice, Saudi

☆ US senator opens probe into PGA Tour, LIV Golf agreement
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Senator Richard Blumenthal on Monday asked the PGA Tour and LIV Golf for communications and records related to their planned merger. Blumenthal, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), demanded details on how PGA Tour came to its agreement with LIV Golf and how any newly formed entity will be structured and operated, including how the PGA Tour intends to preserve its tax-exempt status. The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and rival Saudi-backed LIV circuit, which had been involved in a bitter fight that split the sport, announced an agreement last week to merge and form one unified commercial entity. "PGA Tour’s agreement with (Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund) regarding LIV Golf raises concerns about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution," Blumenthal wrote. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNBC last week that it was not immediately obvious that the PGA merger with LIV was a matter of national security.

Persons: Richard Blumenthal, LIV, Blumenthal, LIV Golf, Janet Yellen, Ron Wyden, David Shepardson, Rami Ayyub, Doina, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Monday, PGA, Investigations, Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Saudi, Foreign Investment, Treasury, CNBC, Senate Finance, Thomson Locations: Saudi, American, U.S

☆ PGA Tour commissioner says Tour ‘couldn’t afford to keep battling Saudi Arabia,’ Wall Street Journal reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Jacob Lev | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan told employees in a meeting on Thursday that it couldn’t “conduct a lengthy spending war against Saudi Arabia,” according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. “We cannot compete with a foreign government with unlimited money,” Monahan told employees, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal, Monahan told employees that the Tour had already spent $50 million in legal fees and had dipped into its reserves for $100 million to help pay increased purses in elevated events and other bonuses to players. “To characterize this agreement was made due to litigation costs and other use of reserves is an oversimplification,” a PGA Tour spokesperson told CNN on Saturday. “The PGA TOUR has never been a more valuable property and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) has recognized that value and the opportunity for ROI with their investment in the TOUR.”“Additionally, this transaction will make professional golf more competitive with other professional sports and sports leagues,” the Tour continued.

Persons: Jay Monahan, Monahan, ” Monahan, LIV, ” Organizations: CNN, PGA, Wall Street, PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Public Investment Fund Locations: Saudi Arabia, Ponte Vedra Beach , Florida, Saudi

Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, had gone unnoticed in Venice last month. He was in town for the same wedding that had brought al-Rumayyan to Venice. If the motor sports executive spotted the PGA Tour’s leader, he would assuredly connect the presences of Monahan and al-Rumayyan, and golf’s greatest secret might get out. The civil war that had disrupted and defined the once genteel sport — for example, Monahan once publicly asked whether PGA Tour players had ever felt compelled to apologize for competing on the circuit — was abruptly suspended. The tour’s reputation was stained and many of its loyalists were furious, but its coffers were poised to overflow.

Persons: Jay Monahan, Yasir al, LIV, Stefano Domenicali, Monahan, Domenicali, — Organizations: PGA Tour, PGA, LIV Golf Locations: Venice, Italy, Saudi

☆ The PGA Tour’s Antitrust Problem Isn’t Going Away With LIV Merger
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Louise Radnofsky | Andrew Beaton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Dow Jones

An announcement by the PGA Tour declared a partnership with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, as well as the DP World Tour, unifying the trio under a new, yet-to-be-named, commercial entity. An eight-time winner on the PGA Tour and the 2020 US Open champion, DeChambeau’s move was a huge coup for LIV Golf. Yet many of the game’s biggest stars stayed put, with several becoming outspoken critics of LIV Golf. The latter purportedly turned down a $700 - $800 million offer to join the breakaway series, according to LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman. “I do feel bad for the PGA Tour players because they were told one thing and something else happened.

Persons: Bryson DeChambeau, “, LIV, DeChambeau, DeChambeau’s, LIV Golf, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, ” DeChambeau, it’s, Suhaimi Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s, LIV Golf’s, Mohammed bin Salman, Jamal Khashoggi, Bin Salman, Quizzed, Collins, “ I’m, I’m, ” Bryson, Brett Eagleson, Maddie Meyer, ” Organizations: CNN, PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, PGA, “, LIV, Sentosa Golf Club, Saudi, Congress, United, America, Getty Locations: Saudi, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Washington, al Qaeda

☆ Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Stephen Collinson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

And the deal is also undeniably a great piece of business, assuming PGA Tour players accept it. And all pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was also mutually ended under the new agreement. He “co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sports washing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,” the group said in a statement. Unresolved sporting conundrumsThere are as many sporting questions about the PGA Tour/LIV Golf partnership that remain unanswered. Then there is the question of how current PGA Tour members will respond.

Persons: LIV Golf, Arnold Palmer, Jamal Khashoggi, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, –, LIV –, Jay Monahan, Monahan, ”, “, Saudi LIV, ” Monahan, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Cam Smith, Donald Trump, LIV, Trump, Khashoggi, ” Trump, Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Tuesday’s LIV, Qataris, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, ” Yasir Al, Rumayyan, of Famer Greg Norman, Collin Morikawa, Mickelson, Alan Shipnuck, Shipnuck Organizations: CNN, PGA, Saudi, Post, Premier League, Global, Families United, Saudi shills, Crown, Formula One, NBA, Tour, Qatar, Soccer, Manchester City, United, Newcastle, Indian Premier League, Al, Real, Saudi Public Investment, “, Saudi Public Investment Fund, CNBC, of Famer, Open, Twitter Locations: Washington, Saudi, Qaeda, Riyadh, China, Western Europe, East, India, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Ittihad, Real Madrid, French

☆ The Merger of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour: Here’s What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The PGA Tour and LIV announced Tuesday the creation of a new entity that would combine their assets, as well as those of the DP World Tour, and radically change golf’s governance. The PGA Tour would remain a nonprofit organization and would retain full control over how its tournaments are played. This is how Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, answered questions Tuesday about what golf might look like in the future. “I don’t want to make any statements or make any predictions.”Will LIV golfers go back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour? Will PGA Tour players, many of whom spurned LIV and its huge paydays, receive compensation?

Persons: LIV, ” NewCo, Yasir al, Jay Monahan, Will LIV, ” Monahan Organizations: PGA, Public Investment Fund, LIV, PGA Tour

The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, as well as exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.

Persons: Annie Correal Organizations: New York Times, Times

☆ Saudi Arabia Relishes a Triumph That Transcends Sports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Vivian Nereim | Ahmed Al Omran | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When a Saudi-backed upstart golf league began recruiting high-profile players from the top U.S. circuit, the American tour’s commissioner lamented a “foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf.”The commissioner, Jay Monahan, who heads the PGA Tour, sniped at players who left for the new league, LIV Golf, hinting at the stain that the Saudi government’s human rights violations would leave on them. But on Tuesday, Mr. Monahan sat smiling with the head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to announce that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were forming what promises to be a lucrative partnership. “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” Mr. Monahan said later. “But circumstances do change.”The deal, if it goes forward, represents an enormous victory for Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a bid to become a major player in global sports, giving the kingdom considerable sway over the game of golf. But the significance of the moment transcends sports, as Saudi Arabia under Prince Mohammed seeks greater political influence in the Middle East and beyond.

Persons: Jay Monahan, sniped, LIV Golf, Monahan, LIV, “, Mr, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Prince Mohammed Organizations: PGA Locations: Saudi, Saudi Arabia

Golf becomes a geopolitical trophyThe shock news that the PGA Tour plans to join forces with LIV Golf, the upstart circuit that it has spent the past year feuding with, rattled the normally staid world of golf. Saudi Arabia, LIV’s backer, now stands to hold enormous sway over golf, as it invests billions to extend its presence throughout pro sports — and beyond. It’s an additional sign of how the kingdom is seeking to assert its role as a growing geopolitical and global business power. Covert jet-setting talks led to the golf deal. Those on the Saudi side included the banker Michael Klein, a longtime adviser to the kingdom.

Persons: LIV Golf, LIV, Jay Monahan, Ed Herlihy, Wachtell, Jimmy Dunne, Piper Sandler, Michael Klein Organizations: PGA Tour, PGA, Allen & Company Locations: Saudi Arabia, what’s, Saudi

☆ PGA Tour and LIV Golf Agree to Alliance, Ending Golf’s Bitter Fight
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour, the dominant force in men’s professional golf for generations, and LIV Golf, which made its debut just last year and is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi money, will together form an industry powerhouse that is expected to transform the sport, executives announced Tuesday. The rival circuits had spent the last year clashing in public, and the tentative agreement that emerged from secret negotiations blindsided virtually all of the world’s top players, agents and broadcasters. The deal would create a new company that would consolidate the PGA Tour’s prestige, television contracts and marketing muscle with Saudi money. The deal, coming when Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking to assert itself on the world stage as something besides one of the world’s largest oil producers, has implications beyond sports. The Saudi money will give the new organization greater clout, but it comes with the troubling association of the kingdom’s human rights record, its treatment of women and accusations that it was responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading critic.

Persons: LIV Golf, blindsided, Yasir al, Jamal Khashoggi Organizations: PGA, Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund Locations: Saudi, Saudi Arabia

☆ PGA Tour announces shock reconciliation with Saudi-backed breakaway LIV Golf
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Jack Bantock | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The US-based PGA Tour is set to partner with the Saudi-backed breakaway LIV Golf, ending a feud that has dogged the men’s professional game for the past year. A spokesperson for the PGA Tour told CNN that the new relationship between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf is not a merger, but “a partnership/creation of a new commercial entity.”The LIV Golf series, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), officially launched in June 2022, with participating players subsequently barred from competing in PGA Tour events. “After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. In August 2022, the four-time major winner told CNN that LIV Golf had “ripped apart” the men’s game. Tiger Woods was also critical, arguing in July 2022 that players who joined LIV Golf had “turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.”Woods had been critical of players to join LIV Golf.

Persons: LIV, LIV Golf, Mohammed bin Salman, ”, Jay Monahan, Monahan, Yasir Al, PIF, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, “, ” Woods, Richard Heathcote, Phil Mickelson, Mickelson Organizations: CNN, PGA, PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, MBS, LIV Golf, Getty, Twitter Locations: Saudi, Saudi Arabia

☆ Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ (Lindsay’s Version)
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Dear listeners,This past weekend, along with more than 200,000 people in the New York metropolitan area, I attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. I saw sights I will never forget: more than one person, in late May, dressed head to toe as a Christmas tree (an inside joke about Swift growing up on a Christmas tree farm … I think? ); a father proudly wearing a handmade shirt that read “Real Men Listen to Taylor Swift”; enough sequins per square inch that, when the sun hit it right, MetLife Stadium could probably be seen from space. But, of course, I also saw a generation-defining pop superstar performing at the top of her game, throughout a sprawling, near-three-and-a-half-hour set that highlighted her stylistic versatility, physical stamina and ongoing evolution as a songwriter. Though Swift has long had a flair for both spectacle and intimacy in a live setting, what I couldn’t shake (shake, shake) during this marathon 45-song set was how completely she’s come into her power as a performer.

Persons: Taylor, Swift, Taylor Swift, Jon Caramanica, “, ” Organizations: MetLife Locations: New York

☆ Pent-up demand promises record tourist season for southern Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Giselda Vagnoni | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

What's more, there appears to be growing demand for the luxury end of the spectrum. Portugal registered more than 2.8 million of foreign visitors from January to March, the best first quarter on record, according to official data. Airlines such as Lufthansa, easyJet and Ryanair have confirmed robust summer bookings while Ryanair, in anticipation of strong demand, has just ordered 150 new 737 Max-10s and optioned another 150. Italian travel and tourism company Alpitour forecasts turnover 30% higher this year. "We already see a very strong demand to book Christmas holidays in 2023.

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