Live from Arival: Interview Highlights Part 1

We , of course , started off with an interesting conversation with the team at India CityWalks , and then we spoke to Tom Macklin at Evan Evans , and on this episode we're going to continue our discussion by highlighting the amazing conversations we had at the Arrival Conference in San Diego .

Now the Arrival Conference was developed by three individuals Douglas Quinby , bruce Rozard and Alex Kremmer and Douglas and Bruce worked together at Focusrite for many years and , interestingly , douglas was always the one that I was advocating to try and get tours and activities , or at least the multi-day tour category , on stage at the Focusrite conference and ultimately he

realized how significant an opportunity that tour industry space is and he created Arrival with two other founders and it's gone on to become such a great success , and I'm thrilled for him and the team , and I've become close with both Douglas and Bruce over the years , both of whom have actually been featured on the Travel Trends podcast previously , so be sure to

check out their episodes .

But what I wanted to do when I traveled to San Diego this year was to highlight the amazing people that come together for this conference because it is truly unlike any other conference that I've gone to in the travel industry and I had the privilege of speaking at their second conference several years ago in Las Vegas and when I went to their conferences I found

that there were people from around the world , a lot of smaller operators that had come together . This is their big annual industry conference where they get all of the connections , all of the learnings and insights to really understand what's happening in the tours and activities space , which is a very large industry but it's still incredibly fragmented .

So they're very keen to understand about technology , about distribution opportunities . And with this highlight of all the fascinating people I had a chance to meet , I wanted to bring together a broad collection of individuals , from Ben Golan , who you'll hear from first , who is a expert in sandwich tours in New York City .

He's got a fascinating story to tell , and we speak to a number of really interesting individuals , from Liz Philpott that runs Seattle Food Tours , to Justin Buzzy , who runs Get Up and Go Kayaking , beth Santos from Wonderful and we continue the conversation to feature companies like ClassPass that are just expanding into the travel industry .

Plus , we'll hear from Lance Zoll , who runs US Ghost Adventures and has been acquiring murder homes . You have to listen to his story . It is incredible . Homes you have to listen to his story it is incredible . And then we finished it off by bringing together Stephen Joyce and Janelle , who run the Arrival podcast and are true experts in this space .

Janelle was actually the emcee at this event and did an extraordinary job , and so I thought it was perfect to finish off episode one with the two of them . But this is a two-part series because we actually ended up with over eight hours of interviews and we clearly can't bring all of that .

But we can certainly bring the biggest highlights over the course of these two episodes .

And , of course , this series is sponsored by our friends at Satisfylabs , that's , satisfylabscom , who are very active in the travel space and have some incredible AI and live chat functionality that many of these tour operators and tours and activities providers use , so be sure to check them out . Thanks again for your support .

Now , before we get underway , I just wanted to share a few interesting stats about the tours and activity space . I've gotten some great feedback from season four .

As we've been doing these deep dives that many of you appreciate having some of these stats and these are brought to us by Douglas Quinby , who is an amazing researcher , a terrific presenter , and it's always the highlight of the event , at least for me , is seeing his opening keynote , where he puts a lot of time and effort into analyzing the industry and the

stats . So , if we look at the results for 2024 and tours and activities , this was actually the first year that booking activity and total revenue exceeded 2019 , which is , of course , a major milestone . It's been building back in 21 , 22 , and 23 .

And if you look at the three largest categories within travel , accommodation is the largest , with over a trillion dollars in revenue , flights comes in second and then experiences comes in third , ahead of car rental , ahead of cruise . And if you look at the revenue at travel overall , in 2024 , it was up 4% , experiences was up 10% .

And what's also fascinating is that the share of affluent customers has actually grown 46% in 2024 .

And one of the interesting stats that Tao Tao from Get your Guide had called out is that when you actually look from 2019 to 2024 and the money that's spent on consumer goods compared to experiences , is that experiences actually well outpaces what people are spending on consumer goods compared to experiences ?

Is that experiences actually well outpaces what people are spending on consumer goods . So we are absolutely seeing that there is a shift in consumer behavior towards spending more money on travel and more money in particular , on tours and activities . So hopefully that is an exciting sign of everything to come in 2025 , as we have these conversations .

So I can't wait for you to hear all of these amazing discussions . Thanks again to Douglas , bruce and the team at Arrival for the invite to be there at San Diego . You'll actually hear Bruce on the finish of episode two , but now we kick off with part one of tours and activities , live from San Diego . My next guest I'm really excited to introduce you to .

His name is Ben Golan , and he's the first chief sandwich officer that I've ever had on the podcast , but he's the founder of a remarkable business based in New York . He's Australian . I actually was so excited for our interview today that I was watching a bunch of videos of his last night , so he kindly reached out .

We had a great conversation at the event last night and I was so looking forward to interviewing him today . I wanted to get a full understanding of his backstory , which is truly remarkable .

I mean , this guy is based in New York and runs these incredible New York sandwich tours , and last night I was salivating over the original sandwich that inspired this entire business . But I would love for our audience to hear it from you . So tell us your backstory .

How do you create this business and give everyone an overview of this incredible journey that started with this remarkable sandwich ?

If I wanted to be a lawyer in America , I'd go and pass the bar exam . I didn't enjoy it the first time , wasn't going to do it a second time , so I thought I'd do something creative On the side . My little creative project was eating , writing and searching for the world's greatest sandwich .

The last article I wrote in Australia for an industry magazine was an article encouraging sandwich shops to be more creative . We're sick and tired of the same ham and cheese mayonnaise sandwiches , and I said something along the lines of because what even is a sandwich anyway , if you really think about it ?

That turned into a quest for the world's best sandwich based around the question what is a sandwich , which often gets interpreted as is a hot dog a sandwich ? So I can't go on until I get your answer to that .

Given your legal background , that also makes sense to me because clearly you're well-educated , you're a smart guy , but you followed your passion to this business . So my short answer just is that a hot dog is a sandwich , even though , yes , it's not two separate pieces of bread .

But for all of our listeners , the website is amannandissandwichcom for those who want to follow along at home . But I would love for you to share the origin story with the business and the sandwich that started this all .

It was a fourth generation deli ownership run by a brother-sister team , will and Julie Horowitz , and they made a pastrami sandwich which broke every rule in the book for how you're supposed to do them . It's a very traditional sandwich in New York and they threw that tradition to the wind .

They cut their pastrami thick like steak so you really got your teeth sunk into it . They then paired it with buttermilk-fermented cucumber into it . They then paired it with buttermilk fermented cucumber , fresh dill , anchovy infused mustard on a warmed hero spaghetti sort of thing . It was the greatest thing I've ever put in my face in my entire life .

I thought I needed more of it , and so a week later I approached them and said well , I've got this weird idea for a bar crawl , but for sandwiches I want this thing to be the crown jewel of the tour . And not only did he say yes , he also welcomed me and my guests into his kitchen to see how they did smoke their mates , and the rest is history .

And that's why I say for me , obviously I love culinary tours and experiences , but this was one that just stood out to me and actually , when I saw the sandwich , I could totally understand why you were compelled to bring so many other people to this particular establishment , because it looks like it's a truly remarkable sandwich and it looks absolutely delicious .

But it obviously set you on a journey that this wasn't the only sandwich like this that existed , and you could bring people to many other businesses and experience these incredible sandwiches .

I have to ask you , though , given your Australian background and that I lived in Australia and people will use the term Sambo- just like everything ends in an O in Australia , right . That's right .

And so even like a Vegemite and cheese Sambo was a pretty common lunch and everyone's working at Lonely Planet like , yeah , just go around the corner and just grab a Vegemite cheese Sambo . So you come from a culture that loves sandwiches and how has that ?

When you started this business , were you thinking that this is an unrealized opportunity in the US market , that people are not thinking about sandwiches Because there's donut tours , there's a variety of different but sandwiches like you're the first person I've met that has come up with this concept and I have to say I love sandwiches , like I'm born in England and

like I love those little tea sandwiches and like a crust cut off and I'm like , so I love every different kind of sandwich . So I'm totally hooked and fixated on what you're doing . But yeah , was your background part of the inspiration ? Like , were you always love sandwiches ?

Every country has a sandwich or a version of the sandwich . It's a really ubiquitous food format which can be related to . It's very relatable by everyone .

When I got to New York , the business of a man and his sandwich was just a hobby at first . I didn't set it out to be a business . I just like hanging out with really cool people , eating as many sandwiches as I possibly could , having a beer with them afterwards and having a bit of banter .

So when I went to check what the competition would be for sandwich tours in New York City , I was stunned that no one had done it before . It was one of those moments where you think to yourself has no one done it for a reason ? And am I the fool that can't see what everyone else can ?

There was one tour company in New York who would do a sandwich tour as a customized option , only deep down on their menu list of items . That was literally the only competition . But there's dozens of pizza tours and so I just thought I'm going to lean into this and it kind of worked .

And to lean into it more , I opened three different sandwich tours in the city to make it look like the market was saturated with sandwich tours .

You came up with a really great content strategy around this positioning of like is a hot dog a sandwich . This is brilliant and so very clever , but you actually created these online virtual cooking classes as well . So tell us how that came to be and how that has , I guess , led to the growth of your business .

I probably shouldn't say this publicly , but I lied through my teeth in that original application about how connected I was in the industry of New York City's food .

But that's long history now , because I had that great relationship with them , they reached out to me in March or April 2020 , around April and said Ben , I don't know how you're going to turn a sandwich walking tour into a virtual experience , but we're going to launch these virtual experiences . We want to let you know .

It's going to launch in about six weeks , if I remember correctly . Put an application , figure it out . And so I did that one hour Zoom , where you make a delicious New York Italian sandwich and debate hot dogs and have a bit of a general banter , started slow and then exploded . If you take yourself back , then it was COVID . We're all stuck indoors .

Corporate teams were desperate for ways to connect with their teams virtually and something really lighthearted like a sandwich tour that took us it was a bit of escapism away from all the craziness that was going on in this world and you get to eat a delicious sandwich at a really reasonable price .

Point was super attractive to teams corporate teams point was super attractive to teams corporate teams . At its peak around the holiday period I was running with my team 14 classes per day . I was doing the lion's share of them as well .

Fantastic for business , terrible for mental health in my voice box , but you've got to do what you've got to do and I think we ended up doing about 1,200 virtual classes across the COVID period and still run some to this day . I was doing one the day before I flew out here to arrival .

And then , on the event itself , a little bit of introduction , some banter , some history , and then , for about 20 minutes , I show you some tips and tricks to make a really great sandwich , because they're not quite as simple as they appear . There's layering techniques .

There's techniques to make them look better on camera , because , of course , the social media is so important with food . Now , the camera eats first , yeah , and then we , we do this all together at the same time , and then , at the same time , we get to eat . And then , while your mouths are full , I make you talk about hot dogs , burgers and burritos .

Um , so , was that something that just was always appealed to you ? That to entertain people almost like a stand-up comic would kind of working the the room and playing off the audience ?

I'm not going to go on an experience and just sit there and listen to a guy tell me facts for two hours . My brain doesn't work like that . I'm going to switch out . I'm going to drag you in through this hot dog debate .

You're going to become part of the virtual class or you're going to become part of the walking tour , and if you look shy or you don't want to answer , I'm picking on you . I'm going to get you involved the most and that was really important for the virtual experiences .

It's extra difficult to get someone engaged over a Zoom class , but one of the biggest pieces of feedback we would get from the person who booked the class is you managed to pull out some engagement from our quietest team members who never want to speak up , but the way you were able to . Steve , what do you think ? Do you concur with Stephanie ? I don't know .

You've just given shade over to Tim . The way we were able to do that really worked well to bring that camaraderie in a time where we really needed that camaraderie . That's amazing . We really needed that camaraderie .

We had to wait for the world to open up again and New York has obviously took a little while to open up and is quite an expensive place to come and visit , but it has turned into quite a nice revenue source of hey , mate , we did the class with you two years ago and so we're here and I have to have that awkward moment of like .

Of course I remember , yeah , there was only 26,000 other people who came . But , yeah , definitely . But the big thing as well , it was the virtual classes were all corporate , almost all corporate , Right , and so when the world opened up again , the teams that were based in New York they can come on an in-person team event .

They already know me , they already know the vibe , but now we get to incorporate face-to-face , tangible shaking hands , eating sandwiches , having that beer at the end . So it just heightens what they overly enjoyed over the Zoom call .

So welcome , liz , great to have you joining us .

Just that I have a passion project called world's best marketscom and I profile the best markets in the world and so people are always and there's the top 100 markets and for me , pike Place is definitely my top 10 and I love Pike Place market for so many reasons , not only because you know it's a fish market near the sea .

It's got a remarkable history that , the whole layout of the market and , of course , something that you know only too well about , but the idea of throwing fish and for a guest cat , you know , and there was a great book that was written about that .

But the purpose is really to tell the story of the market , the history , these amazing small vendors , and that's why sometimes it can be even difficult to accommodate dietary restrictions because the cheese guys just have cheese . But we try to create such a variety that if somebody has to miss something that it's still interesting nevertheless .

But yeah , we absolutely love operating a Pike Place .

It is a place of diversity , of acceptance , it's an ecosystem that chefs especially can really appreciate , because , when we have been in the industry so long , there are several different ways of approaching food , one being , you know , mass food production , which is there to feed the masses , and we understand about that .

But we really want to talk about , you know , what's locally growing in Seattle or the Washington State area , create some perspective around the production and the people who are offering it .

of experiences or experiential travel . Tell me a bit more how you got into it , how long the business has been running for and then where you're headed now in terms of potentially expanding beyond Seattle . I know it's in the branding , but clearly you've got a great model . Is there a lot more expansion you can get just within that city itself ?

. I quit my job and traveled in Europe for a year . I was at Airbnbs . I lived in Montenegro and Croatia for three months and France for six months .

I went to school in France , so I speak French and I got my culinary degree at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris , so that's a very comforting area for me and then went to Italy and the Netherlands , where my brother lived for 20 years , and through that time , I really wanted to connect through experiences and meet chefs and eat great food and feel less touristy .

You can't be a tourist for a year it's too much . So I would connect with people in the culinary fields and Boqueria Market in Spain , one of my favorites . We would go and we'd collect ingredients and then make paella afterwards , and I just really fell in love with this way of travel .

And when I came back to Seattle , I really wanted to experience Seattle that way , because our production is pretty incredible regarding our fish and our wine industry and I really all I found were actors and comedians , which I completely appreciate as well , but I really felt , given the fact that I had the culinary background that chefs should be really supporting

these businesses because they truly know why they're so special , and so I quickly collected a group of awesome people , and some people have been with us almost the whole time , which has been amazing , and we just have a lot of fun .

value in that . But in terms of having a great culinary experience , especially if you're going to attract real foodies that are going to , you know they want this to be authentic and they really want to make sure they're having such unique experience . So how did that play into creating the types of , I guess , food experiences you're going to have on the trip ?

So are these chefs the ones that are kind of curating this cuisine that you're having ? These are the chefs at the various restaurants you've decided to partner with , because you know what they offer is truly unique .

On a Saturday , we might launch 12 to 16 tours in a day , so we really are very strategic with the types of routes that we do . In terms of cultivating the experience .

I create most of the relationships with the vendors , but then it's transitioned over to the guide where they sort of manage that relationship , and some guides have maybe one specific vendor that only works with them , so that if somebody wants to do a tour at a different time , they might have a completely different perspective and experience , which I think is kind

of fun .

a number of benefits of being here , but I guess , yeah , what brings you to Arrival with regards to your plans to continue to grow and evolve this business ?

We want to make sure we're growing because we can create experience , experiences that really allow something new and unique in the marketplace .

So there are a couple neighborhoods that I think are interesting to expand in Seattle that would meet the quality standards that we have , but then people have to be searching for them , where we have to theme them in a way that they'll want to go to that area to check them out . So we have some things to figure out in the growth category .

Being at the conference , I just am so curious about finding tools that make our lives easier in terms of answering the questions that guests have as they're deciding and trying to make an informed decision if this is the right tour for them , and sort of hear the stories of where other people are taking their businesses .

And something that's really cool about Arrival is there are some bigger businesses in tourism and so it's fun to hear how they view things , the tools they use and where they're going .

I know Rizwana , I know Josiah and the team , and this is a real privilege for me to be able to sit down with Oscar and get his backstory and learn about the company . But welcome , oscar , great to have you with us .

You co -founded this business together , but I'm really intrigued since this is a technology play and yourself being the CTO the fact that you've been able to successfully adapt , evolve this business , raise funding . All of that is attributable to the technology platform and the forward thinking that both yourself and Rizwana have brought to this business .

So tell us how Peak came to be and just give all of our listeners a bit of an overview of Peak .

I've been coding since I was 14 . That was like floppies for those who remember those and then moved to Silicon Valley , worked at a number of companies and really got into enterprise software . So the previous job , one of the previous companies , was enterprise security , which is boring , but it's like boring as hell if you think about sort of what it does .

But it's like really hard problems and it's really interesting to solve problems for businesses and that sort of plays into Peak .

And then at some point then my last job before Peak was I was a director of engineering , founding employee at a startup and the founder was mentoring me and then that got me to a point where I was like I like what he's doing , but if I want to run a company I would do it differently .

If I want to run , if I were to run an engineering team , build a company I would build . I build it fundamentally differently and I think that's sort of something I really fundamentally believe in .

Like I think there's a lot of Silicon Valley companies that are tech first they're not problems or business first right , they don't really they'll solve a problem and hope that they can find clients . And the engineers even the engineers that I work with they love . They don't love talking to the clients .

That's awkward often that depends on the engineer , but they are really . It is so deeply satisfying to build something that people love using right . So that means you have to talk to the client , right . And so that was sort of in the back of my mind in terms of like , hey , I want to start a business and so I started looking for a business co-founder .

So my background's all tech . So I knew I wanted somebody who's really good on the business side of things . I started meeting people and then , through a friend , got introduced to Rizwana side of things . I started meeting people and then , through a friend , got introduced to Rizwana and we just hit it off .

We were like , hey , you seem great and good at what you're doing . I'm good at what I'm doing . She had started already thinking about the space , so she came , and that was an easy sell . Who doesn't love travel ? And experiences . You're like awesome , I'm in , I think , and so then it went very quick , like within a week or two .

We did like some reference checks on each other just to make sure it's all kosher , and then started the company . Uh and uh now .

And you and I met years ago at the Focusrite conference and , of course , josiah was employee number one after the two co-founders . I think he joined me in like the first six months and so he's been with you for most of this journey as well .

And when I got a chance to know you and Josiah in those earlier days , one of the things that I was really keen for you to develop at that point was a marketplace , a B2C marketplace for tours and activities , and you guys actually took a very smart strategic move at the time , given that that was going to become a crowded marketplace .

And of course , this is right around the time that Viator is going to get acquired by TripAdvisor and of course , that sector has grown substantially .

You've got Get your Guide , you've got all the Klook and all these other players , but you very strategically shifted towards B2B , recognizing that so many of these tour operators don't have ResTech and I think we both saw this on Douglas Quimby's opening here that 43% of them still don't .

But just to go back to that pivot , if you will at the time tell us a little bit about some of the strategic decisions that you and Roswana were having about shifting to a B2B model and then how you've scaled that , because that really has been a key part of your success , and then the latest funding round and's um and the trajectory that you continue to be

on .

At the time that was like 90% , and so we were trying to build a marketplace on top of an industry that wasn't ready for it . And so we're like hey , and it's honestly , it started with hey . We built a marketplace and an operator came to us .

The operator was out of LA very first , one sort of on the B2B side , and he's like hey , that's cool that you have a booking flow on your peak website . Can you put that on my website ? And that's sort of where the light bulb went off . It's like , oh , you want to put that on your website .

Maybe everybody can put that on a website and we can actually build more stuff on the backend . And I think it deeply resonated A . I think we realized marketplaces are harder . Especially were even harder back then . As I said , my background's enterprise , business , software . So working with businesses I love . I mean , this is why I'm here at Arrival .

I love talking to businesses . I love actually sitting down and understanding what do you need ? How does this work ? You know , if I built something , why wouldn't you use it ? Right ?

Like , I find consumers harder because people , just one day they don't come to your website and you have no idea why , right , and then you have to figure it out and it's fun for different reasons , but it's really . I love the B2B side of things , so it was a very natural fit from that perspective . In hindsight , it was harder than expected , right ?

I think we're like , hey , how hard can scheduling be ?

You run a tour every day at 9 o'clock , at 10 o'clock , basic scheduling system done , and then you start talking to to operators and everybody has these very unique challenges , right , and you just can't tell them oh , you don't worry about that , because no , they actually that's how they run their business and they have really good reasons to run their business .

So it took us several years to really find good product market fit where operators were like this is awesome , this actually . It's not perfect yet , it doesn't have waivers and all these other bells and whistles , but it solves my problem and that was sort of a big inflection point for the company .

Josiah was telling me that the idea was it was more like six months and it's taken six years , but it's become six years of putting in those hard yards and then finding the product market fit and then success from there , like you guys got there and then now , and so the question I wanted to ask you along those lines is as you decided to go down this path

of B2B and then all of a sudden you start entering a or you start realizing you're being a bit of a crowded marketplace because everyone else is starting latching on and say , wait a second , peak has gotten funding and they're building something and they're seeing all the clients you're signing on board and then , all of a sudden , you've got Fair Harbor and you've

got Pocoon and you've got a number of different , your USPs and your , I guess , competitive advantage , given all of a sudden other players entering the marketplace , how did you make sure that what you're building with Peak keeping your clients , keeping them engaged and being able to scale the business what were your unique differentiators with your platform ?

And then you start your startup and you're like I know what to do , I can see right , like I'm smart and you built these things .

I remember I went to again LA for some reason and I met operator after like we built Peak Pro for the first year and I met them in person and I saw how they used the product . I'm like they're using a completely different and like light bulb went off and that's sort of like I got to meet them all the time . I got to meet them as much as I can .

I got to go out on phone calls , right , and so I think just being really , really close to the customer is really important . We have a product management team that has to talk to operators . My engineers usually engineers get shielded from customers . We have quarterly what we call our operators who are on peak . We call them partner . We have partner days .

So every quarter we call one of our operators who are on peak , and we used to do it in person . Now we do it over Zoom and they walk us through their business and the whole engineering team sees how the operator is using the platform and what they like and what they don't like , and they get the feedback and you can see it in Slack immediately .

In paths they're like ooh , we can solve this , we can solve that . I have an idea . So I think a competitive differentiator is the culture you build around the customer . So I think that's one big component .

I think the second piece is there is so there's a lot of booking systems out there , but a lot of booking systems are relatively small because they started . They're like hey , I'm a sailing operator , pen and paper sucks . I'm going to go right , like my buddy knows how to code , I'm building a little system .

Hey , you're in the same marina , Do you want to use my system ? Right . And now I have a very sailing boat-centric system and it's not going to work for a walking tour , right . And you have to rebuild the whole thing for a walking tour . And then you talk to a helicopter operator and you have to rebuild the whole thing for a helicopter operator , right .

So they're starting with really strong domain expertise , but then they have a really hard time branching out . There's only a few systems like Peak that are where they started off . They looked at the whole industry and they said what are the commonalities here ?

What does the sailboat operator and the helicopter operator and the twerking tool have in common that we can solve once in a way that works for all of them ?

Right , and I think that allows you to innovate on it and iterate on it , and it all builds a more general purpose solution that then becomes highly configurable to your specific needs , and I think that's sort of a big competitive differentiator .

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I am now joined by Beth Santos , who is the founder of Wonderful . She's based in Boston . I have not had the chance to meet her before well , briefly yesterday . But this conversation is going to be new to you as it is to me , and that's one of the things I'm excited about doing these conversations live . So , beth , great to have you here .

Thanks for joining us .

I interview them , I hear their stories , but then we kind of rewind and we tell a travel story . We have sound effects and it's really the thing that got them to the point that they are today and we kind of take a step back .

I think there's actually there's so much unrealized opportunity in podcasts and podcast marketing .

And I think the three things that stood out for me , having now done this podcast for some time and yes , we're up to quite a few episodes now about 75 , but it's still not 100 . That's still a lot . That's good , but people actually they listen longer , they retain more information and they take action .

Yeah , and those are the things that obviously any brand marketer is looking for how to better tell your story . So , on that note , I want to hear your story . That's why you're here . So tell us about Wonderful , tell us about your business , where it started and what you're working on .

And here's the thing Women are told time and again that we're not traveling as much as we actually are . We're made to believe that it's not safe , especially traveling alone . We're made to believe that a lot of women don't do it .

And so here I am , immersed in this world and I started to write about my experiences , what it was like being a woman who was confronted with the realities of what it is to be a woman , not just in one place , but every place that I would travel to .

After that , and writing turned into community , I moved to Chicago a few years later and started putting on events to connect women travelers together , and what we found was the power of women helping and supporting and encouraging other women was just so strong that we realized there is a business here and fast forward to today .

We have a large creator community , because that's where we came from , so we run a conference called WITS for 500 travel content creators .

Every year we have a membership community for travelers and also travel content creators and small businesses to really embrace one another , support one another , but also change the face of the travel industry Because , again , women are so underrepresented and yet so proportionately dominating this space . So let's help them to feel seen in all of our diversity .

So really , we're taking the industry , you know , full by the horns and we're creating a space where women can be represented .

He had a nonprofit there and he said , hey , I've got a guest house and I'll give volunteers three meals a day if they come work for my nonprofit . And I was like I just graduated from college , I speak Portuguese , I got nothing better to do . Sure , that sounds great .

And so I just moved there and for two years , on and off , I was working on the One Laptop per Child project . It was a big development project that came out of MIT and that was my interface with the world . I mean , it was amazing . It taught me a lot and I still think back to who that person was and who this person is today .

story . So , with Wonderful and your podcast , obviously Wonderful came first , yes . So with Wonderful and your podcast , obviously Wonderful came first . Yes , and the podcast came later , because you've been doing that for a year and a half . Yeah , is the podcast directly connected to Wonderful or is it kind of a separate initiative ?

So we're connecting travelers as consumers , but then we're also advocating for a better industry , and so 85% , it is much more of an industry focused podcast , but it really is something that anyone can listen to . It's fun to listen to , right ?

We're telling travel stories , but then we're also talking about how is this individual changing the landscape for people like you and me worldwide ? And so it is . We call it 85% by a wonderful podcast . So 85% , a wonderful podcast , and it is . It's part of that wonderful community so that we can just reach people in a different way and have deeper again .

Like I , just I love a long form content . I think that that is such a powerful way to connect with people , and so we haven't had it for a long time . Content , I think that that is such a powerful way to connect with people , and so we haven't had it for a long time . But we realized that was something that was missing and I'm like using .

Nobody can see it , but I'm using , like my Italian , like hands , like this is delicious , but yeah , I do , I feel really strongly about it .

That's women singular , and it is an interactive , mobile friendly map of women-owned businesses all around the world . These are like restaurants and hotels and things to do , so that we can all also vote with our dollars and support a lot more women-owned and minority-owned businesses when we travel and when we're at home that's amazing .

we haven't explored a lot on this show , and I'd love to get your take on this , because , even speaking to Sarah Dines from the chief commercial officer for Viator , they launched some new features here specifically designed for influencers so that they can actually share their trips they've been on and earn affiliate commissions , and I think this is , you know , we're

still in the early stages of what the potential is going to be for creators and the creator economy , so tell us a little bit about how you decided to focus on that area and what specifically Wonderful does with working with creators .

I don't know , do I have the money to bring in an influencer with a million followers ? Is this going to work for me ? So , and it's all . You know , there's a spectrum to this . There's a scale of how you do it . But when we started as our blog , you know I didn't come at this going oh , let's create a community of creators .

Creators didn't even exist when I started this blog , but what I realized was how many other women wanted to share their own stories and we had . We built a community around that and blogging turned into other forms of content . You know , podcasting came out .

I feel like a grandma sometimes when I talk about this because I'm like back in my day , we didn't have podcasts and Instagram , we had blogs . You had to read you had to read a whole thing , but it's true , you know , and so so the evolution of this and over time , the other thing I found is influencers .

You know , let's say the word influencers Influencers are disproportionately women and also a lot of times viewed as not a real job , and I think there is a lot of sexism to that .

And a lot of women who are building these businesses and content creation they're not actually thinking about themselves as small business owners , and so there is something that shifted in us as we started building this community , saying let's help activate these creators and not only help them see themselves as business owners , but allow them to talk to brands and

really have that real interactions that they can help those brands grow , because when they do , when that partnership works , it really , really works , it's trackable and it's grassroots . So now you have a space where the travel industry has been previously dominated by whatever is on the top 10 list .

Now you can really niche down and you can focus on well , what's my unique story with this place and how is this going to connect with my audience that look and act like me or have a background that I have , and you can really focus on your unique perspective and your unique community .

So with Wonderful , you know , our conference is really helping those content creators grow . But then I also see us as , in a way , like a gatekeeper to helping any sponsor that comes to our conference . They're saying I want to invest in influencer marketing .

So I take it very seriously that anyone that we bring on as a sponsor now is we're paying it forward to the 500 creators that are coming to this event and giving them a foot in the door and giving them opportunities . And then we do have a lot of our own campaigns . We'll do marketing campaigns . We actually plan press trips for content creators .

We'll basically do the whole thing and we'll really build like a very diverse group of creators that all work together to tell a story and it's really fun . It's just a different way of looking at this .

He has completely led the way on this new concept of actually franchising a kayaking business model and , if I haven't given it away already , I have the founder and CEO of Get Up and Go Kayaking with me , justin Buzzi . Yes , Welcome .

along on your journey , because it is truly extraordinary . And so let's start at the beginning . You actually took out a loan for like $12,000 to create this business , and you were still working full time . So tell us what inspired you to create this kayaking business and the vision that you then had .

That , you know , turned into this incredibly successful operation . But yeah , tell us how it all began .

So I love data and analytics , which I think is great for what I do now , but really it came from a need of just seeing that there was a huge supply , or sorry , huge demand , for this type of activity , especially in Florida , where , where I first started the business my , my wife and I she was then my girlfriend , but this was about eight years ago a little

over eight years ago Now we went to a state park , blue Springs State Park in Florida , and we had gotten up early

. We drove an hour and 20 minutes to get there , and when we get there , there's just a state park guy going sorry , we're full , come back at 1 pm and we're like we're in DeBerry , florida , which no one's ever heard of , because there's nothing to do there besides the state park , right ?

And I'm like what am I going to do for five hours until they maybe get me in at 1 pm . So we pulled over . We're looking on our phones of like , what else can we do in the area ? There wasn't much . But then I saw there was another spring like 45 minutes away . So I called like three or four other state parks or springs .

We just wanted to get in the water somewhere . It was in the middle of the summer . It's the perfect place to cool off . A . It was in the middle of the summer . It's the perfect place to cool off . A lot of Floridians do that . We go to the springs in the summer and every one was the same story . We've been sold out since before we even opened .

There was a line of cars trying to get in , and so I was like there's a huge demand for something you know . So initially I thought maybe I could deliver people kayaks like the Uber of kayaks . You know , like I'm going to deliver them the kayak for the day and then I'll pick it up later .

And um , but in the process of learning about the industry and doing market research of like , what is everyone else doing ? Like why is there this much demand ? And like are there other companies ? And so this drive home was an hour and 15 minutes and me and my wife were talking about like it was just crazy that this , like there's so much demand for it .

And then we're like in the pool at our apartment complex and just talking about it more and we had seen clear kayak somewhere online but no one was doing clear kayak tours anywhere that I could find in the U ? S or beyond .

There was a couple like clear kayak rental businesses , but they were like really small , weren't really doing much , and so literally within two weeks of that day of getting turned away , I built a business plan , decided I needed about $12,000 to purchase the kayaks , purchase a trailer and start my tour business . So that's what I did . I went to the bank .

I had my plan . I didn't tell them I was starting a business . I told them I needed a boat loan and thankfully I could pay for it with my full-time job at the time . So it wasn't too risky for me to like get a $12,000 loan to start this business . So really it was quick .

It was two weeks from like when I saw the need for it to when I started the business was two weeks . So I just noted I knew there was a demand . I knew there would be like first to market . You know , having the clear kayaks could come with some press opportunities and it did eventually .

So , but I want to , I want to go into this how overnight success stories you know they take time and they put in a huge amount of time and energy .

So , um , fast forwarding through the first and second year where you put in a lot of hard yards and you built this business out gradually yourself and started to pay back that loan , but it really wasn't until kind of two years .

But tell everyone what you did on that journey to prepare for your business ultimately to go viral , and you were very focused on having a content strategy from the beginning and capturing these images of your guests . So tell everyone how you actually .

This is where I think there was a remarkable vision and forethought of when the moment comes when you can really aggressively market and expand this business . You were ready because you'd put all the steps in place . So , yeah , tell us , tell everyone a little bit about that and the reviews and how many positive reviews .

Yeah , so tell us about these few incredible steps that you took .

Right , and it's an hour and a half away from where I live , so the 1 am tour would get done at 2.30 . It was an and a half tour .

I would clean up , drive back to my apartment complex , get home at four and then I was the creepy guy washing my kayaks off in my apartment's car wash at 4 am with quarters , right , and then I had to go to work at 8 am the next morning , my normal job . So , like I did , I put in a lot of time and effort . But that was like for me .

Whenever I do something I do it like 100% . I don't like to half-ass it . I really want to know if this is going to work , so let me put as much time as I can to it . So I didn't have much of a life for the first two years of starting the business . Your wife is very supportive .

Clearly she is extremely supportive and yeah , so all that to say , first year was not anything crazy . We made $9,000 top line revenue . Right , that's not much , you can't live on that . Second year we made like 17,000 top line revenue . So again like nothing crazy , but still there was a little growth . So I was excited .

But during that process , every time I went out and gave a tour , I made sure that every single guest or group of people that came out had at least 50 photos or videos .

Not right at the end of the tour I actually went home and edited all of the content and then I would send them a personalized link saying thanks so much , dan , so glad you came and visited us from Minnesota . Safe travels on your way back . By the way , I took a bunch of pictures and photos while you're out on this tour .

Here's a link to all those Hope you enjoyed . If you could leave us a review , right , so every single customer that interacted with me , and if you go back and like , search Justin in our reviews , you'll see that that shows off in all of those original reviews . But I did that for the purpose of well , a couple purposes .

One I want to over deliver on any experience . Chip Conley said , disappointment equals expectation minus reality . And that really sets in with me and and everything I strive to do is always over deliver , whatever it is , whether it's business , personal , like how do I over deliver on whatever it is ?

And so part of the reason for getting the content was because I wanted to over deliver . I didn't tell people they were going to get 50 photos and videos . They just got it and it was . It was just because I did it , you know , um .

But the other part of it is like I knew that there's these viral outlets , that this was like the perfect activity that could go viral on social media . It's clear kayaking in clear water and then there's bioluminescence in at nighttime and then there's manatees potential . Like I knew that like this could go viral , you know Um .

So I'm getting all of this content and kind of like prepping it , pulling the best of the best from each clips of like things that I thought were really cool . We actually went on a couple other uh locations that were like really pretty , just to like go get some content and like check it out .

And uh , my wife and I would would then send all of our top content to BuzzFeed , yahoo Insider , unilad , like all of the big old viral outlets .

They're still around , I mean , and they're still massive outlets , but back in 2017 , that's the only way that you go viral is through these pages that already have the following Great thing is nowadays we can go viral directly , right , so we do , and it's a huge part of our strategy .

But , yeah , that content early on really was a big piece in one the success of our reviews and word of mouth and customer satisfaction . But two , it was really like this is how viral sites are going to need to use our content , so we would email all of them and then one day , thankfully , unilad this lady , barbara . I'll never forget her name .

She reached out to me and was like hey , do you mind if we share some of your content ? And it was funny because she didn't even realize we had sent her content in that same thread like six months previous , and I was like , of course .

And then , literally that first day after it got posted was like 5 million views and just kept going from there , and that's a big reason why that's a big part of our strategy now .

You're just like you know , if I can get this in someone else's hands , this could be explosive growth . And you did . You landed that and then all of a sudden your business went to the next level . My guest for this next conversation comes from a company that isn't technically in travel today but is going to be very soon .

But as a company that isn't technically in travel today but is going to be very soon , but it's a company that many people here were as you were kindly making your way , even people were just like wait , you're ClassPass and it's like I love ClassPass , I'm also a big fan of ClassPass as well and the successful trajectory this company has been on , and I now

have the privilege to sit down with the director of strategic partnerships . She's based in New York . She's actually been with the company for many years and now is in a new role , but Claire Goodhill is here to join us . Claire , great to have you with us .

But we have this super captive audience because we capture people through the more habitual nature of fitness , so they're on the app all the time . 29 times a month on average , people open their app and so they trust us to introduce them to new things .

So I'm sure we'll get into all of that , but I'm here because we want to add experiences to app and the best operators in the business and the best tech in the business is all here , so I'm learning a ton .

So there's a lot of points of connectivity between fitness and travel . So it makes total sense for ClassPass to get into this space .

But tell us a little bit about your background . So I know you're from New York , you worked at ClassPass for many years , you've had a successful career , you've tried a few different things in the technology space . But I guess tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up at ClassPass and specifically your passion and interest in travel .

And I was like hire me for anything , and I'm so , so fortunate that Pyle , the founder , answered my email and was like yeah , you can do customer service for us . So , as in any small startup , you are given a ton of opportunities , often beyond your skill set . When you're early , you just take on new things as the business scales .

So I was very fortunate that I got to learn sales there , which for us are partnership sales . That moved me all across the world as we launched new markets and after about five years I was like I think I kind of want to do it all over again . Very skilled business . I want to look for my next health and wellness startup .

So I left , which was actually really sad and hard to do because I love the team so much . But I went on and tried a few other things .

I worked in SMS marketing in the Shopify ecosystem with all those sort of better for you brands , and then , most recently , I was working in the NFT crypto space and consumer applications of using tokens to generate more fandom .

Then I learned that ClassPass was ready to get into experiences and it's what I absolutely love and I've missed the team and I was super fired up to come back and I've been here for about two months now and , yeah , we're ready to dive in headfirst with all types of experiences .

So when you think about it from that perspective , of course fitness , wellness and beauty make sense , but also so do all these other soul nourishing activities that the operators here today supply .

It's a community of individuals that do typically have extra funds to spend on wellness and experiences and they live an active lifestyle . So when I meet folks here at Arrival they say we're down for more distributors as long as you're bringing us someone new , and it's typically a user on ClassPass that they're not spending their marketing dollars on today .

The other thing is that we really want to help introduce people and fill where there's excess capacity so we're able to dynamically price the inventory we sell on ClassPass to make sure we're maximizing the revenue you're getting . We're still filling those empty seats , whether it's at a water attraction , whether it's at a retreat , whether it's at a theme park .

We can dynamically price all of that and bring our customer in .

We have some museums , some movie theaters .

I mean , your role is strategic partnerships and I'm sure there's a lot of strategy that's been factored into this . So , yeah , if you wouldn't mind sharing us a bit more of the grander vision as to how ClassPass enters the travel space and in terms of the partnerships the experiences and all of those things .

But we're in 30 countries and 400 cities , so for us , success will really mean we've introduced our users all over the world to experiences that are all over the world and that they're feeling value . They want to go back to these things , and the partners are accessing this new customer and increasing their overall business revenue because of us .

So that'll be success .

There's a big focus on wellness , and when I was at the Virtuoso conference a few months ago some of their stats they were sharing it's one out of five trips today are people booking for wellness .

And then the other area , too , is luxury , which obviously I would assume that the ClassPass clientele is a given the type of people and you actually , I'll just ask you this question who is a typical class pass customer ?

I'm assuming it's someone that is like upper income , well-educated , clearly taking care of their health , and so many of those attributes would also then lend themselves to a more luxury traveler . Is that a fair assessment or how would you describe the customer ?

They're investing in ways to stay active or feel well or , as we like to describe it , doing soul nourishing activities . So , yeah , I think the whole experience industry feels like a green field to us that we're really excited about . We're humble that we're new .

We have a lot to learn from our partners , but whether someone wants to go to the affordable activity in their neighborhood or fly across the world for the expensive retreat , we think we can be a tool to help them discover and book those things .

Their team knows that AI is going to transform every industry on the planet , and the best companies today are integrating AI into all of their processes . So check out the latest developments at travelaicom slash trends and learn how to make your travel business more efficient . They're also on linkedin , pinterest and twitter .

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They have a remarkable methodology that has actually been implemented by TravelAIcom , and they are a leading SEO agency globally and offer a range of resources a podcast of their own , a blog on their website , propelleccom . That's P-R-O-P-E-l-l-i-ccom , and don't forget to mention travel trends for your free marketing audit . Now back to the show .

I'm now joined by the founder and president of the us ghost adventures , lance saul . Lance , welcome . Thanks for joining us . Thank you for having me . So , lance , tell us what brought you to arrival this year this .

Well , I'm keen to get the backstory on how you created US Ghost Adventures and , as you started to mention a number of locations , but one of the places you're based is Orlando , and so , yeah , I guess , tell us about your journey with creating this business , where it started and what the concept is and , I guess , the number of locations you've gotten up to now

.

When I was in grad school , I was working full-time while going to doing my master's in business and I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible . I loved it , but managing both was a lot . So I took an independent study course to start my own business with a professor to get extra credit so I could graduate early .

And I thought about a business and I realized when I was walking around town , a lot of the visitors would ask me for recommendations on where to eat . So I started a food tour in 2011 . I started working on that end of 2010 and then launched it 2011 . I learned a lot by doing things the wrong way , and that later brought me to an app for tours .

It was called iTour Mobile at the time . Now it's called Junket J-U-N-K-E-T , and it turned your phone into a tour guide and we mainly focused on B2B . It was a little early in the market back in 2013 and 2014 .

But that led us into ghost tours and so the app was built originally to do ghost tours , because I didn't want to have employees , I didn't want to have tour guides and I did a ghost tour my first ghost tour and it rained on us . We got canceled and the check-in process was really messy , it took a while , they were loud kids .

It wasn't the best experience and we didn't get a refund . They canceled the tour five minutes into it , after it rained , and so I thought , you know , with an app , I woke up from a nap and I thought , you know what ? We should have an app for this and people can take it whenever they want midnight 2 am , with their friends , their own private groups .

They can choose how to do that experience . And so that's how I started in with Ghost Tours and I was trying to put the app on TripAdvisor , but TripAdvisor said , well , you can't put it on TripAdvisor unless you're selling physical tickets .

So I created a brand , created a website , and the app was still the main focus of that website , but we started selling physical tickets to the tour and that's how we started the first tour . But it wasn't until a few years later that I decided to expand that to other cities , and that was in 2018 when I really started the expansion .

We have our haunted pub crawls , which are really popular , and then we own and operate some haunted attractions across the United States the infamous Lizzie Borden House in Fall River , massachusetts . The Villisca Axe Murder House in Iowa , which is an octuple unsolved murder from 1912 .

And the Brick House Inn in Gettysburg , pennsylvania , which consists of three buildings . One of them is a Civil War building that Abraham Lincoln rode across . It's a historic building . We take people into the basement , we tell them the story of the battle and what the civilians that hid in the basement went through , and that house is quite haunted .

We have guests report seeing apparitions . They move on their own quite often . So those are our three properties right now , but we look to be adding two more this year .

But , lancezallcom , if those of you who actually want to look behind the entrepreneur , who also served for many years in military service , and understand what it's like to be in military service , then going on to do your MBA and then having success as an entrepreneur , I mean so this is one of the things that I was keen to ask you when I was looking at some

of the businesses you're involved in is that was there a particular interest for you in the occult , like ? Was there some type of fascination with kind of the underworld or ghosts and spirits that actually drew you to this , or did you see a business opportunity ? A combination of both ? How did you decide to A combination of both ? How did you decide ?

When I was in elementary school I didn't do any homework and when my third grade teacher asked me , I told her because it doesn't count for college and I'd rather play and have fun . But when it came to a project learning about a country like Indonesia and China , I poured my heart and soul into it .

I love learning about the world , different cultures , what's in it , and history was part of that .

So with the ghost tours , some of the stories on tours that I learned about , like the first ghost tour that I took , the story didn't make any sense to me and it was based on a book that was written in the 80s and all the other tours in the city made it based off that story .

And I did some of my own research and I found that there was actually an Indian burial site on that property , which was a better explanation for why that house was haunted .

Instead of , the slave cursed the house and the story about the slave woman was very sad , very tragic , but it's really my passion for history and for being able to move people , because I believe storytelling isn't important just for entertainment .

You have to entertain people , but I want people to walk away from our tours thinking about their legacy and about how they live their lives . Maybe they can live their lives in a better manner . How do they want to be remembered , how do they want to make an impact ? Because every moment that we spend on this earth , we should spend it .

Hey , we can have fun , but we should be spending it , hopefully to better the world and leave it in a better place than we left it with . And that's what I want my customers to depart with when they leave the tour , as well as being entertained and spooked and have a good time .

She's totally obsessed with any of these shows on netflix and um , and so I'm gonna , we're gonna , come and visit you guys , but , like , so , tell us , in those three places you have , how does that work ?

So I totally get the walking tour , so you've got the , the pub crawls , as you mentioned , and you know the 150 plus locations where you're doing ghost tours . But these three places to stay intrigued me .

I didn't realize that until we had a chance to sit down , I didn't know the history of these places and I guess , similar to you , I'm a real history buff , so I'm now going to have to read up on the history of the tragedies that occurred in these places . But how did it work when it actually came to having physical locations ?

Was it the idea that you have to acquire these properties ? How did that come about ? And I guess how . I guess important to the business is that and is that a growth area for you , as you're going to continue to open .

Part of the reason I asked that question , of course , is we sit here at the Arrival Conference together and Netflix is here , and there's a Netflix house and there's this major trend within travel .

So , yeah , tell us a bit about these experiences that you're creating and how important that is to the future of the business .

I knew absolutely nothing about ghost hunting , I'd never been ghost hunting before but it was something that some of our customers expressed a curiosity about because , like me , they didn't know anything about ghost hunting , and so we thought maybe we can partner with some of these destinations and kind of do an intro to ghost hunting , just a fun event that people

could do , very different from the tours . And then the Lizzie Borden house was for sale and one of my employees passed me the link and I said you know what , why not ? Let's put in a bid , let's go for it . And we did and we ended up getting it , and then that was a really great experience .

We made a lot of really great changes to the house , but it's also an honor to be able to have the responsibility to preserve those physical buildings in those houses . They play a special role in history and American culture and pop culture . But it's also great to be able to tell the story of what happened there .

And the thing I like about these stories it's not just about a murder . People think , oh , the house is interesting , the story is interesting because someone was killed there . It's not . It's not it . And it's not just because of ghosts , it's not just because it's haunted .

There are a lot of places that call themselves haunted but when you look behind it , nothing happened there . Nobody died there , nobody was murdered there , nothing tragic happened , even on the land . There were no wars . Nothing happened there .

But yet some people , because of the hype either from an influencer or from media or from a movie , people assume and think it's haunted and then they go to that location with an expectation that it already is , and so that creates its own magic .

And so I only look for places that aren't legitimate in history and have real stories , because there are a lot of quote haunted places out there that are just there to try and get people in there and get tickets . But the Lizzie Borden house is more than just the murders and ghosts . You have a period of history from the Gilded Age .

You have the justice system . She was tried by all men , but even though when you look at the details of the case , you should say she's absolutely guilty . But there's a reason why people are innocent until proven guilty and why you have to say that somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before you sentence them to death .

If you watch one of my favorite movies , it's 12 Angry Men Of course , yeah , great film . But a lot of citizens don't really fully understand how our justice system works , and so we try to enlighten them on that , as well as the feminist movement in the late Gilded Age , 1890s . So there are a lot of different elements .

We have some law schools that'll come to the house as well and they want to hear the story . So it's a really multifaceted story and it's not just about ghosts and hauntings and it's not just about the axis , so it's about having a balanced view of what this story brings to us .

So what happened at Lizzie Borden's house and what happened to her as a result of , I guess , the trial that she was on ?

Infamous crime . It's the first crime scene photos in the United States , the second in the world after the Jack the Ripper murders , and it was syndicated nationally , which is one of the reasons why it was so well-known and so popular . And so the double murder happens and Lizzie goes outside and she screams my father's been murdered .

And then you have a thousand plus people gather outside to hear the story , and they were very wealthy families . So it was very uncommon . Axe murders were fairly common , but it was very uncommon for a member perceived to be of the elite was murdered . And so there was . She was then questioned . There was a trial , and a very sensationalized trial .

A lot of people call it the trial of the century . But you have some other trials of the centuries in the 1850s that I think were more pivotal to American history . But she was acquitted , as naturally she would be . She burned one of her dresses before she was arrested .

She threw it in the stove and burned it and it's believed that that was the dress that would have had the blood stains on it . But there are a million different , there are a thousand different theories about how she did and what really happened .

I absolutely believe that Lizzie Borden did it , but because they didn't have forensic evidence like they do today , it was really hard to determine who the murderer was . But I think if you look at all the evidence and I could go through this long list we could do our own podcast of why I believe Lizzie Borden is absolutely guilty .

But then again , just because you think someone is guilty , before we sentence somebody to die because she would have been executed , we have to know , as a jury member , beyond a reasonable doubt , that she's guilty , and there was a reasonable doubt . Also , many of her jury were all men and they didn't believe that a woman could commit such an atrocity .

And then , going back to history , you have Boudica warrior queen in today's United Kingdom , who was absolutely ferocious and led an army , you know so it just history teaches us so much . But so that's kind of the feminist component to it and there were a lot of women that were protesting . It was unfair for women .

You're supposed to be tried by a jury of your peers , yet here's all men trying her . Much like 12 angry men , all men .

I've only known him for a year , and actually I met him at Rival last year , so that just shows you how important this event is to connection . He is Joe Martin , the founder of Uplevel Tourism . Welcome , joe .

He does corporate travel bookings , a number of things , but , joe , tell us about your business , tell us the things you're working on .

And so we kind of saw this aspect of helping tour operators book more corporate groups . Let's get the system processes in place to do that , and it's a different type of sale than just transactional . This is relationship . I want this corporate group to come back again . I want them to book again next year .

I want them to tell their networking group how awesome this experience is .

But walk us through that process , because I love both sides of your business . So let's do the one sentence first . How did you come up with that concept , tell everyone how it works and give everyone a great example of that .

And what I found out was so much of that is influenced by the first sentence on your website that if that sentence is selling the wrong value , if that sentence says , hey , I'm Dan and you can get ahold of me 24 hours a day , that's one piece of value to put out there . But is that the right piece of value ?

Do we really need them to get ahold of you 24 hours a day ? And so it started being this idea of looking at what are you selling ? What are you saying ? What is the value when you put that stuff out there ? And we were able to get that stuff down to one sentence for companies that make you want to buy .

My favorite one , my favorite one , was there's a beauty show that we worked with and their first sentence was celebrating the next 100 years of beauty Boring , boring I . Years of beauty , boring , boring like this means this means nothing . Yes , it means something to you . It means something to the people in the organization .

Sure , 100 years , man , that's a big deal . I work for this company . That's great , but to the customer that's not influential , it doesn't make me want to buy a ticket . And so we changed their first sentence to say crazy , inspiring beauty show packed with badass hair and original people .

Now that's awesome , gives a feel , you get a feel for who they are , why you want to go , and just so much more in one sentence . That defines a company is crazy . Yeah , you had me at badass hair there for sure .

And a first sentence that says something like award-winning culinary tours uh , for corporate groups in your area like damn okay , I know what this is , I know I want it and I know who it's for , and that person it's for is me , because I'm that corporate group that wants to book , yeah , and so trying out the tour operators get aligned is really just that big

piece . And how do we build this out as a new revenue stream in the business Tours ?

Tours are great , tours are hard margins and OTAs keep making it more impossible , especially now this bidding , the bidding system that I can bid to pay above someone else and then once I pay to get above someone else , then they come back and say , well , now someone else paid to get above you , you might want to pay , come on .

Come on , stop doing this to the tour operator . The tour operator wants to provide a great experience for people in their community and they're forced into these situations .

He's gone from less than 5% of his revenue that came in from corporate groups to over 60% of his revenue is now accounted for in corporate groups . Wow , he is absolutely crushing it .

And at the time I was working for a reservation system in Toronto and so then we had interest in being there as a reservation system . The first arrival I went to , the ResTech , had actually sponsored Arrival and so I was on a sponsored ticket coming in and everything . So kind of got to see things from that angle first .

. And then this year , what have been some of the highlights and takeaways of being a part of Arrival 2024 ? I know you were part of a session and so , yeah , tell us about some of the reasons you're here this year and what some of the takeaways you've had so far .

Party bike hip hop tours around Houston . Like man he won . He won my coolest tour award multiple years in a row . This year I met a team that does bonfires on the beach and they'll actually carve out the beach like benches in the sand , set everything up .

I mean , I see your post and update so I'm always salivating over Chicago pizza . That seems to be like a consistent theme . But obviously you clearly love travel and working with these different operators . Yeah , so yeah , share a few more of these types of clients or types of companies that are out there that you find so intriguing .

Great to have you here , and I have Steven as well , another old friend from the industry , someone who's been on our podcast and he's known to many people from his time at Arrival , but he's now taken over a global travel lead role at the company Protect Group and he's still going to be hosting the podcast too , right ? Yes , Awesome , yes that's the plan .

But yeah , so tell us , I saw you guys in Orlando last year , but tell us what were the , I guess , the big highlights coming into this conference , specifically , janelle , since you were so closely involved in organizing it , what was sort of the intention with this year's conference and what sort of been the the highlights that have stood out to you in the last

couple of days ?

Like the team was really excited about it and , from my perspective , with the programming stuff and the emceeing , it was really the first time I got to be it's the most involved in the program I've been so far since I've been at Arrival and we had some really exciting speakers on the main stage that I got to interact with .

And you know , speaking to how experiences is changing , getting to have someone from Netflix experiences , someone from Disney , on the main stage was super exciting and , yeah , just being involved in the whole process of running the show was really fun .

So , thinking through on my end , okay , this is what we're doing , these are who , these are the people who are going to be on stage . How can I introduce them in a fun way ? That was really my angle and so , yeah , it was . It was good . I got some good feedback about the Bridgerton experience at arrival .

Like people were just so excited to be to come together again at the event .

So coming back here now two years later and having like double the number of people you know , almost triple the number of people , yeah , and having like double the number of people , almost triple the number of people and being in the same space , the energy again was like the vibes were so good , like it was just it was really really good , like people really

enjoyed themselves .

The attendees are new first timers this year , which was incredibly exciting . So lots of new faces , lots of people that have come back and so , but I'm also keen to mention the podcast .

I want to keep talking about Arrival , but I want to make sure , since I've introduced you as the co-host of the Voice of Experience of Arrival , tell everyone a bit about the podcast that you have built together and where it's headed .

And what else can we do with that ? The podcast became an idea of a way to kind of reuse that and and make better , better value out of what we are already doing and then add an extra level to it with the podcast discussion and everything like that .

You know , why don't we try do a test podcast , see how it goes , see what it sounds like , you know , and and go from there we and we tried it and it was like people really liked it , you know , and Bruce was like you guys sound great .

It's just a really different way of of of doing a podcast , because it's a little bit more conversational and we kind of bring a little bit of levity to the content and stuff and um , and that was really nice just to be able to keep it light and easy to listen to . It was like easy listening radio Janelle and Steven . And it was .

You know , you could listen to it while you walk your dog or you can listen to it while you're gardening or whatever . Right , and that's the beauty of podcasts is that it's really just another media distribution source . So if you already have content that is that is being distributed through other means , podcast is just .

If you repackage it a little bit and you make it a little bit more engaging for the listener , it becomes another way of distributing that same content .

Every time I come to Arrival , I meet new people that have actually been coming to Arrival for many years and it just shows you that , no matter how many people you think you know , there's people that , I ask , is your first year ? No , I've been five times . They're like we've only just met that this particular day .

So , to give everyone a voice and that is what a lot of people are coming here looking for is to be able to share their story and let everyone know what they're working

on . So what are the plans going into the next season ? Because I listened to your season one recap , which was the end of July . So what's up next for you guys ?

And , like Stephen was saying , you know , we when we're both in Vancouver would have cocktails once a week together and talk about work stuff and we would talk about the travel industry . And then we realized we should maybe just record some of those conversations and apparently people want to listen to them .

So the next season is going to be a lot more intentional and we have already done a few interviews and that we have plans for specific episodes and we're in the process of thinking through what else , what topics we want to cover and who best to approach to cover those topics . So I think we're just going into it a lot more intentionally .

You're still a major partner of Arrival . So tell us a bit more about your new role in Protect Group .

And before that , you know , at Focusrite and all the other events that I've gone to as well .

So it's really it's not a direct sales role Um , I'm there to basically schmooze with people , talk with them , you know , continue to conversations , see if there's a need , all those sorts of things that you do as kind of an uh , as a , as a um , from a not necessarily from a business development standpoint , but from a relationship building standpoint and um , you

know , and then when those opportunities come up , I just pass them off to the sales team and they take it from there . So it's really , you know , for me it's about building on those relationships that I already have and then just seeing whether there's value that I can add because of this new role .

Right , and it would be the same for any role I was in if , if , if , I was , cause we all move

businesses . That's the thing , like one of the things I learned very early on and I was just having this conversation with with Maddie Rifkin , right From Mount , who had absolutely wonderful , wonderful person . It's just so much energy , she's really just amazing , like just an inspiration , and I was talking to her I was like you know what's your plan ?

And she's like , oh well , I have a . You know it's all about long-term , it's all about long-term relationship building and stuff like that . I'm like you are on the right track . That is exactly that's the track that you need to be on . That's the track that I've sort of been on for the last 20 years is you build these relationships .

You build as you build those relationships . You're building them as human relationships . These aren't business relationships . One of the things that I try to emphasize with people is that we are people who do business . We are not businesses doing business with other businesses . We are people doing business with other people .

And you just put good karma into the world and you try and help other people and ultimately that does come back , and so I think you're perfectly positioned for this role . I think they're very lucky to have you and obviously it's great You're still going to be able to work with the Arrival team and be a part of the podcast . But tell everyone what Protect .

We met up in Toronto and I was getting to better understand , because my initial impression was it was travel insurance , but it's not travel insurance . It's not travel insurance .

In the event of illness or something happens with the , with you know you you miss your flight or you you're give a flat tire on the way to the airport or whatever it is , then you can get a refund on that , on that ticket .

So it's really about protecting the consumer in the event that something happens , even like COVID or you know , you get sick or or whatever that is , and then we partner with with travel brands to offer that service to their customers during checkout , and that's really what we do .

So I was here looking at at , you know , talking to all those folks that I already know in the rest tech space and the OTA space , whoever to see , is there an appetite for it ? Is there an opportunity to partner ? If there is great .

If there isn there isn't , well , let's go have a cocktail anyway and you know and carry on the conversation that's relationship building right . It might not be a deal today , might not be a deal today , but you know , if you're in it for the long term , there's always an opportunity for something .

I've I had and and this is a great example I won't name names , but I had an opportunity to sit in an uber with someone on the way from airport and they were like so what are you doing now ?

And I was like I described it and they were like , oh , actually , you know , I know we've talked to other providers that do that , but and we've always said no , but because I know it's you , I'm going to bring this up with our VP of partnerships and see what they think Right , and that's the kind of like .

That's the kind of credibility that you cannot buy . That's the kind of credibility that you earn over a long-term relationship . Yeah .

And so then the business side why would that not be about people as well and about , like actual relationships ?

You reassured me before I went on stage , and so I would love to know some of the behind-the-scenes activity that occurs and I would just share with our listeners one , I guess dramatic development that most people probably weren't aware of was . I guess you guys were missing the backdrop for the event . They got lost in a truck somewhere .

They had to sort of jerry-rig something else and put it as a backdrop and so , yeah , so these are the things that most people aren't aware of , that are happening in the background . So tell us a little bit more of the behind the scenes this year , of the things that went well or the things that were a challenge .

. The team is working on putting the event together and everything from finding a hotel , finding a location to getting plants and on Friday , when I landed , I got to the hotel finding a location to , you know , getting plants .

And on Friday , when I landed , I got to the hotel , I checked in and and Heather who's our event amazing event planner , extraordinaire was like Janelle , I need you to go with me to Lowe's to pick out plants . And I was like , okay , that's what we're doing today .

And so we went on a plant safari and and I was super stressed about all of the things I had to do to prepare for the stage . But I was like you know what ? We need plants . So I'm going to be present in this moment with the plants and and it ended up being such a fun highlight of prepare , preparing the event .

But then nobody thinks about like , where did the plants come from and how did they ? And they got them there . And we got them there in an uber , because particular Lowe's didn't have , you know , rental trucks . So all that stuff that just happens . The goal is it's kind of like a tour .

When you run a tour , the goal there's so much going on beneath the surface , but the goal is that the people on your tour experience it as a smooth experience and see a guide that is calm and cool and collected and having a good time , even if internally they're like , oh my gosh , this is crazy .

So I think with the event behind the scenes , there's so many people that make it happen . You see me on stage but you don't see the AV team that has put on like an incredible show and that I asked five minutes , two minutes before going on stage for a particular entrance music . Like they know their stuff and they do such a good job .

And I think the biggest takeaway for behind the scenes is there's so many people that make it happen , but also not as many people as you would think . The arrival team is not that big . People are often surprised by how few people are on the team , like we're just over a dozen putting this together .

They are just , you know , it's whether it's the booking experience or whether it's like getting on the bus or right , all of those things that they , that , they that just happen and are not memorable .

Those are the things that take so much work by so many people so that those experiences aren't a problem , right , and what you really focus on is the core experience , which is that content on stage or , you know , the cocktail party or whatever .

So I love the way that it just kind of circles back to Douglas's initial comments about the prosaic nature of these things . That's what happens in the back is all the stuff that takes care of the prosaic stuff .

The thing I find interesting about when you're hosting people in travel , they're tour guides . So you getting up there , janelle , you're being judged by a room full of tour guides .

water yeah , and and like he talks about the prosaic experience , and that's one side of it is like making sure in advance everything is good , and then you in this industry as well like in events as well as in travel and tour guiding there's always stuff that happens in the middle that you can't prepare for .

Like you can be as prepared as possible , and there's still going to be something that gets thrown in there . And for this one . I think I can share that we had one of the speakers drop out the day before one of the main stage speakers and these are planned months in advance .

Everything is set months in advance and then the day before you find out , oh , this person had a personal emergency . There's nothing we can do .

They're not going to be there , but we have this time slot and people are expecting , you know , someone on the main stage and so last minute we put in Ravi Roth because he was here and he's great and they did a great job Very last minute preparing that and switching things up and making new slides and changing my entrance words and everything that had to happen

in a very short period of time to make that smooth .

But but also being on the attendee side , again , it just number one . It was humbling because it reminded me how how much you take for granted when you're at an event like this , like all of the things that the team does behind the scenes , like I know what they do now , so I really appreciate the work that they do .

But also I forgot just how much more time I have as an attendee to spend with people , to build those relationships , to sit down and just talk to somebody for 30 , 40 , 50 minutes , right , and not feel , and not feel like I've got to rush off to the next thing , cause I got to make sure that his speakers , you know , got their slides for a presentation or

whatever the case may be . Like it's . It was really refreshing to just be in the moment and present with the other attendees and spend that time together . So for me it was really refreshing .

Well , if people want to find out more about Arrival , but also each of you , to follow up and connect with you , janelle , and you , stephen for sure journey , whether it is the season two of the Voices of Experience podcast or the next Arrival event , so , janelle , why don't you go first ?

And then , for myself , you can find me on LinkedIn , janelle Visser , and you can find me on Instagram , moto M-O-T-O , janelle , and that's mostly my adventures , but you can connect with me wherever works best for you and sign up for the Arrival newsletter .

I'm generally the one that's writing and sending them , so any new podcast episodes we have will also be announced in the Arrival newsletter .

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In our next episode , we're going to feature Sarah Dines , the chief commercial officer from Viator , as well as Bruce Rosard and Christian Watts and a number of other fascinating people , and then we're going to continue the conversation with the Adventure , travel and Trade Association highlights .

So make sure that you are subscribed on the streaming channel of your choice and also follow our social channels for highlights and clips on Instagram , linkedin and YouTube . Until next time , safe travels .