Live from Arival: Interview Highlights Part 2

This is part two of the series where we're going to be starting off speaking to Lori Timoney , the insightful host of Experience . This and in this episode , we're going to introduce you to 12 remarkable individuals who are shaping the future of tours and activities .

Our guests will include Viator's Chief Commercial Officer , sarah Dines , with Local's Chief Thank you up with AI expert , christian Watts and Arrival co-founder , bruce Rosard . We're also thrilled to announce that our Travel Trends team has been invited back to Arrival's next major US conference , set to take place in Washington DC from September 30th to October 3rd 2025 .

Be sure to join us there and , in the meantime , visit Arrivalcom that's with one R to subscribe to their newsletter for updates on all the exciting developments that are going to be happening in the tours and activities industry , and don't forget to check out their Voice of Experiences podcast as well .

Now , without further ado , I want to interview our first guest , but I hope that you've enjoyed this insightful series . Be sure to reach out to us with any questions or feedback . But let's dive in and welcome our first guest , lori Timoney , who is the SVP at GoCity . Welcome , lori , great to have you with us .

And , of course , I love your profile in the industry . We've met at a number of different events , so I don't feel like we're just friends . I really feel like we're good friends . We've known each other long enough that I can extend that . We've got so many friends in common , like Anna from Imagine Experiences and like the list goes on .

But one of the things I always love catching up with you about is just the industry and what's happening in travel . But for those people who are new to understanding what GoCity is , maybe we'll just give everyone a bit of clarification about your role and what GoCity actually does .

I don't even really want to tell you how long but I've had several roles in the organization , but currently I'm heading up global trade sales . So basically I work with all of the people that resell our product . You know just everybody , from OTAs to tour operators , dmcs you know the list goes on .

So essentially , whoever is reselling it typically falls under my remit . Got it Okay ?

But when it comes to Arrival , let's just start there , since we're brought together for this particular event and obviously we both love it , and last year you'd highlighted to me , I'd asked you the question of like what did you get out of it this year ?

And you were like I've been in meetings the whole time , so I haven't really had a chance to attend a lot of the sessions . Like , well , that's , one of the benefits of being here is that you get to connect with all the friends and colleagues , especially post-pandemic .

So let me ask you that question again and take it in any direction you want , but you know what are your thoughts on Arrival 2024 here in San Diego ?

We got to get this thing online , and so it was very much focused on that .

And what I've seen is that we've really graduated not that we still don't have a lot of work to do to plug in , because there's , you know , I think 50% of the operators out there is still not plugged in , but what we have seen , or what I've seen for sure , is graduating beyond that .

So now you've got technology that's answering other needs and there's a lot of it and it's really cool stuff and it isn't all just even about AI . It's , you know , there's . You know we had the innovation showcase today and I was just blown away by some of the you know the value that some of these businesses are bringing .

So I feel like , okay , I feel like maybe this is arrival part two or something . I'm enjoying that part of it .

total newbies and some of them , even though it's their first time at Arrival newbies and some of them , even though it's their first time at Arrival , they've actually been in the travel industry for 10 years or they've developed a successful travel business and they're finally coming to Arrival . So it is , I agree with you .

I think that actually I share your sentiment about this year , that it is a different feel , a different energy , and that we may be in this kind of next wave of Arrival . So you coined it first . First , this is arrival 2.0 .

business and perhaps there's a way to grow it .

And so it's fun to talk to those operators because , you know , I think if you've been in the business a while , and especially if you've been at a number of arrivals , you start to get a bit I don't know if the word jaded is the right word , but you definitely don't think about certain things the same way you would if you were kind of a newbie .

And I love that . There's all these people that are here to learn and , you know , I'd like to almost crawl into their skin for a little bit to get those new , fresh eyes on the whole thing . But yeah , so I think it's wonderful for that first timer .

But also there's a lot here for people that have been around for a while and , as I said , you know familiar with , of course , they've just done their second raise .

I didn't realize here Christian Watts a good friend of yours , your co-host , of course , on Experience this was one of the reasons that he came to this event . So Christian encouraged Andy and his team to come and check out Arrival and see how they might be able to work with a lot of these companies in this ecosystem .

And clearly Andy was really glad that he had come . But I was shocked to see him at the bar on the first night . I was like Andy , what are you doing here ?

And what he was highlighting to me is that he couldn't believe how many people are cynical about travel planners in this space , because that's essentially how their business started was like this AI travel planner and you know as well as I , going to all these conferences over the last decade , there's been no shortage of travel planners and there's a graveyard of

travel planners and so he was highlighting to me , to your point about getting jaded , there definitely still is that , with the people that are in our industry that have seen businesses come and go and just saying , oh , here we go , there's another one of those .

But I actually think that MindTrip and obviously time will tell and Andy's fairly humble because he's like we'll learn and see , but I think they're onto something pretty exciting he's like , you know , we'll learn and see , but I think they're onto something pretty exciting .

And I think that there is a next wave of these companies that are coming out to this event , that are going to challenge some of the incumbents and they're going to shake up the industry and they're going to do things differently . So it's clear that we're both seeing both sides of that .

We're seeing the cynical side of travel , the old school nature , and then all of these , you know , fresh newbies that are coming in , that are going to , you know , pave the new way .

You know it's interesting because actually he was on the experience , this travel podcast , but I wasn't in that session so I didn't get a chance to chat with him , but was one of the things Christian mentioned to me was that he he sort of came into it by saying , okay , I want to do something utilizing AI , so what is the industry that I should consider jumping

into ? So it wasn't like he was thinking , okay , travel , and then I'll do something to kind of fix travel or whatever . He was thinking , okay , I'm using AI and that's what I want to focus on , and now what can I do with this ? And that's where he landed on travel .

And the funny thing I think you know to your point about sort of look , looking at the graveyard of trip planners , when you've been in the travel industry for a long time , I feel like you come from this place of thinking , yeah , I know what I've seen it , all I know , know it .

And you think about like a trip planner and you think about all the reasons why it might not work and all the complexities around travel and all the different platforms and the way people look at getting the right prices and all of that and there's so many arguments against it . And you know there's so many arguments against it , and you know so .

I think that's why you get so many people that are like , oh my God , no , not another trip planner . But you know , I don't fully understand and I don't necessarily have to get into a conversation about my trip specifically , but I'm trying to remember exactly why is he not a trip planner ?

So they made that connection to realize that travel , despite all the promises of technology , there's still established players in the space in terms of how travel is distributed , and DMOs was something they came across destination management organizations and how their technology could be used by existing players .

So I think this is where what's going to be interesting with them is that they started as B2C . They've added B2B and I think they'll successfully implement these B2B tools , but they're still going to be a B2C business .

I think that's where we're only at that first wave of AI , and it's still very early days , and you and I are seeing this both at the conferences and the AI summit is that we're very early in valuable use cases , and so , of course , people have seen trip planners and they see AI , and then they're seeing them not very personalized and if they're hallucinating or

making errors and everyone's just discounting it , and I think that's short-sighted , I think that there's going to be . I don't think they're just tools . I think AI is an agent and I think there's a lot of automation and like having a personal assistant .

So I think companies like Mindtrip are going to have an advantage because they got in early , relatively speaking . But this is why I love having conversations with you , because you have a great perspective on this industry . So I've even seen companies like Peak , so P-E-K of course , I interviewed their CTO today as well .

Oscar and I've known Josiah , who's employee number three they started that business 12 years ago and Josiah , who I would see at all the conferences in the last few years . Josiah was more here we go again .

It's kind of like a washroom's repeat with going to some of the conferences with their tech and their platform , their sales and going up against the Fair Harbor , and he was the most energetic and enthusiastic Um , and I connected him and Andy to say you guys should actually , because AI for him has totally transformed their business in the last year and it's made

it exciting again .

Yeah , and so all that rush of energy around developing a technology company 12 years ago that was going to they're they're now um , utilizing this , uh , these tools , improving their platform and there's lots of interest and engagement and for him it's just it's completely reinvigorated his interest in the business , and so that to me , is like you know , you get

startups , you have incumbents and it's just wherever you position yourself currently on AI , it's just exciting that our industry is going to go through another warp speed change again and not everyone's clear exactly what's going to happen , but what are some of the other trends that you're paying attention to Laurie , both in your role and then what you're seeing at

Arrival

. What are some of the other things that stand out to you ?

It doesn't , you know , it really doesn't touch upon the business that I'm in now , but it really is and it makes a ton of sense , right , Because the wealth in the country is growing , especially in the US , for sure , and so these people have the money to spend and they're going to spend it , you know , in different ways . So how do you respond to that ?

In watching some of these tour companies pop up , you know we talked about , you know , being friends with Anna , obviously , the type of business that she's in with Immersive , you know it gives her more flexibility to just take her tours to a whole new level and address a different market .

So I think that you know , the whole kind of upscale luxury is very interesting . Obviously , I love , like all the different , you know , the wellness piece that's coming through the , as we just talked about immersive . There's any number of different types of travel that I think . You know people talk about Gen Z , for instance .

You know kind of leading the way for that , but I don't know if that's really true . I think there's plenty of other , you know , millennials , Gen X , it doesn't matter . I think people are just people that are interested are interested . And you know , it doesn't matter how old they are .

Necessarily , I mean , gen Z obviously is the newest group to jump into the scene . But I feel like travel . If you're interested in travel , you're probably interested in a lot of different kinds of travel .

So it's fun for me to think that there are , there are , I should say , these categories that are popping up , that are , you know , kind of being paid attention to , and there's new ways of marketing travel all of a sudden .

And and even you know , we talked about multi-day , of course , and we talked about things like you know communities , that's so interesting to me .

Communities , that's so interesting to me , Community travel , like , okay , what if I am just feeling like I need to take a trip and I don't have a friend or a significant other or whomever , but I want to go be with a group of people and I don't really want to go on a group tour ? Well , what can I do ? That gets me into a community-like situation .

I love that concept , agritourism and just different ways of getting into community travel .

So I think I guess that's a long-winded way of saying that I like the fact that there's different categories being assigned to travel that maybe were , maybe always potentially part of the business , but nobody really called it like it was and they certainly didn't market to it , you know .

So I'm enjoying that quite a bit and I think there's a lot of opportunity there and I also love that . To be really honest , I love the fact that travel agents are still a very relevant part of this industry and I don't think people talk about them enough .

I couldn't agree more that Travel Advisors have had this incredible surge , post-pandemic , and why people are using travel advisors is because of the complexity of travel today .

And you look at some of the stats and you're across all of this as well when you look at the number of sites that people look at when they're trying to decide their travel , and it's gone up four or five times in the last several years the number of sources , and so there's this huge complexity , so there's more selection than ever .

And and so there's this huge complexity , so there's more selection than ever . And there's a hassle factor despite having the technology and the tools that are there , more and more travelers are relying on travel agents to just cut through the clutter . For me , and you know me best , make the recommendation , especially for luxury , especially for wellness .

And I just wanted to underscore your point , too , about luxury , because you're absolutely right , it's one of the trends that , even when we were starting out in the show and kind of looking at the next few years , and one of the questions that had come up for both of us I'm sure , was this question of revenge travel .

I don't think either of us like that terminology , but Douglas was highlighting that the revenge travel has kind of exhausted itself , that there was this kind of two-year surge of people spending their money , and one of the things that I was really intrigued about is that once that kind of post-pandemic spending spree had subsided , the question was what's going to

continue ? And I think there's two clear themes .

One of them is luxury , because and this is a society , richer , getting richer , and I don't make any big statements about that , but it is the reality and so the people that could do private trips they discovered during the pandemic and afterwards , once they started doing private trips like wait a second , I didn't realize there's an option I can spend a bit more

money and either get there with a private jet or have a luxury vehicle waiting for me , or be able to book out a private villa , and so it's opened up all these new opportunities and all these companies that are now servicing that high-end clientele .

And then the other one you pointed out is the younger demographic , that the arrival stats indicated that the younger people are three times as likely to take adventure trips .

They're very much into exponential travel and , interestingly , even though they're not in nearly the financial position of the boomers , they are prioritizing travel as an essential item to their life , not something that is like they're going to wait or delay for gratification 100% , and so , therefore , they're going to be resilient .

They don't necessarily have the same amount of disposable income , but the disposable income they have is going to be spent on travel .

I want to go like , but wait a minute , don't you need to save some money ? Like , what about paying your bills ? In fact , I even said that to her the other day . I'm like you might want to take some of that money and pay your bills , but my son is the same way . You know , mom , I think it's time for me to go away again , you know .

So I 100% see that generation . I think , in a way , I'm a little bit jealous , because they've already learned that experiences are crucial to their happiness in life and they've already learned that . You know , hey , yeah , you can have money and you need money , but you also need to have , you know , really cool experiences .

And they also recognize the value of travel , as far as just even getting out and seeing the world and broadening their horizons , right ?

this incredible demand for travel experiences continue .

So those and , yes , in luxury , but also , you know , before , that money is inherited by the young and I know I joked about this in the show which Scott Galloway does as well which is that you know that , um , the boomers are going to do everything to spend it before they actually have to pass it on to their , to their kids .

And their kids are like , wait a minute , exactly , that's my inheritance is like , when did that become a obligation ? That you have to leave money for other people ? It's just like um , so like . I had the view with my dad too , and he was . I was just like that .

You know , spend it while you're here , go on those trips , like it's just like , seize every opportunity . And so clearly that generation has got that message and they're going for it and that's going to be a sustained kind of 10 year boom of activity .

So it's not , you know , there's going to be elections , there's going to be world events , sure , but there's going to be this group of travelers that are going to continue to spend the younger and the older . So it's an exciting time to be in our space .

I now have the pleasure to sit down with someone that I've been really keen to interview and we haven't been able to make it happen yet , but we are here at this event . I have Kelsey Toner from . He's the founder of Guest Focus . Welcome , kelsey . Pleasure to be here . Absolutely , man , and you're a fellow Canadian .

Tell everyone where you live in Canada , because you probably actually live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country .

But tell everyone a bit about your background in travel and then we'll talk about what you're doing at Guest Focus .

I went to university in Nova Scotia , Canada , and then , like many folks , I didn't actually have that gap year . So the gap year came at the end . I took any job that allowed me to travel to see the world , new people , new places . I worked for a dog sledding company in the Canadian Rockies . I led wilderness trips through you know , Northern Wisconsin .

I helped build a leadership camp out in California , I remember down in Kings Canyon National Park and then eventually picked up with Backroads Tours . These are the biking tours , the hiking tours , active travel .

Ended up working with them for probably five , six years , started as a tour leader , eventually got into tour leader training , eventually would take over regions . So I worked in Burgundy , France , um , uh , and did multi-day tour design . How do you go into a destination and find some of the best operators , the best suppliers , the best tour leaders ?

Who's creating the most magical memories in this place ? And then how do we put that into a multi-day itinerary that can be scaled and sold ? And then , uh , yeah , that's where I met my wife . That was probably the next big turning point in this story that not all jobs come with a wife , but that was a .

That was a nice little perk , so you guys met at back roads .

Uh , and so we just happened to be both Canadian and then , um , we , and then we wanted to have a family , but we couldn't really do that from the back of a bicycle as easily living out of a backpack . So that's when we sort of transitioned into what at that time was Be A Better Guide and now Guest Focus .

So you have the , I guess , the privilege of having that experience and that background , having worked in successful operators . What's actually , as you mentioned , about having kids ? Of course , that was one clear driver , but you had this great experience .

You decided to go out on your own and create Be A Better Guide , which has now been rebranded to Guest Focus , and you're a business partner here . Obviously , we know each other as well , but tell us a little bit more about why you decided to create this business and tell all of our listeners exactly what you do with this company .

So I got this just crash course for like five years on how to create memories that last a lifetime . Um , I was trying to be the best tour leader host , uh , that I could be , and one of my favorite questions was who is the most memorable tour leader that you ever had ? What was the most incredible experience that you've had ?

And I would regularly ask this at dinner with guests . And so what I really quickly realized is one of the ways that I could give back , or something that I was able to observe was wow , I can really help fill the world with incredible experiences .

I have really practical down to earth best practices , do's , don'ts and a ton of inspiration on how we can raise the bar and maybe move away from a lot of the travel experiences that are pretty phoned in , that are pretty forgettable , right , and create more of those connections with people , with guides , with places that you remember five years later , 10 years

later , maybe 20 and beyond , right .

But in terms of the types of clients that you've cultivated because I think this is where I've seen the reputation you have in the industry and the people that gravitate to you and you built a successful business how did you start to find the customers and obviously giving them the trust and confidence to believe in you and the team to be able to do this ,

because what you do is absolutely critical to operating successful companies in the tour space . So how did you actually build this out as a business ? Do you have a few clients initially that you'd worked with that you came into and I guess , how has the business grown ?

But I think the real unlock let's start here was in recognizing that if you can keep your guests and , candidly , your ideal target guests not necessarily the guests that you're serving right now , but your ideal target guests at the heart of everything you're doing in your tour and activity business , that's the big unlock , right , and that's that's where the brand

would eventually became guest focus .

That guest obsession not dissimilar than customer obsession , right ? This isn't rocket science here , this is Amazon 101 , bezos customer obsession .

So , if we can do this in hospitality with the term guest , because that , I think , more accurately reflects what so much so many of us are doing and how we're treating , how we're serving , we're coming from a place of service , not one of just customers , right ? So there's guest obsession . What does that look like when you're on tour and creating experiences ?

But what does that look like when you're writing a sales page and I'm trying to actually convince you that this is a great way to spend your time and your hard-earned money ?

What does this look like with a guest of tour operators that were small , some that were larger , like some of the ones that you've worked for and some of the groups that you've seen and that maybe it's like a law of attraction . But when I started talking in that way and I said you know what ? We're going to create a club .

We're going to create a group , a community of people that really care deeply about the guest experience , if you want to be in it , come on in and then let's share best practices with each other and I think that was the real unlock of how we were able to attract people to some of what we were doing .

And so , as the product , let's say , and service , has evolved , we're now doing a slightly more higher touch coaching , mentoring , accountability calls .

What we quickly realized was we started had lots of different products and services online courses , we did various trainings , we did in-person trainings , we do consulting , and where we landed was people really wanted accountability , they wanted mentorship . We're here at Arrival . Arrival is one of those players . That's , hey , let's bring people together in the industry .

But guess what ? These events only happen a couple of times a year .

So folks like yourself , folks like myself , can step into that space and say , well , let's , let's have some community , let's share best practices , but let's do it in a way that's digital , let's do it in a way that maybe we don't have to hop on a plane , spend quite so much money to get somewhere .

But yeah , we can , we can get together in that online space and share those best practices .

I know you were speaking and clearly there's lots of benefits to being here at Arrival , but what specifically stood out to you about this year's event ?

But close to Bruce and Douglas's heart is creating those memories of a lifetime right , and Douglas regularly talks about them on stage . We'll be right back .

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I'm now joined by someone that gave an amazing presentation to start day two of this conference . She is the Chief Growth Officer from WithLocals and I had the pleasure and the privilege to have dinner with her last night at one of the industry events , and I was really keen for her to join us on the podcast and tell everyone what she's working on .

So welcome , sharda , thanks for joining us .

So you've moved back to Delhi , yes , but you're spending a lot of time in Amsterdam , so you've got this incredible global perspective . Yeah , and you're clearly an avid traveler and last night , when we were chatting at dinner , it was one of the things that you look forward to , or one of the things is stand-up comedy , and I'm a huge stand-up comedy fan .

But , yeah , tell us a little bit about WithLocals . So , for those people who are not familiar with the company , let's start there . What is WithLocals ?

So we make sure that we can make travelers and locals meet , have a great time while they're in the city yeah , and just support the locals while they do that yeah .

I've been impressed with the team over the years and you guys have gone from strength to strength , and so tell us first a little bit about your role as the chief growth officer , and then I want to hit on some of the highlights you shared in your presentation this morning about the remarkable growth that you've had over the last year , but tell us about the

role of a chief growth officer .

But , yeah , essentially post-COVID is where my role also shaped up as a chief growth officer and the focus more so is on marketing global expansion and partnerships .

The focus more so is on marketing global expansion and partnerships , and global expansion is the piece that I did share at Arrival this morning how we went from 65 cities to 300 plus cities in just one year . So that has been a fantastic work that has happened , together with the team , of course , and we've been at it .

Yeah , so a large part of the last one and one and a half years we've just been onboarding locals from different parts of the world , uh , creating experiences and trying to make sure the guests can find all this which is so important .

So hopefully you can join us there in person , but tell us a little bit more about how you and the team leveraged AI , or generative AI more specifically , to be able to build out that many cities in that incredibly record time , because , in addition to the content , you still need to be able to deliver on the experience as well .

So you know , there's the offline and digital component .

So this is what inspired us to just really look at it in a very different light and just undo all the learnings that we've done so far and look at it in a very different perspective .

And that was also around the time when AI bug was biting everyone and we thought , ok , maybe this could be something where we could just leverage AI to be able to do this differently . And that's how we started Initially . It's not something we cracked right away because just trying to tell AI okay , can you tell me what the tour should look like ?

Can you tell me stops point A to point B no longer than 15 minutes ? What should be the meeting point ? If you make it very generic , it's an answer everyone can find . But we also don't want , with local stores , to be like what everyone else can find . We do want it to be special .

So that's when we realized that if you really build on top of what we have , which was the data from the 65 cities , and feed that into AI and then really get the agents to build on top of that and just sort of emulate that for the new cities . And that's when the piece started . You know , pieces started to come together for us .

and you were highlighting to me that actually most of the business comes from Europe , asia and Australia , so I guess USA and Canada would still be growth markets for you .

So a city that has to offer all of this becomes the right next step for us . So everything in Europe and Asia pretty much fits the bill , because there's so much culture , food , language , just customs . There's so much to explore . What we've not been able to crack as much so far is the English speaking countries from a supply perspective .

So that's still a learning curve that we need to go through . Yeah , I mean , the difference is a city in the US . Is it really a walking city right away ? Can you do a three-hour walking tour that you can do in Amsterdam ? Can you replicate that in LA ? Probably not , because people are not used to walking three hours . The distances are much larger .

So because we've not cracked that piece yet , we haven't scaled in the US .

And so when you do enter a new market like that and you partner with local guides and so are those existing established guides that you then partner with to be able to build up this experience , since this is such a , there's so many operators here , I'm sure there's many people that would be actually keen to work with you to unlock different opportunities to make

with locals bookable in many American markets . So , yeah , tell us how , I guess from an operational point of view , how you build them into your ecosystem .

So , keeping all of that in mind , it makes sense for us to partner directly with the guides , and that's been a constant effort for us to find those guys through the networks .

What helps is that we do have a huge community of about 2500 local hosts all over the world and now the network effect starts to kick in , so our guides just refer more guides and word of mouth is the best advertising . But having said that , we do have smaller tour operators if they're really good at a niche .

For example , we have someone in Lisbon who does Jeep tours and then we're also transparent about that on the platform that this is a tour operator and you might have a bunch of guides and one of them will show up for your tour . But that's a very small percentage of our overall supply .

So this is the first time we've met and I was just getting a bit of background on your remarkable backstory , and so I'd love for you to share with the audience what SmartRes is and how you actually built this company .

Intrigued me so much and I'm so glad we're having the opportunity to have this conversation , because not only a fellow Canadian , but someone who has kind of found their way into the travel industry and now has this incredibly successful company .

So give everyone a bit of the context of that backstory , because I think that's important to understand what you've built with this company .

So my mom gave my twin cousins the Ontario driving test handbook to help them pass their written driving test .

About a million people per year download the app .

However , it doesn't make as much money because it's free and monetized by ads now and so about 14 years ago , I was looking at other verticals and at the time , on the boating space , about half of the states required to have a boating certificate in order to drive a boat , and so I thought over time that all the other states would gradually make their way to

it . Today it's 45 states , and so we got into boating in Florida and California . Today we're in 13 states . By the end of the year we should be in 17 . And then to fast forward to SmartRes one of the largest water sports companies in Florida is called Booyah Water Sports .

They weren't happy with their booking software because it wasn't as great for multiple locations . They came to us and said hey , we love what you're doing on your customer service for us . We love your product on the education side . Can you build a booking software for us ? Hey , can you also build a waiver software for us ?

And can you also build memberships for us , because we want to roll it out to our 100 hotels and so we built all of those in the last little bit .

lot of people here for this conference with that background and working in that space . So it makes total sense for me why you would be here with Smart Res as a booking platform , given some of the partners you have . But tell us , have you been to an Arrival conference ?

I'm a big fan of Arrival , as you would know , as our listeners know , and I've spoken to these conferences before , and I adore Bruce and Douglas who launched this business and still managed it very , very closely , and you'll obviously get a chance to meet them over the next couple of days , and so I'd love to hear , for a complete newcomer to this particular

conference , what are some of the things that attracted you to come this year and what are you hoping to walk away with in the next few days ?

So for us , when we started on the booking software side , we literally went to the beach . We were there for two full days and we understood exactly what the flow was like , and it was by talking to customers and talking to the businesses that we were able to figure out how to do it .

And so it's really applying that same thing , but to other business lines as well .

Tell everyone for those people who are just meeting you for the first time and wrapping their head around Secret Food Tours , tell us what your company is and what you do .

Basically it's going to five or six different destinations mainly restaurants or markets or some kind of foodie hotspot and eating one or two different samples in each place , sometimes having a drink , and then eventually tying it all together with a story or a theme , mostly based around the city , but could be something like chocolate tour or donut tour or whatever

kind of tour you'd imagine , but most of the time we do a tour based on the area or the neighborhood of that city . Yeah , very most of the time we do a tour based on the area or neighborhood of that city .

And so you're this overnight success story that you know , 10 years in the making . But tell everyone how you got this business off the ground . What gave you the original inspiration ?

London at the time wasn't so known for food , but did have some amazing things , like Borough Market , for example , and we took great pride in showing people around and we realized that we were onto a winner of an idea .

We came up with the name Secret Food Tours because we didn't want a generic name based on the city , because he had launched his in Paris and I had launched mine in London , and the London tour was very much based around how I would have acted as a Londoner and his tour was very much acted like him as a French person .

And we realized , you know , we've got to make a , a business that is global , that shows the best of the city , but it's not cookie cutter , it's very unique , um , and we wanted something that tied everything together .

So we believe that we should have a secret dish and a secret location , and these two things would , um , uh , you know , really tie in the name secret and be a USP and be something very unique . And every tour to this day still has a secret dish and a secret location that you only find out on the day , and the rest of the menu is on the website .

work out how they expand and rebrand . So you clearly had that vision from the beginning and you've been on this incredible success journey . Now Tell us a little bit what's happened for you over the past year since we saw each other at Arrival last , and what brought you back this year to the conference .

That's an award by the sunday times , which would be like the new york times equivalent , um , and it's a very prestigious award . We got a awards dinner in the british museum . You know lots of celebrities , famous people . They're famous entrepreneurs , so that was a really big deal and something we're very proud of .

Another thing that we're very proud of is currently we're number one rated on TripAdvisor for all activities not just food in New York . I think that's out of 1,600 different activities . So I believe we're even beating some major , major attractions as well . So that's very exciting .

What brought us back to the conference ? Well , I believe Arrival is basically the only conference I find very useful . I don't really like WTM . I believe Arrival is basically the only conference I find very useful .

I don't really like WTM , not to say it's not useful for other people , but for us as a food tour operator , there isn't much that we've found particularly useful . It's a lot of noise and not a lot of focus .

For us at least , with Arrival there is lots of focus , there's lots of people to meet , and one of the things that we're trying to do is , although 95% of our growth is organic , we are looking to acquire some other companies maybe food tours , maybe even other spaces and expand that way as well .

We've done one acquisition , a small one , and we're looking for some others .

You came here with a vision in mind , which is you're growing rapidly and you're on the acquisition path , but are some other interesting developments that have happened over the last couple of days beyond partnerships ? Is there some of the new trends or themes that you've seen here ? Have you been attending some of the sessions ?

I guess I'm asking what else has stood out to you at this year's arrival .

Um , other themes I saw was a lot of people trying to be multi , multi-tour destinations . Maybe the industry is starting to roll up a little bit . It was very fragmented . Maybe some people retiring , maybe some people want to expand . Uh , maybe some people just want to get out . You know , they want to try other things .

I think , um , I think that's that's a trend that we're seeing . Um , you know what ? What I understand is for some areas of the travel market it seems to be slowing . We haven't seen that for us , thank God , but we of course don't , you know , we don't rest on our laurels .

We are very , you know , we want to feel confident , but we don't want to be arrogant about it and we want to continue our growth and our growth plans and if we continue them I mean we launched 30 cities a year I mean not many people can do that . We have the team and the experience to do that .

So at the moment we're 75 cities , but we expect to be by this time next year around about a hundred . We don't launch cities just for the sake of it . We have a plan and a reason and why and we do a lot of research onto why and how and what . But you know that's the plan and if we keep that going , our growth trajectory should continue .

in human history . You have so many niches even within that .

So younger , older audiences Keen to know , though , with your expansion plans , I'd love to actually speak about that a little bit further , just to understand how you do make those decisions , and part of the reason I want to ask that question is because I'm keen to know what are the trends that you are seeing that are unique by your vantage point of running

secret food tours , having all of these locations . So I'm genuinely keen to know how the experiences are evolving based on consumer behavior , but specifically the destinations . I'd love to know a bit more about that . What is your formula for success with launching a new destination ?

You know , get to travel and eat and see different places , uh , but before that , there's a lot of research into all of the cities . We've mapped out every major city in the world , all 500 major cities .

Maybe there's more than 500 , but that's where we got to , yeah , um , and we have a list from you know one to you know 500 , of where we're going and what we're doing . We base it on you know um . You know search . Uh , we base it on um trends . We base it on competitor analysis .

We base it on you know where things are going , what things are , you know what things are doing if there's any global events , wars , or you know geopolitical issues or even weather patterns , and we tend to launch in the low season and try and gain traction for the high season .

What I will say is you know , we traditionally always relaunched new cities and we pumped in any profit into those new cities again and again and again . That means that you know anyone planning to do that .

You have to be prepared to , you know , put most of your profit from that year into launching , and you've got to expect that those cities won't necessarily take off . Is the way you think . Sometimes it can take a year year , sometimes it can take two and I've seen it even take five .

So it all depends on if you're willing to carry those losses , um , and not everyone is . And then the other problem with expansion is the complexity of it . You've got , you know , things like currencies . You've got time zones . You need to have 24-hour customer service .

You need to uh have people that are willing to work , and you need to have 24-hour customer service . You need to uh have people that are willing to work and you need to be able to trust people . They're going to work when you're sleeping .

Um , you need to understand that there's going to be seasonalities and holidays , and customs and cultures that don't like something or do like something , and when you add all of that together , the , the complexities are immense . Um , there's almost like a difference between you know one city , you know one city . To like maybe five cities is like one jump .

And then five cities to like 20 cities is another jump , and 20 to 40 is another one , and maybe 40 to , you know , 100 is another one . So we're on that final jump and , as you see , that can take a very , very long time and a huge amount of money , and when things go wrong , there's , you know , a lot of problems to deal with .

So what I'm trying to say to anyone who's listening , who would like to do that sort of thing I'm not discouraging you , but just understand that you need to sacrifice your profit today and your time today in order to build a much bigger , more valuable company of the future .

Your profit today and your time today in order to build a much bigger , more valuable company of the future .

That was kind of cool for me to find out , and you've been coming to Arrival for a few years . I guess this is your fourth event , but what specifically brought you this year .

Travel trends that's the most appropriate place for Dan to be , but yeah , it's that . It's seeing people that are moving , that are making things happen within our industry . It's the keynotes , it's the roundtables , and you can't forget the sponsored events at night . Those are good times .

It was great to listen to the presentation of Douglas , of course , every year , introducing us as the best part of travel and speaking with Disney Imagineering I think I said that right . I'm just hearing that journey , what they're focused on . So , yeah , for us it's exciting because there's a lot of discussion on AI and how that's impacting our industry .

I have this feeling that , you know , there's going to be kind of maybe a counter reaction where we replace even more trust in things that are real .

You know , given that you know all this content is being created , and so I'm curious that's what kind of my take is is what you know , how is this going to impact in more authentic experiences , more authentic sharing of experiences , more word of mouth , and that's kind of .

You know , what I'm hoping to maybe still gain over the next couple of days is that relationship between you know all this made up AI generated content and the relationship between you know what is still foundational and what will still continue , even with that innovation .

So if you're a business and your customers want to remember the experience that they had with you , we make it easy to capture a meaningful moment , right A photo or video of that experience , and then we help businesses gain the benefit of what their customers are naturally going to do in sharing those moments , telling their friends and family about those experiences ,

reliving those moments months and years from now , and so yeah , so really our goal is to increase both referral and repeat those two categories of bookings for really any experiential business . Very cool

. And then , how long have you been running this company ? Oh man , I left my comfortable salary job in 2011 to pursue this full time and there's been kind of like three iterations of Photofo .

At one point , we were hanging cameras in trees and poles , using RFID readers to sense tags and snap photos automatically , and and we've evolved to a pure software as a solution uh , where we work with tourist activities attractions around the world . So I've been at this a long time , but , like photofo , today is like five years old very cool , very cool .

So we help them , you know , obviously , capture these meaningful moments and they want them to look the absolute best . You know they want to add filters to them and it makes so much sense . But what I see is just more authenticity in what people are sharing and more value around . Authentic like imperfection Do you know what I mean ? Like imperfect experiences .

Like , in this new world of everything is curated and created in seconds , you know , like you know brands being able to distribute blogs en masse and curate whatever type of content they want , this perfect content .

I think what I see as a trend and what I think is happening is that really , in general , there's more , I suppose , mistrust in what is real , what was created by someone , and so we place a higher value when we see something that we know to be true .

When we see a friend or family of ours posting that imperfect photo of them doing some experience and talking about that and sharing that , you know , I see , really , the power of word of mouth and and authentic , um you know , consumption and sharing and storytelling between people that know and trust each other just being even more valued and more important for

experiential brands to ensure that they're , that they're allowing to happen , to help in help in the growth of their brand and business .

On that note , what are some of the things that most interest you , I guess , as a traveler , because clearly , obviously , you have to have a passion to be in this space , especially to operate a travel company like you do . What are some of the things that you , as a traveler , are intrigued about that are happening in this industry ? As a traveler .

not only help their customers realize something that's really important to them , but then maintain a personal connection to those businesses literally for a life , or , sorry , to their customers literally for a lifetime .

So when I think about what excites me maybe as a traveler is just , you know , first of all , more curated and personal experiences within the activities of which that we're participating in , but then also personalization and long-term connection to something that was very meaningful to me and my family or my friends , where we did something special together

.

You've got two young kids , and so I'd love to ask you , as an operator that is , I guess , straddling those borders of operating in Canada and the US , do you see any unique complexities for international partners that are coming here ?

Unique complexities for international partners that are coming here , I have to say , I mean , for us Canadians we're typically very welcomed here and we kind of hide amongst the Americans with our accents . Most people don't necessarily know that we're even Canadian , so we fit in quite well and so we say oot and a boot , or start giving ourselves away .

Obviously that's another trend I suppose in travel is is you know people , people I don't know if they call it workations or I'm sure there's some other term for it , but I think American business operators , I really believe , are just willing to take risks .

It feels aggressive , they're very aggressive in their pursuit of success and not to say that Canadian businesses aren't . But you really feel that drive other trends in the political atmosphere or the economy . Obviously there's differences between Canada and the US .

They're so driven and they're so they have such , you know , they put such an emphasis on doing everything to the absolute best with the best possible outcome in mind , and I suppose that works really well for us in that you know that they're very . You know we have a very powerful tool , but we can't do it for them . They're very .

You know we have a very powerful tool , but we can't do it for them . They have to take our platform and follow our advice and use it , and quite often they're good at that because of that drive .

We have to uh steer clear of that for many reasons , but , um , nevertheless , there are cultural differences between our markets .

But , and even having a unique Canadian perspective , looking at the U S market , I think it's one of the things that , uh , it's why a lot of companies actually set up their offices in Toronto to operate in North America , because they can capture the Canadian market , which , interestingly and this is one of the stats I've shared with listeners on previous podcast

recordings , and I think it's quite fascinating when you look about outbound travel , the outbound travel market from Canada , or even Australia or the UK , is vastly higher than the US in terms of the number of people who have passports and have an interest in foreign travel and so the market that you can realize in Canada .

Despite it being a 10th of the population , it's actually about a quarter of the business , so there is a lot of opportunity in the Canadian market and a lot of companies here have operations in Canada as well , like these tour operators that have Vancouver and Montreal and Toronto , and so I'd love to get your take on 2025 and some of the things that you're

looking forward to , both for your business and for the industry .

And once we help people have better memories , better memories to keep with , you know whether it's a photo or a video , you know it starts there . And for us , then , it's about how do we create more relationship between that moment that was captured and whether it's the guide that provided it or the brand and business long-term .

So for us , like what I'm excited about , like I'll start with PhotoFlow and then branch out from there , but is that having the ability to have really a relationship , a long-term relationship between customer and guide and brand .

So when guides or the person that captures photo or video moments , when they provide those , we can have a personal message from that guide . We can have a video from that guide . The guests can actually rate that guide and survey the guests and provide meaningful feedback to the guide when they receive their photos .

And then what we can do too is we will automatically resend people their memories , those end guests , and it could come from the guide and it can come from the brand , and it's amazing how people actually , as time passes , these moments become even more nostalgic and perform better right .

So for us it's about if a guide is still part of that business that boat tour or the bike tour , the wine tour a year from now , you know having , you know having those moments resent to the customer with that guide included within that right , and it may be a personal video message , it may be , you know , just a note within that , but to help their , you

know , to create that relationship and that deeper personalization , but not just during the tour or immediately after , but long-term . Of course . That's where our focus is , but I also see more trends in that deeper personalization between these brands and consumer throughout our industry .

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And now back to the show . But now I'm joined by an old friend , someone I've known for a number of years in the industry and someone that I always like hearing his voice because he's got the most amazing Irish accent . I tell him that every time , and I think you'll hear why in a moment .

He is the co-founder of a very interesting company called Travel Curious and he is based in the UK and I really want him to give you his backstory and tell you some of the things he's working on . So , alex , welcome , great to have you with us .

And here you are . You're ready and we're about to finally embark on this conversation to let everyone know about Travel Curious , because you were part of . The reason you weren't ready yet is because you had a number of major partnerships in the works . But let's start by giving everyone a bit of an overview of what Travel Curious is .

From a partner point of view , we are like a Swiss army knife that can kind of help any kind of company to add experiences or ancillaries , including car rental and transfer , onto their offering and increase the guest experience and also increase our revenues .

Just to quickly give you some background , we first met many years ago when we were operating our own private tours globally . So we're in about 85 cities and that's where we started . But as what happens with companies and you'll know this very well from your background with the travel corporation you end up going down lots of different avenues .

As the environment changes , as the industry shifts , you have to try and have different offerings depending on your new partners . So one of our great inroads was that we started working with hotels early days , and hotels notoriously haven't been great at selling experiences .

We had some great partnerships , some that didn't work very well , but we managed to get one with Marriott International and we ended up doing like private tours for them globally and then we ended up actually creating an ancillary platform for Marriott .

So we take care of all the tours and activities ours , including bringing in third parties across the world , and also we do car rental and transfers as well . We also have created a software as a service business for hotels to load their own experiences .

Now this is really interesting and I think there's a huge unlock here , because you know , we're used to traditionally talking about tour operators as the main suppliers in the sector and suddenly you have hotels which are now um creating experiences on premise . And who better place to play in this game as hotels ?

Because they have their the buildings and the resources and the capabilities to create unique experiences on premise . So , um working with hotels , travel agents , otas , um even working with media companies and fintech companies as well , that's what Travel Curious does now .

I think some of the stats that I've read and obviously you know this better than me that it's only about 4% of travelers that visit a destination actually take up the opportunity to have a guide .

Yeah actually take up the opportunity to have a guide , and so it's a remarkably low uptake for what I would consider to be one of the most high value ads to your holiday or your vacation . So it's interesting how your business has evolved , that you started with that concept and partnered with a lot of hotels .

It makes total sense that they want to partner with you , and I know we tried to pilot some projects together . As you mentioned , the Travel Corporation , because I was a big believer , and that's why I'm thrilled that your company has continued to grow and succeed .

Just before we talk a bit more about the industry and where you've gotten to with this business , give everyone a little bit idea of your backstory , because it intrigued me that the people that get into travel usually have a passion for travel , and so tell us a little bit about how you actually decided to get into this industry in the first place .

So I went to do an MBA . Couldn't get a job at the MBA , couldn't get a job because the financial world had imploded . But I managed to get a job in a tech startup in Rome and I went to live in Rome and I was working at a tech startup but I was skint .

I didn't have any money after I paid for an MBA and I became a tour guide in the weekends because I studied history and I'd actually done like a thesis about the Vatican in university . In to being a tour guide , I was like this is the most untapped opportunity I've ever seen my whole life just tourists everywhere taking tours and it was all offline .

It was all offline that you know . Back then , you know there was a few like obviously viator was well established , but beyond viator , get , your guy was just getting going and that's where I just saw a great opportunity and , um , you know , that's that's .

Oh , my god , that's like 15 years ago now , even longer and , um , I've been just encapsulated ever since , but it does go back to as a child . I did go to rome with my , with my family , and we did a tour of the vatican and a tour of the coliseum and I do remember being completely overwhelmed by the history .

So I do believe that I kind of came back to me over time and you , you said there the take up on on guided tours is still relatively low and I just think it's like something that you know once someone does it , once they kind of get it , they kind of understand how much value you can get from it .

And I know it's said a lot in these circles you know that this is probably the most exciting part of travel because you do go back home and tell the stories of the guide . You had the experiences you had a lot more impactful than describing , maybe , the experience in the hotel or on the flight , for example , even though they can be great experiences as well .

But I think the human kind of experience you can have a tour guide is exceptional and I've got a story to tell you that kind of reflects that even more .

So I think that , to me , is kind of the most pure way to find your way into this space .

Um , I was working for a great company and so we had our own , uh , small tour company at the time called roman empire tours , and then we also I was also freelancing for other other companies as well and I used to do some like vs coming over from the US and I would take them on tours and half the time you had to really adapt for that person .

You had to adapt for that family , and that's where a tour guide really makes like that's where they really show that how well they can be by adapting .

And I had this family that had come over and this lady had put in all these crazy requests for seeing these off the beaten churches in Rome and all the tour guides in the company were like this is too much , like I don't want this job .

So I took the job and some of these churches like were so obscure I had to go and do a lot of research for a week even just to kind of like be able to talk about them , because they weren't really on the beaten track .

I ended up like taking this family for like three or four days and then they went off around Aisley and they came back again and then they asked for me for another three or four days again . We actually did the same tours twice sometimes . Wow and um . I'm still in touch with our family now . They came to my wedding about four years later .

They all flew over for a wedding and they're still friends of mine now and like fast forward a few years .

I met my business partners who were both um , who were both in the hotel space , and then we got together and we kind of like expanded travel cures beyond and it's just extraordinary how these small things and these small starts you can end up going , going in different directions that's fascinating and I think you're absolutely right .

because you're sharing the best days of your life . There's the you know that , uh , that's one of the things I always love about travel and the people that we're uh traveling with is that you know this is what we wait all year for in many cases . So you know you're seeing people on the best day of their life , especially yourself being a tour guide .

That's like you know they've , they've , they've saved up , they're finally on this big epic trip and they want to have a great experience .

I've really learned something and I have to say it's probably some of the most fulfilling days was what was being a tour guide .

You know now , like we're a much bigger company , I'm not really like , uh , giving tours anymore , but like I like I still really appreciate the fact that at the front of our company is tour guides living great experiences I now have the distinct pleasure of interviewing someone I've looked forward to for some time now , and I finally have the opportunity to sit down

with her here .

And a lot of the larger operators that we work with are here , and so it's an opportunity . You know they're spread all around the world . It's an opportunity to meet them in one place to hear what they're looking for from Viator in person and not just through quarterly business reviews on Zoom and so on . So that's one reason .

I think the other reason is that it's an opportunity for me to meet smaller operators who don't work with Viator very closely or who don't have personal connection with Viator , and to try to understand what more we can do to help them grow their businesses . In addition to that , we started the conference .

We had a one-day conference called Ignite , which was Viator's very first partner conference , and it was all about unlocking new opportunities together . So the feedback I've had from that has been fantastic .

We'll see when the survey results come in how people enjoyed it , what programming they enjoyed and so on , but it was a real pleasure to be able to share a lot of our internal data to help . We have masses and masses of data from being a TripAdvisor company and also Vital to share with them and to help them make business decisions and so on .

And then the next day , even people were asking on stage that Viator had launched all these new features . And what else do you have to compare ?

So clearly it resonated with people oh good , and one of the things you just pointed out , of course , is there's a lot of new companies here , new companies for Viator to partner with , and I think the stat that Lynn had shared with me , the chief operating officer here at Arrival , was that about 400 of the 900 guests are new , and then the other thing that

stood out to me was that 43% of the attendees don't have reservation technology , so there's still a massive opportunity , despite the growth of your company , to establish new partnerships .

But for those of the listeners here that are not familiar with Viator which is not going to be very many , I'm sure , but it would be really helpful to make sure that everyone's on the journey with us for this conversation Would you mind just giving everyone a little bit of background to Viator and a little bit about your role there

?

We were founded in Australia in 1995 , so we're almost a 30-year-old company now , originally began as a curated marketplace and were acquired by TripAdvisor in 2014 .

Since then , the company has become a much bigger , open marketplace that's governed by quality standards , and so we try to bring the best experiences to what we say to more people , more places , more often , and so that allows us to serve an enormous number of operators who are looking to find bookings .

And , in fact , one of the things that I'd like to add there is that when I took over my role , my current role leading the supply organization , I put this sort of set of values and mission together , and the core foundation of it is to bring value to operators beyond bookings . So we know that operators come to us for bookings .

We're a channel for demand for demand but we also and I think you alluded to we have a number of product initiatives underway and have had others in the past that we think will bring a lot of value to operators beyond just the bookings that they get through us .

Although , as you're probably aware , and if all the listeners are aware , australians love to travel and you'll meet Australians everywhere you go in the world . I'm based in San Francisco where Vitor had a very large office until the pandemic .

I stayed there because I have an 18-year-old son , but he's just gone off to college this year , and so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to maybe look at new places to explore in the world , to the opportunity to maybe look at new places to explore in the world , and Viator is a remote first company , so I can really work wherever I like , as long as

it's in a time zone where we have a lot of people . So I'm excited about that .

Now , tripadvisor is based in Boston , of course , and , as you mentioned , viator , when it was acquired , was based in San Francisco and you came into the business a few years later , but the business obviously is still based out of San Francisco , even though there's no official office .

But I guess what I'd like to ask you is how does TripAdvisor and Viator work together and is there a need for you to travel back to Boston with some frequency , given the parent company of TripAdvisor and how the integration is between the two companies ?

So people may remember Dermot Halpin , barry Seidenberg , of course , the CEO when we were acquired , and most recently , ben Drew , and so the companies have sometimes been operating more separately and currently we're operating much more closely . So TripAdvisor , or Brand TripAdvisor , as the company is is called , is very much focused on growth and experiences .

We have provider is the primary supplier of activities to TripAdvisor , which has billions of visitors per year , many of them looking for things to do . We have an enormous amount or enormous opportunity to do things like really share data is one of the things that we're trying to leverage more and even things like share reviews .

I mean TripAdvisor celebrated its billionth review , I think , in recent months and being able to share those reviews it's very unique content . It's not like the kind of content that you can just get from ChatGPT . It's really valuable to consumers when they're thinking about booking tours and activities . It gives them confidence to do so .

So those are two of the ways in which we're working together . You know we also I in my role , in fact I'm responsible for helping the TripAdvisor brand , or the Brand Trip Experiences team , grow their business , and so that's part of the strategy work that I'm doing with the leadership there .

Is there some ways that you're also embracing that at Viator now , in terms of whether it's partnerships or marketing activity ? Is there some ways that you're also embracing that at Viator now , in terms of whether it's partnerships or marketing activity ?

So we've been using AI and large language models in our business for many , many years , and especially in our customer contact centre , and so you know the things that we learn from travellers when they contact us through either chat or phone , as well as all the reviews on our website have given us the insights that help us understand what are the key customer

problems that we need to solve , such as price comparison , product comparison , logistics , day of logistics and so on , are the things that we have learned that are problems that we need to solve for customers and also for operators . In terms of the future . The things that I'm interested in are in the supply side of the marketplace .

Obviously , that's my core focus . We recently launched a program that uses AI to improve the quality of a product listing and make sure that it's a highly marketable listing that's likely to get bookings as soon as possible . Very nitty gritty , but it does .

You know , all of our products go through a quality process before they're listed on the marketplace , and that process used to take three days and we've been able to reduce it to 24 hours , and not just by automating processes , but actually by making the content much more accurate , less prone to human error and speeding up the communication between operators and vital

. So it's one area that I'm really excited about .

We left them at the in-laws and we did an incredible weekend trip to Chicago and I totally fell blown away by the architecture and the fact of being able to see it from the water and , of course , I went to the Skydeck . I went to the Willis Tower , which I'm a huge fan of Ferris Bueller , so that was another driver for me , but I mean museums .

But yeah , tell everyone a bit about the Skydeck Chicago and the Willis Tower .

You know we don't have a lot of the world's tallest , world's greatest , world's biggest , best , so on and so forth . So for us to have this for a long time it was really cool . Personally , I watched the building come out of the ground . I worked , I lived in a very blue-collar community .

A lot of kids' parents worked out in the place and for that , that kind of like that put them on a different social level . You know , different type of feel and to this day , me working there kind of does the same thing with my kids and their friends and parents growing up and having that . But there's a sense of pride .

This place has been around for over 50 years now but with that it is a cool place for you to experience Chicago . We're on the 103rd floor of Willis Tower , formerly Sears Tower , and we have built a 30,000 square foot museum downstairs which is tens of millions of dollars worth of showcasing Chicago experiences .

We wanted to transform the whole place to be memory-making , and that was very important . With the mix , our friend Ferris Bueller comes into play as well . The observation deck on the 103rd floor . You see up to four states , 50 miles .

It's fabulous , but what you really feel is get a gist of the city when you add the museum , that , and then the ledge , our glass floor balconies , which was inspired partly by Ferris Bueller .

You can see the lake . It's stunning . So , yeah , tell us when you actually built out the ledge and how that came to be part of the experience .

Really , we're all about memory making and I think there was an opportunity to do something . I was recruited . I was told I had $20 million to change the Skydeck . It had been flat for 20 , probably about the last eight of the last 20 years not a lot of growth and I had $20 million to do it . I show up . It turned out to be seven . I'm like uh-oh .

I knew I would come up with a plan and looking at it , I noticed I couldn't get people to the roof . The forehead prints on the window , probably inspired by Ferris . They were everywhere and you watch a lot of people trying to get the view down and you thought , okay , could that be the memory of letting people get the view look down through their shoes ?

It had never been done before . We didn't have the money to do market research . So either I would be sitting with you today or I would be doing something different . Very quickly , we did it . We rolled it out . We engineered it for a year and a half . We built it for six months and it went and it really gave us a boost .

It was kind of like having the new roller coaster at the theme park . But here we are , several years later , and it still has the same push . It's become a romantic place for people . We have proposal packages . We've helped with over 1300 marriage proposals . It's a finish line for a charitable stair climb .

It's a place people come countless experiences for romance , fear , adrenaline I don't know what the hell it is . Whatever it is , it's their emotion and it's designed where two steps on , two steps off .

I took out all the handrails , I took out all the structural steel I possibly could because I wanted it to look like we made this on the back of a cocktail napkin and we just threw it out there and I really that's part of can you do it , can you not ? The knees buckle , my knees are bent every time I'm on it .

I know everything about the project , dan , but it's part of the memory that being on the top of the building , the view down , the views out , the field , the museum that we added , which is really incredible in itself .

That would stand alone on its own , but when we add them all together , we feel like we can take care of people not just from around the world , but also locally , and not be over cliche with things .

So it is truly exhilarating because you definitely feel like you're looking down 103 floors below you and I think that's interesting , speaking to you now and understanding the origin story , because so many other tourist sites have moved in this direction . Correct , because they've realized just how impactful that is for guests .

That's something I know our CVB has been working very hard on , but in the meantime I think we're higher than that , because a lot of times we just collect the data from the person who's booking and that person tends to either live in the city or , you know , just coordinate a lot of other countries with them , and I think this is something that you know we're

heavily Spanish speaking . You know we see a lot of . You know thank you for the Canadians coming .

As far as I'm concerned , it's the must visit , like , if there's one thing you do , I love this , I love the architectural tour those are kind of and then visiting some of the museums , and so I'd love to also ask you in terms of how customers are finding you .

Clearly they go to your website or they've been told by other friends who've been to Chicago how much of the business comes direct , and is a lot of your business also through third parties , or trade partners .

We did a lot If you're a football fan , american football fan we got picked up on hard knocks show . Lollapalooza was in town . We had 13 bands come through .

These are all the things that they all have different followers , sometimes Tik TOK and I'm not sure how deep you go into Tik TOK , but maybe a whistle and just a wink versus something really cerebral and something we thought out and planned .

And we had six meetings and we put together that draws just as much in different crowds as something as we might do as well . So that's been a trend as well is just thinking and learning new audiences and understanding . We have a wide demographic . It's a good thing that we don't have people 25 to 32 in a wheelhouse who love science and maybe have a kid .

This is something where we can get kids on a second-grade field trip . We can get families romantic . We can get the senior citizens . We get three generations of travel , sometimes in a visit by themselves , and that's a beautiful thing , but also when it comes to promotion , it's like how do you pinpoint who the market is ?

We just have to do a lot of different things .

So ultimately , if I was to put it into a few words , we're in the in-tour engagement space so that we give the guides the tools to engage with the guests . At the end of tour . We enable that tip and review conversation .

came for the business . How long have you been running TripAdmit and were you in the travel industry before ?

My first real job , as I say , was in Ticketmaster , who everybody is familiar with , of course . Yeah , it's whether you love them or hate them .

It is a case of that's where I learned my ticketing skills and my booking skills , worked in the airlines and then found myself in about seven or eight years ago in the tourism activities sector and just fell in love with it and also found a sector that was in dire need of digitization .

Yeah , and have you been to an arrival conference before and also found a sector ?

For me is that there's such a great list , our quality of tour and activity providers here and we're like we're surprised . I suppose we're not surprised , but it it's .

We have a constant flow of of activity providers coming to our stand , but also we were up for the innovation showcase as well , which is great , but even just to sit down and talk with industry peers , that's fantastic , yeah absolutely , and that's where I mean there's such a spirit of community here at arrival and certainly the networking opportunities .

Have you seen benefit of being able to not only network but also learn digital marketing suggestions or various ways to help grow your business ?

I always look at it and say I will attend that , that , that and that , and then , when it comes comes down to it , I'm stuck talking to somebody , not that .

But in terms of the networking and business , clearly you are seeing a great increase in uptick in business , so I'm keen to know where you're taking TripAdmit in 2025 . I mean , you highlighted some of the background of creating the business and the areas you're focused on .

Are you going to expand into new areas , new markets , or really kind of deepen the relationships with existing partners ? What are some of the big priorities for you ?

Now are pretty much all of our efforts . The growth side of us . We are currently um like we've we've signed some global agreements with some large activity providers and it's it's about rolling those out to you know , upwards of 80 cities , etc .

So yeah , I think from an expansion perspective , it's looking at you know , we won't necessarily expand beyond Europe and North America in the next 12 months , but after that , who knows ? We'll see which way it goes from there .

And then I'm joined by another legendary individual that , as soon as I say his name , christian watts , founder of magpie , a um , uh , not only does he run city sightseeing in San Francisco , he's at every major conference and he has , uh , his own podcast with Bruce .

He experienced this podcast , of course , and he's constantly posting on LinkedIn and other channels about AI , so that's where many people know him , and he was kindly involved both Bruce and Christian at our AI summit earlier this year .

So I do want to encourage people to this , to check out , experience this , because I think that there's still a massive audience that needs to discover the magic that you guys do and the banter and the guests you guys have . But , christian , great to have you here . How has Arrival been for you the last couple of days ?

So I'll leave it to Bruce .

Christian usually is presenting two or three or more sessions , so he forgets about that because he's one of the people who's doing a lot of the teaching , the peer-to-peer learning , which is a little bit of the different kind of learning I could call a third one , because it's just peer-to-peer and you don't even think of it as learning Like I hear about your

business and we can share . I had dinner with a couple guys from Babylon Tours a couple nights ago and I was just blown away by the way they built their business and what I learned at that dinner was awesome . And then the community is just I mean , that's just understating what it's like .

We obviously were together in Orlando last year what were some of the objectives that yourself and Douglas had for this particular event ?

And I want to make sure that when the experiences industry gets together , this is the event , whether , like you said , small company , medium company , large company , tech company , distribution company and I think that we always are pretty good at succeeding in that and then things do change .

I mean , when Christian says he's learning , you know , with as much as he already knows , then we're doing something right .

So it's hard for us to evaluate without talking to people , and everyone I'm talking to said , oh , it was the best one they've ever been to Like . And they said , well , how was this for you Like ? The best one for me is always the way I look at it .

So tell our listeners what some of the things you talked about this year at the conference and then , if you wouldn't mind as well , share some of the highlights from other sessions that you attended and some of the insights that you directly benefited from .

So that's what people came looking for and they felt like they got what they were seeking . But most of the comments are it's just it's changing . It's like it's evolving . I'm still trying to wrap my head around it . So at some point I guess we'll move to intermediate , but I think it's going to be beginners for a little while in this space .

And I mean I literally had two women come out of that session and say that 20 minutes sitting down with our good friend Alex Bainbridge was worth the price of admission , of coming to Arrival .

And it was just one conversation , and so kudos for putting that whole thing together , because Christian designed that session , gathered together the experts and then executed on it .

And it was Alex Bainbridge , someone we all know and someone who is very much a pioneer in this space and a big believer in the concept of auto driving taxis a kind of robo taxis as a business model . But he's certainly someone like Christian that people gravitate to to understand what's happening with AI , what the potential is .

So thrilled to hear that and obviously that's going to be more of a focus , I guess .

Well , one of the highlights I've certainly heard is that the number of people that have come to this event with the intention of networking have been , if anything , overscheduled , and the number of valuable meetings they've had as a result and the business opportunities they've realized .

I was actually speaking to the general manager for the Skydeck in Chicago and it was his first time here at Arrival , and this is where I've actually found a recurring theme that , although it's their first time at Arrival , they've been in the industry for five , 10 or 20 years and they've just found their way to Arrival now and realized that this is the conference

they need to be at , and that's also been a recurring theme is that this is the conference that is their preferred of all the travel conferences , because it's the most relevant for them , so number one , obviously . This is something that Bruce kindly taught me as we were preparing to run our first virtual event .

It's like what are you going to do about networking ? What are you going to do about ? And he was absolutely spot on , because that is a primary driver for people to come to conferences . So you've got that nailed , no question . So opportunities in Edinburgh and Valencia . So for companies that are coming with that explicit purpose , I know you'll deliver on that .

The education , though , has always been a driver for me . So the quality of the content , but one of the things I've noticed that you've done really successfully is that you have a really nice combination of main stage and breakout , because some conferences are just main stage all day and people get exhausted by that , and so I love the main stage .

So I love Douglas coming on and sharing the kind of the big report and the big insights at the beginning , or starting the day with a few main stage presentations , like you have with Netflix and with Disney , and then you start going to your breakouts . And so how much thought goes in , bruce , to the breakouts themselves ?

Clearly , you just gave a great example of all the effort that Christian had put together to create his AI workshop . How are you and the team deciding on the content that you're going to have ? How does that all come together for an arrival event ?

Got it In National Harbor , which is actually in Maryland , and I was talking just a little while ago with some women about what we can do with a session for next year .

So literally it's a year-long program of coming up with the best content we possibly can , both for the big sessions in the theater and the breakout sessions , Some of them we're going to repeat .

Like Christian will do intro to AI , as long as he's willing to do it , we will invite him to do it and he'll come to us with some other ideas based on what happens with AI over the next nine months . Say , okay , let's place another session on AI , or whatever . Yeah , Right , we have a couple other , you know .

I'll do a shout out to your favorite sponsor , Brennan Bliss from Propellic .

We're hoping to get some help on the breakouts , since right now I'm doing a lot of it and that's not really my role , but I have done a lot of it . Yeah , you know . Going back to the Focusrite days yeah , you're good at it . Yeah , a long time ago .

So by all means go back if you're on Spotify or on Apple , and listen to both of those episodes , because these gentlemen have really remarkable backgrounds and a lot to share . And even when I was meeting people this year and saying , actually , do you know Bruce ?

And giving your backstory , it's remarkable that people don't have a fuller understanding when they watch and listen to those episodes . I'm sure you're going to get a much better understanding of why I refer to these guys both as legends in the industry .

So , christian , I wanted to go back to you because when you're designing a session like this on AI , you actually understand what's happening , you understand the audience and you know what it's like to be an operator . So how important is that and what is your process of bringing together a session like this to make it so highly relevant for the audience ?

It comes from all angles and people . People really don't know where to start . And this here we're two years in and so many people this week . They're scared to start . For me it's the weirdest thing because it's a chat bot . You could start right now and it's quite easy , but it's not the same case for everyone .

And yeah , so I've been able to give them actual applications of how to generate a picture of a bus or something . Now they see oh , I understand that , I understand that that's , that's tourism , that's what we do , for sure .

You guys have your experience this , but what would be some of the tools or resources you would direct someone to for the uninitiated , Even if it is , of course , your own account and some of the videos you've put together ?

Um , and it it's in plain english . It's , you know , worded like you want to hear it . For a tour operator , it's always relevant , um , and I would just follow along with that and catch up . And then he keeps going and you know , then I'm not going to search around on youtube . What am I going to ? How ?

How am I going to find the right stuff on youtube ?

I was speaking to rodrigo and I turned the camera around so he could see christian and instantly he was like I follow christian and uh , so he follows him on linkedin and because they're trying to figure out their AI strategy , of course , and so he's gravitated to your content .

So I'm sure lots of people that's why listen to both the Christian Watts episode and the Bruce Rosard episode . They're both fantastic . And now I want to talk about the Experience , this podcast and the work that you guys are doing there , and , of course , we don't have Lori with us .

Lori's been a part of this episode already for our listeners and she was a great guest . We actually just had a really wonderful conversation about the industry , the trends that we're seeing , and it was just a really nice conversation . But I would love to get your background on creating the experience .

I know , bruce , it's separate from your work at Arrival and each of you guys have roles within the industry . But tell us about the genesis of the concept for Experience this , what you'd hope to achieve with it and where you're at with the show at the moment .

You know he's not doing it to try to build up the brand of Magpie , he's not trying to do it to make money in any way and he just hasn't been able . You weren't able to just do it and you kept asking me and Douglas and nothing ever happened and I think finally we just said let's get a podcast together and we got in touch with Lori .

Lori , she's been a friend , a business friend of both of us for a long time and we started doing it .

I think we're like 47 , 48 episodes in and the focus is not to be like an instructional how-to podcast , like a number of them that are out there and there's some really great ones and we actually invited seven or eight different podcasts to come to Arrival this year , which is super cool , and a lot of them came and recorded shows .

It's just to do what we like to do , have fun with each other and always have a guest . That adds value , and we've had some really great guests , especially lately . I think you were one of our first guests , dan right ?

I'm genuinely curious to know what content resonates with people and I was just amazed to see how many views that had on YouTube , because I think the topic and the content was of interest to people and I certainly saw that even doing our adventure series and episodes .

Like we wrote and I think she's going to be on the episode Erica DeSanti , who was a great guest of ours , and this is where it gives people an opportunity to get their voice out there . And then all of a sudden , you , you see these stars that then all of a sudden appear on other podcasts and I love that .

That's why we're totally , as you highlighted here you know I'm podcasters we want to promote that community . We have our friends of travel trends page now that has all the other podcasts , um , so that we can promote all of these terrific content creators and highlight the conversations they're having

. So , christian , what about you ? Your take and getting involved ? So it sounds like you had the idea first . Bruce eventually said okay , I'll do this with you ? You found laurie um . Has your vision been realized , and how else do you want to see this show evolve in the future ?

Yes , and I was quite heavily into and I and I realized that if you invite people to come and speak in a group , they all say yes . You can invite pretty much anyone you want and everybody says yes . And I thought this is a great way to get different perspectives .

And for me that's what it is it's inviting people on having a person who's interesting , with a different perspective , and just have a conversation , which is not always easy to do . For a business meeting , you sort of need a reason to meet . You know , for business meeting , you sort of need a reason to meet .

You know , if I ask you for an hour over lunch , there's normally we're trying to do some business together .

It's a bit rude just to grab an hour of your time , but having a podcast , as you know , allows you to say can I have an hour of your time , or however long it is to have a discussion yeah , one of my favorite shows is comedians in cars getting coffee .

there's a reason for people to turn off , right , um , but it still presents an incredible opportunity for people to come together and and that's why I love about your show , so tell everybody where you're headed with the experience and some of the next episodes they can look forward to .

But we have a discussion and we look at interesting topics in the industry . If there's some newsworthy events , like it's some Airbnb , which is most weeks these days , we'll do that . Or if we just met somebody interesting , we'll ask them . But there's no , this isn't thought out 12 months in advance and carefully plotted . Maybe we'll get there one day .

You can find us on LinkedIn or you can just email bruce at arrivaltravel or christian at magpietravel and say you'd like to be on Experience this podcast and we might ask you a few questions and invite you to join . Yeah , you get vetted of course .

I will say you know , we really want to continue to get high level speakers that provide a lot of value to the audience . A couple of weeks ago we had Rod Cutbert on , because Christian's good friends with Rod and Rod truly is the godfather of tourism activities .

He started Viator , obviously the first successful business in the space and still the biggest business in the space , and it was just a great episode to have Rod on .

And this is where you have someone like Andy from Mind Trip you know he was on our show from the Virtuoso I saw that he was on your show and Tony , and this is an exact example where you have rising stars in our industry . It's like you do the talk show circuit .

You know , be on , johnny , be on , just , you know you've got to be everywhere to get your message out , and I really think that you guys are onto something and across the board , I think that we are the timing for podcasts as a form of marketing and media , especially in a digital age where there's so much clutter .

I think that the audio just gets cut through . People like listening to other people , they like storytelling . It's literally written on our DNA .

It's how we got to this point in our evolution and I think that the three things that stand out to me , that are going to apply to your show as it does to ours , is that people , they listen longer , they retain more and they take action , and those are the things that have just amazed me , which is why we've been very fortunate to bring on a number of

sponsors , and when I highlight that , I want there to be more marketing dollars spent on podcasts because of the outsized benefit companies get from being associated with the right content and then they get new customers as a result of that . You mentioned Brennan Bliss .

I mean Brennan supported us in season three , came back to be a title sponsor in season four and he's generated quite a few clients as a result of being on the show and I'm thrilled .

He sent me a few gift packages to the house , like he's done for you , bruce , that are nicely customized and it warms my heart that we have partners that are seeing that benefit .

So I absolutely want that to be the case for you and , even if it's just the guests that have been on your show , the outsized benefit that they get from the positive halo effect of being associated with the show would be interesting to see what happens for Andy and MindTrip by virtue of the exposure that he got from experience this and then being here at the

conference .

He throws every year , and they ended up sitting across the table from one of the biggest investors in the experiences industry and , you know , a serious michael's investor yeah and what a great experience for them to be able to put out their vision to michael um , and just then , just being in that table around people who are so entrenched in the industry , and

then coming you know to arrival , obviously , and and having their you know to Arrival , obviously , and having their you know their mind trip , their minds were kind of blown so yeah , that's awesome .

Because obviously we could just continue talking about that as a theme . But if we look more broadly , whether it's product or consumer behavior , what are some of the other trends that you're paying attention to for 2025 ?

I think discovery is always fascinating where that goes between google , google and the socials . I love that . And then the other one is to see if any of these trends from asia some people still think super apps are going to happen .

I just find that fascinating to see what's going to change in travel discovery because I think it's so important and everyone's trying to get away , obviously , from paying Google so much money .

Obviously , the Netflix , disney were here , of course , but you're absolutely right and I think that companies like Fever , which Michael Zeissner invested in very wisely , which has been a and now a unicorn , they're one of those companies that came along and started bringing these experiences to life , partnering with stranger things , and sure , so many people listening to

this have actually been to a stranger things . And when he was presenting the their first launch of that in LA , I went to that parking lot . It was my birthday and I took the kids and like we had the most incredible time . It was my birthday and I took the kids and we had the most incredible time .

It was interesting to see him presenting on that because that was the genesis of that concept and it was the proof of concept that led them to create Bridgerton and all these other series . So I couldn't agree more with you , because we're seeing that with Airbnb , with their iconic experiences .

So this idea of experiences , I think obviously that's one trend to pay attention to . Couldn't agree more on social , especially with TikTok , the rise of short form video .

That was a big focus last year and how important that is , not only to the inspiration but actually getting closer to the source of booking , now that people actually seeing influencers and saying I want to book that . And then that super app .

I'm glad you brought it back to technology because we see what's happening in China and the question is you know , at some point is bookingcom finally going to introduce the connected trip ? Are we finally going to have one app that does everything from payment ?

Because even here there's companies that are doing they do tipping , they just there's all these edge cases in technology . There's very few super apps . There's just many more companies that are coming along solving smaller niche problems . But , bruce , tell us , what are you paying attention to , not just from arrival , but experience this .

What are some of the key trends that you're focusing on going into 2025 ?

That's where they search . Right now you can't search and book too easily unless you're in Asia . On TikTok there's TikTok shop and we talked about that yesterday . Wilford Fan from Kluk talked about their integration with TikTok to show how it's coming here . Also on Little Red Book in China , where video click book .

We're not there yet in the Western world ie , europe and US but that will come soon . So number one trend video is the new search , the one . What did you say that I'm like ? No , you're wrong . Oh no , the connected trip . You can go back and look at the last episode of experience this with my trip and we had that exact discussion .

I've never been a believer in the connected trip , the way bookingcom likes to talk about it , like just because I booked my hotel room on bookingcom doesn't mean I'm going to book my flight and my car rental and my experience all with the same company .

I don't see why I would do that unless they are the absolute best at providing me with the merchandising and the you know , the products that are personalized for me . Versus my trip's view on the connected trip , I finally was like , yes , this is what it is .

They're building an app that surrounds the customer the customer is in the center and provides a lot of services to the customer , and it's not booking services like booking the hotels , the air , et cetera . It's just different services .

That brings this trip all together and connects it , connects it with the other people on your itinerary , takes your confirmation and connects it , so it's really more of a toolkit that makes it the connected trip . They're on their way to doing that . They're not there yet , but I'm going to dispute the idea of we're getting closer to the connected

trip . That the brands have been talking about Luxury travelers I think is something that Douglas showed during his first keynote with the research that the people with the money are continuing to spend the money on experiences and there's a bigger gap of that and I think that's a problem for our industry . A little bit , but not too much .

As long as you focus on it , you price it right , there's opportunities to make more money , but you've got to have the right product for the luxury travelers . I think that's certainly something to watch for the next year .

Well , the one thing I would share too , bruce and I think that's where I don't think it's necessarily a disagreement but I mean , in terms of the super apps that , yes , booking wants to go in that direction there is , there's so much unrealized potential for technology , but we're we're we're so far from having everything in one place .

There's no question about that . The part that I wanted to highlight , though and I just wanted to get both of your take on this when we think about 2025 , one of the themes of the conference , and Douglas to your point about sharing .

In his opening keynote , he talked about 43% of the business being up and some of it being significantly up , and that's clearly also that luxury sector , but there's about 57% of the industry that's down or flat or down , and so there's probably been kind of conversations about 2024 being a softer year and what that means for 2025 .

Two interesting trends I would just highlight and keen to get your feedback on this . One is absolutely , as those revenge numbers have dropped off and this whole question of like we have we exhausted revenge travel Not that any of us ever liked that terminology to begin with , but certainly that massive resurgence has tapered off , but yet travel is still .

People are prioritizing . The question to me is , who's still prioritizing it ? Because those people that had put their money aside that were going to do that trip , or couldn't do it because of COVID , they got back and they went and did that trip as soon as they possibly could .

So the money that was kind of set aside for that , they kind of went out and spent it . But there's this new wave of travelers that are prioritizing travel over everything else , and I would say that is the baby boomers . That's a retiring generation .

Half of them have retired , the other half will retire in the next five years and I think there's going to be a 10-year wave . I'm very bullish on this and I think a lot of other investors are as well , so I'm not alone in this opinion , but I think there's going to be a 10 year wave of luxury travel , in particular before it gets spent on nursing .

That he never took and I'm saddened by them every time they arrive in the mail , and so I'm . I've never . I'm not a big believer in hair and so I was like for those of you out there listening to this go , spend , spend , spend and go and travel .

The other thing , though , is that younger generation that necessarily doesn't have uh , they don't necessarily own a home , but they are prioritizing travel as a right , not just a privilege , and it's just like it's become an expectation .

Lori spoke about this , and so , again , people listening would have just heard Lori talk about this with her own kids is that she was highlighting that they've got bills to pay . She's like maybe you should pay your bills first rather than to just travel , but they want to spend every dollar they have on going on their next trip , and it's like I need a trip .

Maybe you need to put other priorities , but anyway , she really made me laugh with that . But what are your thoughts , I guess , christian , when you think about travelers in 2025 , what are some of the other themes that you see emerging ? I've kind of mentioned two there .

Are there any things you're seeing in the industry , or global macro trends , or even looking at demographics and how that's going to drive travel booking activity in 2025 ?

So we might have a bad year here , a bad year there , but the next couple of decades should just see continued growth . India places like you know .

That was related to what you were asking about . So I met , I talked to Iris , who I learned about because of your show and she's awesome and she's from Toronto and she's lived in Barcelona for like the last two years . I'm like , how do you live there ? What kind of visa , passport , et cetera ? She has a digital nomad visa .

I never heard of such a thing and I think that is another wave of travel going on , and I don't know how big it is . It's not mass tourism , but I think there's a lot of people I know there was a number that I met here at Arrival that are digital nomads . They have special visas and that's another form of you're talking about .

I want to go here , I want to go there . She wanted to end up in Barcelona . She can travel anywhere she wants now in Spain or anywhere close to Barcelona , which is all of Europe , and I think that's another wave that's going to be happening with Gen Z ? Yeah for sure .

People are moving to Portugal and I actually know people were in this position because you could cash out your positions there with no tax liability , and so you have people that were deciding to move to different tax jurisdictions very cleverly .

And then you're also seeing a resentment amongst the local population towards these digital nomads because they were taking up the accommodation .

So the same thing we're seeing with short-term rentals , where it was negatively affecting the locals in terms of housing availability and pricing in terms of housing availability and pricing and then you had all these people that were just hanging around coffee shops with laptops , that showing up in these beautiful towns and making a lifestyle out of it , and the locals

started to resent these digital nomads . So there's an interesting story there for sure . And I'm glad you mentioned her , because Iris is terrific . She does women's work and I know she's now a part of Arrival too . She's working with your wife and Lynn and I'm kind of building out some of the content for female executives . You guys helped .

You guys actually hosted an event this year Lynn was buzzing about it on the second night that you hosted an event just for women .

I didn't say , she's just your wife she's your better half and the chief executive she's putting an agreement together with Iris to build a way that Arri arrival can really help empower women in the experiences industry , and iris is going to be a great partner for that , and lynn's worked actually with sarah dines from viator , of course , yeah and alexi tabrizi from

big bus , who started a few years ago doing a dinner kind of like christian's dinner , uh for specifically for women execs , and Lynn has helped build that into what now is 120 women's execs to have their own event on Tuesday night at Arrival , and it was phenomenal and they love it . Oh , that's great .

So I'm certainly I'm looking forward to Washington next year , or the greater Washington area , I should say , in 2025 . But I want to give you guys the last word . I want to make sure that people can follow up with you , that they can find you . I know many people will now be listening to that episode .

Before they do so , they come in well-informed and brief , but Christian . Let's go with you first . How can people connect with you ? Where should people go to learn more about all the cool stuff you got going on ?

And if you want to contact me directly , just hit me up at Bruce at arrivaltravel , and arrival always has just one R .

great .

I also wanted to say a special thanks to Satisfy Labs for sponsoring this series . Now don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter at TravelTrendsPodcastcom for our monthly updates , and be sure to follow us on Instagram , youtube and LinkedIn at Travel Trends Podcast for highlights and clips from all these shows .

Next up , we're going to be diving into the Adventure , travel and Trade Association Conference that I had the privilege to attend in Panama , and we're going to be showcasing a number of those fascinating conversations next week in a two-part series , so stay tuned for that . Until then , safe travels .