Virtuoso Travel Tech Summit Highlights: Executive Round Table

I was invited by my good friend , Gilad , who you're going to hear from today , and certainly one of the main reasons for me returning to the event this year was to be part of the Travel Tech Summit that he organizes and , as you'll hear from the next series of discussions , just how impressive the caliber of attendees are for this event the presenters and all the

startups that come together . But this year I had the privilege of being invited as part of the press program , which was really exciting , and I just wanted to say a special thank you to Matthew , Misty and Lauren for making this possible . Matthew was on our show earlier this year at the Forbes Travel Guide Summit and it quickly became our most popular episode .

We now have a page dedicated to the 20 most popular episodes and you'll see Matthews is by far and away number one . He's an incredible storyteller , a remarkable individual , and he had such an impressive story to tell that clearly resonated with all of our listeners .

So it was a huge honor to be invited to be part of the press program and have the opportunity not only to network with some of the most impressive journalists in our industry , to be able to learn from them and to be inspired by them , but also to have the opportunity to meet the rest of the Virtuoso team , like Misty herself , who gave an amazing presentation

on travel trends and I'm going to highlight some of those in our discussions . But I thought it would be best to give everyone a full understanding of exactly what happens at Virtuoso Travel Week and why everyone comes together for this extraordinary event , which is now in its 36th year .

Well , to give you an idea , there's more than 5,000 travel advisors and representatives from all of the Virtuoso hotels , cruise lines , tour operators , tourism boards that come together for several days to connect and network with each other , and it's often been referred to as the fashion week of travel , and that's because you essentially have travel advisors sitting down

with more than 2,000 hotels , resorts and tour operators , all in the name of scoping out new , popular , one-of-a-kind travel experiences that are best for their clients .

So advisors are really kind of sitting in the front row of a proverbial runway shopping for travelers and , as a result , they know exactly what trip to book for their clients , whether it's a ocean cruise or that hotel in Bali that perfectly fits their client's next vacation .

When I had the chance to sit down on the very first night and be introduced to a number of the press , I had the opportunity to sit next to Christopher Mother from Boston Globe .

Christopher is one of my new favorite journalists , but I met a number of incredible colleagues from CNN Travel , Condé Nast , Afar Magazine and the thing that really made me laugh was that that first night I was introducing myself as Dan from the Travel Trends podcast .

I could see there was some apprehension on some people's faces , like there's a podcaster amongst us . And the amazing thing that happened the next day , Christopher actually walked up to me at the event the next night and said you're the real deal .

I was checking out your podcast last night on your website and so thank you to Christopher and all the other amazing journalists I had a chance to meet . I specifically took inspiration in some of the interviews I was able to do from some of the articles that you had written and that proved incredibly valuable .

But I wanted to start where this all began , which is the Travel Tech and Innovation Summit , which is now in its fourth year . Gilad Berenstein , the founder of Brook Bay Capital , is also on the board of Virtuoso and he started , along with the Virtuoso team , organizing this special innovation day as a prelude to the Virtuoso travel week .

So , one day before all of these incredible startups , technology and industry leaders get together for a series of presentations and then the most exciting part , which is three separate tracks of startups do their pitches and presentations to everyone that is interested in understanding what's happening in this startup and tech ecosystem .

It's created immense opportunity for many of the startups and you're going to hear that not only in our conversation today , but also in the follow-on conversations featuring a number of these startups . So let's get right to it .

The following conversation was recorded live at the Bellagio in Las Vegas the day after the Travel Tech Summit , where we gathered some of the most impressive presenters and industry leaders to discuss all of their insights , learnings and takeaways from this amazing day together . I really hope you enjoy this conversation and the other ones to follow .

Hello everyone , Welcome to another exciting live edition here from Virtuoso in Las Vegas . We're in Gilad's incredible suite in the Bellagio , and I say that because I just want everyone to picture and visualize where we are . We're sitting around a table together .

You'll see some of the photos from this session but , given the angles , we're not going to record the session itself .

But I've got an incredible and illustrious panel of individuals surrounding me here executives , corporate leaders and people from the VC world as well , which this was actually one of the most popular sessions that we did from last year's event and I have the original crew back with me . So , Gilad , of course we'll be speaking here in a moment .

We've got Shane from Microsoft , we have Stuart from Forbes Travel Guide and then our two newcomers this year , we have Travis from Virtuoso and then we also have Betsy from F Prime , who was a big part of our Travel AI Summit earlier this year . So thrilled to have you join us for this .

And really , what I wanted to cover for all of our listeners is I wanted Gilad to set the stage and give everyone a great overview of what was accomplished in yesterday's Travel Tech Summit the agenda , the speakers , some of the main takeaways and then I want to go to the speakers from yesterday's session , specifically Shane from Microsoft , and then we'll go through

Betsy and Travis's sessions as well to give everyone some great highlights , and then we'll get into what are the biggest takeaways from the Travel Tech Summit this year that will really shape travel in the year to come . But , Gilad , why don't you kick things off and give us a quick recap of everything that happened yesterday ?

Well , like last year , we really wanted to focus on co-creation , innovation and how we as an industry can work better together to bring together technology , to elevate the experience for travelers , for advisors , for agencies and , ultimately , to focus on the human connection and human creativity . Now , what we did with the summit this year is we had two elements .

We had a main stage element , so we have a few of our favorite presenters here with us this morning , and then we had the startup showcase , which was really one of my favorite pieces , where we got to dive deep with the startups , and there was a number of themes we focused on this year in the summit that most of our speakers spoke around .

Those were artificial intelligence , smarter , more connected systems that includes both operating systems as well as the connected trip and then new monetization capabilities .

As we all know , both businesses within our industry and many businesses from outside of it are entering travel and trying to monetize their audience through travel offering through travel content and other kinds of travel inventory , and that's a big theme that we focused on as well .

So , of course , like last year , instead of speaking about these things myself , I had some friends join me on stage , so Shane joined me again for the second time to talk about the Connected Trip and some of the incredible work they're doing .

Then Travis , who is our digital leader at Virtuoso , spoke about some of the really exciting things that Virtuoso is doing to address these themes and to bring about the future .

And then we brought back the VC panel , which we actually skipped last year , and it was really one of my personal favorite elements of both the first summit and yesterday , and Betsy was an important part of that . So we're very grateful to have all these people with us .

So many people listening to our podcast know Shane , but yesterday's session really stood out for me because of how you presented the future view of this connected customer , with this idea of who owns the data and empowering travelers to take control of their own data and companies understanding that there's not necessarily going to be an ideal way to address the

connected trip , but essentially each of these individual travelers . They need to understand how to manage their data and share it with different companies , and I thought your presentation was incredibly insightful and I'd just love for you to share some of the key takeaways from that with everyone .

Drive more productivity , drive more operational efficiency , better customer experience , better employee experience .

So it was a fascinating kind of leap forward a year later , and yet the big topic I chatted about was kind of this connected trip which has been , you know , the thought process , has been around for a number of years and the idea is can you know , enterprises share information with each other to drive a better experience for us ?

You know , I guess historically we've not seen that across the board . So then , how do we ultimately flip the model ? So we talked about this idea of a decentralized ID , which has been around Microsoft's founding member of Decentralized ID Foundation since 2000 , I think 18 .

And it's the idea that you ultimately become the custodian of your information and your brand and essentially you're kind of like your own API and long term , you're going to permission companies into your world .

So I'll permission a hotel company , an airline , a transportation company and I'll share information with them to ensure that I'm driving the best experience for me , and so it's this kind of mutually beneficial relationship across the board . So we're working on some test pilots around the world .

It's a fascinating kind of journey Lots of headwinds , because many of the large scale enterprises want to own your data , and we think this idea that you should ultimately be the own custodian of your brand , your data , and then share it with individuals only when it's of value to you , and that really is kind of the holy grail really of the connected trip moving

forward , so super excited about it .

. Now , talking about the VC panel , there was Kara Whitehill from Thayer Ventures , we had Miriam as well from Amadeus and then , of course , we have Betsy here with us and sitting in that room yesterday and Gilad moderated that session .

I was surrounded by a lot of the startups that we're going to be presenting afterwards and they were hanging on every word you were saying . That's for sure . But one of the things you said , betsy , that I found incredibly refreshing is you highlighted to the people in the room that they're the experts on travel and that institutional investors .

They have an understanding of the travel space , but not to the same level of detail , and I'd love you to speak about that because I'm sure our listeners we have many startups that listen to this podcast and we'll be very keen to hear from you . But , yeah , if you'd share some of those great insights that you mentioned on the panel yesterday .

So at F Prime , we invest broadly across healthcare and technology , and I would say anecdotally , but I'm pretty sure most folks would agree with me that travel is the area where we rely on and co-invest with and collaborate most with strategics and corporate investors , and I think that there's a lot of different reasons for that .

One , people who are interested in travel are just fun and really good people , so we enjoy it . But two , I think because of all of the entrenched incumbents that are in the space , there's so much stored knowledge that strategics and corporates have and so much access that they can provide that we as generalist investors just simply can't .

I mean , our team has been investing in travel for quite some time now , so I would like to think that we know a little bit about it and can make some informed decisions . But really working with our partners on the strategic and corporate side has been incredibly helpful and incredibly illuminating , and every time we have one of those conversations .

We continue to learn more and more .

So , as Betsy shared , they're a generalist financial fund , whereas Kara works for Thayer Ventures , which is a strategic industry fund , as compared , of course , to our friend Miriam , who works for Amadeus , who is a corporate strategic fund , and each of these are a little bit different . I think it's important for founders to see the difference between them .

To Gillad Now I want to bring Travis into the conversation , because this is actually the first time beyond Gillad that we actually have an executive from Virtuoso who's really leading the way , and your presentation yesterday was excellent .

I took pictures of a number of the slides and I have one in front of me now , because you actually highlighted some of the key trends to be aware of , and one of them was advisor productivity , which clearly , across the board especially a number of the AI startups that were in the room very much focused on how they can improve the workflow for these advisors .

You talked about data standard challenges . You highlighted incentives and rewards to drive this ecosystem , and then this regional diversity and growth . I was amazed last night at the press dinner to discover that not only are 5,000 people here , but from 108 countries . It's absolutely extraordinary . So you have such a diverse audience .

So tell us a little bit about your role and what you highlighted yesterday in your presentation .

Yeah , so the role SVP of digital and consumer products and the consumer products is an interesting tie to all of this because we , you know , and the consumer products is an interesting tie to all of this because we , you know , virtuoso are a network of our preferred supplier partners hotel luxury hotels , luxury cruise tourism boards and our advisor agencies and these

advisory agencies are there to support their clients data . A lot of the member agencies are on these 10-year-old , decade-old CRMs that don't integrate well with modern booking systems , modern marketing platforms , and so the data is really fragmented .

And this is the fourth tech summit that Gilad's curated and the first one , you know it was just about talking about standard data , open platforms and actionable data , and there was a lot of kind of glazed looks , you know , in the audience .

And what was fascinating about this event is the advisors are like leading with that conversation , Like they're there and they're demanding this and what we're seeing you know where only last year it was really a in the USA , a client base in trams world we've got over 20 agencies now on three different new CRMs , which is just like wow .

I didn't think it was going to . I knew the tipping point was going to be somewhere in the next year or two or three , but it's happening right now . It's fast , it's a high demand .

We're seeing the same thing happen in New Zealand , where we've got , by end of year , three new CRMs , and that's really surfaced a lot of operational challenges for us at Virtuoso , as the confidence what this network does is . They kind of look to one another and they're like wait , wait , wait , wait .

And then they see some of their friends in the networks start paving the path through the jungle , taking the scrapes , getting the bruises , and then they're like right behind them , following them , and it's a traffic jam and it's exciting to see . And , yeah , you know what's , you know US is intimidating enough for us right now .

But as we look at the rest of the regions and the different constraints and regulations that place certain constraints on consumer data , we have a lot of need for local , regional experts to help us understand how to implement a globally consistent platform and we're just starting to experiment with that in Australia right now .

But we're going to come back to that in a moment because I want to bring in a dear friend to our podcast , which , of course , is Stuart from Forbes Travel Guide , and Stuart obviously kindly invited us to the summit earlier this year in Las Vegas . Last time we were together in person and that series really shot our show into the stratosphere .

And Stuart and I are old friends and I always used to catch up with Stuart to understand what was happening in this industry , in this space , when he was at Microsoft and in Parity and some of his impressive roles that he's held before Forbes Travel Guide , and so I always value his opinion and advice . And he didn't speak yesterday .

But that's actually why I wanted him to be here and part of this conversation is because he , like me , was sitting in the audience listening to all the presentations , sitting in the startup sessions as well , and I really wanted to get some of his big takeaways from yesterday .

The number of leading voices that you captured , our event and you're doing here is just tremendous because there are a lot of folks that don't have the time or aren't part of the ecosystem , and it's a great way for folks to learn .

I'd be remiss if I first didn't also thank Betsy for helping clarify for myself that apparently , for Shane and I , losing money in Vegas doesn't qualify us to be travel investors , so nor putting their kids through college . Can you deduct them as dependents on the IRS , apparently ?

Yeah , I want to start with one of our good friends , carolyn Cord of Deloitte , who's a legend in the industry , who shared a couple trends . I want to touch on the startups a little bit and one other quick area .

So you know , carolyn shared , you know and this is kind of shocking to realize by 2030 , which is only six years from now the percentage of trips boomers are taking , in spite of kind of the transfer as well , are going to be cut in half . That means 90% of trips are going to be younger generations .

And she shared what's an area of passion for me around social commerce that you know , 75% of TikTok users are being influenced in terms of trips and in the US , a full 35% of their users said they actually booked a destination based on an influencer .

So where we go to meet our guests and where the advisor community goes to meet the guests in the moment is continuing to evolve . I also love what was really great I think Gilad , you brought this with Carolyn and others is we got to see ideas that weren't necessarily fully baked but to be part of that process of thinking through and talking through things .

For example , carolyn at Deloitte talked about imagine an equilateral triangle with three points on it when you think about traveling and the different things whether it's convenience , comfort or clout that all human beings us as people kind of tend to aggregate around those different points . You used a couple of pointed examples .

Like Warren Buffett , for example , would be someone who would focus on convenience and what are the attributes of travel that made things that were convenient . He's not a big , you know , spend a lot of money person Whereas somebody like the Kardashians would care about clout .

So making that big arrival and having a big , fancy SUV when you get out of the hotel where many of us , as travelers and maybe more anonymous , are somewhere between convenience and comfort . So , whether you give somebody a dedicated loyalty line to call in , what are the different things that resonate with different folks ?

I also want to give a shout out and really recognize Gilad Travis , the team . This was a very representative event again , so you can't see it on the podcast . About 50% of the speakers were women in the audience too and very diverse . I hope there is a point where we don't call that out .

And , dan , I know we've talked about it's important to both of us Having Betsy , I told Dan I wouldn't be on the podcast unless there was a woman in the podcast , but the entire VC panel , you realize after , were three women and it shouldn't matter . And it didn't because there are three incredible world-leading travel VC .

So overall , when you went in there , you felt like you had diverse opinions , representativeness , which was wonderful . And now I want to shift real quick to the startups because I think and then this will set the stage wherever you guys want to go .

But what's really amazing to me is , I think this event I had the pleasure , gilad , of being here three years and seeing it evolve is the degree to which , from kind of a platform to learn to give voice , to then really become a seminal event in not just information education but actually elevating innovation in the industry .

So Lucia , which was a startup three years ago , wasn't here because of she's actually getting married , the CEO and founder right Congratulations . So congratulations , grace , from all of us . They're just crushing it in the market and they've launched new products . They were at our event with things for hotels , not just advisor agencies .

I think about TravelWits , again , just as an example from last year , and because of the visibility , because of what you're doing to expose real innovation and connect dots , their revenue grew 17x from last year and you meet the CEO and founder and it's like Armin , wow , you look like a completely different person . In the best possible way .

It wasn't looking bad I'm not saying you're looking rough last year but that is the kind of transformation of value to the market . That's elevating innovation . That I think is just tremendous . And we've been to a lot of events and I think Virtuoso , this tech innovation . That I think is just tremendous .

And we've been to a lot of events and I think Virtuoso , this tech innovation that all of you lead and with Matthew's backing and partnership is one of the seminal events that is changing the industry , so congratulations on that that's fantastic .

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We went through kind of highs and lows and my highs was really that , you know , the startup scene is working very much like the Virtuoso network that's been here . It's a great network and you need a referral right .

So there's a lot of startups trying to get in and it's the ones that are like , yeah , but we've , we're working with 10 of your members already and that's like okay , so the initiative there , there's initiative there and there's also customers there , so they've got some sort of product market fit and that really filters through the noise .

And then our job is to really lean in and help them be successful . And a few things is , you know those early conversations like all right , so what are you trying to do ? And like Irving at Cian , when he's like I'm going to do commissions management , it's like what else have they been asking you to do ?

Well , also , attorney management , project management , I'm not going to do any of that Now . I know that somebody is probably going to be . You know they're going to be more successful than the ones that are trying to do everything and be mediocre .

He's going to do one thing and be very successful in that , and that has really played out in every single member that's adopted Sion . They're just on fire . So they've really come through and it's really a matter of kind of getting in there and sort of doing the co-design , with them helping pick the right agency .

So they pick , you know , a couple of small ones and it's like all right , now we need a big one . And we know we're going to have to really lean in and help , because there's a lot of historical data in these decade old CRMs that are configured differently across .

You know it's all trams and client base , but each one of those instances are configured completely differently and so it's a . You know , it's a learning experience .

There's a , there's a three-way commitment there to find success for that shared customer , the member agency , and you know it's it's about being very careful in those early stages around that growth and adoption , because there's a lot of pressure on the startups to , you know , sign folks up , onboard them and find that revenue , and that is sometimes in conflict with

the speed at which an agency can go , and so a lot of that kind of early expectation setting is critical . So you know you're reducing that source of frustration , because there's going to be plenty of other frustrations . And that's what we've spent the last hour talking about all kind of the good , the bad and the ugly .

And , as I said at the tech summit , there's a lot of ugly going on right now as these pioneers are paving those roads through the jungle . But you know , what we saw was a pretty packed house today and lot of members very excited .

The conversation's not only elevated on the technical front but there's a lot of willingness to sort of start following their peers now . So it's going to be an exciting next year .

Now , Betsy , given you probably had a lineup of startups looking to speak to you afterwards being a VC and there being a lot of hunger and interest out there for funding , I would love to get a take on how you look at those startups , especially being here , because clearly you give a lot of valuable advice .

But when it comes to actually engaging with these startups , how do you look to support them or give them some encouraging direction , Because you clearly can't fund everyone , but likely , I imagine , from time to time you do spot a gem amongst the mix . So tell us what stood out to you over the last couple of days .

In the first half of 2024 , it was $2.8 billion . So we're almost already at what we were for the entire year in 2023 , in the first half , which is really great to see .

So , yeah , I mean , I think the way that well , I will start off with saying that we are , as I said , investors in a lot of different travel tech companies , one of which is here , tripsuite , which we're really , really excited about , and I think there's a couple things that they all of the startups in the ecosystem kind of needs to think about is .

The first is why now and I think Travis touched on the sea change that's happening with client base and trams kind of moving away , turning into trace but now folks are starting to look for other options and starting to see what else is out there . So , when we met JC and spoke with some of their initial customers about what they were doing .

Just the experience that they were having on TripSuite , versus what they were used to before , was really night and day . Jim was up there from Peak talking about it and it was funny when Travis was asking about what the biggest surprise was , he was like we were surprised that there weren't really many surprises .

I mean that it went much smoother than we expected it to go .

So , especially as it comes to agencies and advisors , there's always the question of well , is the market big enough ? Is that still a trend that is moving in the right direction ? And the answer is yes . If you look at the data , there's a lot happening and a lot especially on the Gen Z and millennial side of things to kind of push things going forward .

But there's a lot of interest and really being able to prove that out is really important . So , yeah , lots of different things to think about , but having that customer love is a big one .

You give them real talk and you give them like actual , genuine feedback and beyond just being a presenter on stage , you are a good corporate citizen as well , and I mean that not only professionally and personally as a friend , but I actually see you go over and above to try and help these startups and I don't want to blow up your inbox by people reaching out

to you , but I know startups have reached out to you to be part of Microsoft startup programs or chat GPT credits , and you always find a way to try and help out these startups .

So tell us , from your perspective , some of the exciting developments you saw yesterday in that startup space and even if you want to talk about some of the emerging technology that you're seeing with Microsoft and how that relates to the startup ecosystem .

So it's fascinating , I think , just the way they're using AI and , from a Microsoft perspective , the amount of money , things you're like , wow , you know , I think Hotel OS , they did a live demo of asking someone about you know , I'm bringing my dog , I need this , this , this , this , and can you set up a picnic basket ?

And the AI agent was a phenomenal response of bringing everything together . But this agentic kind of action that these agents do now is amazing . And then the other I'm trying to think of the name of the company .

I'll have to look through my notes here , but they were just showing the Brown , where you just take a video of it's , like a two minute video on 10 things to do in Italy , and so you pop it in and it just grabs the content and then summarizes that , so I don't have to watch the whole video about XYZ .

I think it was Mind Trip , so which is a mind trip when you , when you watch some of that stuff . So I think for us at Microsoft and then we have Microsoft for startups program , always trying to convince people to come to our cloud as opposed to our competitors cloud .

But this idea that we're a family , we're driven , we're a platform company that really are inspired by the startups and other partners in our ecosystem , because they're the ones that really empower our clients to do better and we're there to support them kind of at every turn .

So super excited with all the startups and some gems out there that we saw and some gems that we saw from last year that I love it as they kind of continue to make progress and I guess , to your point , we could see it in his face Not that he was not unhappy last year , he was just point . We could see it in his face .

He was not that he was not unhappy last year , he was just .

You could see the joy in his face and , I think , the joy of the success , of direction , where they're headed and hopefully next year we see that from all the startups we saw already this year about as they continue in their journey , Cause it's like you know , it's like crawling through glass to be successful and you're raising money and you're working hard at the

same time and it's a journey for all of them . But the optimism that they have and the engagement with AI as part of their platforms it's like super fuel for success .

That was another great example of a startup from last year , thanks to Gilad Travis and this platform that I think otherwise without I don't think they would have been even maybe on F Prime's radar in the same way , much less in the market , and I'm going to make a prediction that Jesse and guestosai next year will be saying that about her having been here this

year . We know we're talking a lot about tech companies and tech , and well , it is .

You know travel trends and tech , but I also want to highlight there were a lot of startups here that are mission-driven and it's not just tech for its own tech sake , and I want to highlight some of them and share why I think it's really meaningful and the way you put this together and included these types of startups is really , I think , important .

So you have GreetHer , for example , vanessa , the co-founder , or the founder , excuse me , who's just amazing to provide for women travelers , especially in countries or locations that aren't as comfortable or safe , a local female bestie , if you will , somebody from that community who can take them around and safely provide a great experience so they can just relax and

enjoy it or Winnow . We saw Mark actually at our event a couple of years ago , at a much earlier stage , but this notion of using AI to reduce food waste and also environmental impact and they've gone on with funding and I have no doubt they're going to continue , so that's having such a positive impact on the world .

Speaking of which Wheel the World , providing accessible travel , I mean you know what a huge , huge part of the population that should have you know kind of equal access , and I think you know trying to figure out ways to help accelerate , make that a standard globally so everybody can be able to use that as a filter .

And I love one of the things that you know they said which I think really sinks in and all of us should think about that if we're fortunate to have a quality of life long enough and live long lives , most , if not all , of us , when we are older and more infirm , are going to have some disability where we can't walk or we can't get around , and doesn't ?

Each and every one of us still want to continue to explore the world . So even if you don't do it for the right reasons now , selfishly , for your future self , we all should be supporting , you know , wheel the World and other efforts .

And then finally , you know , and I thought this one was like really great and it might make people a little uncomfortable , but intimacy moons , this notion that marissa is an amazing founder .

You know , a lot of times we take trips with loved ones and romantic relationships , but there are other relationships too , but in particular romantic ones , because we want to reignite and create kind of excitement and be able to share new experiences and reconnect as human beings .

And this notion of being able , since we travel anyway , to provide a path for couples to kind of reconnect with . And I think these are things that are all having a positive impact on people , on society , on connecting dots , on helping bring people together and explore the world .

And so these startups aren't , even if they might have tech as a platform at the core , they're doing things that I think make not just travel but the world a better place .

He's done all of this work to organize , bringing everyone together , and many of these startups I'm not familiar with , and so I'm actually it's thrilling for me after leaving the main stage , because everyone agreed that it is the big highlight of the event to actually have these breakout sessions and listen to these passionate founders and startups who come from many

different backgrounds and , as you just highlighted , there it's not all tech , but they are capitalizing on not only trends and travel , but solving problems , and you just highlighted three great examples of that .

So , marissa , with Intimacy Moons , there was three tracks , and this is the one thing that's difficult to try and decide is that you can only attend two out of three tracks , and so I have to make that difficult decision of which one can I leave behind and meet up with afterwards . So the three that Gil had set up the first was agency tech and AI .

So I was like , absolutely , I've got to go to that . The second one is social commerce and visual media . I was like , oh , I definitely want to see that one as well . And the third one was traveler perspectives and interestingly , I went to the agency tech and AI , which is many of the startups you just mentioned , like Mindtrip and GuestOS .

But I decided to go to traveler perspectives because Intimacy Moons , wheel of the World .

I was intrigued by some of those presentations and as soon as Marissa took the stage , I was hooked and I found what she shared incredibly fascinating , including the stat that 66% of Americans go on a vacation to work on their relationship and just how important travel is to our overall well-being and our personal lives day-to-day at home .

Right , and so she gave this amazing presentation and I thought , okay , what's going to come next ? Because usually after one presentation and then Wheel of the World came up , and Wheel of the World , to your point , the founder . There's three founders Camilla , who was doing the presentation .

It was a good friend of his growing up that was in a car accident when he was 18 . And there was that realization that 15% of travelers have disabilities and struggle to be able to travel like everyone else , and so , again , there's a problem and they're focused on delivering on the solution .

And this next company came to me , winnow , and I was like , okay , now it's going to fall off . And I was like , what is Winnow ? And then , all of a sudden , I'm totally intrigued by the idea of the concept of using to manage food waste and it was another compelling startup that clearly has gone into great success .

But they couldn't be more different , the three profiles . So I'm glad they stood out for you , as they did for me . But , gilad , what were some of the ones that came to the event that you just were blown away by ? That you weren't necessarily expecting and you saw such a great response to .

And I specifically put her first because it's non-tech innovation and while it is the Travel Tech Summit , the long title is the Travel Tech Innovation Summit , just so you can't write them any letters on any sort of collateral , so we call it the Travel Tech Summit , but I think that she's incredible .

And then you highlighted Winnow , which is also a favorite of mine , and specifically because I believe that for us to achieve sustainability , we have to make it profitable . When my wife and I bought an electric car , we didn't just buy it because it's good for the world . Your car , we didn't just buy it because it's good for the world .

We bought it because it was fun to drive . And Winnow starts by showing their clients the ROI , the financial savings they have on these food costs they're throwing away and guess what ? It's making the world a better and more sustainable place in the same time . That's what I love about those solutions and specifically , you highlighted the traveler perspective .

This is an idea that I had really just a few months ago and said you know , we're focusing on these big buckets , as we should like social commerce and agency tech but each of these niches and I'm doing air quotes here , I'm saying niches are actually quite large communities I mean we talked about people with disabilities is a really good example .

Or the stat that Marissa shared about people going on trips to work on their relationship . It's like a majority of the population . So I wanted to highlight these things that felt niche-y but in reality , really are not niche-y and are working on a lot of really important things . So that's from the startups .

I'll just say the two big takeaways for me to add to the conversation . I actually think Shane said this perfectly the level of fear around AI has subsided dramatically and the level of excitement around AI has grown dramatically .

And this year , for the first time , we highlighted innovators within the Virtuoso network agency executives and owners who are building and utilizing AI in-house , which is something that , realistically , we could not have done a couple years ago because there was no one to highlight , but this year we had four and we had at least another 10 that we could have easily

put on stage , and I'm sure by next year it'll be 100 that we can put on stage . I thought that that was really exciting , really exciting .

And then , of course , we talked about this a lot already , but it's really exciting to see how many of these startups that you would imagine would be trying to get rid of humans and to automate everything away with AI are really focused on uplifting the human connection , human creativity using technology , which , of course , is the Keith Bond that many of us here

in the Virtuoso network have , which is about how do we use technology to elevate the human relationship , the human experience . So I was really thrilled to see so many great startups really focus on that , which is not something you would assume and , frankly , not something you see at many other industry events .

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And now back to the show . I wanted to make sure that we finish off by just touching on what you're most excited about in this next year , both being here at Virtuoso , so what's happening at Virtuoso itself with the event , but whether it's technology or some of the trends you're seeing , what are you paying most attention to ?

For me , obviously , I'll highlight wellness . When I came out of last year's Virtuoso conference and some of the stats that were shared , one out of five travelers were choosing wellness as their primary . And when you look at the travel advisor category , they're so well-suited to be able to offer wellness .

We have this travel advisor series that's launching as part of this , and we have a number of amazing individuals like Chris and Lauren Pronger , who run a company called Well Inspired Travels , that are on the podcast but are actually part of Virtuoso .

They're here at the event and she's a wellness expert , he's a very famous NHL hall of famer and they run this incredible company that's part of the Virtuoso network and all about wellness

. And I had a chance to do the Globetrotter session yesterday and I went to all the wellness sessions and I was totally blown away by the diversity and many of these incredible innovations to bring people together , to give people these retreats and , ultimately , to extend and improve their lives .

And you could see , as I was traveling with this group of four people to each of these sessions , you could see everyone's eyes lighting up as we were learning more and more about these different facilities that are offered around the world that do medical testing and really focusing on people's health and wellbeing .

So wellness for me , is going to be a continued focus , and so I'm keen to get insights from each of you on what you're going to be paying attention to and then please also let people know how they can find out more information about you or to engage with , whether it's F Prime or Virtuoso or Microsoft , because , again , you guys are such great stewards in this

industry . I have the greatest respect and admiration for each of you and I want to make sure that people can follow your journeys and what you're sharing . You clearly can't spread your time so thin that you can engage and connect with everybody , but certainly I want people to know how they can follow you and the things that you're sharing .

I mean , stuart does an amazing job of LinkedIn and of engaging and sharing , so please let people know how they can follow along on your journey . But let's start with Gilad , because you obviously brought us all together for this . What are you most excited about ?

And then , at a macro level , I'm really excited about the second generation of AI trip planning company and AI startups in our space being born , hopefully learning some of the lessons from the first generation of startups and giving us even better solutions . So those are two things I'm excited about and always engaging on LinkedIn .

It's leaps and bounds each year and this year is almost intimidating to think about , and I know he's going to put together something that crushes this year . This year has just been amazing and what I've seen is a trend that I've been watching for and that is the relationships that the startups are having within the network .

And you're seeing it , success comes from the relationships , not their tech .

And to see them up and in the crowd and at the receptions and up in the panels and really talking through their journeys and how they made it through some really hard ugly stuff is quite exciting , because that's really what the Virtuosa Network is all about and that's all I've wanted is for them to be a first party peer within the network .

That's pretty hard to break into a 30 year old network of these travel agencies and the preferred partners , and they've all got their travel thing . And you know , I'm still a newbie . I'm starting to develop my relationships . I've been in the virtual network five years .

I'm new to travel and I'm watching Irving up there and Mark from Sion and JC from TripSuite , teresa from Trace have these relationships with these member agency owners and these owners really depend on them for their success and they have hard conversations and they're committed to mutual success and that's what's going to really keep this momentum moving is the

relationships , and so that's what I'm most excited to see more about next year , with many more startups .

One thing that was highlighted at the summit was just start trying things . It's fun , see what answers you get back and just play around and then you'll start to figure out what you can do with it . But I think now that we're a couple of years in , we've actually gotten to the point where there are some tools out there that make real business sense .

At the end of the day , ai is a tool , so I'm excited to see what comes out of that , whether it's revenue generating , so helping you reach more clients , reach more customers through personalized outreach , potentially personalized video I think there's some really exciting things happening there or video , I think there's some really exciting things happening there .

Or you're decreasing OpEx , you're making people more efficient , you're making your developers more efficient . I think a lot of that will come in . More horizontal tools , so maybe not purpose-built for the travel industry , but I think there's a lot of workflow tools that are purpose-built for travel that will be really exciting and have exciting integrations of AI .

So lots of cool things happening there , and then , similarly , you can find me on LinkedIn , betsy Mule , thanks happening there and then , similarly , you can find me on LinkedIn , Betsy Mule .

as we kind of continue . I think everything we're doing is in service of the consumer and making the consumer's journey a better journey and this kind of connected trip journey orchestration . And how do you bring digital into the journey in a way that presents consumers with more content in journey based on why they're there to make their journey a better journey ?

And sometimes travel is a little bit of a self-service environment . Once you're out there , once you go to a hotel or you're on a trip , you're kind of on your own .

But I think the closer we bring the agency community to the consumer to make that trip a better trip especially from a digital perspective , I think , and then blending , of course , into AI and everything like that , it's all around . How do we make people happier ? Go on trips for the variety of reasons they go on , to inspire them longevity in their life .

I think the more we can inspire people to travel , the better the universe is and the smaller the world is .

So I think everything we're doing from the Virtuoso Network and with all the tech that's coming or that's here that people are adopting , I think this idea of making this world a better place , because as people travel they become better people , their lenses open up and I don't know it's exciting to see kind of the pace of travel back and where directionally it's

going and how tech can kind of play into all that to make experiences better . And that's kind of what we're in the business of helping people be happier .

Everybody who was up there was great , talking about how they're like just grassroots , playing with it . Like Betsy said , just you know , try something , the way it was encouraged and sharing with each other how they're using it in ways that really are freeing them up .

And so for me , it's that , you know , ai , enabling us to finally take a lot of the heavy lifting , time consuming , non-value , added administrative , and it could be anything from contracts to emails all kinds of use cases . At Forbes Travel Guide , too , we have a Skunk Works . And what I love , too , is it's like this intergenerational .

We've got some of our younger employees that still own the pain points , that are diving into tools that we don't have time to figure out , and they're coming up with solutions that are making our business better .

So to me , all of that is about on both sides on the consumer side , the way you talked about Shane , and also on the productivity side , it's freeing up for greater human connection .

And I'll bring it back to the quote I think we did this last year too to Matthew's quote that I'm sure Gilad had no small part in , and Travis and others the automate , the predictable , so you can humanize the exceptional .

That notion of this is a tool , as Gilad is often saying , that should augment advisors and agencies and allow them to serve even more clients even more personally and still have a balance of life . So to me , that's what I get excited about over the next year .

But also the one thing I would just highlight , too , for all of our listeners listening to this incredible group of individuals sitting here together , is that nobody takes themselves too seriously .

At the same time , there's a real sense of community and sharing and openness , and I think that openness and transparency is so important to creating innovation , and it's one of the things that I loved about being here last year and I'm feeling it that much more being here in 2024 . And to Travis's point , the future just looks so bright .

I'm incredibly excited for 2025 and what Gilad's going to bring next . So thank you , gilad , for the opportunity to be here . Thank you to the Virtuoso team as well to my good friends Shane and Stuart and Betsy , for being such a great supporter of the show , and thank you to all of our listeners for taking the time to enjoy this episode .

I hope you benefited immensely from our discussion . I look forward to reading your comments and seeing you engage with all these great leaders in our space , and I look forward to watching you guys continue to evolve and grow in the next year , so I wish you all the very best and I look forward to staying in touch .

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Travel Trends . I think you've got a good idea there at the end of that conversation just the spirit and sense of collaboration of this incredible

group . I hope you really benefited from their insights , and I just wanted to highlight that our next episode is gonna feature a number of the startups that were mentioned in this discussion , including MindTrip , intimacy , moons and GuestOS .

So make sure you are subscribed on your favorite podcast platform to get the next episode of Travel Trends , and don't forget to check us out on YouTube , instagram and LinkedIn , as well , as we post little clips and highlights from these discussions and some videos and photos and some of the presentations we'll also share . Thanks again for joining us .

We look forward to having you on the next episode of Travel Trends . Until then , safe travels .