In Phocus

Airline distribution developments such as new commercial approaches and the move to offer-order have been the topic for many debates in 2024. Discussions around IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology standard are ongoing but general adoption is still quite low and there seems to be an acceptance, or perhaps resignation, that although there has been a little acceleration, it will take more time. David Gunnarsson, CEO of Dohop and Charles Rajjou, former CEO of CitizenPlane, were on hand to discuss recent developments during an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference 2024. Gunnarsson has noted a little acceleration in adoption but said NDC was “always a means to an end” and attributed any acceleration to airlines and technology companies “jumping on the offer-order bandwagon.” He also said that even the carriers that have embraced the technology standard are still only using a fraction of what it could be used for. Gunnarsson and Rajjou went on to discuss the move to offer and order, the danger of leaving key stakeholders behind with NDC penetration so low and the remaining challenges for airlines looking to improve the retail experience for customers.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Turkey with its East meets West location, high internet penetration and relatively young population is well-positioned to further strengthen its presence in the online travel market.At least that is what Çağlar Erol, CEO of online travel agency Wingie Enuygun Group, is hoping for as he shapes the business for further growth.In an interview in the PhocusWire studio, Erol said that the OTA operates in 22 different countries and is particularly strong in the Middle East.He shared that Wingie has grown rapidly in that region since the end of the pandemic and is now targeting further growth across the United Arab Emirates as well as beyond. Erol also said that Wingie had grown, since launch in 2008, from a fintech-focused business into an online travel agency, with its own payments gateway and digital wallet, offering flights, hotels, transfers, car rentals and bus tickets.He touched on current challenges for the business such as scaling in different languages and different countries as it expands.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Group travel in particular seems to be flourishing with an uptick in internal meetings and further growth predicted for 2025. Research from American Express Global Business Travel, released in October, revealed that 66% of meeting planning professionals expect their budgets to rise. Dennis Vilovic, founder and co-CEO of Troop, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2021, believes group travel could increase by 30% next year despite pressure from some large corporations for employees to return to the office full time. During an interview in the PhocusWire studio, Vilovic discussed trends in group travel such as longer trips for meetings, mostly internal meetings, secondary locations and group sizes of less than 100.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When travelers are on the move, ground transportation can be considered in isolation or in combination with another travel element — a traveler could be taking a car to the airport, to a hotel or to the train, the list goes on. It makes sense therefore that some companies are setting their sights on linking the bookings and data from various travel suppliers — a concept known as the "connected trip," which has been in development for some time across the industry. Mike McGearty, CEO of Meili, and Niall Carson, chief commercial officer for Mozio, joins senior reporter Morgan Hines in the PhocusWire studio for a wide ranging conversation on whether ground transportation gets the attention it deserves, the challenges it faces and advances in AI and more.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alberto Gutiérrez, the founder and CEO of tours and activities marketplace Civitatis, had no business plan when he set out to build the company. Asked for his advice for travel startups, Gutiérrez attributed the success of the Spain-based platform, which was founded in 2008, to his ability to do a little of everything from coding and finding partners to accounting. "I always see this as the key to my success but it is not easy to replicate," he said during an interview in the PhocusWire studio. Since founding Civitatis, he has built up the brand, attracted significant investment and expanded to Latin America. Most recently, the company struck a partnership with Rappi, which saw the Latin American super app launch a tours and activities vertical as part of Rappi Travel.  Now the company wants to build on its presence in Latin America where Gutiérrez sees huge opportunity through Rappi's 50 million users and a population that tends to travel locally, he said.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Travel is all over social media — and it’s continuing to play a big role in travelers’ decisions while planning and booking their trips, according to research from Phocuswright. But misconceptions around how travel brands should be using social media remain, according to experts. “Travel brands are seeing social media as a category of the internet still when it's increasingly becoming the way millennials and Gen Z access the internet altogether,” said Konrad Waliszewski, co-founder and CEO of @Hotel.“Even Google admits now that most millennials and Gen Z search on Instagram and Tiktok before going to Google search for just about everything … I think it really has become the new search engine. People want to see videos. People want to see social proof,” he said. David Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of HolidayPirates, discussed why it’s hard for brands to understand the value. “I think the comparison to traditional search … paid search and the immediate return on investment [ROI], that's a mistake that many brands do [make] comparing the performance of social media with,” Armstrong said. ROI in social media marketing is a longer term play, he said. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Advances in hotel revenue management technology mean hotels are able to react more quickly and tap into local trends. The idea is that if there’s a big event in town such as a convention or concert, hotels should easily be able to find out about it in advance and adjust their revenue strategies accordingly. Artificial intelligence is increasingly playing a role in bringing more pieces of the puzzle together and ultimately helping hotels get to market faster. “We talk about commercial engine all the time, every day. How do we drive top line results and how do we move fast? And speed to market is very, very important. So, we're very curious about the world of AI. I feel like, from an industry perspective, we're just touching the surface. There's so much more opportunity,” said Garine Ferejian-Mayo, chief commercial officer of Sonesta International, which has 1,100 hotels across 13 brands. She was joined in the PhocusWire studio recently during The Phocuswright Conference by Sebastien Leitner, vice president of partnerships at Cloudbeds, who spoke about the company's thinking behind its intelligence product, which was unveiled in October. “What we're trying to do together with our hotel customers is to bring practices that have traditionally been in silos - revenue management, digital marketing, guest experience — together in one, AI-powered product that allows our customers to make decisions in real time, using and leveraging the beauty of artificial intelligence,” he said.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tours, activities and attractions — in short experiences — have been a hot topic in the travel industry over the past few years. And with its staying power as a driver of travel decision-making, new growth opportunities exist, according to experts. "I think it has increased, more and more," said Luuc Elzinga, founder and president of Tiqets during an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference 2024. He said consumers' focus on experiences over material goods is fueling these new opportunities. Christian Watts, founder and CEO of Magpie, who joined Elzinga in the studio, said there's certainly room for companies both small and large on the distribution side of the tours and activities sector. That opportunity comes as experiences are rising on the list of travelers' priorities during the booking process, according to industry leaders. With events like The Taylor Swift Eras Tour and the Olympics prompting fans to travel across the world and boosting business, the value of experiences in travel decision-making has come into focus.  “It's the reason to travel,” Elzinga said. “It's the reason why people remember where they've gone.”All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A little more than a year into her tenure as president and CEO of ToursByLocals, Lisa Chen is excited to be leading the company as the tours and activities sector continues to flourish.  ToursByLocals is poised for growth with recently updated technology aimed at improving the 15-year-old private tour company’s strategy, she said. “We launched a new website this past year,” she said. “We completely ... modernized our tech platform, we changed our UI [user interface], we rebranded so we have a now really strong active runway from which we can launch our growth phase.” Now the company is working to lengthen that runway through technology — specifically artificial intelligence. “We couldn't have launched our new platform, our new website at a better time, because we're able to leapfrog over other companies who are established in these enterprise systems in a way that makes us much more nimble,” Chen said. She said ToursByLocals is looking to use AI to make administrative processes more efficient. The focus is on becoming more productive, trying to remove admininistrative tasks and work more directly with guides, partners and travelers.All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Travel planning and booking at the touch of a button. It’s an idea that’s been talked about in the context of artificial intelligence travel planning, the connected trip and data sharing. “I think now the focus of the innovation is around bringing this idea that the traveler is buying trips, and we need to have a connected trip, and we need to make things simpler,” said Decius Valmorbida, president of travel at Amadeus, during a Center Stage interview at The Phocuswright Conference. But there’s a problem: Many industries, Valmorbida said, have gone through the process of simplifying and have seen external disruption. “I think that is the focus of everyone here on how we as a travel industry build that solution and it requires collaboration, because it is a big ecosystem,” he said. “So I think AI … it is important because it is the means to an end, but I think the end is customer-centricity.”All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.