Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and Opinions

What does Canada look like when you move beyond the places everyone already knows? Dale Schober, founder and CEO of Radventures Canada, joins us to talk about the next chapter of the business, including a new series of multi-day adventures built around lesser-known parts of the country. Along the way, Dale shares three of his favorite Canadian destinations;  places that offer a very different view of Canada from the usual itinerary.

We also get into the idea of transformational travel and why Dale thinks the phrase itself has become a bit of a buzzword. You can’t promise someone they’ll be transformed, but you can create experiences that surprise them, challenge them, and give them the chance to think and feel a little more deeply. It’s a thoughtful conversation about going beyond the obvious; both in where we travel and in what we hope travel can do for us.

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What if you could work with travel creators without paying to get them there? Tony Carne joins us on Experience This! Travel Show to introduce Collabs Map, a new platform connecting travel businesses with content creators already heading their way.

But great content is only half the battle. Tony shares a practical strategy for turning creator videos into direct bookings, getting your business discovered on Instagram and TikTok, and making creator marketing a measurable sales channel.

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In this episode of Experience This! Travel Show, we sit down with Henry Hooper, VP of Western Markets at Klook, to discuss where travel discovery is headed.

Henry gives us a really interesting look at how Klook is thinking about the experiences market  not just selling things to do, but making travel simpler, helping travelers see value beyond price, and using content to help them discover something new.

We also get into creator marketing, social commerce, and one of my favorite points from the conversation: why “saves” matter more than likes or clicks when people are planning travel.

From there, we talk about Klook’s bigger ambitions across experiences, mobility, hotels, and B2B partnerships and what all of this could mean for tour, activity, and attraction operators trying to get noticed in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

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In this episode of Experience This! Travel Show, we speak with Sara Margulis of Honeyfund and Stephen Thresh of Viator about where travel demand really begins.

Is it search? A life event? A gift registry? A marketplace? An AI recommendation?

We explore how travelers discover and fund experiences, how AI may reshape the booking journey, and what suppliers should understand about demand, discounts, loyalty, and the moments that actually inspire people to travel.

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Expedia founding team member Erik Blachford joins the Experience This! Travel Show for a candid conversation about where value is created and who holds the leverage in travel distribution. From OTAs and travel advisors to TripAdvisor, direct bookings and Expedia’s early strategic choices, the discussion examines how changing pathways to the customer are shifting power across the industry.

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Gilad Berenstein, venture capitalist, AI expert, and longtime travel tech entrepreneur joins us to discuss how AI is reshaping travel and hospitality. We explore the rise of agentic AI, the future of the connected trip, why many AI trip-planning startups may struggle to scale, and where AI can create real value behind the scenes for operators and hospitality businesses.

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In this episode of Experience This! Travel Show, we explore the future of the Connected Trip from TikTok's push into travel bookings and Google's evolving role in travel discovery to Expedia's AI strategy and the growing importance of in-destination engagement.

We’re joined by Antoine and Marius, co-founders of IWander, an AI-powered travel companion that creates self-guided audio experiences and helps travel brands stay connected with travelers long after the booking is complete.

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Cathy Bennis (Audley Travel) and Ali Raymer (Peace and Pearl Travel) join Experience This! to discuss the evolving role of travel advisors, the rise of experience-led travel, creator-led trips, and why trusted human curation may be becoming increasingly valuable in the age of AI and overwhelming choice.

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Is AI changing everything or just accelerating what was already true?

In this episode of Experience This!, we sit down with Mauricio Prieto, co-founder of eDreams and creator of Travel Tech Essentialist, to explore the real impact of AI on travel, work, and business. From “structural optimism” to the risks of over-automation, we dig into what leaders should actually be paying attention to right now.

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In this episode of Experience This!, we sit down with Jack Harris, founder of Tally Ho Experiences, to explore how AI is moving from a “nice-to-have” to the core of running a tours and activities business. From vibe coding custom dashboards to deploying autonomous AI agents, Jack shares how he’s rethinking operations, data, and decision-making in real time.

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Lori, Bruce and Christian are joined by Beth Santos and Nikki Padilla Rivera to discuss She Shapes History New York, a walking tour concept focused on the hidden history of women. From storytelling and experience design to creator-led travel businesses, this episode explores a fresh and meaningful direction for the experiences industry.

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What if tour operators could build their own software in minutes without writing a single line of code? In this episode, former Carpe Diem CMO Oli Green introduces “vibe coding,” a new (not so new)  AI driven way to create custom tools just by describing what you want. Build dashboards, landing pages, and operational tools instantly. But, when should you build something yourself vs. pay for existing software?

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Group celebrations aren’t just trips.  They’re high-intent, multi-booking moments. In this episode of Experience This!, we talk with the CEO of Batch about how celebration-driven demand is reshaping discovery, booking behavior, and operator strategy.

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Sustainable Travel, Intellectual Travel, Niche, Luxury Travel, Food, Discovery, Small Groups.  You name it and Mary Collins from Far Horizons and Blue Fern Travel covers it all.    She's a rockstar and she joins Experience This! Travel to give us the full picture while also keeping us laughing.

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Nick Gray, Co-Founder of Keyguides Connect introduces his approach to how Tour Guides are searched, booked and run their businesses.

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Josiah Filler, CRO at Peek joins the Experience This! Travel Show to discuss Peeks $70M raise and acquisition of Connect & Go and ACME Ticketing.

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James Lemon from Stripe joins us as we discuss Instant Check out in Chat GPT, the world of Agentic Commerce Protocol vs. Model Context Protocol and how operators can ready themselves for this new world.

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Groupon is dusting itself off, investing heavily in Tech, becoming an AI first company and dominating the Things To Do space.   Listen in as Carrie Keplinger and Masha Sharma walk us through why the TTD vertical at Groupon has seen double digit growth for the past 6 quarters.  

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In this episode we learn about multi-day tour tech from Murray Decker, founder and CEO, Tour Amigo. Tour Amigo is a leading SaaS platform for the multi-day sector. There are surprisingly few SaaS platforms for multi-day tech, and Murray discusses the challenges and the differences he sees with the Destination Experiences sector. 

Arival has just launched a new research study on multi-day, the first full study on tech and distribution since our 2021 landmark research project. 

Arival is also featuring a multi-day track at Arival 360 DC, Sept 30 - Oct 3, 2025.

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The show with Chris and co-hosts Lori Timony and Christian Watts was one of the most practical shows we've had about AI in a while. 

Scrunch is going deep with AI search, and Chris provides some great tips and ideas in this show, I highly recommend you take a listen to this quick clip and hear Chris's main points:
"The first thing we've outsourced at scale to AI is BROWSING"
"The customer journey is changing radically"
"We're living in a new era of discovery"
"Customers move to simplicity with AI Search"
"Disruption of Word of Mouth?"
"SEO is evolving but AI permanently changed the Customer Journey"

There's a lot to discover in this show!

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Get introduced to Jessie Fischer, Founder & CEO, GuestOS. Jessie got an early start in the hospitality business, starting when she was 12 years old, working at her family's motel near Yosemite National Park

​GuestOS is an AI-driven concierge platform tailored for the hospitality industry, aiming to enhance guest experiences through personalized, 24/7 multilingual support. Founded in 2023 by Jessie, the company leverages AI to automate and enrich guest interactions. ​

• Personalized Guest Interactions: Offers tailored recommendations based on guest preferences and behaviors, facilitating seamless communication via SMS and voice. ​
• Operational Efficiency: Streamlines hotel operations by managing reservations, itineraries, and guest data, allowing staff to focus on direct guest services. ​
• Emergency Response Initiatives: Developed AI-powered hotlines during crises, such as the California wildfires, to provide real-time information and support to affected communities. ​

GuestOS positions itself as the first AI-native concierge for hotels, focusing on unlocking new revenue streams beyond room bookings by managing the discovery, booking, and payment process for onsite experiences. ​

For more information, visit their official website: guestos.ai.

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Greg Fisher, Founder and CEO of Tripshock and Wave Rez and author of "Mastering OTA's" joins the team at Experience This! Travel to discuss the need for and rise of niche OTA's, how Google is changing the search and buy landscape and of course, his new book and how it can help you grow your business.

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How will AI Agents impact OTAs and Google's Market share?
We have a difference of opinion - shocking I'm sure.

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The plan was to have an AI update with Tahnee Perry from A25 featuring a discussion about her toolkit (115 and counting!). 

But since this is the week (January 17 to be exact) that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold the U.S. ban on TikTok, we pivoted to also include Madi Rifkin, founder and CEO, Mount for her perspective. As a Gen Z entrepreneur with an "army

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The Experience This! team joined an Arival Pro Insiders Meetup for a discussion about Bruce's top 10 trends from 2024.

Not predictions or forecasts, but what were the top trends with a look back at the top trends from prior years.

For this show, we use a Zoom format with a few guests participating live and in real time. 

Enjoy!

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Rap, Going Viral, Mastering Content, Customer Retention, Franchising and more with Justin Buzzi, CEO and Founder of Get Up and Go Kayaking!

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Patricia Yates, CEO of Visit Britain/ Visit England fills us in on her recent trip to China, Visit Britain's upcoming launch of the latest "Film Tourism" campaign "Starring Great Britain" and how DMO's should consider the challenges of regenerative tourism

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Erika De Santi of We Road, Co-Founder and Chief of People Experiences joins Lori and Bruce to discuss We Road's secret sauce behind the companies highly successful growth strategy.  Learn about how they are building communities one trip at a time.

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Join Christian and Bruce as we learn about Mindtrip, one of the hottest AI startups in travel. With a recent raise of $12M bringing their total funding so far to $20M, the group of 12 founders have experience from companies including Google, Apple, LinkedIn, ShopStyle, Roadster, Ariba. They're new to the travel industry and very confident they can duplicate their past successes. 

We have to admit, what they're working on has great potential and we love their approach of putting the traveler in the center of everything.

They are specifically and definitely NOT a Trip Planner. Here's how they describe Mindtrip: "the most personalized way to discover, plan and organize any adventure — aound the world or in your own backyard."

Add to that, it has built-in group chat which is a definite difference maker and  automated travel organization software (like Tripit for example). 

This is a company to watch for sure, we had a great show with Andy.

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The god-father of tours and activities, Rod Cuthbert, joined Experience This! hosts Lori Timony, Bruce Rosard and Christian Watts on the most recent Experience This! Travel show. What a pleasure to share stories with "the man, the myth, the legend"! Rod shared his amazing founding story and how Viator was created as a spinoff from a failed Sabre Corporation project (good thing for Rod). He gave a lot of credit to Dominique Exmann who pioneered the rollout of Viator-branded, exclusive 'Skip the Line' access and VIP experiences at iconic sites including Musée du Louvre (Louvre Museum) Vatican City State Colosseum, Eiffel Tower and more that led to their leadership position in the market, and the acquisition by Tripadvisor (and compared that to what GetYourGuide and Klook are doing to catch up by raising almost $1B each!

We discussed open marketplaces (like the current Viator) compared to curated sites like Civitatis and Headout. We talked about bootstrapping compared to seeking VC funding and Rod's really interesting comment about the value of having professional investors and the experience they bring. Of course he mentioned our mutual mentor and good friend, the late, great, Philip Wolf, founder of Phocuswright, one of the most innovative thought leaders on the intersection of travel and the internet from the early '90s, and the impact he sees with our creation of Arival. 

Fascinating show, thanks Rod!

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Dan Christian of Travel Trends Podcast joins Bruce, Christian and Lori to discuss the growth of the Multi Day Tour Market highlighting distribution, tech, funding,  raises and more!

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Join Bruce and Lori as they sit down with Pete Comeau from Phocuswright to delve into PCW Barcelona, the future of Travel Tech investments, AI advancements, the Next Gen Traveler, and much more.

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In this episode co-hosts Lori Timony and Bruce Rosard are joined by special guest Aransas Savas, Strategic Lead, Meaningful Motivation and Co-host of The Experience Strategy Podcast, as a leader of the Stone Mantel Team. An an Experience Strategist, Aransas helps companies ranging from Fortune 100 to startups integrate coaching principles into their employee and customer experiences, enabling them to have a greater impact on customers, employees, and companies by providing more value. 

We talk about the Experience Economy, what it means and how it relates to our world of in-destination experiences. One of the biggest takeaways is Stone Mantel's research (and others) that show that for people who are taking care of their basic needs (food, housing, health insurance, etc.), they put more value on their TIME than their MONEY. What does that mean for our industry and how do we all optimize people's time to ensure they consider their time with our company "Time Well Spent". This is a super important topic that we'll be discussing more here and at Arival, exploring how the in-destination experiences industry can learn from the broader Experience Economy experts, scholars and practitioners.

Aransas brought up the interesting topic of customer journeys. We've all discussed our customer journeys, but are they ever right? How can they be if we don't know what "mode" our customer is in? This is such an important point. Listen to learn more!

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There's so much happening at Airbnb related to Experiences, some of it well known, and some of it still being discovered by our industry.

The big news, of course, is that they are removing 5000 experiences from their platform. And the way they did it, sending emails to experience creators, giving them two weeks notice and just cancelling trips that are already booked taking place after June 30 has really rubbed most of us in the industry in the wrong way. But the fact is, there are a lot of other ways these experience creators can sell their tours and activities and one of our guests, Madi Rifkin, Founder and CEO, Mount represents a new kind of distribution partner connecting experience creators with vacation rental hosts. 

The other, bigger news, is Airbnb's announcement about Icons. Here's their announcement:
Airbnb is introducing Icons, a new category of extraordinary experiences hosted by the greatest names in music, film, television, art, sports, and more. Icons let you step into worlds you’ve only ever dreamed of. Drift off in the Up house. Spend the night in the Ferrari Museum. Hang out with Kevin Hart. Today, we’re unveiling the first 11 Icons on Airbnb, with new experiences dropping around the world throughout the year.

“Icons take you inside worlds that only existed in your imagination—until now,” said Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO. “As life becomes increasingly digital, we’re focused on bringing more magic into the real world. With Icons, we’ve created the most extraordinary experiences on Earth.”
Interestingly, most of the Icons will be available for free and the rest will go for less than $100 per guest, said Airbnb. Airbnb plans to make 4,000 tickets to these Icons available in 2024. Listen to the show to hear why they're doing this, but in short, its all about collecting user data and building the "Solar System" that is part of Airbnb's go forward strategy.

Their new Group Functionality is similar. They want to start collecting user data from everyone in the booking, not just the person making the booking.  Sound familiar?

Enjoy the show!

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Viator sells more experiences than anyone in the world, by a wide margin.
And they want to ensure they stay in the lead by continuing to focus on their top of the funnel and user acquisition strategies. At the same time, they want to rely less on Google. 

Social commerce is in its infancy, but it's going to come soon and it's going to be huge. Social channels and video and platforms like TikTok, Instagram,  YouTube and Pinterest are getting closer to being one click away from a booking and Sarah is working to ensure that those bookings end up on Viator.

Once again, our conversation on Experience This! was fascinating!

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Experience This! Show #39 is one of our best yet. Today I heard three phrases I haven't heard before:

SGE: Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a new approach to search results. It's an experimental search experience that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to provide users with quick and clear overviews of search topics—without having to click on individual webpages

STS: Strategic Text Sequences. OK, what?
Harvard researchers introduce Strategic Text Sequences (STS) to influence LLM-driven search, especially in e-commerce. STS strategically inserts token sequences into product information, boosting visibility and rankings. The framework around STS leverages the Greedy Coordinate Gradient (GCG) algorithm for optimization.

And my favorite from our guest Janette Roush, EVP Marketing and Digital, NYC Tourism +  Conventions:
"The Shitification of the Internet"

Our other guest, Brennen Bliss, Principal, Propellic, shared his deep knowledge on what's going on here as search is going through dramatic changes, right here, right now. 

Some references if you're interested in this topic (and since you follow Experience This!, you likely are):

Janette's recent post on LinkedIn: "I'm hearing rumors that vendors are starting to sell destinations on a service to influence how the destination appears in outputs generated by LLMs - which sends my BS detector through the roof...." 
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7187875476504293377/

Christian Watts writes in Phocuswire about Gemini, Google Travel and the Threat to OTAs: https://www.phocuswire.com/gemini-google-travel-threat-to-online-travel-agencies

Two part story from Mario Gavira, Vice President of Growth and Brand at kiwi.com, "Preparing Travel for the Future of AI Search"
https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-marketing-ai-in-search
https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-industry-ai-search

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Meet Iris Serbanescu, owner of Wmns Work a Tourism Business Accelerator Program for Women and Non-binary early stage entrepreneurs.  Meet Megan Kennedy, founder of Good Trip Adventures and past participant in Wmns Work.    

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Joined by Stephen Oddo from Walks (subsidiary of Hornblower Group), we discuss the latest updates with the Hornblower Chapter 11, the shake-up at the top of Rezdy & the Fareharbor connection, and rumors from Tripadvisor / Viator. This is a show not to be missed.

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The plan was to talk about distribution for the in-destination experiences sector. What's new, what hasn't changed. But the conversation started with discussions of trade shows and again, what's new and what hasn't changed. There were definitely some different points of view, surprise, surprise and our featured guest  Peter Muttitt held his own with co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard.

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Meredith Rangel of Bookable Tourism joins us to discuss innovation in the Travel Industry. Is the industry lagging behind. Are some sectors ahead of others? Is the market too fragmented to create the right conditions for innovation?

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Who knows more than Gen AI for Experiences than our co-host Christian Watts?  We say "nobody"!

This show covers Christian's Year One overview and his prediction of what the top 6 topics for Gen AI will be for experiences as we enter "Year 2" of Gen AI.

Here's a source for writing prompts that we mentioned on the show:
beta.openai.com

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If you are looking for a mini masterclass in Brand Marketing, you have come to the right place.  Catherine Warrilow, Director of Brand Strategy for The Plot, joins Bruce Rosard and Lori Timony in an "all you need to know about Brand Marketing in 45 minutes" discussion.     This show is especially important for those smaller businesses that are unsure how to think about their brand and why they should.  Follow that with actionable advice that Catherine freely provides.

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Bruce's annual review of top trends for in-destination experiences with critiques from co-hosts Christian Watts and Lori Timony.

Bruce's list includes the most important things for the in-destination experiences industry to be paying attention to.

Here's an article Bruce wrote on these top trends going into 2024. 

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AI tour guides vs human tour guides.

Obviously, AI tour guides have more information and facts. 
Clearly, AI tour guides can create better stories, as long as you don't need them to be true.
I'd still bet on the human though.

But there's a hybrid approach, where the AI (in this case a character - Miss Moneypenny) enhances a currently operating experience.

Is this the way forward?

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Uncover extraordinary experiences with Claus Raasted, founder of the College of Extraordinary Experiences! Explore immersive learning, bringing people together organically, radical innovation, and the future of the experiences industry.

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Christian, Bruce and Lori discuss the current and future state of experiences.  What's a pop up experience and what about sports, dining, concerts?   Are consumers still just buying the traditional products or is there a whole new world out there?

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Christian, Bruce and special guest Tony Carne discuss a wide variety of topics including multi-city experience companies, wellness, passion travel, using AI for trip planning (yes again) and using AI as a tour guide. Startups and recent investments featured include Staples putting travel agents in their stores (what?), Boddy, Modern Adventures, Tailbox, Travelshift.

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Listen in as Lewis Krell (formerly of U Trip a Trip Planner start up now in the graveyard), Jeff Kischuk (of Tripian an up and coming start up), Bruce Rosard, Christian Watts and Lori Timony discuss the future of Trip Planners.  Will we ever see one succeed?

Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!

Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page  (Follow us and Discuss!)

Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:
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