Travel Is Your Business – Details, episodes & analysis

Modobag is the world’s first motorized, smart and connected carry-on that gets you to your destination up to three times faster than walking. CMO Tim Ryan offers insight into one of the most innovative and exciting advancements to hit the travel industry since rolling suitcases were introduced in the 1970's, on location at CES 2020.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do the world’s leading travel companies approach emerging technology companies coming to market right now? Moreover -- what do they see as the biggest opportunities, and how do you balance that with proving out partnerships with these startups to the rest of the organization? It's an important, and complex topic to explore. The good news? Nicola Poirier (Senior Manager, Strategy & Business Development at Expedia Group) and Kerri Zeil (Head of Amadeus for Startups) share everything on the travel innovation spectrum - from blue ocean opportunities to how to shop an idea and concept internally at an enterprise company. Buckle up!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Azim Barodawala, CEO of Volantio (technology that helps airlines maximize unit revenues and decrease costs through greater capacity utilization, while providing customers with better predictability and control over their travel journey) joins John Matson and Bess Chapman in the MouthMedia Network studio.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What could the hotel industry learn by several putting leaders in hotel tech in one room?

Recently, VoyagerHQ hosted executives from ALICE, Uplift and Travel Tripper — in partnership with the robust Cornell Hotel Society community—in front of a live audience for a useful and relevant discussion with many takeaways for everyone in the hotel industry— from independent boutiques to major chains—on how innovation plays a crucial role in the  path forward to improve guest experience and stay competitive.

The Speakers:

Alissa Hendel: SVP Strategic Partnerships & Brands @ ALICE

Alissa joined ALICE in January as SVP Strategic Partnerships & Brands. Since graduating from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration she spent the past 12 years at Sabre Hospitality Solutions where she served in various leadership roles, including VP Strategic Sales for North America and VP Business Development for Enterprise Accounts. Alissa currently sits on the Dean’s Council of Young Alumni for the Hotel School and also serves as a Regional Vice President for the Cornell Hotel Society.

Tom Botts: Chief Commercial Officer @ Uplift

Tom joined Uplift from Miraval Group, where he served as SVP and CMO, ultimately successfully selling the brand and resorts to Hyatt Hotels. Prior to Uplift, Tom held executive positions across the airline, hotel, and online intermediary industries, including at Denihan Hospitality, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and Hotwire.com. Tom was also the co-founder and managing partner of Hudson Crossing, LLC. Tom sits on the board of directors or advisory boards of several companies, including Adara Media, Duetto Research, Hudson Crossing, and Rocketmiles (acquired by Priceline). He holds a BS in Logistics and Marketing from the University of Missouri.

Steffan Berelowitz: VP of Digital Platforms @ Travel Tripper

Steffan is the VP of Digital Platforms at Travel Tripper and Pegasus Solutions where he oversees the website and digital marketing services for hotel customers. A pioneer in all things web and mobile, Steffan has spent more than 20 years in online services and technology. He was formerly founder of Bluetrain.io, a website platform acquired by Travel Tripper in 2015. Prior to Bluetrain.io, Steffan founded Bit Group, one of Boston's top 10 digital web agencies, implementing more than 350 web sites for 150 companies including Cisco, Dell, EMC, two divisions of GE, as well as other prominent B2C organizations.

Moderated by: James Nannos: 

James is an experienced hospitality tech leader with a track record in securing strategic partnerships, motivating high sales output, and streamlining internal operations for maximum efficiency and profitability. James is also a (retired) Captain, Troop Commander, and OEF-Kuwait Veteran in the PA Army National Guard, where most recently he commanded a 96-person Cavalry Troop. James currently sits / volunteers on the Cornell Hotel Society Alumni Board. 

Sponsors:

Cornell Hotel Society: Founded in 1925, CHS NYC is the oldest, largest, and most active regional alumni chapter of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. The Chapter's primary goal is to provide a forum of educational and networking opportunities for its members to achieve both their career and personal goals. The Chapter organizes roughly a dozen engaging, high-profile events a year for alumni and students and has raised over $100,000 for scholarships and endowments that are routed exclusively back to the School of Hotel Administration.

Voyager HQ: Voyager HQ is the startup club for the global travel, tourism, and hospitality industry, bringing together entrepreneurs, corporate partners, and investors to create the future of travel experiences. With over 1,500 startup members around the world, Voyager HQ provides the community with connections, events, and coworking space curated for the travel industry.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The millennial generation is traveling more than ever before, looking for community, location, and curation. Selina has designed unique hotel co-living, co-working spaces around these needs. Digital nomads are embracing this new traveling lifestyle in droves. Selina is thinking about topics like loyalty and technology for the next generation of hospitality. Rachele Caserza, Director of Global Strategy for Selina, joins Bess Chapman in the MouthMedia Network studio.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A fireside chat on innovation between representatives of two of the most forward thinking travel groups…

Rashesh Jethi (SVP Engineering for Americas & Head of Innovation for Airlines for the world’s largest GDS, Amadeus) and Bess Chapman (Operating Principal for JetBlue Technology Ventures) discuss travel tech infrastructure, innovation, and possibilities at the Travel Disruption Summit presented by Voyager HQ, and sponsored by Amadeus and Fareportal.

In this episode:

• What AI means for the travel industry
• How everything has changed with hyper-cheap hyper-computing
• Used to depend on massive investments for AI, and now it simply requires a lot of data and smart people
• How machine learning sit on top of that, what it means when airlines and other travel business starts really knowing customers
• Machine learning is one discipline of AI, and it means you feed computer data, makes sense of data, make more personalized recommendations, much potential in marketing
• How it is a challenge that many players are at different maturity in technology stacks
• Many are moving to open APIs to encourage growth and innovation

  PHOTO CREDIT: EVA CRUZ, CROUCHING TIGER LLC

• Regulation issues an inhibitor to innovation, but most regulation is to keep us safe
• Be respectful of regulation that’s there
• GDPR an example
• What it means that not all travel providers can keep up with changes at the same pace
• Antiquated innovation all around
• The biggest white space for disruption in airports
• Why airports will be the malls of the future
• Airports can be an oasis of commerce and relaxation
• Prescreening and biometrics, making screening fast track, frictionless
• Identifying you as a traveler, then providing you a contextual experience and a reference to what is available around you
• Amadeus believes in tapping into the creative energy of anyone, supporting innovation
• Overhyped technology (personal opinion) is blockchain
• Bags as a huge white space, RFID, and more
• How NDC change Amadeus’ current setup, and the next evolution in standard with a lot of interest from customers
• AR and VR in the travel space, ideal use-cases, and why they could just become another screen we get used to
• Using VR to book trips and for in-flight entertainment, shopping, training – and what are the challenges?
• A lot of opportunity for companies to help other companies make money
• What is looked for by Amadeus venture fund

PHOTO CREDIT: EVA CRUZ, CROUCHING TIGER LLC

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Designing customer experience in travel...

Liliana Petrova, Director of Customer experience at JetBlue Airways, Visionary, Strategist, Customer Experience Professional and Blogger, joins John Matson, Bess Chapman, and Pavan Bahl in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.

In this episode:

• Liliana Petrova on designing for Experience is like a multi-phase cake
• What is movement,
• Technology design, how to achieve movement as fast and seamless as possible
• How people will feel about the brand and interactions
• Why the experience designer needs to be a vision thinker and can’t design in increments
• Facial recognition, and why with some brands it is like having a same experience like prison or the subway, and determining that will never happen like that with JetBlue as an experience
• Delight comes from the elements and when it works to one’s standards
• Designing experience is like being like a conductor of an orchestra
• Innovation is not building new things, but finding connections that didn’t exists before between existing things
• Getting a sophisticated program up in just four months
• Will airports be the player of the future they are today?
• The quest to eliminate waiting time with bags and taking away levels of friction
• How airports could transform from being simply a processing center, and therefore offer a chance to give you joy
• Other brands doing it right, and those doing it wrong — Milan train system can do better
• Every customer has their own version of an emotional reaction — but engineering things like efficiency can create emotional experiences, creating value
• Being driven by making the world a different place, making life easier
• Liking things that stretch when it is implausible
• Why the Hyperloop is exciting
• How Petrova moved from financial analyst to design
• The baseline of customer experience is process and strategy, making connections and seeing all channels of marketing
• And hard work
• How enterprise brands can’t preserve everything with scale
• Innovation is not the end goal, it’s a way to be relevant to the customer
• The alignment in the interest of the future costumer
• Credit cards and miles/points/rewards
• Petrova on being Bulgarian and a view at her work and the American ecosystem, and having perspective
• Why Abraham Lincoln was amazing
• An intuitive move and coming to America, having two “homes”, being a citizen of the world
• Doingcxright.com

Liliana can be reached at https://thepetrovaexperience.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Merchandising content platform for flight shopping…

Robert Albert, CEO of Routehappy (the industry standard for airline rich content, acquired by ATPCO) joins John Matson and Nick Vivion in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.

In this episode:

• The most commonly desired amenity in travel: seat, then WiFi
• Selling a singular vision when pitching/building Routehappy
• How it is not actually all about price
• An entire ecommerce category that’s comeditized, we all about the experience from that moment on
• Explaining products and services customers are happier, and the industry does better
• How it was obvious to him that every customer needed this
• Why Albert feels it has felt like spreading a religion, every meeting is positive, but not necessarily a priority all the time
• It is an organic experience, brick by brick building the path forward for the company and the recognition of the need
• How the pace of building the company has helped them build it right, solving a complex problem, and why the company is ready for prime time now and can solve global differentiation problem in flight shopping
• Why GDS’s didn’t solve this prior
• Sales cycles in travel vs. funds for startups
• Massive network effect, explaining the story and getting airlines and distributers to align on the story and potential impact
• How hard Albert and team worked building the company, holding twenty five meetings a week while traveling, making good product decisions that got companies interested
• Originally Routehappy was about consumer flight reviews, then built APIs of data, and operating lean
• Happy and cheap as a product compass
• How Routehappy’s solution was now described as being able to enable the industry with better data, and that resulted in the first serious ways people were paying attention
• Moving from B to C to B to B as a pivot
• Pineapple chunks, and why this Australian treat was the snack, and the meaning
• How Routehappy was recently acquired by ATPCO, software that manages the world’s airfares
• UTA rich context (universal ticket attribute)
• Becoming the “Switzerland of rich content”, how Routehappy can now deliver on the thing they said they were doing for seven years
• Overall vision as the next gen storefront, how it is time to modernize flight shopping, how indirect channels can and should transform, and coming together with the “how”
• The happy empire and the tip of the iceberg
• Albert’s parental inspiration for travel

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Online Travel Agencies with Fareportal and CheapOair…

Sam Jain (bio), CEO/Founder of Fareportal, CheapOair and OneTravel.com, Board Chairman of Voyager HQ, joins Peter Crysdale (Co-Founder of ReCorp), Pavan Bahl (CEO of Open Source Business), Rob Sanchez (COO of Open Source Business), and Marc Raco (CPO of Open Source Business) for the first episode of Travel Is Your Business podcast.

Taking initiative to fill a gap, customer service, and introducing technology

In one of his few in-depth interviews ever, Jain covers why he started CheapOair to fill a gap in current digital online travel space, and because of the lack large contact center presence. How his background in business-to-business and customer service led to creating a digital online travel agency with a customer service focus, now the only OTA today with a toll free number on every web page, and more than 2,000 travel agents full time.

Turning a 4k debt on AmEx card into a huge business by trying to solve a dysfunction. his “coming to America” story inspired by a family jewelry business, an idea sparked by working a year for no money at a small travel agency, and buying tickets from wholesalers, the two worlds of published fares and consolidated wholesale net traded flights. The impact of Jain introducing technology with simple databases, and pivoting into an ecommerce business. Getting into the business with a model as a flight focused OTA, and providing a great user experience with a three step booking path and strong customer service, going up against four established players, and the complexity of the processes and transactions, such as 80,000 schedule changes per month.

Learning from pivots, user experience, and Voyager

Jain assertion that ecommerce is not complex when focused on product and having a depth of knowledge on one’s vertical, bootstrapping CheapOair as a pivot to go directly to the customer, a prior failed pivot, and lessons learned when getting into the hotel space. The importance of keeping focus on a core product and knowledge, and defending against OTA’s with cheaper flights with diversity of channels. How the entire seamless user experience is important from the beginning to post-transaction, and keeping target on getting repeat visitors to lower acquisition costs,

New technologies and the space being innovated, the new ability to book Amtrak, and focusing on mobile first. The Voyager incubator co-working space as an eyes and ears on innovation, looking at artificial intelligence, the value of the startup mindset, and a determination to tap into that talent pool.

Monkey commerce, dealing fruit, and global travels

The personal questions of Off the Beaten Path travels to Mathura, India, witnesses monkey commerce, dreams of a fruity excuse to go to Honolulu, and enjoys pizza in Nepal.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A mobility provider that has changed the way over 100 million people have traveled -- FlixBus is now taking on the US...Joanna Patterson, Head of Business Development for FlixBus (a unique combination of tech startup, e-commerce platform and sustainable transportation company) joins Marc Raco and Anthony DeRico.

• How we need more intercity bus travel
• Bus travel hasn’t innovated quickly, other players haven’t brought technology that makes it better for consumer, and how FlixBus does take a fragmented industry and makes it better to help more people get places
• A main player in Europe, hoping to be main player in US
• A few different clicks you can track buses, buses are well maintained, there is a better experience including plugs, wifi, clean,
• Charter bus operators typically are partners
• Allows bus companies its to enter the line run business because they don't have to setup a full business model and infrastructure
• FlixBus in the US trying to convince people to take buses for the first time
• Being a game changer is a combination of things: great mobile experience and good experience being on the bus, using data to optimize pricing and the network
• Skewing toward millennials and college students
• The physical touchpoint with the customer is a driver
• Being a hand in hand partner in the success ion bus operators
• The nature of the partnership
• Important that partners can provide the customer with a good experience
• Technological capabilities are not important because FlixBus has that capability
• How treating customers well is very important
• Management and training of drivers and their interaction with customers  including on the "mobility partner portal"
• Does maple flavored salmon jerky meet expectations?
• #NOTICETHEBUSES

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.