Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and Opinions

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 a...

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 Ro...

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! 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: Spotify , Apple, etc....

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. 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: Spotify...

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...

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 3...

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...

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...

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.     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 yo...

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. Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page   (Follow us a...

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? Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page   (Follow us and Discuss!) Podcasts available wh...

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, Christ...

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 Show videos are posted on YouTube...

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 wh...

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.   Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and...

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? Sh...

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. Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page   (Follow us and Discuss!) Podcasts availabl...

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? Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page   (Follow us and Discuss!) P...

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. Show videos are posted on YouTu...

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 Discu...

There are very few investors who focus exclusively on the Experience Economy. Michael Zeisser, Principal, FMZ Ventures, is one of the most prolific and he joined us for a fascinating conversation on his perspective. Michael's background includes the McKinsey ecommerce practice, working as a senior executive at Liberty Media, at the time the controlling shareholders of IAC including Expedia an...

A major deal was just announced, with two of the leading reservation technology companies in the world merging. Rezdy, based in Sydney Australia and Checkfront, based in Victoria Island Canada power 1000's of operators around the world. Rezdy also provides connectivity to 1000's more operators with the Rezdy Channel Manager. Co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard are join...

A timely discussion with a variety of opinions. Many opinions. Lots of problems, not so many solutions. 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: Spotify , Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.

Pricing, variable pricing, dynamic pricing - which one is right for you? What's the difference between variable and dynamic pricing? We are joined by two experts with strong opinions discussing how the experiences industry has a lot to learn from hotels and airlines. But will the infrastructure support advanced pricing? Show videos are posted on YouTube , subscribe and Like! Comments and disc...

OTAs are the fastest growing distribution channel for the Experiences Industry. And there are a lot of mixed feelings out there in operator land. In this session we focus on Niche OTAs. Niche OTAs focus on a region, on an activity type, or in the case of our guest Melanie White from Virgin Experience Gifts, a different type of distribution - gifting. This is a really interesting show that we encou...