Travel Trends with Dan Christian
#1 B2B Travel Podcast. If you are looking to stay ahead in the travel industry, this new podcast hits all the highlights! The Travel Trends Podcast is where industry leaders converge to share & shape the future. Whether you're an emerging entrepreneur, a seasoned industry executive, or a dedicated travel professional, you’ll be able to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Uncover valuable insights, innovative strategies, and meaningful connections that will elevate your travel business or career to new heights.
Travel Trends with Dan Christian
Introducing River Cruise Travel with Kaptio
The river cruise industry is poised for remarkable growth, with the market expected to double from $5 billion to $10 billion in the next five years. But what’s fueling this surge—and how is technology transforming one of travel’s most immersive and intimate experiences?
In the kickoff episode of our River Cruise Series, we’re joined by Ragnar Fjölnisson, Founder and CIO of travel tech platform Kaptio, for a behind-the-scenes look at a sector that millions have fallen in love with, yet few truly understand.
From humble beginnings with repurposed barges in the 1960s to Viking’s breakthrough launch in 1997—now a publicly traded company worth nearly $20 billion—river cruising has evolved into a refined blend of luxury, accessibility, and cultural depth.
Ragnar explains what makes river cruising unique: smaller ships with just 100–120 passengers, docking directly in historic town centers, and offering a boutique hotel experience on water. This format is attracting a new wave of travelers—from affluent explorers to multi-generational families, where grandparents often fund the trip for the entire group.
But with opportunity comes challenge. While many operators excel in fleet management, fragmented distribution channels and inflexible tech stacks continue to hold the industry back. That’s where Kaptio steps in - bringing modern, agile technology built for cruise operations, dynamic packaging, and future-forward innovation. Still, Ragnar emphasizes one constant:
“AI plays a supporting, augmenting role. But it can’t replace the human connection.”
With thought leaders like Kaptio and pivotal players such as Tauck, Avalon, and Scenic, the future of river travel promises to be as inspiring as the journeys themselves. Join us as we continue to uncover the stories redefining the river cruise experience in this exclusive series.
👉 Listen to Introducing River Cruise Travel Now
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The #1 B2B Travel Podcast Globally. Over 100 Episodes. Listeners in 125 countries. New Episodes Every Weds. Season 5 In Progress.
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I'm actually not, as I'm not going to be all in on AI as a, as a, as a waste of discovery. Just yet, right, just yet, because my view is that the okay.
Speaker 1:So the travel advisors have grown through some form of scaling, hyper personalized agent. Now, it's not. It's not digital scale, it's not, you know, because you know they've just found a very nice niche in finding their clientele, getting to know them, getting to learn and understand their insights, their preference and their their points of view, and so that they can make a rational, gut feel decision about what they're going to like and how you're going to position something in front of them, Just like how any services industry works, like whether it's financial services or whether it's your insurance broker. You know you build up these data points as one of these experts and you use them and you're you know sort of you know, like the human level relations of building expertise, to make sure that you're putting something together that fits, that makes sense, and AI plays a supporting, augmenting role there. It will. I don't think it's going to be the same as the human connection.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome back to Travel Trends. This is your host, dan Christian, and we are about to begin our deep dive into river cruising, brought to you in partnership with our friends at Captio. But before we do, I just wanted to give some important context to this series, since we just wrapped up our guided touring series. Now, many of the companies that operate in multi-day also operate in river, and we heard a little bit about that as we were speaking about multi-day, and you're going to hear even more about that as we get into river cruise. And the reason we wanted to bring these two series back to back is partly for that reason, but also because that's exactly what traveler behavior is in 2025 and beyond. Travelers are seeking both experiences and often from the same organization. And now, speaking of companies wanting both experiences and working with one organization, captio now that's Captio, with a K K-A-P-T-I-O operates a technology platform specifically designed for multi-day and have been expanding into River. Tauk is actually one of their partners.
Speaker 2:But take one step further back and the founder of Captio, ragnar, is a big fan of travel trends and him and I have become terrific friends over the last couple of years. He was on our podcast much earlier and he was part of a travel technology episode and it was one of the most popular episodes we've ever had and, very interestingly, it was actually the reason that we decided to start doing deep dives in the first place. What we discovered with Travel Trends is that when we had a topic that really interested our global audience audience and we had the right people to speak to that topic, those were by far our most downloaded episodes. We continue to do that with sustainability and a number of specific focused topics. That ultimately led us in season four to do a three or four episode deep dive into a specific focus area, like adventure travel, ocean cruises, the role of travel advisors. And season five has followed that exact approach and we have had five deep dives in season four and we're doing five deep dives here in season five.
Speaker 2:And the reason that it's particularly relevant to Ragnar and Captio is because I had the privilege to be invited to their conference in Iceland at the end of 2024 on my way to World Travel Market, and Ragnar, jesse, tracy and Vidar kindly invited me to speak at their conference and I've known Ragnar now for a couple of years and I've been so impressed with his team and his technology, but this was my first chance to actually see the team in person and actually meet a number of their clients, because they were there for this conference and when I got a chance to see just how much people love working with Captio and the platform and the team and developed a much deeper understanding of their technology offering and the fact that it's expanding into River Cruise, it seemed to me that it was an ideal partnership as we brought this series together. So Captio and the team kindly offered to sponsor our River Cruise series and they've also come on as a title sponsor for season six. So, on that note, I just wanted to strongly encourage anyone working in the multi-day tour or river cruise space to check out kaptiocom to learn more about Captio's team and technology, because they are conquering the complexity of multi-day travel and, believe me, from my background and experience, it is complex, which is why so many companies struggle with technology when they get into this space and that is their exclusive focus, which is transforming how tour operators design, sell and manage these complex multi-day tour travel experiences, and their platform has been specifically designed to help companies streamline their operations, help with your bookings and improve the customer experience so you can focus on meeting the demands of today's travelers. For more information, check out Captiocom. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2:And now back to the show. Now let's get into this series and River Cruise and bring in the star of this first episode, the founder of Captio, ragnar. Welcome, ragnar, so great to have you back on Travel Trends. Thanks again for your support and for joining us. Thanks, dan, good to see you. You too, man.
Speaker 2:Last time we saw each other was in Iceland, which is obviously home for you. I know you live in Germany now with your family, but the Captio company is based in Reykjavik and I had a chance to come across and meet the whole team thanks to you. You brought me across to speak at your conference, which I so thoroughly enjoyed, and obviously you and I have gotten to know each other really well over the last year. I know you enjoy listening to the show and are a big fan of Travel Trends, and I greatly appreciate that. We've become good friends and also partners. Captio has kindly stepped up to sponsor this series and even season six of travel trends as well, so I'm I'm thrilled with how our relationship has has developed, but I I think what it comes down to and our listeners will hear today, is the fact that you and I genuinely get along and have become really good friends, and I think that that so many people had said to me before we recorded that episode together how do you not know, ragnar, like you guys have so much in common and you guys would get along, he's's like you're younger than me.
Speaker 2:But he people had said, like you know, he's young, he's smart, he's like he's got so much going for him. And anyway, when we got to sit down in Reykjavik that first evening, you and I went for dinner together and and one of the things you showed me was Dan GPT and I'd heard about this. So yeah, so R damn GPT and I'd heard about this. So yeah, so, ragnar, tell me from your vantage point how that came about, because I thought it was pretty a pretty cool thing, a little creepy but also very cool.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, tell our listeners how that came about. Well, the thing is that, no, I've been, you know, I've known about you for a while as well, and it was always a sort of hey, I really need to, you know, get to know Dan a bit more. So when you invited me on the first podcast, that was a great opportunity, and when we finished doing that, episode.
Speaker 1:I got really into listening to all of the prior episodes and then every episode since, and what I did was because I think the way you articulate the industry, you are such a great spokesperson for Multiday and I think we've lacked that. We've lacked the consistent figure to sort of spearhead the view of the industry and the potential of it and and the research that that that is and should continue to be happening. So when, when I sort of I sort of saw that hey, this, this is the guy, he, he's the face of the industry, I really thought, well, what this industry needs is a bit of normalization of language terminology, um, and and and and a bit of sort of a category definition and, um, you did a couple of episodes, um, both were as a guest, and and then of sort of a category definition. And you did a couple of episodes both as a guest, and then, of course, you hosted many great people from the multi-day industry. And every time I feel like there's a great multi-day episode, I add it to a custom ChatGPT AI assistant, I take the transcripts from the show and I upload it into Dan GPT and me and Jess use Dan GPT. Who Jess is on our marketing team. We use Dan GPT to figure out normalization of language, normalization of how we talk about the industry, and we feel that the way you articulate the future and the past of multi-day is spot on. So you're doing more work than you realize behind the scenes in some of these cases.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, ragnar. I really appreciate those generous comments and certainly I was delighted to hear that you were able to utilize the information that way and it was useful. I was actually quite impressed when I was listening to it that I was like, yeah, that's what I would have said. I think that's pretty close to what I think on that matter. And when I asked Jesse, I'm like how is he doing this? And and she said I think he's actually taken all of your previous interviews and the be able to create this kind of marketing persona that then you can ask questions of to, as you said, normalize the language or understand how to connect with customers or travel advisors.
Speaker 2:So you know, that's a big focus for me for sure is communicating our industry and extolling the benefits and the virtues. And what are the things I get into in a lot of these calls that you know is like their unique selling proposition, understanding how you sell the difference. And what are the things I get into in a lot of these calls that you know is like their unique selling proposition, understanding how you sell the difference and what the positioning is, because that's what I've learned, certainly over my time in this industry and marketing specifically. That really can help a brand differentiate itself, grow and scale. So thank you, first of all, for taking such a keen interest and developing that.
Speaker 2:Hopefully we can advance that further going into season six in our AI summit. I know we're going to have you back for our AI summit in October 28th and 29th. We just announced those dates so you can look forward to Ragnar joining us there, and maybe Ragnar, if you wanted to. That's actually one of the things you can demo. You can demo creating a custom GPT to use as your assistant, absolutely.
Speaker 1:GPT to use as your assistant. Absolutely Well, let's at least make it a goal to publish it so that anyone who is working in the industry and wanting to help define the future of the category they get access to it as well. So yeah, let's make that a goal then.
Speaker 2:Publish.
Speaker 1:Dan GPT for the world.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thanks, ben. I'm looking forward to it. Now let's make sure that we bring in our listeners that may not be familiar with Captio and are even coming to get to know you, ragnar, for the first time, so that we bring everyone on this journey.
Speaker 2:As we begin to talk about river cruises because you alluded to multi-day and of course, that is a big part of my background and we just finished our multi-day tour series, which got a ton of interest and attention. But very interestingly, given that's both of our backgrounds, we're about to talk about river cruising and our audience will quickly understand why and I've been alluding to that over the course of the multi-day tour series because a number of those companies and one good example is Globus that owns Avalon You're going to hear from Avalon on this series as well. Another company, tauch, which is a great partner of yours, exists both on the multi-day tour guided side as well. Another company, tauk, which is a great partner of yours, exists both on the multi-day tour guided side as well as the river cruise side, and there is such a synergy between these two sectors in travel. But before we dive into that, give everyone a little bit of overview of Captio and your role as well, too, ragnar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we stumbled into the multi-day space before it was a category we started building on top of the Salesforce platform in 2014, me and my co-founder Artnar, and we had this vision of a blue ocean opportunity to combine reservation technology with CRM on the same underlying platform and that really resonated with a lot of different leaders in tour operation and then later down the line in cruise, and then it sort of evolved into becoming this sort of multi-day category with river and ocean and small ship cruising sort of often being bundled together onto that category. So we were part of that definition or that category being born. We were part of that sort of trend and when we started dealing with technology for multi-day know, there were no online bookings. 2014 they were getting an online booking for multi-day booking or multi-day travel was, uh, pretty much unheard of and um, even things like sending a tailored uh proposal or a tailored um quote uh to to your customer for what is obviously a very intimate and highly special occasion, going on a trip like this, getting it on your mobile or getting it in sort of a website tailored to you that was unheard of at the time. So we brought a lot of that sort of first technological steps to making buying a multi-day holiday a bit more closer to how consumers were buying other products across different industries, and we were very inspired by what Salesforce was doing and they are a perfect partner for us to bring that technology forward.
Speaker 1:So, combining CRM, customer experience and just kind of making more of the booking process digitally native and less reliant on traditional and legacy methods of getting your product out there and supporting the booking process, whether that's online or offline. So, yeah, that's sort of our origin story in a nutshell, and we were fortunate enough in 2016 to or 2015, actually, to start working with a very ambitious company. That gave us about nine weeks to launch a booking platform for their new venture in China and that was Viking Cruises and that was a. You know, I never went the traditional academic route. You know I'm very much a self-learned entrepreneur, developer, architect and so on but that was my MBA, working with a Viking team to launch in China. That was an absolutely, yeah, absolutely life-changing opportunity and that sort of set sail for what came afterwards, which was this interest in river cruise and in cruising in general and what makes me excited about the future really in cruising.
Speaker 2:Well, I think people certainly got a good idea from that introduction about your background certainly being the founder of Captio but then over the years being the CTO, chief product officer, chief innovation officer, as you are now, and the company growing and getting additional investment and moving into this category.
Speaker 2:So just to add a little bit of context to our listeners too, why Captio is involved in the River Cruise series versus the multi-day tour series, because this is where you guys have a number of high profile clients in the multi-day tour space and are continuing to grow in that category and based on that success, you have now charted a course to expand into River Cruise, tauk being one of those partners. Of course, that has kind of led the way with you developing this technology which is now available to a lot of other river cruise companies. So tell us a little bit about that journey, just so it kind of sets the stage for our conversation because very quickly I want to bring our audience along the journey with understanding the background on river cruise, the size of this industry, all these things that also led you into this space. But yeah, tell us a little bit, just from a technology point of view, why it was so complimentary for you to move from multi-day into river cruise.
Speaker 1:I don't think we saw it that simply to begin with, but the team over at Viking really convinced us that you know the power of running a CRM and a cruise reservation system on the same underlying platform. They were just that had been a dream reservation system on the same underlying platform. That had been a dream of one of the main executives there, a great mentor of mine, Jeff Dasch, who really saw that vision and we were sort of at the moment, yeah, we can probably do cruise. But we were kind of born in the tour space and after several demos and discussion he saw how the pieces fit together and that's really where we started to look at ourselves not as a tour operation, uh solution, but more of a multi-day across the category kind of solution and and and a platform really. And that's taken us then, you know, several years to to then, uh, I say, harden each sector of that.
Speaker 1:We've always been recognized and known in the FIT space. We've had some really great customers early on who adopted the platform for FIT packaging, so different components being put together. You've had many of our customers on your show support that use case, namely customers like Railbookers. And then we also worked extensively with Autly Travel and Rocky Mountaineer, who do quite a lot of sort of, I would say, flexible packaging, and then some of the brands over at the Travel Corp as well, and that's where we really got known. But then through some really, really strong kind of demand, after COVID we started having these very good discussions with companies like Calc and Intrepid, who really shaped our roadmap over the last two years, and now we're launching sort of a very focused tour product that allows tour operators to both operate and sell an end-to-end tour land tour, group tour, custom tour or custom group tour on the platform. As well.
Speaker 1:As a very strong partner of ours, Aurora Expeditions down in Sydney, we see a huge opportunity in launching this sort of dedicated cruise offering and each offering. So cruise tours and flexible travel it's all underlying the same platform. But what's happening is that in order for the product or these different solutions to become viable to adopt and implement efficiently, there are different partners and different integrations that our customers need for each of these use cases. So what we're really trying to do is identify the best partners for each one of these solutions, create these accelerators where it's been bundled up together as one transformational offering, and then we can provide this as a kind of unlocking growth package of how you get off your legacy technology and you move on to something foundationally different, which is this Salesforce Capdeo foundation and then all the different components that supplement that. So that's going to. Yeah, we're very excited about that. I think that strategy will be big for us and, hopefully, our customers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, certainly that. All indications are, and I think this is where you know, just looking at the size of the industry and how it's going to grow, it's really important context for you getting involved in this space, not only with the existing market share that's available for river cruise companies to compete in, but just how rapidly that is intended to expand over the next five years. So let me share some of these stats with our listeners just to give some great context to why we wanted to do this river cruise series. I mean, I certainly have my background working with River Cruise companies like Uniworld and within the Travel Corporation group of brands that you referred to. So I certainly came to understand very well over the last decade how important River Cruise was to the multi-day tour collection and how you successfully cross-sell those brands as well. Someone takes an Insight Vacations trip, a multi-day guided tour, and then they take a River Cruise for a week and it's been fascinating to see consumer behavior, how they have basically chosen both of those options. And then, when you look at the companies and you'll hear from a number of these on this series, globus being that one example that stands out simply because of the fact that they have River Cruise built in their collection and they established River Cruise as that industry was really starting to take off, because they had a history of operating multi-day and there's a lot of synergies between those two and from an operations point of view, and so, but in terms of the opportunity, I guess this is one thing I wanted to highlight because when we did the multi-day tour series we were talking, steve Zahn, the CMO of Globus, was highlighting this is a $300 billion industry that very few people know about and we've always kind of used these stats and you're familiar with this, of course, as well that you know.
Speaker 2:Pre COVID, we saw the multi day tour spaces, but 100 million, 100 billion sorry globally, and now, post COVID, you know it's more like a $300 billion industry, given inflation and other factors and just how it's growing. Companies like Intrepid you mentioned, that are on the cusp to do a billion dollars a year, and there's quite a few multi-day tour companies that are in that range that are doing a billion dollars in business. And so then, when we turn our attention to river cruise, what's interesting is that, although you've heard about river cruising for the last, let's say, 20 years, the last 10 or 15 years, it's been on an incredibly hot streak that everyone has found out about river cruising, like the secret got out that river cruising is an amazing way to travel and more and more people have been experiencing it. It's almost similar and you remember this too, and the Rocky Mountaineer, which is still a great experience and company, but all of a sudden there becomes a type of trip that people all want to do. Everyone wanted to do the Rocky Mountaineer in Canada, from Calgary to Vancouver, and then they wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and this was like the ultimate trip that everyone needed to do. This. They needed to do the Rocky Mountaineer and the Alaskan River Cruise and really about the same time, the river cruise was sort of entering the zeitgeist of travelers thinking of new ways to travel and people coming off river cruises and raving about the experience because it's so different than ocean cruising.
Speaker 2:And not only the small ship which, focusing on Europe. Most of those ships only fit about 100, 120 people as opposed to 1,000 plus. They navigate through the waterways many ways that historically as a civilization has evolved. They actually park in the places that you can get off the ship, walk into a village and it's a very different experience. It's almost like the way that you can get off the ship, walk into a village, and it's a very different experience. It's almost like the way that people used to love. Um, you're just getting off a train, right in the heart of a city. Now you have an opportunity to get off on a boat and be able to instantly be immersed in the culture and the community of small towns all across europe, and you can see them, uh, from the ship, as you are either lounging in your room or lounging on the top floor and you get to see castles. So you know, the Danube, the Rhine, some of these rivers that were just so perfectly positioned for river cruising, you know, just took off. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2:Just to give everyone the context on the numbers and the history, and I'll keep it brief. But if you look at the one of the largest and well-established, if you will and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment, but essentially you've got around 25 different companies. Most of them have ships that are, you know their fleet can vary from four to 10 to, you know, 20 ships, and so they are very much boutique collection and the way it was always described to me, especially working with Uniworld, was that these were essentially five-star floating hotels, and so you operated them much the same way that you did luxury hotels, and there was always this desire for River Cruise to be a premium offering, and you'll hear that when we're speaking to Pam from Avalon just how Globus introduced River Cruising, but just to give a bit of the market share and a timeline. So when you look at the industry today, as we're having this conversation in 2025, the reality is this industry is set to double in the next five years. So we're talking about going from $5 to $10 billion. And how is it going to do that? Clearly, each of these companies are expanding, they're adding new ships and we're also going to see new entrance into the river cruise space. So we all have to be mindful of all the things that happen when travel continues to expand, with overcrowding, and so that's sort of the, I guess, the cautionary note. But nevertheless, people are going to want to continue taking river cruises and there's going to be more options for them. So obviously that lends itself well to developing the technology for these platforms.
Speaker 2:But the other thing just to mention and then I'm keen to get your take on this too, ragnar, is that when you look at the history of this space, it really started in the 60s and 70s with barges. There was lots of entrepreneurs that were kind of retrofitting barges to go down different waterways, and then it really wasn't until the 90s that all of a sudden you started to see ships emerge that were designed and purpose-built for river cruising, and the first major one was Viking, which was 1997. And there's an interesting connection there between what happened then and what's happening now, which is that when Viking was first created and the founder had a background in ocean cruise and created this river cruise line, which started in Russia, interestingly enough, and then expanded through Europe, viking also just went public last year, for those people who've been following this, because Viking went from strength to strength. A lot of people who came to know river cruising came to know Viking one because they were one of the first, if not the first, in this space, depending on how you look at it. They weren't an overnight success, so it actually took them more than a decade to really kind of build out this business, although it was growing from the beginning. But it wasn't until the early 2000s that you actually started to see other river cruise companies be introduced by either through acquisition or actually forming these brands themselves, like Avalon was formed as part of the Globus Group in 2003. They got into river cruising. Some people were chartering other ships, they started buying their own. So it really wasn't until the last 20 years, in the early 2000s, that all of a sudden, you had some of the companies that we're going to be speaking to in this series being founded and setting sail.
Speaker 2:And this is where, over the last, say, 10 or 15 years, this category has just gone from strength to strength and we're now in a place and this is where I always find it fascinating how long it takes to get to a place. So, if you think about the industry growing from $5 billion to $10 billion, if you actually just look at the market cap today of Viking now, of course, viking does ocean and they've expanded their business, but when they went public last year for those of you who got in early on the IPO the IPO had the company valued at $10 billion. Today, if you're looking to buy one of those stocks, it's doubled. The company is worth nearly $20 billion. It's about 18 based on trading today, and that gives you an idea of how bullish investors are on this category and this space, given the growth potential.
Speaker 2:So, for all those reasons, I guess what I want to finish by saying, ragnar, is I always find it fascinating how long it takes to get to a place Like here we are in 2025. It's literally taken 25 years to get to the capacity that we have today, and in the next five years that's going to double, and it's only going to be able to double by virtue of what it took to get to where we are. So, for all those reasons, I'm thrilled to bring this conversation together. So, ragnar, please jump in on that note and share some of your views on this industry.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a really big day for the industry when they went public. I remember because I know the Viking team well throughout the years and Thorstein is an absolute legend because he gets the timing right From a growth point of view. There's always these cyclical patterns of it's growing year on year quite nicely, but you also have to plan for capacity and a lot of I think their success has been about timing and the right relationships to expand their fleet, and that can't be. You know, that's such a big factor in this terms and the right point in the economy to grow and to do it in a way that they've done it in this period. It's actually like a playbook. It's a great playbook. The cherry on top is really the way they went to market and some of that team that have worked really hard and he's kept some of these players with him for a long time, really reaping a huge reward there. So I think I think it's like a a they they give, give others a playbook on how to scale. But then if you look at some of the boutique offers, the boutique players that are coming and offering alongside them, they are looking at as an opportunity to um to really diversify their offering. So you'll see existing tour operators that have done really well in long tours or in high-end travel launch into river cruise as a kind of a compelling offering and then offering a combined to long tours and river cruises as one back-to-back bundle. And then, of course, we're starting to see the mainstream ocean cruise guys enter the market, which brings another element of capital of expertise into this, which just supports the overall growth. So I think we can be very bullish. I think, like you said, the market, different market numbers and how you measure and forecast the future they are all sort of around the 10% to 12% year-on-year growth rate to get to that 10 billion in the next five years.
Speaker 1:I think we can be bullish. I think we can expect a lot of M&A, a lot of companies that want to speed up getting into it or see an opportunity to sell to somebody who can take things and move things faster. And, uh, you know the family-run businesses, you know they. They always go through cycles of generational change.
Speaker 1:Uh, that's that's been fascinating working with some of these uh families in in, in multi-day in general, and looking at the, the handing of the baton to the next generation and that shift right and that always, uh, offers opportunities, the baton to the next generation and that shift right, and that always offers opportunities for new players to come in and for private equity to get involved, as we're seeing right now in many cases. So, no, I think Captio's offering to be here we're in the right place at the right time with the right technology. That's exciting for us and I think we'll see some great innovation in the space, both on the offering side and on how they get consumers to be more digital, to be more excited about bringing younger generations to the fold. And yeah, so it's a rosy outlook, I would say, at least from our perspectives, right.
Speaker 2:With the Viking going public, one of the fascinating things that certainly woke up a lot of investors to the growth potential within the travel space, given the demographic changes. And I know this is some of the stuff that you and I are across, and I spoke about it at your conference, which is why I'm bullish on travel over the next 10 years or even 20 years. I mean, if we look at 2025 to 2050, the global travel market is set to double. So there's and obviously there's challenge with that for sure, but the investors are looking at this space again and, as you mentioned, private equity, all of a sudden, the signals have brought more people into the consideration set where private equity is now looking at acquiring different travel businesses, whether they're multi-day or river cruise, but getting more invested in this space, given the growth potential over the long term and that compound annual growth that you referred to, that is a key measure for PE firms to decide to get into a category and when you see numbers that are double-digit growth year-on-year for a decade, that's an industry that they're interested in, and so you're going to have not only more investment but you're clearly going to have more offerings for the consumer, so that's a great benefit for them, and one of those I just wanted to highlight is Celebrity Cruises, to exactly your point, Ragnar, where you've got Celebrity Cruises, which is owned by Royal Caribbean. There's kind of two big, massive global cruise lines and Royal Caribbean owns Celebrity. They are going to roll out at least 10 ships for 2027, focused on Europe, and obviously that's going to be a major shakeup of our industry because that's a lot of capacity coming online at one time. I mean, that's the size of some of these other fleets, or half of the largest. So 10 ships and it could be larger. So to your point about the growth it is certainly really exciting.
Speaker 2:But one other thing also to highlight and this is what I find fascinating about the river cruise industry is that although there was kind of the birthplace in Europe of some of these big players and that may be, around 70% of the global capacity for river cruises focused on Europe. 70% of the global capacity for river cruise is focused on Europe. It's really interesting to see how it's expanded globally, certainly in the US. I mean, viking has started operating in the US, even Canada, we jumped into it. But when you look more broadly you can see South America, southeast Asia. So, like the opportunities to go along the Mekong and Vietnam, you have Africa, at least with Egypt coming online as well, and then you've got places not only in South America but off the coast, like the Galapagos. That is a perfect place for a cruise destination. It's not a river cruise, but nevertheless it's this idea of small ship cruising which is another big trend right. So there's so many different signals.
Speaker 2:That is like wait, there's growth in new markets, but obviously it all comes back to where are you getting travelers from? Where are these people actually booking them? And the reality is it still is the major English language source markets. As you know, it's the US, it's Europe, it's Australia. Australians love river cruising, for example. They massively over index for cruising in general.
Speaker 2:I guess it makes sense when you're on an island and you want to set sail on a ship and I know that's how many of them got there in the first place. And I can say that because I'm English and we had two options Canada or Australia and we chose Canada. I love Canada, but my heart is in Australia in many ways, so I could have gladly been a five pound palm if that's the way life had worked out, but nevertheless there's so much opportunity for growth in these different markets. So I'm very keen to get your take on what this all means from a technology point of view, like when we think about these companies introducing all of these offerings. I'm sure one of the things that went through your mind is wait a second. Something needs to power them, reservations and the on-trip experience. So tell us how you look at that, ragnar, given your background in technology and thinking about wait a second. There has to be more to this for these companies to advance their technology, to be able to handle this scale or introduce these new travel experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I look at it, my worldview on this, is through the consumer lens, first and foremost, and then through the operational lens of these operators and what they need. So we look at the consumer side. I still think that there's a lot of, you know, just general education needed to well, the opportunity to increase the education to travelers, and I think part of and you've spoken a lot about this the travel advisor research and, I think, river cruise and cruising more in general, but river cruising specifically, you can attribute a lot of it to travel advisors being great at educating the consumer market about this option, this travel market, and that, uh, that, if that scales and really takes off through online channels, like, uh, if we look at it from a social media point of view, we look at it from an ota point of view, down down the line, where I don't think we're going to have a leader in in or a clear leader in the OTA space selling River Cruising anytime soon. There are players out there, of course, and you've had some of them on, but the opportunities to get the product out there more efficiently through better education and then, at the same time, the offerings are changing.
Speaker 1:Historically, river cruise has been what I would call a recession-proof sector, because these are, you know, quite high-end products. They they get booked by affluent and and and upper middle class, upper class uh consumers, um, and and and that's participated in to the growth of it is that there's always a healthy amount of rich people who want to have this experience, and it is a great experience, and as we then see more people at different price points being offered in different regions, that's just kind of an obvious one from a consumer point of view, it's going to become more accessible. And then, um, then, how people then make those bookings, uh, and and engage with these different uh operators, that has to be through online channels first and foremost, moving forward, um, not to say that that the, that the call center experience or the travel advice experience is still not going to be really, really important, but they will also go through digitization in their own way, where they're still providing great service and great insights and education, but they'll be doing it at a higher productive rate through technology, ai and so on, and that's going to also happen for just what the consumer will expect. So I think that, from a consumer, lens, access, education, understanding that this offering even exists like that's sort of the initial hurdle. And then when they are in the booking process, you know, making it stick, making sure they book, making sure they get the deposit down, and then start exploring other things to buy, depending on the offering in and around it. That's the second thing, because you know, I don't know about you I there isn't a single time where I've booked, uh, a seven day or 10 day or 40 day holiday with my family and I haven't explore hey, how can I make this into a 20 day or or a 10 day, like how can I expand on either side? And it's not just about adding a hotel, it needs to be something more than that.
Speaker 1:And I've always seen rail and river be really complementary products to each other, where you can maybe fly into Europe into different destinations where there's great rail connections, and then get over to Amsterdam or Basel through that rail connection and you've then experienced far more of Europe through different transportation as well and making it easier for the consumer to put those types of packages together.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think Railbookers is doing a fantastic job of that. I have to shout them out here specifically. I think that's one of their advantages to serving the travel advisors is that they make it so easy to complement these products together. But if we then think of that at the meta level, how do we get the operators to do that, how do we get the O to do that, how do we get the OTS to do that? And and that's going to have a big impact? So yeah, education and education, and how you expand your trip easily without that whole headache of puzzling it all together yourself. I think that those are the two consumer lens opportunities, and then on the operations side, you know where to start. You know right, there's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll leave it at that when to start, because there's these companies. They are great at investing in fleets and timing their investments in when to buy and build more ships Absolute, absolute masters of that Investing in technology. I think there's a lack. I think there's a lack there that, understandably, their business is to create amazing experiences and some of them have depth, right Technological depth that will make it easy for some of the new players to capture that consumer demand through that consumer lens we talked about earlier. So I'll leave it at that for now. Just the mindset of some of these players that have grown tremendously in the last 20 years. There's so much technological upside that they have on the operational side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mentioned a number of really important trends there that are shaping the river cruise industry and the reason that the stars are aligning for this category, but you said something I just wanted to underline that I found really interesting as well, which was that from a technology point of view, you start with the consumer, and obviously that's something that may seem obvious when someone like you says that.
Speaker 2:However, it's certainly not the way. I've seen a lot of organizations work. You know they make decisions on how the back office team wants to use a platform and sometimes run into challenges based on, you know, the way they had previous reservation systems. So I've certainly seen this in the past and I think one of the things that and this is the reason I wanted to underline that is that when you look at where you should be developing the technology, it certainly needs to be to meet consumers where they are, and I'll just share a couple of examples, because I think this is where you hit on some of the trends that I think that are worth also highlighting in a little bit more detail and, bauman, you can add to that as well. But you mentioned luxury. Obviously, that's a big driver, the one thing along the same lines with these demographic changes.
Speaker 2:I found fascinating about river cruise is multi-generational travel. So multi-generational travel we've never done an episode on it. I think it's come up in a few different conversations and people might say but I've, really I've seen that firsthand. Like I love traveling, but I love traveling partially because I love the experience of traveling, but also because I love this industry and I always get valuable insights from being in a destination to understand other customers. I'd always ask people on the ship or on the coaches you know, how did you come to book this trip? And, like you know, to kind of follow it back to its origin, of how they were inspired and how they ended up here on this river cruise. And one of the things that continually came up was multi-generational cruising that I was meeting the grandparents and the kids and the grandkids, because we actually took our kids on two different family trips and there's specific programs that these river cruise lines offer to have family departures and these multi-generational trips, which are driven by these demographic changes of the baby boomer generation retiring and having like 70% of the wealth, and so they're the ones that can also afford to be able to buy a trip. They want to get everyone together so they pay for their kids and their grandkids and they have an extraordinary time.
Speaker 2:But there's something that's wider happening there, and I think this is where I genuinely find that fascinating to see these trends and how they relate to, because I always see trends more as signals signals as an investor, signals as someone who's marketing and trying to help grow a business, and trying to figure out what are the signals you should be paying attention to, and I liked how you mentioned a number of those, so luxury being one of them.
Speaker 2:This idea of smaller group travel, the fact that these are a more boutique offering, certainly that post-COVID experience where people actually do want to be with a smaller group and have space. And the river cruising is also fascinating to me because it appeals to people that don't want to go on an ocean cruise and so for the reasons that they don't choose an ocean cruise, when we did that series in season four on ocean cruise, I found it fascinating that the biggest challenge that they have is trying to convert people to their category, because so many people are just a hard stop at the idea that ocean cruising isn't for them and that sometimes that's exactly where river cruise comes in is that it is a great option for people who might be hesitant to ocean cruise, and it's a great gateway into it, and so there's a number of reasons why the stars are aligning for river cruise. What are some of the other things that have stood out to you, ragnar, from why you think we're seeing this growth and why consumers are choosing this style of travel?
Speaker 1:Well, it's just, it's kind of very accessible once people know about it, right, I've gone both on ocean cruising, small ship cruises and done rivers, and you know, there's just something so nice and easy about landing in, let's say, amsterdam and then just being toward or coached down or private transfer to like into the middle of the city, right, we're used and sort of experience the city and then it's so it's such a nice elegant way to just sort of go on on the ship and then look over the, the. You know, like you were saying earlier, like like the be in within the city confines and sort of experience it like his, from from a historical point of view of how uh, they would be moving uh goods and uh and and equipment on these same same rivers. And these rivers are historical, right, so it's, it's, it's great, like I'm a history buff, so it's great for the history nerds. I used I lived in heidelberg and you know the local community uh was really um, impacted by river cruise. They, they couldn't get, they bust people in from the, the closest uh sort of small port, but they all came into heidelberg and it was, it had a big economic impact on these communities where you know I'm not sure so many people would go and visit like Copeland or Basel or these great, historical, beautiful locations if they weren't for river cruising.
Speaker 1:So I think it's just a very accessible product, particularly for the older generation. And I think the upside on the family and the multigenerational stuff I see this as myself Like I'm going on a trip next week with my in-laws and that entire family and then the end of the year with my Icelandic family and all my brothers and their kids. This is just going to become more and more happening all over and I think river cruising is a great way to experience multigenerational travel and the accessibility of getting in and getting out. And it's not as overwhelming as having to go to the port in Mallorca or go to the port in the Bahamas and sort of see this gigantic ship that you're boarding with 10,000 other people or sorry, 1,000 other people, so, or sorry, 1,000 other people. So it's a very it's much more intimate. It's much more it feels like you're going into a nice boutique hotel rather than this gigantic resort, if that makes sense. So that's very appealing for me as a traveler as well.
Speaker 2:And the one other thing you pointed out, too, was the rise in travel advisors post-pandemic, which we have focused on. For sure, and the industry knows that this has been a renaissance for travel advisors post pandemic, and there's a number of reasons for this the demographic factors, but, more importantly, I think, some of the challenges with around technology. To your point about ease of consumer use, one of the things that certainly happened is that it's it's more complex than ever to book a trip despite everything that we have access to now, and so people are relying on humans again, even in the face of AI at the moment, and things will continue to shift and evolve there. But certainly there's been a greater reliance on travel advisors as being the experts to be able to cut through the clutter, find the trip, know their client and almost all the cruise lines we're going to be speaking to in this series the majority of their business comes from B2B or the trade, and you'll hear that even when we're speaking to a few of these leaders of industry that are highlighting that they've had more growth through trade channels than they've had from Consumer Direct, and so that plays to their advantage, We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:I've thought a lot about this from the AI's perspective, because I'm actually not as I'm not going to be all in on AI as a waste of discovery just yet, right, just yet, because my view is that the way. Okay, so the travel advisors have grown through some form of scaling, hyper personalized agent. Now, it's not, it's not digital scale, it's not, you know, because you know they've just found a very nice niche in finding their clientele, getting to know them, getting to learn and understand their insights, their preference and their, their points of view, and so that they can make a rational, gut feel decision about what they're going to like and how you're going to position something in front of them, just like how any services industry works, like whether it's financial services or whether it's your insurance broker. You know you build up these data points as one of these experts and you use them and you're sort of like human level relations, of building expertise to make sure that you're putting something together that fits, that makes sense, and AI plays a supporting, augmenting role there. It will.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's going to be the same as the human connection. So I look at it from a operational point of view. You know how, how, how they can scale. Uh, deepening of guest connection right. So how does anyone selling this type of travel, whether it's an ota, a travel advisor, or the operators themselves how do you figure out ways, meaningful ways, to scale the guest connection? And technology plays a role, but you have to have empathy for who is buying to begin with, and then you take those insights and you put it into your product development process, right? I think Talc does a fantastic job of this by offering family-specific departures and offering departures that are specific for specific interests, and those interests can be very niche, but they sell out really, really quickly because people get excited about joining together a small community of experts or people interested in a particular field, whether it's photography or whether that's art or whether that's wine, right and enjoying themselves in company of others.
Speaker 1:Um, and we have to find ways to reach those people efficiently across this, the, these people involved in the distribution chain. But AI is not going to come in and figure that out for you. It's going to be augmented through technology, not replaced. So I would say stick to the fundamentals, right. Just know your customers, learn your customers and have a good way of capturing their data and their insights so that you can scale things up from a personalization point of view down the line and then feed it back into product development, feed it back into your itinerary planning. You know, those are the basics right and you get that right. You can then start augmenting things around it with great use of technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've clearly given us a lot of thought and I know that you are that way inclined getting to meet you and getting to know you, ragnar, over the last year. And that stood out to me is that you are very inquisitive, you know you're very intellectually curious and you're, you know you are, you sit back and watch, and I've seen that and I find that fascinating because then you kind of analyze the situation and you take it away and figure out, from a product and technology point of view, you know how can you solve for this, so that, from a product and technology point of view, you know how can you solve for this. So I that's why I was so keen to have you part of this opening episode to kind of share your, your insights and views. And but one of the things I wanted to get your take on too, I just had two more questions for you and then we'll we'll kick off this series for all of our, our listeners, because I'm sure they're eager to start hearing from these river cruise lines and understand you, how they differentiate themselves and uh.
Speaker 2:But the one thing I wanted to ask you while we're still together is what your, your view is on the future of this category. I certainly shared some numbers about the growth potential and I would. I would love to hear what your views are on the river cruise sector and specifically captio's involvement. How do you see captio's role in river cruise over the next three to five years?
Speaker 1:So we've thought a lot about the challenges in the market and how do we provide, particularly on sort of the operational side, from the cruise point of view, looking at it through the consumer lens, like I said earlier. So there's three key challenges that I think that if we can help companies overcome that, they will be unlocking growth right. So I think a lot about. I think everyone in the industry sees the growth opportunity. So how do you unlock it? How do you move faster? How do you keep a pace? You know speed, focus on execution and agility in your in not just having ideas but actually executing them. So that's foundational. So my innovation mindset and you know, positive and open-minded and making sure you're surrounding yourself with those types of people I cannot that's industry agnostic, but that's a big value of mine Make sure you're keep kind, smart, creative people close to you at all times, because then magic happens. So, with that in mind, I think that Capdeo can really help be one of those advisors to our customers and we promise to bring some amazing colleagues and an amazing mindset to the table to help unlock some of that growth. To help unlock some of that growth and those three areas of growth that I would say are going to be foundational is fixing the fragmented distribution channels. So there's a different mechanism to get the same information out to different channels today, so if you're selling through agents, you're selling through direct, you're selling through OTAs, or you're trying to get into meta search or affiliates, or selling through ota, so you're trying to get into meta search or or affiliates, or um, selling through influencers, like it's all puzzled pieced together with um. You know, not even scott's tape, right, that that you know it's very hockey how these things have been put together today and um and that that that's that's not gonna fly. Uh, as we evolve these channels and we want to keep inventory and rates and content and promotions aligned and consistent across these different distribution chains. So that's a number one challenge that I think Capdeo, as a technology company, we can help streamline the distribution side of it so that we can look at it more from a channel management point of view. Like how, if we look at how the hotel industry evolved, right, like you know, the growth of that industry is correlated heavily with the introduction of channel managers and all the different channels that came and then made that distribution feasible across the fold. So I'm very bullish on solving the fragmented distribution challenge and hopefully helping the industry find the standard of distribution through technology.
Speaker 1:The second thing is rigid operations the companies seeing them, how they update a rate plan or launch a new promotion or launch a new product.
Speaker 1:Momentum really stalls when it takes weeks or months to get these kind of things wrapped up, and I think that some of the legacy depth we talked about earlier is a big part of that.
Speaker 1:You need to move with agility and you need your operations team to have really access to the best tooling and the best user experience to to do their best work. Um, and then the, the last one I would say you know, if you're not, if you don't have a tech stack or processes built for agility, then every new market, every new segment, every new upton you want to bring to the fold, like that opportunity, you just you can't move fast enough like, and by the time you're live, the market has shifted to some other new trend and you're back to square one. So you have to set yourself up for experimentation and fast execution. So, with those three challenges, uh, with a new tech stack in place to help you address those, I that's what I think is is foundational for for capturing some of these opportunities and unlocking that growth potential that we've spent so much time not talking about.
Speaker 2:Well, it's really interesting you point that out, because one of the things that in my 20 years in the travel industry, I've always been on the technology and the marketing side going from Carlson Wagonley to Lonely Planet, to G Adventures and the Travel Corporation and the thing that's consistent across all of those is that they're travel companies, not technology companies. And most companies you come up against in this industry are great at operations, they're great at sales and distribution, but they're not technology companies. There's very few exceptions to that rule, and I think one of the keys for my success in the corporate world was finding the right partners, and that's part of the reason that I wanted to have this conversation with you is because you know, unless you have the resources and the capacity and the skill set and all the capabilities to be able to really become a technology company and I think some of our listeners have heard me talk to some of the big OTAs and the online travel agencies they pride themselves on being technology companies because that's how they have to compete. They're not a travel company, they're a technology platform and in order for you to be able to successfully distribute your product, you need to find a way to partner with them and have the right technology to be able to distribute your product, let alone have a reservation system, distribution opportunities. And then the on-ship experience, which I think is something that is in its total infancy, like how does someone use technology on a ship to be able to enhance the guest experience? I think that's an area we're going to see a lot more opportunity in.
Speaker 2:But, ragnar, given all of your plans with Captio, I'm sure a lot of people are interested to know how they could get in touch with you or the team. And just before we set off on this journey to introduce Tauk, who I was genuinely just keen to have on this episode, we're always very selective. I mean, we're thankfully in a position with Travel Trends where we get a lot of requests to be on the show. And when we were actually putting this series together, I was asking Jessica and your team and getting a sense of how you view this space, and we were looking at different partners in this space and I think we've brought together a great collection of brands Tauch, avalon and Scenic for this very first pass at River Cruising, and likely this will come up again in season six, because I think this is such an important topic and there's a number of other players, but I think those are the three that I was really keen to start with, tauk, because of getting the chance to know the team. I was incredibly impressed meeting them in person and just I think they'll add a lot to these conversations.
Speaker 2:But before we segue on to all of these interviews, ragnar, would you mind letting all of our listeners know how they can find out more information about Captio? If there is B2B partners listening to this that can leverage your technology or partner with you, and then also, if you want anyone to reach out directly, because you're such a smart, knowledgeable guy that I'm sure people will just start hitting you up on LinkedIn after this and asking you questions about technology in the future, which I know you're a busy guy, but I know you try and make time for that as well. But yeah, tell people where they can find out more information and connect with you guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, dan. So kaptiocom K-A-P-T-I-Ocom is the website, and then we've got a great team that you know really know the travel industry and actually experts in cruising. So Rebecca Asterhausen, who's actually been on the show as well you kind of played a role in that so she joined the team and she leads up our efforts in Australia. Tracy Sharp, who's also a VP of Commercial and Capital from TravelTech. So there's a good foundation of people that really know the industry. Who's also a VPO commercial at Capgeo from TravelTech. So there's a good foundation of people that really know the industry and we'd love to get in touch With me. Personally. I try and make time for LinkedIn and I really think that there's a small tribe over there that is talking about the industry and moving it forward. So, yeah, you can hit me up on LinkedIn under my name that nobody can spell, but you can just try the first one. I'm sure I'm up there somewhere, ragnar, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just put FJ and then it will appear.
Speaker 2:Ragnar FJ and then no. But thank you, ragnar, and obviously to the team as well Jesse, tracy, vidar and the team over at Captio that I've got a chance to know. I've still got my cool hat from my trip over across and I still wear it. You guys put some good merchandise together for that trip. That is actually useful. But, yeah, I wanted to thank you for the partnership, for our friendship and our continued collaboration. I'm certainly looking forward to having you in the AI summit and also just continuing our partnership.
Speaker 2:I know you guys have kindly sponsored season six, which we greatly appreciate as well, because essentially that enables us to bring this content to life for all of our listeners and that really kind of funds the team and us being able to have these conversations. So, you know, sincere thank you for me to the whole team and yourself specifically Ragnar. So thank you for me to the whole team and yourself specifically, ragnar. So thank you so much for making the time for this. I'm looking forward to bringing this series to life and uh, and touching base again with you soon. But, yeah, thanks again so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dan, and thanks for being a great voice for the category. You're uh, you're doing a great job, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us on this latest episode of travel trends. I hope you've enjoyed our very first deep dive episode in the world of river cruises. I certainly enjoyed catching up with Ragnar again and I'm convinced that he needs to co-host some future episodes. I also just wanted to say thanks to the Captio team Jesse, vidar, tracy and, of course, ragnar for being such a great partner of travel trends, not only for this series, but coming on as a title sponsor for season six.
Speaker 2:And this series, of course, is just getting started, because next week we're going to speak to Steve Spivak from Tauk and then Pam Hoffey from Avalon and then Lisa McCaskill from Scenic. So there's three extraordinary episodes to follow in our River Cruise series. But don't forget, we do post clips and highlights on our social channels, at Travel Trends Podcast, on Instagram, linkedin and YouTube, and then we send out a monthly newsletter that recaps all of the latest episodes and highlights our travel plans for the upcoming month, which you can register for TravelTrendsPodcastcom. Thanks again for joining us for this first episode. Until next week, safe travels.
