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
Event Preview: Your Guide to Arival 360 - Sept 29-Oct 3, 2025 - Washington, DC
Join us at Arival DC from September 29 to October 3, 2025, and be part of the most transformative event in the experiences sector. Use promo code FOADACHDC to get 10% off the AI Forum for Destination Experiences and Arival 360 DC combo ticket (excludes Pro Members). Plus, as a special bonus, you will be guaranteed a feature on the Event Spotlight that Dan will be recording live at the event!
As Douglas Quinby, CEO, and Bruce Rosard, CCO, shared in our recent conversation, Arival DC isn’t just another industry conference - it’s a meticulously curated gathering of the "the 1% of the experiences sector." Visionary creators, resellers, technologists, and leaders from across the ecosystem - think day tour operators, multi-day specialists, tech startups, and platforms like GetYourGuide and Viator - will come together to shape the future of travel experiences.
This year’s event is packed with groundbreaking programming:
- Monday: The Executive Summit, where industry leaders tackle the strategic challenges shaping the next decade.
- Tuesday: The first-ever AI Forum, offering hands-on guidance for integrating artificial intelligence into marketing, customer service, and product development.
- Wednesday through Friday: The main Arival 360 conference, featuring a brand-new Multi-Day Tour track alongside its established programming for day tours, activities, and attractions.
Throughout the event, you’ll hear from industry visionaries like Joe Pine, the "godfather of the experience economy," who will explore the shift from selling experiences to enabling transformations. Key trends like the rise of experience-driven travel planning, the revolutionary potential of AI, and the demand for transformational experiences will dominate the conversation.
And don’t miss Dan, who will be MC’ing the Multi-Day Track at Arival 360 on October 1 & 2, guiding two full days of sessions dedicated to the future of multi-day travel. From trends and technology to tour operator strategies and distribution, this track is a must-attend for anyone in the multi-day travel space.
Don’t wait - secure your spot today! Use promo code FOADACHDC for your discount and guarantee your feature on the Event Spotlight.
Mark your calendars and see you in DC!
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You know, the most exciting thing about the event and the incredible feedback that we always get is just simply the assembly of the people who are there. This is the 1% of the experiences sector. Experiences sector this is the most innovative, creative, influential creators, resellers, technologists, innovators in everything around experiences.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to a special event spotlight of travel trends. This is your host, Dan Christian, and in today's episode we're going to be speaking to Bruce Rosard and Douglas Quimby from Arrival about their upcoming event in Washington DC from September 29th to October 3rd. We have a special promo code for our listeners of 10% off. You can find it on TravelTrendsPodcastcom homepage and everything about Arrival you can find out at Arrival Travel. That's Arrival with one R, but the event kicks off on the Monday with an executive day. Tuesday they're doing an AI forum Wednesday. Thursday, friday we are doing the Arrival 360 at the event, and the reason I say we is because I am actually hosting and emceeing the multi-day tour track with my friends, like Travis from Tour Radar, and I'm so looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:I did a keynote many years ago at Arrival Conference. I've been a huge fan of Arrival for many years and I had the privilege to do a keynote on Multi-Day Tour and I'm thrilled that it's now finally a main stage track with at least six sessions that you can look forward to and you can find out more details on the website about the event and to get involved with us, because I hope that many tour operators take the chance to come to Arrival this year for the first time and realize all the benefits that I've had over the years in terms of marketing and technology and distribution. There's so much here for multi-day and, of course, there's so much that they always curate for all the day tour and experience operators as well. It's going to be an amazing week and for those of you who take advantage of the 10% offer, you can again find it on the homepage, but the code itself is F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C. That's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C. Use that promo code to book your ticket and get 10% off.
Speaker 2:And when you do, send me an email to let me know that you've booked your ticket and you're going to be there, because I will schedule recordings with all of those people that booked a ticket using that promo code and come and join us at Arrival when I am recording podcasts over the Wednesday, thursday and Friday. So send me a note and we will be doing a special event spotlight at the event itself and I would love to include you. So please drop me a line, let me know if you're going to be there and we'll schedule time to record. Now let's get right on with the show, because there's so much to share. Douglas and Bruce, welcome back to Travel Trends. So great to have you with us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us, Dan. It's great to be here. It's always a lot of fun. Love your podcast.
Speaker 3:Dan, I listen to Travel Trends all the time when I'm walking my dog late at night or sunset, which is my favorite, and it's it's great to be on.
Speaker 1:I know, and then, and then, bruce starts texting me or calling me like oh. I've got this dog walk idea, that dog walk idea, you got to listen to this podcast or that.
Speaker 3:So at least one out of every 10 of those ideas is a good idea.
Speaker 1:We can, we can. We can discuss that in our weekly. Sorry for that, douglas.
Speaker 2:But, yes, Bruce, both of you guys I appreciate you've been on the podcast before. I definitely encourage all of our listeners to check out any of your individual episodes to learn more about why you guys are icons in the travel industry and two people that I greatly respect and admire. But the one thing, obviously with the two of you guys here, Bruce yes, for sure, You're one of the biggest fans of the podcast. I greatly appreciate that. You text me, you email me, You're very active and engaged. And so, Douglas, yes, I hope some of those things work out, but obviously you guys inspire me in many ways as well and I'm certainly looking forward to being together for this whole week in Washington. But before we get into that, give us a little bit of context of where you guys are. I know, Douglas, you're typically based in Atlanta with your family. Is that where we find you today?
Speaker 1:And how's your summer?
Speaker 2:been, it's been really hot Dan Really really hot.
Speaker 1:Hot Lana lives up to its name, right. Hot, hot and humid, hot and humid. Outside walking the dog at seven o'clock in the morning it says it's only 70 degrees, but I come back drenched like 87, 90% humidity. It's a steam bath outside, so hopefully it's a little bit cooler where you are in Toronto, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, actually we're feeling the heat a little bit, given the summertime, but I had an amazing travel experience to Europe this summer and I know you guys both travel a lot. Any other travel highlights for you this summer, Douglas? You take some time off with the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a lot of family down in Florida, so it's not nearly as exciting as probably most of your listeners this summer, but, yeah, just lazy time with the family in Florida, which is actually quite nice For sure.
Speaker 2:Exactly Time to pause and reflect and then get ready for what's going to be an incredibly busy fall and preparing for 2026. And, bruce, obviously you're based in Colorado, but you're not in Colorado today, you're in Washington.
Speaker 3:I am in Washington DC, got here for a really cool conference called Align AI and the biggies were here. I mean, we had OpenAI, microsoft, google plus, plus plus speaking and it was just great to really get absorbed into that, especially as we think about and prepare for our AI forum that's going to be happening at Arrival this year. And yep, so I'm in DC, even though Arrival DC is not actually in DC, it's in Maryland, but that's a whole other story. And it is hot and humid here. I in Maryland, but that's a whole nother story. And it is hot and humid here. I left the East Coast. One of the main reasons was to get away from the humidity. In Colorado. There's no such thing.
Speaker 2:So looking forward to getting back there. That's cool. And then, one thing I also wanted to highlight too, since Bruce and I also, just like Douglas and I, were great friends and we obviously know each other's families and our kids are both into baseball. You and I are huge baseball fans, of course, bruce, and we talked about that on our podcast. You're from Philadelphia, and I went to Cooperstown with my son about five years ago when he was 12. And we had that epic experience of playing Cooperstown, going to the Hall of Fame, and, as I understand it, you're heading there tomorrow with your son, is that right?
Speaker 3:We are. We're heading to the Baseball Hall of Fame tomorrow. That's going to be super fun.
Speaker 2:Although no one that's listening.
Speaker 3:knows what day tomorrow is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1:Well, people will be coming up and they'll be asking you about it when they see you in Washington.
Speaker 2:So that's fantastic. Looking forward to it, cool.
Speaker 3:And a famous Philly just got inducted, Dick Allen, who is one of the more you know, really misunderstood players in Philadelphia Phillies history. So I'll be looking forward to seeing his plaque and his story. All right, but let's talk about. Let's talk about travel.
Speaker 2:Let's specifically talk about the reason that you guys are in Washington or not. So, bruce, let me ask you that question, since you're in Washington at the moment. This conference itself is not actually in Washington. It's across the river, in Maryland. So tell everyone why Washington slash Maryland this year for the Arrival 360 conference.
Speaker 3:You know we get the question all the time like why don't you go here, here or here? And since we started Arrival it was Vegas, orlando, vegas, orlando, vegas, orlando. And the reason is because the cheapest place to run a conference is Vegas, unless you go to some of the really expensive hotels, but even still you get a lot more for your money there and on the eastern side of the country it's Orlando and that's where we started running our events. But once we got more established people said let's go somewhere else and we wanted to go somewhere else. And when you search around for a 1,000-person conference it's not easy to find the right spots. Like we're kind of in the middle of we're not big enough for a big conference center and we're too big for most hotels. In the Washington DC area there's a hotel, the Gaylord National Harbor. That's a great hotel, great venue overall for arrival and it happens to be across the river from DC, so from the hotel beautiful views of DC, but it's in National Harbor, maryland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but, bruce, I do think a few people would probably say would probably say they also kind of like to go to Vegas and Orlando. It's not just because it's cheap. I mean, there are some pretty cool things to do there and actually some pretty amazing operators and attractions. But, yeah, it's always great to get out to different destinations. I mean DC too. I mean holy smokes. But yeah, it's also it's always great to get out to different destinations. I mean DC too. I mean holy smokes. There's so many incredible operators there and so much history.
Speaker 3:And yes, so great place and it's just hard, like price-wise. Why don't we go to New York? Why don't we go to Chicago? Because it just doesn't fit the budget of most of our attendees or what we'd be able to do, but another, another common. You know, if you can look at it, we used to always do our European event in Berlin because we wanted to be timed closely to ITB, and we made the decision this year to go to Valencia in Spain instead, and that turned out to be a phenomenal decision and people loved it, and we're going back to Valencia next for our next European event.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you brought up an important point there. That I do want to highlight to all of our listeners as well is that since the beginning of Arrival and the opportunity I've had to attend the conferences, speak and collaborate with you guys, one of the things that's always stood out to me is that the people that come together for an Arrival conference you don't typically see at the other big conferences. You guys have carved out a really incredible niche, not only within the whole in-destination experiences and what I truly agree that every time Douglas says it he's heard me mention it on stage that it really is, as far as I'm concerned, the best part of travel and the reason why we travel and the types of people that come together for this a lot of smaller operators, that this is affordable, it's accessible to them and so it's very important. So actually it's accessible to them and so it's very important. So I actually it's worth highlighting that and obviously I've enjoyed the conferences being in Orlando or Las Vegas or San Diego, but I'm excited about Washington and being in a new destination, because obviously it'll bring other people together tour radars holding an event there, so there's new, fresh things that can happen when you're in a new destination.
Speaker 2:So lots of reasons. I'm looking forward to it and obviously it's a little closer for me being in Toronto. But, douglas, one of the things I want to bring you back in the conversation on and then we'll go back to Bruce to talk about the executive day and the AI forum because of this epic week that you guys have planned. But tell us a little bit about your vision and overall view for Arrival 360 this year. A little bit about the speakers, some of the content.
Speaker 1:What excites you in preparing for this big event? Well, so Arrival is it's all about the well, you said it, I mean the best part of travel, right? So, creators of experiences, so tours, activities, attractions, events, all of the things that travelers do when they get there and why they go. I mean, we have a lot that we can talk about. On the content, I'd just say honestly for me, the most exciting thing about the event and the incredible feedback that we always get is just simply the assembly of the people who are there. This is the 1% of the experiences sector. This is the most innovative, creative, influential creators, resellers, technologists, innovators in everything around experiences. And it's not just you know, to your point too. It's not just the largest companies Like, of course we've got, you know, leadership from like Viator and Get your Guide and Kluk, and you know Airbnb is coming and a lot of these bigger brands. But Klook and Airbnb is coming and a lot of these bigger brands.
Speaker 1:But a lot of the really interesting and, for me personally, inspiring attendees and work that's being done is by people who are just creating experiences that are having an enormous impact on our industry and on local communities. We have Craig Dodge, who's a marketing director from the Far Circus in Cambodia, which has been a school that has. It's a social enterprise. It brings in underprivileged youth from across Cambodia, privileged youth from across Cambodia trains them to be circus performers, and several of their graduates have gone on to university In fact, several in the United States. We're hoping to have a few attend in DC, and so he's going to go share the story. Not just about this, and it's also one of the top attractions in Cambodia as well, right, so it's not just about kind of the business, but it's also about the local impact that a lot of these businesses can have.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting you mentioned Craig Dodge because, by virtue of him speaking at your conference in Bangkok and Bruce telling me about Craig, we actually had him on the Travel Trends podcast and he was such a fascinating guy to interview because he's's American, has lived in Southeast Asia, for you know, for 10 or 15 years and has worked at this. You know this nonprofit organization that has helped so many kids out of poverty and also really kind of help rebuild a community after you know the the tragic events that unfolded in Cambodia, and so it's it's it's a remarkable story. I've been to that circus. I didn't know him at the time, but I was able to cover that when I chatted with him. So these are the interesting people that you bring to an Arrival Conference.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about some of the other big speakers. Obviously, you've got Tao Tao from Get your Guide. You've got Papine from Viator. You have obviously the big heavy hitters. But I know how much time and effort, douglas, you put into curating speakers and the content. Having been on the other side of multiple conversations with you to figure out you know should I speak or what should I speak about, how's the best fit. You put so much care and attention into the content and you bring together some really interesting people, so who else might you draw out that people will benefit from hearing from at the event?
Speaker 1:You know, I love, I always love and hate this question because there's 60-plus speakers and I think all of them are. There's a reason why we chose all of them right and invited all of them to speak, but here's your favorites.
Speaker 2:I just want to know your favorites, oh great. Well, Dan, you're always my favorite, no so look I just, maybe I can walk through a few, no.
Speaker 1:So look, I just maybe I can walk through a few. But so the mission of the event, fundamentally, is has never changed and it's always about helping this industry grow. And how do we do that? We bring the industry together, we help them connect, we help them understand what the heck is going on and, frankly, in 2025, this has been, in some respects, you know, harder than than ever.
Speaker 1:The, you know, most of our attendees for the US event will be from North America. Typically, it's about 65%, 70%, and about two-thirds are on the supply side. So, operators, of course, the US travel industry has been, you know, one of the most what's the right word? Kind of uncertain, right or volatile, and so we've heard from a lot of operators that it's been a very challenging year, especially if you are, excuse me, very focused on and dependent on that inbound international tourist, especially if you're trying to serve Canadian inbound arrivals, for example. So, and there's been a lot of uncertainty around the economy. So a fundamental mission at our event is always okay what's going on in the industry? What are the big changes and challenges that are underway that our industry is facing, and how do we assemble and navigate through those and come out on the other side, you know, with a really strong you know position for our industry. So it's really about engaging in a conversation. That and this is the work that we do all year with our research and content to try to understand what's going on, and so it's like a. It is like a live conversation research project, you know consulting, you know interactive town hall that takes place, you know, over several days to figure out. You know what's going on.
Speaker 1:So I'll highlight, you know, just a few things that I think are really important. You know, in addition to the AI forum which Bruce has taken the lead in designing, which is kind of a pre-day on the 30th of September, on the Tuesday, where it's just all things kind of AI and applications for experiences, businesses at a very practical and very technical level, where you'll get to sit down and actually do work with experts on all sorts of facets of applying AI into your business. We'll also have some really key sessions on and some work we're doing, for example, with Brendan Bliss at Propellic on. You know, how are AI overviews and AI mode and chat? How is this transforming the way travelers are finding and discovering experiences? How do operators and experienced providers need to kind of rethink their product and marketing. So we'll have a few sessions on that.
Speaker 1:There are some really extraordinary changes taking place in just the traveler orientation, around the reason to travel. So you know, we've seen a really big shift. I think of this as like a seismic kind of a generational shift from being destination-driven to experience-driven. And we especially see this with younger travelers, where it's less about I want to go here, what do we do there To I want to go do this thing, where's the best place to go do this? So increasingly, trip planning and the travel decision is being experience led. And how do we as an industry capitalize on that? We have a keynote speaker that everybody should know, joe Pine, who's considered the I mean, it's like the godfather or the grandfather, I'm not sure which of the experience economy and the godfather.
Speaker 1:But there's an overview article on the Harvard Business Review website which everyone can look up, on the experience economy, where he talks about the progression of economic value from commodity all the way through experience. His next big piece of work is on the transformation economy and transformational travel. He'll be speaking about that and what that means and what travelers are looking for and why it's such a big deal, especially with the younger generation in particular of more affluent travelers who have already kind of gone to Paris and seen the Eiffel Tower with their parents when they were kids and now they want kind of that next experience. And then just a couple of other things that are really important. One is just navigating the chaos and we have a lot of sessions that are going on.
Speaker 1:I'd say it's a question that I, in every conversation I have with an operator, anybody in the industry today, the first thing is what's going on? Like what? Are you seeing what's happening in the market? Are you, is everybody up? Are they down? Like what's going on? And it's a really hard thing to really capture because there is not. Most of the companies in this industry are private, data is not readily available and shared, so it's a lot of this people trying to figure out what's happening, especially challenging. This year We'll be talking a lot about that and discussing some of the big themes that are things that operators in the industry should be doing to to adapt.
Speaker 3:And that'll be coursing through a lot of our conversations over the over the full week. Well, one of the things there as far as what's happening, by the event, you'll have at least some of the top line responses from the global operator landscape survey that goes into the field first week of August, right? So we're serving thousands and thousands of operators from around the world to find out what's happening from their perspective. So we'll have a much better idea in a few months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, bruce, and I'm just going to highlight a few of my favorites. I'm going to call them out so that they actually know just how much I love them. Joe Pine is one of those. He closed out season five of our podcast. It was extraordinary.
Speaker 2:He just did a Substack post about that experience and how excited he is for Arrival. So it was really nicely how he tied it together with his new book coming out, because he was certainly an inspiration to me getting into this industry, because the timing of his book and myself graduating university, you know it was a source of inspiration to many of us. So for sure he's the godfather of this category, of highlighting the whole idea of experiences. I mean it was like the experience economy. He's the one that coined the term, and so Joe Pine. But you've introduced so many fantastic speakers over the years, like Vince Cadillac from Meow Wolf, which is one of the most extraordinary sessions that I've had the privilege to see at an arrival conference, and I loved his and I came up to you. I remember that session. I was just like this was amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was almost like a meditation, I mean it was. I mean I felt like he had. He had put the audience in a trance. I mean it was quite and if anyone, yeah, definitely go, go, go, experience some Meow Wolf experiences. The space in Vegas is just unbelievable. You can even see some videos of you know where he's Vince is amazing. Does a lot of this stuff on YouTube and TikTok to get a sense of just how transformational some of those experiences can be?
Speaker 3:They recently announced their next location, New York City.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that right? I hadn't heard that. Yeah, because it's Omega Mart for all of our listeners in Vegas. Definitely make that part of your next trip to Vegas. Have a trippy experience at Omega Mart. But just highlighting that these are some of the people. Now, when I was looking at the agenda, you've had people before like Jeff Walker from Undercover Donut Tours I was also one I actually really enjoyed, and so I was just trying to call out the fact that it's not necessarily about the most you know. You've got Jeanette Roush, who's going to be amazing for brand USA like their SVP and chief AI officer Like that'll be awesome, but, um, but you've got people that are like chief eating officers, like Midji Moore Um, you've. You've also got Akilah McConnell, who does like I, also a chief eating officer.
Speaker 1:And she, by the way she's, you know she's she's going to do something that I think a lot, a lot of people in our industry are have been thinking about. You know, there's been an extraordinary shift in case you hadn't noticed in the political discourse in the United States and what that means for the public conversation and what it means for topics like diversity and inclusive history, and there's never been well, I shouldn't say never, but certainly in my experience observing politics in the United States, it certainly feels more divided than ever in my lifetime. And she's going to tackle a very difficult topic on the main stage of how do you bring people together on a tour, how do you navigate really difficult, potentially controversial and divisive topics, how do you deliver authenticity and navigate truth and disinformation and misinformation An essential topic. And she's got, I think, in some respects, one of the toughest yeah, one of the one of the tallest orders for the main stage at Arrival this year.
Speaker 3:And Akilah might still be the position of best speaker in history at an Arrival event. Right, that first one she did that was on a similar topic, her tour that followed in MLK Jr's footsteps, and if she's going to top that, it's going to be something to see for sure, yeah. But I think we should take a step back, dan. This event that I was at yesterday in DC talked about like airline ancillaries, mostly being how much they're making on their ancillaries, which billions of dollars. Now, what's their ancillary? It's bags and seats. Right, that's not ancillary, it just means they push their airfares to different pieces.
Speaker 3:But airlines, hotels, kind of the standard OTAs, are all really looking at experiences now, as and and what I think they realized, not an ancillary but another product that can help build loyalty for their customers and that can make the destination experience a better experience for their customer.
Speaker 3:And the rest of the travel industry is really kind of coming along now where seven or eight years ago when we started Arrival, it wasn't there. So when you have airlines, hotels, dmos, travel agents or travel advisors that are all really saying what's going on with experiences, how do we get into that world, how do we resell that and not just make some money on it, some extra money, but also really give that loyalty to our customer and be there for our customer, so we're there for the entire journey with them, and that, I believe, is really kind of a big part of the shift in what Arrival is all about. This community that came together for the first time in 2017 and is now the solid kind of community that the rest of the travel industry is looking to to learn about destination experiences.
Speaker 2:For sure, and you're expanding beyond that. I think that's one of the big shifts for 2025 that you have built this incredible community of individuals around the day, tours and experiences, and you bring a community together. It's unique. But you're now expanding into the executive day, the ai forum and and so I want and then also with the arrival 360, which I'm particularly thrilled about is multi-day.
Speaker 2:Given the fact that's my background, douglas kindly had brought me in to 2018 to speak in vegas about multi-day, and I had many day tour operators came out to me afterwards to 2018 to speak in Vegas about multi-day, and I had many day tour operators came out to me afterwards to figure out how they could participate within the operation and product development process to be built into these multi-day tour itineraries. So I do think it's exciting to have both under one roof and to connect them. But let's talk a little bit about to your point, bruce. Take a step back, give an overview of the week. So, and given you played such a big part in the executive day and this AI forum in particular, tell us how you see the week playing out and tell us a bit about the executive day and the AI forum.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great. So, first of all, in 2018, if I recall, your speech or talk was about passion travel, right, which is what Douglas's research talks about how Gen Z, especially Gen Y that's what they're all about is passion travel. So you were six or seven years ahead of your time, dan. Congratulations, because that's what people want now. They want to follow their passion when they travel, and that's what you were talking about then and that's what we're still talking about today.
Speaker 3:So we're starting out the event on Monday with our executive summit. It was an idea we had. It was kind of born from where Douglas and I both came from, focusrite, which is where we met and where we first got involved in running events, et cetera, and it's very much an executive level conference. And it's different when you have C-suite people that are together in a room and they know they're surrounded by the other leaders of the industry and we don't need a C-suite title. It depends on what company you're at, what your title might be, but it's really about the executives who want to push this industry forward being together.
Speaker 3:We're kicking that off with a keynote from Eric Blatchford and for those and you had Eric Blatchford on the podcast, just a short stint with him when you were at the ATTA Elevate from Denver. I listened to that just last week. It was great because Eric's great and he's going to do a keynote to kind of really look to the future. You know he's very much a futurist. Those that don't know who Eric is he was one of the founding members of Expedia, second CEO of Expedia and he's had a long career after that of investing in travel, et cetera, et cetera. So we're really excited to have him kick off. And then he's going to coordinate a panel discussion including Joe Pine, which adds just this whole other voice, the godfather of experiences, to that discussion, and a few other investors who really look at travel every day Claude Bernstein, kara Whitehill.
Speaker 3:That panel discussion will really kind of get things going because those people are all going to be saying what's happening next. That's the whole point. Then we're going to go into a couple roundtable discussions where this is very much peer-to-peer. Roundtable means everyone in the room at a roundtable facilitated discussions, so there's no one on the stage at that point. It's all the discussions happening at the table. So the whole point is peer to peer, c-suite learning from each other, talking to each other, exploring with each other, surrounded by a couple of facilitators and people who are really looking into the future of the industry every day, because they're putting their money where their mouth is. They're investing in it. Douglas, you were very involved, of course, in the content of Executive Forum and it's so important what we're doing with that. Do you have anything that you want to add from that perspective?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you summarized it well. I'd just add that the vision there is to try to surface at an industry level the kinds of conversations that we know are taking place boardrooms and executive among executive teams across the industry, in the industry and to have leadership come together and really take a step back and think okay, what's you know what's happening in our industry over the next five, 10 years, 15 years, like from a strategic, c-level perspective. How is AI really going to transform our industry from, you know, from the back office, to actually delivering experiences and guides, the changes that are taking place in weather and climate, which is already having a real, direct impact among operators, especially in Southern Europe but elsewhere. What does that mean for product strategy and the rise of platforms and OTAs, which has been such a huge and impactful topic across the industry, especially because there's no part of travel that is as fragmented and complex some of the larger ones, and that creates an amazing kind of breeding ground of opportunity for platforms that can come in and simplify things for consumers. But it adds a whole host of complicating business factors that I think that just about every operator has to, you know, has to contend with.
Speaker 1:So it's. And then there's the future of experiences and how people are traveling and how that's how that's shifting. So it's, it's these, it's a, it's a day to spend thinking about the industry 10, 15 years out and and connecting with uh fellow, uh leaders to begin to create a, you know, a map. And one of our intents is that we will generate from all of those industry conversations, which will also look at a range of things like just, for example, there's no industry associations for professional standards or best practices. You have local associations in certain cities, but there's lots of challenges there. So we'll generate an output of some of those challenges and perhaps that can spur other developments in our industry to, you know, raise the bar and create a better future for experiences, known as experience strategists, which until I met them, I didn't know that was a thing, but it very much is, and they're at the top of the heap.
Speaker 3:Phil Pine's actually part of their group, which is how we met them, and they're going to be facilitating the whole day.
Speaker 3:So the whole day is all about the people in the room working together, that whole. You know, arrival in general is peer to peer and this is peer to peer of the executive suite. Basically, let's move on to Multi-Day, which you're helping us because you are the man for Multi-Day and you know everyone for Multi-Day and you've been helping us. You know, really try to build that program, along with getting a lot of support from TourRadar and Travis Pittman, their CEO in general, really reach out to the industry. They're doing their own Adventure Together event the day before Arrival, actually the same day as the Executive Summit that Monday and we are looking to really bring multi-day into the world of Arrival because, let's face it, our experiences in a multi-day travel experience is not that far off from a one-day travel experience and we think it makes a lot of sense to bring them together. We had a great multi-day event in 2021. It just happened to be online because it was 2021. So we're really looking forward to that and integrating that into Arrival 360 in October.
Speaker 2:It's a monumental development. From my point of view, it makes this really a landmark event for the wider travel industry to embrace the opportunity to go to Arrival, because I've always seen benefits as being a multi-day tour operator in my background of attending Arrival and now all of a sudden it's going to unlock a lot more multi-day tour brands that will see the benefit that I was seeing then. But the more that actually attend the conference, the better the content. And also this is where the interesting stat when Douglas and I were together at ITB earlier this year, one of the stats they had shared. They do this daily news briefing and one of the things that highlighted was that day tours that group travel has overtaken independent travel as a percentage of. And why is that happening?
Speaker 2:Obviously, the rise in solo travelers, solo female travelers, is one of the big trends, and solo female travelers are often looking to travel with a group. There's been a huge rise in female led tour operators and female-specific travel, even companies like Intrepid that I know will be there that run female-specific trips to places like Morocco, and so there's many reasons why group tours are thriving, weroad being a great example that both of you guys know and a number of different companies that are going to be there, from Globus to the Travel Corporation brands and all these operators that are availability booked on Tor Radar, because Tor Radar is effectively the only really large scale OTA for multi-day and it's amazing that we can even say that in 2025. But some of the other players, like Get your Guide and others, are moving into this space. So it's a really exciting time to be in multi-day and exciting time for Arrival to be expanding into the multi-day category.
Speaker 3:Well, let's face it, a lot of multi-day operators use one-day operators to build out their longer itinerary. But where do they connect? Is it random? Or where do they connect other than maybe finding those one-day operators in the city that their manager is looking for? What's the best food tour in Barcelona If they're doing a multi-day tour through Spain, et cetera? This gives them the opportunity to really meet with the one-day operators and help put their itineraries together.
Speaker 2:So just to give everyone a bit of an overview, because I want to make sure we touch on the AI forum as well, Because, as far as sequence, we're like executive day on Monday, as well as the tour radar organized adventure gathering for those people that are going to be in Washington for that Tuesday, of course, AI forum that we'll come back to in a moment. Then Wednesday, obviously, everything really kicks off for arrival 360, which then has the way you guys have structured it is there's going to be three main stage multi day tour sessions where we focus on on and I will be moderating those, which will be a real honor and thrill for me. So we're going to have three general sessions on the main stage, at arrival, to talk about multi-day. We're going to focus on distribution, so Travis is going to be part of that session. We're going to have another session on marketing, so effectively marketing multi-day.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about trade marketing, digital marketing and brand all three of the stars that need to align to be successful with marketing multi-day. And we're going to talk about technology challenges, which is something that's absolutely consistent in the day tour market as well. But there's unique challenges to multi-day, given the size and scale of these operators and then there's going to be three breakout sessions in addition to that to talk about product creating multi-day tour product that people will actually buy. The Connected Journey. So having Ben San and the Tour Optima guys there and then also selling through travel agents and travel advisors, with Shana Zand joining us, as well as Evan Frank from Fora. So there's a lot to look forward to in the multi-day tour track and I definitely encourage you to join us for Arrival for all of the content.
Speaker 3:I love that. We don't even have to talk about that. That's the multi-day. I mean there's a little bit more, but you just covered it. And again, thank you for helping us with that project and coming on board. And if anyone has any questions about what's going on, what the hell is Arrival doing on multi-day, just talk to Dan I think it's dan at traveltrendspodcastcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, feel free to reach out. And Kimberly, who is obviously working with you closely on this as well, who's been in multi-day for many years, she's great to work with. She's been doing a lot of the sponsorship, and so there's a great team that's been coming together to make sure the multi-day tour is well represented. We've got the right speakers, the right topics and I think it'll become a core part of arrival going forward, because I think a lot of these operators that listen to this podcast, from Colette to Tauk, there's so many not only large-scale multi-day tour operators, but there's many emerging, smaller multi-day tour operators as well that are getting started.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, the last research, Douglas said there was, I think, 100,000, and other research said 10,000. It's somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 multi-day operators and we're doing more research on what's going on with multi-day specifically. We won't have all the results by the event, but we'll be publishing those results, probably Q1 in 26. We were looking at what we need to do to have the best event in DC and how can we not really go deep into AI? We've had AI since. If Gen AI started with ChatGPT in November of whatever year that was, it was that March that we had our first AI session that kind of blew everyone's doors. A guy named Mark Mechie blew everyone's doors with his keynote, and so we've been doing AI since it came out.
Speaker 3:Gen AI came out with ChatGPT and I'd say we were doing five or six sessions at our last event. But we really wanted to go further because the industry needs to. There are other AI events, but none that focus on destination experiences. So we wanted to make sure we had content for our typical audience of tours, activities, attractions, experiences, one-day experiences for DMOs because that's a very important part of the overall segment, of course, and they all need to work together and for the multi-day operators. So we went and got a group of experts in those segments. You know yourself and Travis for the multi-day, christian Watts and Tony Karn who used to head up Urban Adventures for Intrepid for the experiences sector, ventures for Intrepid for the experiences sector, joshua Ryan-Saha, and you mentioned Jeanette Rausch that is head of Brand USA's AI efforts for the DMO sector, as well as CA Clark from Miles Partnerships. We have this committee, this group of people that are helping to put on the best content we can for the sector.
Speaker 3:What's interesting is we might know today what we think we're going to talk about, but October is still a couple months away and there's going to be some new developments. So we're going to make sure we stay on top of all of it and we're going to you know we'll have. We mentioned Brendan Bliss before. All of us know Brendan very well and what Propella is doing to make sure that search and discoverability as it moves from just Google and Bing, for example, to the LLMs and what's going on with how the LLMs are interacting with SEO etc. And really make sure that the audience understands what they need to do to be discoverable, because it's not the same as it was.
Speaker 3:You know that's just one example. We have another friend of ours, tani Perry, who's going to come and talk about the key tools, because the tools are always changing and not just here are the tools, but how do you use them, and you know, play, show and tell, and we want to make sure it's very show and tell interactive. We're going to have some debates, we're going to have some teams that build tour operators pretty much on the fly using these tools. So really looking at how anyone that comes to this event can put AI into effect the next day after the event and go, because if they don't they're going to be left behind after the event and go, because if they don't, they're going to be left behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just to add some context too, for both our listeners and also the overall AI forum for destination experiences, is that of course, we have our AI summit at the end of October. Most of our listeners are fully aware of that. Bruce and I and Douglas were chatting about how best to collaborate on this because essentially, there's a key difference between the two. One, travel Trends. Our AI summit is virtual and so you can obviously attend anywhere, and that's intentional, based on the success we had last year, to keep it in that format so that we can have speakers and presenters and attendees around the world, across the entire travel industry. So the whole theme for us is how AI is impacting the entire travel industry. So, from air theme for us is how AI is impacting the entire travel industry, so from air to cruise, to tour operators, to travel agencies, and Bruce is actually going to be doing a session at our conference specifically on tours and activities. So Tani and Christian Watts will be part of his session and what they're doing.
Speaker 2:And Bruce had reached out to me and it's actually interesting timing because I was together with Douglas at ITB at the time and I saw the sessions that Douglas and I were doing in the morning about product and they were very well attended and people were enjoying the sessions. But the AI sessions in the afternoon, the room they had was clearly far too small. It was lined up like at least 100 deep on either side with people that couldn't get in and the only people that could eventually get in is when someone had to go. A few people would quickly sub in and these AI sessions some were valuable.
Speaker 3:I was one of those people. I didn't bother waiting in line.
Speaker 2:You just pushed yourself in. But I said to Bruce right after I'm like there is an appetite and an interest here. People want to know how it's going to affect their career, they want to know how it's going to affect their companies and it absolutely justifies a full day on its own to have these big conversations on the Tuesday. So you've obviously given quite a few highlights and a bit of an overview there too, bruce, of what to expect on the Tuesday. But I also want to highlight that, going back to the, you can attend for one day or multiple days. You can attend the AI forum on the Tuesday and actually get a ticket, a combo ticket that will take you through Arrival 360. You can actually get a 10% off discount. I'll put the code in that we have. It's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C, but I will post that because I don't know if you want to rewind and get that. But basically, I encourage you to attend both and be a part of the AI day, because it's so important to understand what's happening with those tools and technology and how it's. So I think it makes sense to call it out specifically.
Speaker 2:You mentioned some of the speakers. What are some of the other? Ultimately, bruce, what are you looking for year one for the AI forum? What are you looking for the outcome to be? What are you the people listening to this trying to debate? Should I attend? What do you want them to be able to walk away from this session with?
Speaker 3:Sure, I talked about a couple of things, but I'll add one is distribution right, which is one of the most important topics in our industry. It's what everyone always talks about. I want more direct business, right, like that's a very much a theme for most operators, but they have to work with OTAs if they want enough business, right? So there's that channel mix and it's always the yin and yang of our industry. It's why we have Viator, get your Guide and Airbnb on the main stage telling us about what they're up to, because all the operators need those channels to help them fill their tours, et cetera. But at the same time, they want more direct business.
Speaker 3:What's going to happen when AI comes in? There's going to be a debate of well, will that push more business to direct or will that push more business to third party? No one knows right now, and then there might be other distributors that are coming out of the woodwork that no one knows how that's going to work. Is OpenAI or Perplexity going to do a deal with one of those other third parties? I mean Perplexity and Viator already announced some kind of deal a few months ago. I don't know about you guys. I haven't seen the result of that yet. But that's why third parties have an advantage, because they have money to do deals like that, and Bruce's Bicycle Tours is never going to have money to do a deal like that, but maybe Bruce's Bicycle Tours has other ways. He can use AI to drive direct bill bookings. So we're just going to discuss that and debate that and everyone needs to understand how to make sure their position for that change, those changes that are coming.
Speaker 3:The thing is, no one knows for sure, but you've got to at least be thinking about it and understand what questions to be asking and what you can do today, because there's things you can do today for sure. So we want that. I would say that's one of the keys is understanding that. That, along with the session that's going to be talking about search and discoverability, that is again right on that topic. You know it's not quite distribution, but it's very strongly related.
Speaker 3:The other takeaways are going to be toolkits right, the one I just mentioned a few minutes ago that Tani is going to present. But also we're going to have an hour and a half long session where people are going to rotate between different tables. Each table will be some kind of toolkit that they will be exploring with five 10 people at a time in a very intimate setting, so that I can sit down and talk to an expert and say, oh, that's the tool, and that's just not the name of it, but that's how I can use it. It's just a really quick understanding of it, but that's all it takes. It's kind of like snowboarding right, like you can learn new stuff in a day or two.
Speaker 1:I would just add on that piece that, while there's a lot of the big trends, discussions which are certainly important around the impact of AI on experiences and jobs and that will continue in the role of distribution but I think, especially for a lot of operators and marketing directors and just practitioners who are in the day-to-day of running the business, I think a really key piece of the roundtable kind of toolkit format that Bruce was talking about and it's something that we've been doing at our events now for a couple of years is having truly hands-on sessions where you're going to sit down at a roundtable with a handful of people and an expert and you can just work on prompt engineering for social media posts and begin to put a plan together. Then you go to the next table and you can just work on prompt engineering for social media posts and begin to put a plan together. Then you go to the next table and you can do a session just on prompt engineering and design for product descriptions. Then you can go to another table and look at some tools for data and analytics and how to begin to really set that up. Then you're going to go to the next table if you want to and work with some experts in chatbot deployment and training GPTs for customer service.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of the sexy high-level debates and discussions which are always a part of the event, but at the same time, we want people to come away with okay, I can bring this back to my office the next day, get to work, you know, on this piece. You know on this piece and this applies, you know to, to the whole event. I mean, we're there's so many changes that are taking place and new technologies around, like pricing is a huge issue in dynamic pricing and product design and and so how do we bring like my goal is attendee. They're heading back to their office the next week on Monday and they've got a list of five to 10 things that they can immediately action and across their organization to move things forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm thrilled. I am particularly excited for the fact that, for those people who are listening to this, I hear so many colleagues that their roles are being impacted or part of the reasons they're going to attend our event and why I encourage you to attend your event as well, is the fact that you have a much stronger competitive advantage in your role and your company by understanding what's happening with AI. And when you look at the cost of this, if you're a non-member it's $399, like $400 to come and attend this AI forum is great value. If you're attending the event, it's $239. If you're at the executive center, it's included, which is why I'm going to be there from Monday to Friday and I always immensely benefit from the content and I think Douglas knows that because my relationship with both of you guys. I always come to the event for the content. A lot of people go for the networking and there's benefits to both. And, bruce, I know you work with a lot of different partners and people come for all these massive networking opportunities. So there will be that as well at the AI forum, given the speakers that are there and the intentionality that other people are coming to that event with. They want to connect with other people that are learning this space, that are doing really cool innovative things, that are going to be kind of leading the charge. So I see many benefits to attending.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad you guys are hosting it this year.
Speaker 2:But just to finish off, I want to and, douglas, you always do such a great job with this, with your interviews, and I'm not going to live up to nearly your caliber, because you always do this great thing that I find so much fun where you kind of go with like five rapid fire questions and you give people either or answers and you push people hard on them when they don't answer or give you a straight answer, and I love it and you can see the audience response to it. I'm not going to quite do that, but I'm going to. I want to leave our audience with two things. I want to leave the audience with what is one of the big trends you're paying attention to in 2025, going into 2026, one major trend and then what you are looking forward to most about the week in Washington. So, bruce, why don't we go with you? What is one of the big trends you're focused on, even if it is AI big trends you're focused on and one of the things you're most excited about about that week in Washington.
Speaker 3:Big trends you're focused on and one of the things you're most excited about about that week in Washington. I think the trend is luxury, whether it's for one day, but especially for a multi-day, and it's one of the reasons I'm really excited about getting multi-day involved because there's a lot of luxury opportunities there. I was sitting next to a guy at lunch yesterday who's involved with Virtuoso, for example, and that's all about luxury and it's very much one of the hottest segments in travel overall and I hope there's a bunch of discussion about luxury at Arrival because it's a growing segment. We want to make sure we're growing and everything about the sector is growing, so that's that answer.
Speaker 3:What was the next question?
Speaker 2:Was what you're most looking forward to about that week in Washington.
Speaker 3:The multi-day segment because it's new, fresh. I think there's huge opportunity for the multi-day companies to really get to know distribution and tech. Yes, torradar is the leader in distribution, but they're certainly not the only, especially if you look a little bit outside of digital and there's ways that digital and analog are starting to come together more, but the tech is catching up, so that really becomes a place that other events just aren't talking a lot about. The tech for multi-day and also, like our partners that are our current sponsors, have, you know, new opportunities to talk to the multi-day operators to sell their services to, and I think that's a really important part of the ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I totally agree and I'm still looking forward to it. Now Douglas has had a chance to think through these two answers. So, on the major trends, because you're across a lot of trends, but what are one of the things that you keep coming back to? What is a theme that is just has kind of dominated your mind this year and you think is going to be that much more important in 26?
Speaker 1:And so I think the things we're having to contend with in the short term and the medium term are profoundly different from what we were thinking a year ago, even six months ago, and so a rethink on the future, across economics, across consumers, across geopolitics and all the implications for our industry. So really that's about 350 trends in one, and then, for me, always the most exciting thing it's just connecting with the people who make this business what it is. It's the folks like Midgey Moore from Juno Food Tours and others who, just they are delivering experiences day in, day out. They're creating the memories, delivering and making this industry what it is. They're the best part of travel and the reason people do it, and this is not a conference for revenue managers and bankers and insurance salespeople. This is people that are just filled with a passion for what they do and it's all they care about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it certainly has come up when I did my arrival spotlight episodes. The most common response is that it's the connection that they have in person. Like laurie timoney, who's a colleague of both of yours and obviously co-host to experience this podcast with bruce. That's her thing is like she just wants to spend the time meeting with people and getting that in-person time and, um my one of my big highlights that I always look forward to is Douglas's opening keynote. I'm always like front row taking pictures, posting because-.
Speaker 1:Oh man, you're making me nervous. Making me nervous, Put a lot of time and effort into that.
Speaker 2:We don't see you the night before because you're buried in your room rehearsing and going through your notes, and I just always look forward to what you share, because that, to me, is one of the reasons I've always attended. So I'm looking forward to that and I'm I'm with bruce on two things obviously, multi-day 100 and the ai forum. I mean, that's just like. So this is going to be a landmark week. I'm super excited about it and I thank you both for the collaboration, the partnership that we have, and obviously I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in washington in september. As far as going for more information, obviously I've mentioned the website. There's multiple landing pages. You can get all the information. Anything else, you would leave everyone else with Douglas. Anything else as far as for getting more information or getting prepared for Arrival 360?
Speaker 1:Bruce, what's our website again? A-r-i-i-c-a-can't-a-arrival right, arrivaltravel, yeah, with one R, yeah, and then you just find DC and find from there, like you said.
Speaker 3:Dan NAV to the other sub-elements, and we shouldn't forget about the highlights. The executive summit is going to be awesome. The people that we already have registered for that are kind of a who's who of the industry, and then other people that aren't part of the who's who of the industry. They're operators that are really successful in what they do and they want to be there and be part of part of that who's who and make sure they're in the discussion and with all the peer to peer that's going to be going on there at that level and with the facilitators that we have really looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Thank you, guys, and thank you for those people who are watching video clips of this. You can actually see a nice little Canadian flag in the background Douglas waving a nice little Canadian flag in the background, which I greatly appreciate, and your highlight about geopolitics. And but one of the things I did want to say on that whole topic this is also to my fellow canadians and uh is that this is about supporting the industry and rising above some of the political elements that are in play, so there's reasons why you might hesitate traveling, but one of the things I saw, uh, when you mentioned about the adventure, travel and trade association, bruce, and when I was there in denver a few months ago, there was concern about attendees and, in fact, they were completely sold out. Half the the attendees came internationally.
Speaker 2:Almost everyone I spoke to had some reservations about traveling to the US, but ultimately they wanted to be there to support the community that is travel, and so I definitely encourage everyone to take that approach. Join us in Washington, be a part of this. It's going to be great for your career, for your business, and I look forward to meeting many of the new people that are listening to this that want to record with me, because that certainly has been a call out. So if you listen to this podcast and you book a ticket, I will guarantee you a recording on the Travel Trends event spotlight episode at Arrival. So that's my commitment to all of our listeners.
Speaker 3:How do they take advantage of that? Because you're going to be easy to spot in the Arrival Networking Lounge with your own space. So how do they say hey, dan, I heard this, but how do they find you? How do they send you a message and say I want in, I want to be on the podcast.
Speaker 2:All they need to do is use the promo code register and send me an email danatraveltranspod code register and send me an email, dan, at travel trends podcast, and let me know you're going to be there and I will guarantee we'll make time to record together. But, guys, thank you again for this. Have a great rest of your summer, douglas bruce, and I look forward to seeing you guys a month from now.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dan thanks dan pleasure thanks so much for joining us for this special event spotlight of the arrival event in washington dc this september 29th to october 3rd. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Bruce and Douglas and I look forward to seeing many of you there. Don't forget to use the promo code on our website for the 10% off. Homepage traveltrendspodcastcom, and I will make sure, if you send me an email, that we book time together and get you included in the event spotlight. Thanks again for listening and see you all in Washington.
