Event Spotlight: Arival 360 2025

Recorded live from Washington, D.C., Arival 360 is the premier gathering for what many call the “1% of the experiences sector.” This meticulously curated event brings together visionary creators, resellers, technologists, and leaders from across the travel ecosystem — from day tour operators and multi-day specialists to innovative startups and global platforms like GetYourGuide and Viator — all united by one goal: shaping the future of travel experiences.

This special 5-hour event spotlight episode captures the energy and insight of the conference, featuring 15 exclusive interviews recorded on-site in September.

Want to jump straight to the conversations that matter most to you? Scroll down for timestamps and guest highlights from each interview.

Highlights & Timestamps:

• 4m41s - Stephen Joyce, Global Travel Lead, Protect Group
• 24m17s - Lauren Shannon, GM, Arigato Travel
• 42m35s - Joe Pine, Author, The Transformation Economy
• 1hr16m - Michael Zeissner, Managing Partner, FMZ Ventures 
• 1h42m - Marica Mackenroth Brewster, CEO & Founder, Von Mack Agency
• 2h 3m - Craig Dodge, Senior Director of Sales & Marketing, Phare, The Cambodian Circus
• 2h24m - Cindee Brown Mills, Owner, Breathe Alaska 
• 2h47m - Rob Keen, Co-founder, Project Expedition 
• 3h - Arnaud (Arno) Azoulay, Founder &  CEO, Babylon Tours
• 3h19m - Gabriela Radimáková , GabiGo s.r.o
• 3h35m - Marc Eder, Founder, DayOf
• 3h54m - Tony Carne, Co-founder, Videreo
• 4h1m - Daniel Cerda, Founder & CEO, Eating with Carmen Food Tours 
• 4h13m - Alex Ragin, CEO, Tourseta
• 4h28m - Douglas Quinby, Co-founder & CEO, Arival

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Arrival 360 Overview
• 15:40 Steven Joyce On Industry Shifts
• 42:30 Multi‑Day Momentum With Lauren
• 1:10:20 Joe Pine On Transformation Economy
• 1:52:30 Investing In Experiences With Zeisner
• 2:24:00 Branding & Growth With Von Mack
• 2:53:30 Purposeful Tourism With Far Circus
• 3:27:20 Wellness & Breathwork In Alaska
• 3:56:20 B2B Distribution With Project Expedition
• 4:13:30 Scaling Museum Tours With Babylon
• 4:37:00 Spotlight Slovakia With GabiGo

Transcript

SPEAKER_17: 0:05

Almost any conference, the best part is the conversations. Yeah. Right? And the and the the the uh presentations are the meat for that conversation.

SPEAKER_03: 0:17

Hello everyone, and welcome to a special event spotlight of travel trends. This is your host Dan Christian, and today's episode was recorded live at the Arrival Conference in Washington, D.C. over the course of the first few days of October. As you'll hear from our speakers, it kicked off with an executive day on the Monday, an AI forum on Tuesday, and then three days of the arrival conference, which for me culminated by MCing the multi-day tour track, which was the very first time the arrival team has actually focused on multi-day, with the exception of myself giving a keynote several years ago now. And one of the big highlights for me as an outcome of this conference was in speaking to Bruce, one of the founders, is that we are going to continue with multi-day tour in Valencia, and those dates for everyone to plan to join us are April 27th to 29th, and we will be doing a multi-day tour track. And I've kindly been asked back to MC. So I'm looking forward to building out the content and the overall plan and then hosting that event over the course of those three days in Valencia. Now, next year's conference for arrival is actually going to be in Spokane, Washington, and the dates for that are October 13th to 16th. So hopefully, after listening to today's conversation, you'll be inspired to join us in Valencia and to join us in Spokane, Washington later next year. Now, in this episode, you're going to hear from a number of fascinating people that came together for the arrival conference in Washington this year. Some familiar voices that you have heard on our podcast before, like Stephen Joyce, and actually you just heard the words from Douglas Quinby in the opening segment there. Thank you again, Douglas, for your generous comments and for the ongoing partnership. And you will also hear from a number of new individuals, including Michael Zeissner, who is considered to be the Warren Buffett of investing when it comes to the experience economy. You'll also hear from Joe Pine, who's returning from being on our podcast in season five. He's also closing out season six. And this was the first chance I had to meet Joe in person. And so I was keen to be able to record with him since he was actually the big keynote speaker that the team at Arrival brought in. And for many of us, his landmark work, the experience economy, is what motivated many of us to be in this industry. And you're also going to hear from a number of very impressive female entrepreneurs and executives. One of them that I was really keen to speak to is Merica Brewster, who is the founder of the Vaughn Mack agency. She is such an inspiring story to share, and she's done such extraordinary work in this industry. She'll finally get a chance to meet Merica on this podcast. You'll also get to hear from Lauren Shannon, who is an American living in Japan running Aragato tours. And she kindly joined the multi-day tour sessions and had great feedback and has some really interesting perspective to shares. And one other person I'd highlight, Cindy from Breathe Alaska. This was an absolute surprise and delight conversation. We actually do a breathing exercise, which is a lot of fun. And I really encourage you guys to listen to that part of the conversation because it highlights the interesting people that come together for a conference like this and also where the industry is headed in terms of wellness and sustainability. And so I definitely encourage you to listen to my conversation with Cindy from Breathe Alaska. And you'll hear from several other fantastic guests, including Tony Carn from Everything at AI and Travel Podcast, and Daniel Certa, who was one of the other highlight conversations I had, who runs a food tour business called Eating with Carmen in Mexico. So many highlights. I hope you enjoy these conversations and the special event spotlight from Arrival. Thanks again for joining us, and here we go. I now have the chance to sit down with a dear friend of mine, Steven Joyce. He's well known to not only our travel trends guest, he's been on our podcast a couple of times. He's been on the last arrival episode that we had done. I have been on his arrival show. He was, of course, he hosts the arrival podcast with uh the wonderful Janelle Visser. And Steven lives in Vancouver. But tell everyone what you do, Steven, because you work with Protect Group. Tell us everyone what your title is in your new role, because you've got this super important global role. What it what is your official title?

SPEAKER_02: 4:25

Yeah, so uh it's a bit of a mouthful, but my uh my official role or title is global strategy lead for travel tours and OTAs. So yeah, that's a lot, isn't it? Um so it it's interesting because uh we have we we support several verticals within Protect Group, and uh and the other three verticals are very well defined. There we have uh aviation, so airlines and and transportation, hospitality, and uh live event and uh ticketing, which is sports and and music events. And then there's this other bucket that is travel tours and OTAs, which is like literally everything else in travel. And that's my bucket. So I get so I get like everything else, which is a little less defined, but also is a lot more fun, I think, because it there's just there's so much there to to uh to work with and just so many amazing people to like interact with in that vertical. So I love it.

SPEAKER_03: 5:22

You're so you're so well suited for that role. So obviously they're very lucky to have you because you've got this amazing industry knowledge, this uh uh extraordinary network, and you're just such a like lovable person. And it's like you truly are, man. It's just like like people light up when they see you, myself included, and that's just like that's uh that's rare. That's truly rare.

SPEAKER_02: 5:40

So that's my that's my goal in life, is to like bring the vibe. Maybe it's just the mustache, maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's the mustache. Is that what it was? Like everything changed when I got the mustache.

SPEAKER_04: 5:49

So I think it might be. Oh man, I wish this was video rather than just audio, but you just have to pull up a picture of Steven. Where is there a picture of you with the mustache?

SPEAKER_02: 5:57

Because if you pull up your mustache, LinkedIn profile, you don't have the mustache on there, do you? I I do. It was it was like pre-curl, though. It was like right when I was growing it out. So it was uh it's a little bit I I have an updated picture, but I mean actually, if you go to my LinkedIn, there's several photos in the like featured posts and stuff with uh with the mustache.

SPEAKER_03: 6:15

Okay, so look at Steven and like it'll just bring a smile to your face. And you'll see why when you see his amazing mustache. But tell us for those people who are just getting to know you, um, give everyone the like like less than 60 second version of your incredible history in the travel industry, including working with a rival.

SPEAKER_02: 6:34

Yeah, so I've I've been in travel technology since uh the very early days of the internet. So I'm gonna give away my age. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but you're gonna be able to guess it. Uh, is that in uh in the late 90s, I worked on Canada's first OTA, a company called Trippies. Um, and I was the creative director on that project. And then that eventually became Sears Travel. Does everybody remember Sears? Yeah, probably not a lot of people remember Sears, at least not the young ones. Definitely. And then uh, you know, continued to work in travel technology all through the first internet bubble, um, and then uh built a consultancy that uh where we did a lot of software development for uh travel websites, uh mainly building travel websites, mostly in Canada. Um, and then started building this uh the one of the very first reservation systems for tours and activities, uh product called ResGO, um, which is actually here today at Arrival. There's it's still a it's still a very um very profitable growing company. Um and I was the co-founder and CEO of that for 15 years. And then uh during COVID took a step back, dealt with some personal personal um mental health issues and things like that that I wanted to uh take care of. Um and then got back into it in in um late 2021, early 2022 again, uh, working for a distribution startup called Holybob, based out of the UK, as their uh VP of product. Um, and then joined uh Arrival as VP of Content for Arrival, worked with them for a year. Um, and then Protect Group came along and and was like, hey, we think you'd be a really great fit for this new role that we've got, uh, kind of heading up this vertical, and we'd love you to join. And uh, and uh it was a great opportunity. So a year later, it's been a year. I've been with them for a year now. Wow, that's gone very quickly. Yeah, it went very quickly, and uh and here I am uh a year later.

SPEAKER_03: 8:36

So there's two things I want to say on that. One, obviously, we were so happy to have you back in the industry. When we recorded our standalone episode, there was a moment where you got emotional, and I really kind of, you know, you tugged at the heartstrings for me too, because one of the things you shared with me is that your identity was also so wrapped up in Rezgo. Yeah. And here we are at the conference. One of your biggest partners, or one of the partners who's who absolutely loves Rezgo, uh, who's been on this podcast now that people would have uh listened to or about to hear from, depending on the way this all comes together, uh, Craig Dodge from Far Circus. And he loves Rezgo and he loves you. Yeah. And when we saw each other in the hallway, and he said to me, well, to us, he's just like, you know, you are Rezgo to him, and he still sees you then. It hit me in that moment just how profound it was for you when you stepped away from that, that that's how people saw you. Yeah, but you have just gone from strength to strength in coming back into the industry, and that's why I just think you're so perfectly suited for this role and opportunity. And like, you know, you're in fintech now, man.

SPEAKER_05: 9:33

It was just who would have thought you're gonna be in fintech? You're in an industry I'm an insurance salesman. Not even in insurance, you're like, you're beyond insurance. You can't even regulate this stuff. It's just like cancel for any reason. Oh, you had to bring that up, didn't you? You had to bring that up. Like, how many times can we say that in this week?

SPEAKER_03: 9:53

Uh but let's talk about arrival. So here we are, Washington, 2025. You've been through a lot of arrivals, you've prepared for arrivals, you've spoken on stage. Yeah. What has stood out to you this year?

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

I think um what really stood out for me was the um the changes that they've made to um to the program. So, number one, it's four days. Like if you do all of the things, which I did, because I always do all of the things, it w it was a it's a four, well, including tomorrow, a five-day event. So uh, you know, I did the executive forum on the Monday, did the AI forum and uh octo sessions on the on the Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday are the are the main event. And uh I really enjoyed the executive forum. I thought that was a really nice addition to the program. Uh it was an opportunity for, you know, the larger operators and for the you know senior level executive folks at the uh at the bigger brands and the OTAs to kind of come together and talk shop because the bulk of the core of Arrival is really designed for operators, right? Yeah, for sure. And so um that felt uh the the that first day, the executive form really felt like a mini focus rate, which was really nice. I mean, you know, given given uh Douglas's and and Bruce's uh, you know experience with focus rate, I'm not surprised that they that they kind of built that eventually. But yeah, you know, to be able to make that work, I think that was a risk. Um, and it was a risk that really paid off, I think, because it was really, really excellent.

SPEAKER_03: 11:28

Yeah, everyone's been raving about it. Gilad, as soon as I arrived, he texted me what a great event it was because I was coming in that evening, and Eric Blackford, who's been on this recording as well, was raving about because he was involved in it. Michael Zeisner, like do you had a I mean, I think you expected 80 or 85, you had 100 people, so like it was an excellent turnout. And clearly, you need to do more of this. Like, that's like so that that for sure is a major highlight. What else, Steven? Because again, you are the guy that can look at this and go, you know, uh, these are the things that are clearly working. What I mean, the multi-day tour track was something that's particularly exciting for me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

I'm really excited about that too.

SPEAKER_03: 12:01

Well, I'm keen to see it because we were actually having a conversation with Catalina before this with the from Al Camino Tours who was on the main stage. And actually, Guillermo, we were talking from Guillermo from Tui. Yeah, he came over to speak to uh Steven and I because he wasn't aware that the multi-day track was like, we've got so much to say on that. And he was like, Yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

It's a multi-day company. They do packages and the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03: 12:19

Yeah, so I I really feel like we've just you know scratched the surface or just gotten the conversation started. But what have been some of the other kind of big highlights for you in terms of some of the sessions you've attended or even some of the AI stuff that you mentioned as well?

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

Yeah, I think um so Joe Pine's uh presentation on uh on the transformation economy and the shift from experiences, uh, you know, the experience economy to the transformation economy, I thought was really, really good. I really enjoyed that. I think that's something that we forget quite often. And the way that he articulated it, uh, just you know, with with time, you know, if it's a bad experience, it's time wasted, right? At the minimum, you should be time saved, right? So a fast track ticket to, you know, to the Louvre. That's not that's not transformational. That's not necessarily time well spent. That's time saved, right? Yeah like that experience. The time well spent is like you go, you go to the Coliseum and you have a really great experience there and it's memorable. Transform, you know, uh time well invested, which is the best out of the the lot before transformational, is that you know, it's time that's time well invested is time that that you know will last with it'll last with you beyond the experience. You'll take more away from it than you put in, right? And then transformational is like you become a better person as a result of that. And that's where he talked about like coaching and and you know, these you know, sort of wellness experiences, the much, you know, the much more in-depth kind of preparation, the the experience, and then you know, the the reflection and the integration afterwards. And that kind of when you think about it that way, it's like you can then also like that's a key to differentiator for some of these operators. Like when you can make that leap from something that is just uh a cheap, you know, fast track ticket to something that transforms somebody's life. Like they go on your tour and they are a better person for having gone on that tour, you can charge extra for that. Not to like reduce everything down to like base capitalism, but I mean, let's be fair, we're here to make money.

SPEAKER_04: 14:21

Well, so I like the I put that. And when Joe Pine said, he uh I when I asked him why you're here, he's like, because I got paid. So actually, those those two comments tie in quite nicely. That he's here because he got paid, you guys can pay him because he shows people how to make the money, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 14:38

Which is like the points like that. The apex of the consumer experience is this, you know, the Maslow hierarchy of needs, self-actualization, and his kind of concept of transformation is it really resonated with everyone in the audience. And people, a lot of us have been inspired by you know his earlier work, the experience economy, to get into this industry. And you and I are uh are absolute contemporaries in terms of when we came to the industry, and that book was published in '99. Yeah. I read it when I was in university, and it helped inspire me. So that was a cool moment. Anything on the AI side? And I'm not asking that question because it's like we need someone to tell us more about AI. I'm actually just genuinely curious, Steven, what in the in the realm of AI, yeah, whether it was in the AI forum or like what you're hearing companies doing, has stood out to you as particularly interesting or compelling.

SPEAKER_02: 15:20

I really enjoyed the debate between, you know, uh, because this is a big thing for um for everyone, is like who's gonna win the the uh OTA versus supply war online, right? Like, um, and and what I what I took away from that is that um, you know, AI, it these companies are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart, right? They're building these AI things in order to monetize them and make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_06: 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:51

And if it was open source and if it was free, and if this was the pure democratization of supply in, you know, in an AI world, you wouldn't need the OTAs because the AI would be so good at finding and sending you directly to the supplier that the OTA would become irrelevant. And in a perfect, you know, in a perfectly democratized world, that would happen. But we know that's not the world we live in. We live in the world of capitalism, and these companies need to make money. And so what are they gonna do? They are going to go to the companies that have money and they are going to promote those companies through ads or preferred placement or preferred partnerships or whatever it is, which means that the OTAs are gonna end up being the sources for a lot of these products. That's what I'm seeing, right? Now we're not there yet, so this is purely predictive, but my skeptical mind tells me I'm a tech optimist, but I am also a realist, right? Unfortunately, that's probably the way it's gonna go. So who's gonna win? I think it's gonna be a similar balance to what we've got now. You know, the you're gonna see supply be, you're gonna see supply surfaced through AI uh discovery, but the the preferred sources and the ad revenue is gonna come from the large OTAs who have all of the supply and the money to be able to spend on advertising.

SPEAKER_03: 17:16

Yeah, no, it's really interesting to get your perspective on that. And there's two other questions I wanted uh to ask you, and one of them is about the overall trends, and one of them is plans for next year. But in terms of the overall trends, one of the standouts for me that I didn't cover with Douglas, but it was one of the things that I mentioned to you afterwards, which was that when he showed the stats about Gen Z and millennials traveling to Coachella, that 60% of the tickets bought for Coachella were buy now pay later. Yes. And I've often had that reaction having young kids, and you have kids as well, and they're not kids anymore. All of like they're adults now for both of us, but nevertheless, uh, the reason I mentioned is because they our daughter loves concerts and go to festivals, and the price of those, so like a Coachella ticket, right? I was always like, how do kids like afford these tickets? Obviously, their parents have to buy them for them, or like even a Taylor Swift concert. So it's like, you know, and it's become a big thing of travel as people go to festivals and concerts. So that was an interesting stat to show for businesses to comprehend this is how young people are affording it. They're not. They're they're they're buying out, pay later. They're saying, I'm gonna go now and I'm willing to pay this over 12 months. And I instantly thought of you because of the whole like cancel for any reason. I was like, um, and so when you think about the trends you're paying attention to, yeah, being someone that's really switched on in this space, uh, what are one or two things you would point to as we go into 2026? Either here from the conference or just things that are already, you know, that you're seeing in your role in your global travels?

SPEAKER_02: 18:34

Yeah, I mean, uh looking at the at the trends, what we're seeing is this is this uh generalized anxiety, right, amongst uh amongst travelers um because of all of the stuff that's happening economically, the the political instability, right? Where do I go? Are things gonna change? Like, am I gonna be able to get into the country? Am I gonna end up in a different country if I go to that country and not naming any names? So, right, so there's this generalized kind of anxiety. And what do people do when they when they feel anxious? They try to protect those things. So, what we're seeing is like during COVID, for example, when we look at at refund protect, which by the way is not a cancel for any reason product, it is a cancel for legitimate reason product. Um, so it's a high intent product, right? Like these are people that buy these things with the intention of going, and they buy the thing, they buy the refund protect because just in case something bad happens, they know they're gonna get their money back.

SPEAKER_06: 19:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

Whereas cancel for any reason is really more of a low intent product. It's like, I'm not sure if I want to go or not. So I'm gonna buy this thing. I'm gonna pay a little bit extra so that I can make the decision not to go and I'll still get some money back. Right. That that's kind of that's more of what it's for. Yeah. Um, and we've got some data around that that sort of supports that sort of thing. So when we look at like generalized anxiety, what we see is that you know, the more anxious people become, the more likely they are to buy um protection in order to uh to make sure that they are in a situation where if something bad does happen, that they can, you know, that they can get some money back and they're not losing their investment. Because these are number one, people are taking less or uh fewer trips, right? They're spending more on those trips. And so they're investing in these experiences, right? When we talk about that time well spent, time you know, well invested, they're investing in these trips. These trips mean more to them, especially now with younger millennials and Gen Z. They're specifically doing trips that are more meaningful for them. Doug Douglas talked about that in his opening that you know, passion-based, interest-based travel. You talk about this all the time as well, the passion-based travel. I remember you did a whole presentation on it in 2022 or 23 in Vegas, right? Yeah. Um, and uh yeah, passion-based travel is very much a thing. And they, you know, they want to go to that thing. And the only reason why they don't go to that thing is because they end up breaking their leg the day before, or you know, on their way to the airport, they trip on the sidewalk and you know, and now they can't go. Yeah. And that's where the refund protection comes in. That's basically what we do. So that's what we're seeing.

SPEAKER_03: 21:10

Well, what's really interesting on that point is that you know, you see something on the main stage, and then you're having conversations at dinner. And uh the example I just wanted to quickly share to underline your point, it was that we were at a Tour Optima Ventrata dinner, like the second night. I'm speaking to Justin Buzzy, who runs get up and go kayaking. He was trying to figure out what am I doing here, and uh and so he he he knew me.

SPEAKER_05: 21:30

So we can't.

SPEAKER_02: 21:31

That's a bit of an existential question, isn't it? What am I doing here?

SPEAKER_05: 21:34

What am I doing here?

SPEAKER_03: 21:35

Uh and we ended up having a fascinating conversation and sat next to each other and he was sharing, like because when you talk industry and you talk shop, one of the things he highlighted to me that was interesting for the two other people that were there with us is that for people who actually choose to cancel for any reason on the day of travel, it actually doesn't necessarily apply because you can't necessarily book it within five hours, but people are still it's negative opt-in. So there's there's a there's a heads up here for travelers and also for companies. So for travelers, obviously, heads up, you know, if there's uh an automatic opt-in, like make sure you're reading everything. However, what he's found out is that people are uh automatically opted into it and they don't opt out of it, and they've made an additional$50,000 in revenue. And again, back to this like how you make money when margins are thinner, commissions are higher, um, bookings are dropping off, especially in the US for you know when they're lower international travelers. So you have to find every way to drive profitability. Yeah, and this is a great solution for that. So, Steven, there's one more question I want to ask you, and that is plans for arrival next year. We're moving from this washing to Spokane. Yeah, I think that's the same. Spokane, Washington. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 22:41

I cannot pronounce it properly.

SPEAKER_03: 22:42

But what are the so what would you like to see next year at Arrival 360?

SPEAKER_02: 22:47

Oh, you know, I've I've actually got our I've got a good one. I would like to see a uh a purely device-free networking session, like social, like a social event at uh at Arrival Spokane that is completely device free. So you walk in, you lock up your device in like a you know, one of those magnetic bags or a zip bag or like that.

SPEAKER_05: 23:09

I've been to a Dave Chappelle concert. I know that experience it's it's an anxiety-inducing.

SPEAKER_02: 23:14

Initially, initially, but within minutes, within minutes, the way that people interact with each other when they are not on their device or have access to their device, it's a completely different experience. And I think that for a lot of people would be um would be life-changing. Yeah, I think. Like just the depth of the conversations that you can have when you're not distracted by your device.

SPEAKER_03: 23:36

Let's talk to Bruce. Let's make that happen.

SPEAKER_02: 23:38

Yeah, that would be a cool experience. Yeah. So uh I there's another sponsorship opportunity right there, right? Right? Branded, branded uh device bags, totally.

SPEAKER_05: 23:47

And for the company that wants to give you the digital detox and help you.

SPEAKER_02: 23:51

Yeah, a little digital detox social. That'd be fun.

SPEAKER_05: 23:54

Totally.

SPEAKER_03: 23:54

Awesome, Steve. Well, it's always a pleasure to speak to you. It's great to see you again and hang out together. I look forward to uh seeing you over the next couple months at all the conferences and back in Canada, whenever you're in Toronto or I'm in Vancouver. But yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 24:06

Yeah, we're practically neighbors. We're only a short five-hour flight away from each other.

SPEAKER_05: 24:11

No, but you know, I think the world of you and I'm uh I really always enjoy your time together, man. So thank you again for joining us.

SPEAKER_03: 24:17

Yeah, thanks, Dan. Appreciate it. I now have the chance to speak to uh Lauren Shannon, who is the general manager of Erigato Travel. Welcome, Lauren. Thanks for joining us on the arrival spotlight episode.

SPEAKER_01: 24:30

Awesome. Hi, Dan. It's great to see you, and it's been a great arrival so far. How about for you?

SPEAKER_03: 24:34

Fantastic. I know you kindly attended the multi-day tour session yesterday, and that's one of the reasons you're here, and we'll talk about your business and uh how it relates to that. But uh, what did you think about the multi-day tour track at arrival this year?

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

I think it's amazing. I'm really glad they're moving into that space. And actually, afterwards, I talked to a few other operators that are multi-day curious, and so I think this is the great, this is the great way to set that up, right? The I think it's a natural progression for a lot of operators. They do great activities, but in the process of doing that, they meet lots of other activity providers and suppliers and they get other ideas. And I think it's great to start niche like we did in the food tour business, but it's great to be able to spread your wings and start uh connecting the dots, putting together the connected trip that everybody's been talking about.

SPEAKER_03: 25:18

Well, and Lauren and I were having a nice chat just as we sat down before we hit record, just about the sessions yesterday. But I want to make sure everyone knows what you do because obviously you said it's a new business, but tell everyone about arigato travel.

SPEAKER_01: 25:29

So Artigato started just about 10 years ago. Our 10-year anniversary is going to be in 2026. And we started originally as a niche food tour company in Japan. Uh, we have just had amazing success in that. And after COVID, before COVID, we wanted to move into the multi-day space. But uh in Japan, it's expensive and the licensing is hard and all that. So we started that at the end of 2019, and then obviously we paused it for the great pause. Uh and then when we came back, we got all our licenses in order and we launched as a full DMC under so we run both businesses now. So it was great because in my case, I got to experiment with multi-day business while the food tour business was paying the bills. So when we first hired our travel ops director and we built out a team of travel planners, we could do that without a lot of KPIs or revenue required. We could just build our systems. And we've always been really big about building systems in-house and then partnering with different types of tools and other systems as we need it. So that gave us a year to get going. And now we're like running full steam.

SPEAKER_03: 26:31

Well, it's interesting. And when I saw that you were here and knowing Erigato travels here, also uh JTB, which is uh obviously one of the biggest uh uh Japanese tourism board.

SPEAKER_01: 26:42

Yeah, they've just bought North Star Media and it's uh they have their own Bokuon relationships and yeah, they're huge.

SPEAKER_03: 26:47

It's a massive and obviously uh Douglas presented some of the stats with US being down nine percent for inbound international travelers and the incredible rise in travel to Japan, which just continues. Yep. And you guys were well ahead of the curve being there 10 years ago. But tell me how the business started and where you're originally from and how you ended up in Japan.

SPEAKER_01: 27:08

Yeah, so I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I have had a long, strange life, but looking backwards, it all kind of connects. I was an educator, and then when I moved over to Japan, I I moved over with a like technology grant in Japan and was doing stuff with education and tech. And I kind of got a little bit burned out by the big transition. I I when I started out in education, I was in a small, very creative private school outside of Philadelphia. And then I was in this big Japanese education system, and it was it was quite a culture shock for me. And I did that for three years and I enjoyed it, but then I wanted to take a little break. My husband is a software engineer for like 35 years. So we moved up to Tokyo, and our first job in Tokyo was he got hired to do a just-in-time delivery system for introducing California wines into Japan. Because at that time, the only wines from California that Japanese people knew were like Mondavi and Gallo, which are terrible, right? So we introduced like 50 breweries, uh, I mean wineries, but I my job then, because I was taking a break, was to do sort of events, wine tastings, and all of that. So I moved into the food and beverage space and I was there for quite a few years. And then I moved over to hospitality and travel about 14 years ago. I joined Arigato Travel, my business partner, Ann Kyle. Um, she started the business. I joined her six months after she started as a consultant. She kept me so busy that I had to get rid of all my other consultant clients, and I just said, you need to hire me because you're taking too much of my time. And about a year after that, her and her husband, who were the founders, um, had me join as a full partner. So I went from like consultant to full-time employee to part owner uh and GM. So yeah. And uh so we started out in food tours. We did that for a number of years until 2019, and then coming off of COVID, we decided to move also into the custom multi-day space. So we're growing. Our team went from like a handful to about a hundred freelance guides, about 40 full-time staff. The multi-day team is growing by leaps and bounds, and yeah, it's it's been great. And Japan has been crazy for inbounds. We are definitely doing the plumbing with the water turned on all the time.

SPEAKER_04: 29:14

So that's exciting. And obviously, you're here at Arrival. This is your first year at arrival.

SPEAKER_01: 29:19

No, no, Dan. And actually, I am an old hat at arrival. I've been to Bangkok, I've been to San Diego, I've been to Valencia, I've been to Orlando. Uh, I love Arrival. This is my sixth, and this time I brought my uh marketing manager along, and she's getting her eyes wide open about AI.

SPEAKER_03: 29:37

Fantastic. That's great. Well, and I the the reason I mentioned that is because I know one of the uh appeals this year is the multi day, you guys are moving into that. Um, and obviously there's lots of benefits of being at arrival. So now one of the things I'm keen to get your take on is that uh this year, obviously we talked about multi day. You mentioned AI. What are some of the other things that stood out to you so far from this year's arrival?

SPEAKER_01: 29:57

So I was really excited that they added a track for for Leaders like me who've also been around Arrival a while. So I actually came quite early this time and I did the executive summit first, which was amazing. And we got to meet a lot of great people. Another fantastic thing for me is I'm a huge Joe Pine fan. And actually, I loved your episode this last season about transformational travel. Amazing. I listened to it like multiple times. I shared it with my team. So I had him sign my book. And like I'm quite the fangirl.

SPEAKER_04: 30:28

And uh his And now you're on the same podcast as him.

SPEAKER_01: 30:31

This episode is exciting.

SPEAKER_04: 30:32

Joe and Lauren are together on this episode. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 30:35

I I like stalked him and made him sign my book. And uh but he's great. And I really feel like it's been interesting connecting dots between Joe's take on how people value time and how that can be a frame for what we do. And actually, I wanted to mention one thing that I kind of put together between the executive summit, the AI summit, and then yesterday's first full day at arrival is that we talk a lot about the tours and activities business not having a standard of the same way that you look at three-star, four-star, five-star hotels. But actually, this time well saved, time well spent, time well invested could be that standard. And in the executive summit, I got up and I compared it to the Michelin stars. So if you don't know the, I'm a big food tour person, right? So if you don't know the story of Michelin stars, because Michelin was a tire company, when they first made their free guidebook, the star levels were like one star is worth a stop if you're driving along. Two stars is worth a detour. So it's good enough that you should go off your route and find that restaurant. But three stars was worth the destination. So you would go because of that trip. Right. And I think if we start to think about tours and activities and even our multi-day packages in those terms, we may there may be something there there. You know, I'm not sure. But I think thinking about this time well saved, time well spent, time well invested is a great way to think about uh the levels of activities and experiences that we as providers create.

SPEAKER_03: 32:06

Yeah. Well, it's one of the things that stood out to me with his presentation, which is excellent. I mean, I've not seen him present live before, and I was so thoroughly impressed. And uh, he's just such a great speaker. And obviously, the content is just so compelling as well. And when he was talking about well-being, both in the session and on this episode, I keep thinking about how travel companies can better market their positioning around that. And one of the things in the multi-day tour space that a lot of travelers have told us is that they want flexibility with their schedule. They want and this is this concept of slow travel, but people want to spend more time, get deeper into a destination, have those connections, the meaningful cultural connections, and focus on their overall well-being. There's less about drinking, and there's more about getting up for yoga.

SPEAKER_01: 32:49

Oh, although drinking's great too.

SPEAKER_03: 32:50

Believe me, and I like my sake as well.

SPEAKER_05: 32:53

That's like what I I like the rice wine. And so uh and I yeah, and Japanese, Japanese beer and Japanese whiskey.

SPEAKER_04: 32:59

I know. Oh, yeah, so no, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 33:00

I'm I'm uh I'm of that generation, but many people want to choose wellness as a as an option, but also um they're looking to trips for transformation, and that's one of the things that he really spoke to. So tell us a little bit about these multi-day trips that you're introducing.

SPEAKER_01: 33:16

So we are doing just a a little bit of everything as we've learned and grown, but I want to just circle back to that topic. It, you know, sure. So like shameless plug, come to Japan for wellness. Like the the Japanese, I always say, are like the OGs of mindfulness, they've been practicing mindful mindfulness for like a thousand years, and I'm not exaggerating. So the whole culture is really based on this be in the moment, pay attention. The world has been fascinated by the idea of ikigai finding your purpose about wellness, about mindfulness. One of my favorite Japanese expressions is Ichigo Ichie, which means one chance, one opportunity. So you're it that's original mindfulness, right? Like it's in the tea ceremony scrolls.

SPEAKER_03: 33:56

Long before MM.

SPEAKER_01: 33:57

That's right, exactly. And so, like the thing here is, you know, if you and I did this podcast tomorrow, it would be different. So we need to be in the present moment now, think about who we're with, where we are. And uh that has really set us up to be able to create some amazing experiences. We're very interested in being a part of the solution for over-tourism in Japan. So you we've been in the news, everybody's heard it. I've had a lot of people walk up to me at this session and say, Oh, how are Americans perceived with all this over-tourism? Uh Japan's interesting because it's experiencing over-tourism and under-tourism at the same time. So any story you hear about over-tourism right now is about Kyoto. Let's face it, like that's the place that's struggling. Tokyo is huge. We can embrace everybody who shows up. But Kyoto is really a small city, landlocked by mountains. It can't accept all of this. But Japan, the rural areas and the outside areas and the hidden paths of Japan are hungry for visitors. And they're so amazing. And the thing is, is that's what we're trying to do in the multi-day space. We we take people off that golden route, a step to the right, a step to the left, show them something new. Uh, I work with a lot of great on sen hotels. We do a lot of um customized. I'm I just got an inquiry to build a wellness retreat for next year for an American, a fora advisor for us all in the news, came to me and she's got a partner who teaches yoga, and they're in Portland, Oregon, and they want to come and bring 15 ladies next year. And I'm super excited about this, right? And I think Japan has so much to offer. This intersection is gonna be great. I'm also a big foodie, so we do culinary tours. I'm working with a brand new brand called Salt Caravan. They're launching one of their first destinations for group travel in uh Japan is with us. So they're doing Japan and Morocco and I can't remember the third country uh to launch, and we're gonna be one of their first destinations, and I'm their DMC. So that's amazing. Yeah, food, wellness, uh, sake, it's all there.

SPEAKER_04: 35:55

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03: 35:56

Now, the multi-day track is going to continue. I'm so excited. And uh there's plans to bring this back in Valencia. Yay. And then uh uh most likely in Spokane next year, uh which is obviously the next big arrival 360. And one of the things I'd love to ask you, Lauren, since you were uh a keen attendee and and gave me some really valuable feedback, and I think uh when the team looks at their plans, I'd love to get your take on where we should go from here. So given that we only had a chance to discuss distribution, technology, and marketing, those were kind of the three themes that we focused on in these panels. But I'd love to hear where we should go from here and even deeper into the subjects, especially technology, which we didn't have enough time for. So yes.

SPEAKER_01: 36:38

Yeah, I think the tech space is so different for multi-day and the needs are so different. So I'd love to see a little bit of that. One of my big uh feedbacks always for arrival is we focus, obviously, operators and owners want to focus on revenue and marketing and all of that stuff. But I think we also need to look at the back end because a big challenge for us as new multi-day people is uh resource scheduling, uh back end support, like a lot of the building things. So that's one thing I'd love to see is a little bit of focus on how to find multi-day guides and leader guides are totally different than walking tour or um, you know, experience guides. It's a completely different thing. So I'd love to see that. I'd love to see this idea of like how to build transformational experiences. I think that would be amazing. Joe should definitely come back. Uh, but I also think it would be great. One of the things I'm sensing is I came to the multi-day track having started a year ago. So I've learned a bunch of stuff and I'm not a beginner. But what I found interesting after your sessions yesterday, Dan, was other operators were talking to me about it over drinks and dinner last night, and they said, Oh, we're thinking about doing it.

SPEAKER_06: 37:44

That's great.

SPEAKER_01: 37:44

Or we want to do it, or we want to start. So I think you need already maybe two tracks where you've got people who are doing it and need extra then the level up support, but some like introductory stuff. How to set up a business, what you need to think about transitioning from an experience and activity provider to a multi-day provider. Because it's a really different business.

SPEAKER_03: 38:05

Absolutely. I'm thrilled to hear you say that. And it's a that's an excellent idea. And this is where you know, someone like yourself that is a practitioner that understands this space and really wants to expand. I see a huge potential for a lot of day tour companies to get into multi-day because you have people getting into multi-day with no experience in operating travel whatsoever and creating these new businesses.

SPEAKER_01: 38:26

I volunteer to be an operator on a panel. So the other thing I would love to say to you, Dan, is like everybody builds the panels and a lot of the workshops here with the experts. I would love to see Arrival and your track next year make an effort to include uh an operator perspective on each one of those panels. Yeah. Uh somebody who's in the space, who's starting out in the space would be great as a counterpoint to ask those questions on the stage with the experts. I think there's a lot of people who would love to do that. I volunteer.

unknown: 38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:55

Volunteer is tribute.

SPEAKER_03: 38:56

Take me. It's a great suggestion because one of the things we certainly wanted is to have more operators here. And even not only on stage, but at the conference. And uh there was a bit of challenging uh uh there was a few complexities this year with timing for a lot of the larger operators. Yeah, but going forward, they'll have a lot more time to plan ahead and knowing how meaningful or beneficial it's gonna be. Yeah. Um so yes, I that's and but one of the things you just mentioned there, Lauren, that we definitely have to do is to make sure that we have uh some newbies on the stage, yeah. Not just like the large operators, because you can only learn so much from them given their scale.

SPEAKER_01: 39:31

Yeah. Um or experience. Like you had some smaller operators, which was great. I really was excited to connect. Big shout out to El Camino. She's doing amazing stuff. Um, but I think that she also has a lot of experience, right? So it's always hard to remember what it was like when you started. Yeah, Catalina. Yeah, it's uh it's always hard to remember when you didn't know what you didn't know when you started, right? So I think, yeah, somebody knew to be even like the QA part would be great.

SPEAKER_03: 39:58

Yeah, that's fantastic. Now, people are obviously gonna look up Erigato Travel. I want to make sure people know how to find out more about Erigato Travel, which of course is Japanese for thank you. I think most people should know that. And also connect with you too, Lauren. So, what would be the best ways to do that? And also tell us about some of your plans for 2026.

SPEAKER_01: 40:18

Great. So you can find us at audigato travel.com. Uh they'll you'll see two tracks on the site. The left hand side of the menu bar is all about our food tour business, which is still very thriving. And then the right hand side is if you want tailored travel and multi-day. Uh, we also do some destination consulting and things like that in Japan. Um, I'm personally on all the socials, so is Audi Gato Travel. We're easy to find. Um, and then for 2026, what are we doing? So we're gonna be setting up some of these scheduled um uh group tours with various companies, hopefully also El Camino, but I'm working with Leatherback Travel and a few other people. Um, we're moving very deep into working with lots of fora advisors. Shout out to Fora, they're doing some great things, disrupting sort of the setup and agency market. Um, but also I'm super excited to try to launch a few of our own thematic, um, specific time, date, destinations uh for travel next year for some join on groups. So we're gonna see. I'm gonna try to do something in the summer and something in the fall. Um, it's still early days, but we've got some great ideas, and I'm just excited to see where we go in this space and what comes next. I'm gonna be going to Valencia. I'm bringing four people from my team there. So I'll be at arrival there, and we're definitely already pretty sure we're coming to Spokane. So hopefully I'll see you a bunch of times too. And I'm looking forward to the new season. I know it just started, I haven't been able to listen to September yet, but uh I'm excited. You guys have always have great guests, and I learned so much.

SPEAKER_03: 41:44

That means a lot, Lauren. And actually, when you mentioned for Jake Peters, the CTO, was on Travel Trends, one of my favorite episodes ever. And then whenever I see Jake, he keeps telling me the number of people that come up to him and say, I heard your episode. And this is to your point about um, you know, amazing people in our industry, giving them a voice. And so I'm so pleased that we've had a chance to meet now and get to know each other. And of course, yes, I will see you in Valencia.

SPEAKER_01: 42:06

Uh, hopefully I'll see you in Japan. Come have some sake.

SPEAKER_03: 42:08

Oh my god, yes. My wife and I really want to come back to Japan. We took the kids several years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 42:13

Come back just you two, leave them home. Come have no, bring everybody. We do family.

SPEAKER_04: 42:17

We're in university now, so we'll be like uh we're empty nesters. It's time for us to start taking those trips and do a cycling trip, is what we want to do.

SPEAKER_01: 42:24

Oh, that's fantastic. I work with a bunch of great cycling people, and uh, we'd love to have you. So definitely check us out.

SPEAKER_04: 42:30

Thank you, Lawrence. So great to meet you.

SPEAKER_03: 42:31

Thanks for joining us for this special spotlight episode.

SPEAKER_01: 42:33

Yay, thank you, Dan.

SPEAKER_03: 42:35

Hello, everyone. I now have the privilege to sit down and speak with the incredible keynote speaker from earlier today at the Arrival Conference 360. He was a special guest that was brought in, and he was a very special guest for us. As many of our listeners know in season five of our podcast, he is the author of the Experience Economy, Joe Pine, and very soon to be the author of the Transformation Economy. So welcome, Joe. Welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_17: 42:58

Hey, thanks, Dan. I didn't think I'd be back here so quickly, but this is a great opportune moment.

SPEAKER_03: 43:02

Absolutely. It's great to meet in person finally. And obviously, that was a massive highlight for us and our listeners to bring you onto the podcast. I know we've kept in touch since, and you're going to be a part of our season ending for season six, which actually will time out perfectly with the new book coming out, um, which is gonna be officially in February. We finished the season at uh six at the end of January for all of our listeners. Um, but we're here together at Arrival in Washington or National Harbor more specifically.

SPEAKER_17: 43:27

Um, it's actually Maryland here. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 43:29

It's Maryland. Uh you this is your first arrival, is that right? Correct. Correct. Perfect. And I was thrilled that Bruce and Douglas and the team brought you in for this event. Tell everyone why you came to Arrival this year, and then I want to get into the presentation you gave earlier.

SPEAKER_17: 43:42

Well, I came to arrival because they paid me.

SPEAKER_05: 43:47

Very important.

SPEAKER_17: 43:48

That's right. Very important. So, yes. Uh no, arrival is like down the plate of what I'm talking about in the new book, The Transformation Economy. The the shift towards um uh transformation is um is as big in the travel industry as in any other. I use it, I I use it here this morning at the presentation, but I use it in other place, the the fact that like when I talk about the experience economy, I usually use coffee. Because everybody gets, you know, we got a bean, right? Coffee bean commodity, and then you you turn it into package goods in the grocery store and you make coffee from there, and then you've got the service of brewing the coffee, and then you got Starbucks experience, right? And but travel perfectly exemplifies that all the way up to transformations, right? The core commodity is the land, it's the places that you go.

SPEAKER_06: 44:31

Right.

SPEAKER_17: 44:32

Uh, and then you've got all this gear, right? Backpack, suitcases, and and uh hats and all those things that you bring along with you as the physical goods, uh, and then you've got the services that you have to partake in, whether it's food services and uh hotel services and so forth. And then you've got the reason why people come, which or go, actually, I should say, uh, is the experiences that they undergo. Uh and then and then that fifth and final step is what's known as transformational travel. And I advise, as you know, the the TTC, the transformational travel council. Uh Jake Halbert and I were on earlier. We look forward to being on again at the end of your uh season six. Um and uh and it's really is an organization that really helps companies in the travel industry embrace this idea. And on both sides, not both ends, not just consumers, but on uh DMOs and and others, the destinations, um, to say, let's help trans, let's let's get you to get your uh guests to transform the destination and be a positive effect on it rather than an extractive effect. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03: 45:33

And what's really special about having Joe here at this event is that so many people have been inspired by his earlier work, The Experience Economy. And I definitely encourage everyone to go listen to that episode because there's so much I could revisit in our discussion now, but I'm not gonna do that to Joe because he did such a great job of giving his background and the story, because I had said to him in that recording that you know everyone knows the experience economy is like, but they didn't then, and you're absolutely right, because this is something you're working on in like the early mid-90s, published in 99, and here we are in 2025. But what I want to jump forward with is that one of the chapters in the book, you were already ahead of the curve then with identifying the transformation economy as sort of the next major wave, and that's not only what you're focused on now, but for me and many of our listeners in the travel space know that that is one of the most magical parts of the travel experience. So you've ex you've inspired a lot of people, myself included, to be in the travel industry and to better understand what it is that we offer. That's not a good or a service, it's an experience, and that's very different. So let's talk about your presentation today because I thought it was such an engaging. I have not seen you present live before, and it was fantastic to be sitting there in the front row because you could just the energy in the room and it was standing room only. And you started off with the gumball. Tell everyone, uh, because again, we can't people are listening to this, they can't see us, but tell us the the story of the gumball and how that connects to experience over the value of the goods.

SPEAKER_17: 46:53

I did that because I originally didn't have it in the presentation. Yeah. And uh and and Bruce said he just loved the gumball and said, okay, I'll put the gumball in Bruce. So I because generally I I use it when I talk about experiences often as a great little opener and gets people laughing and find interesting. Um, you know, where I introduced it by saying, you know, at this conference already, we've been talking a lot about AI, about digital platforms, uh, and about the singularity. So let me show you a different kind of technology that in fact is very telling for what's going on. And then they click on the gumble machine and people titter and laugh. You know, that this is what this is the height, uh the height of technology that I'm talking about. And um and the basic idea is that you know a kid goes up to a gumball machine and then this and and puts his quarter in the slot and turns the crank, but then he doesn't get a gumball. Now, the old machines, that's what you did crank, gumball, crank, gumball, right? No, now it gets to us all this other stuff. It goes spiraling down, clickety-clack as it goes. I see some that are kinetic sculptures and the gumball goes this way and that way, and the other thing. And and I point out that that how much more kids enjoy this than the regular gumball machine, and how much more value it has than the regular gumball machine when the manufactured goods is exactly the same, right? When the service is actually worse. Why? Right. It takes longer to get the gumball that you requested, and yet it has more value because of that uh experience. So it's just a great way of being able to see in one little device the shift from uh you know the industrial economy based off goods to the service economy into today's experience economy.

SPEAKER_03: 48:25

Yeah, no, I love that analogy, and it does it serves it so well because as you highlighted, it's not about the good. The kid may not even eat the gum, runs back to his parents, asking another quarter. Yeah, and it's the service is slower, so it's not about the goods or the service, it's about the experience, and that's what they're getting out of putting their quarter in. So connect the dots for us between experiences and transformation. And again, I know we went into a lot of detail on that, but but the reason I want to do that is I want to get into some of the some of the real highlights from your presentation today and where you're headed with the book. So um tell everyone about making that transition between the experience economy to the transformation economy that we're clearly now in.

SPEAKER_17: 49:01

Right. So so transformations are the fifth and final economic offering in this progression. And it's where user experiences is the raw material to guide people to change, to help them achieve their aspirations. And and the thing there stands is we only ever change through the experiences we have. You know, as the old saying goes, we're all the product of our experiences. And so that's uh there's a very natural intertwining, sort of like commodities and goods are very close together, right? Being both physical, tangible, that these are very close together, very intertwined, because any experience is potentially transformative, right? And you don't know what we all have those out-of-the-blue life-changing experiences that happen every once in a while. Uh, and and what transformations says is, well, like what if we had those more often? What if we engineered them? What if we designed them? What if we we created it as a specific offering where we where we designed generally not one life transforming experience, but generally a set of them to take us up and and onward to to who we want to become. That's what a transformation is.

SPEAKER_03: 50:01

It's interesting. I mean, actually, um uh there's the uh trust me on the sunscreen poem that talks about the fact that you know when um you know an idle uh any idle Tuesday, some tragedy can happen. And this is where, to your point about your life being transformed by external events, and this is the thing I love about um your philosophy, your approach with the idea of transformation is actually as opposed to being a product of your experiences and what happens to you, because there's that phrase, of course, that um it's not what happens to you, it's how you respond to it. But this is actually more empowering and proactive to look at how you can transform your life. I think people can do that certainly with diet and exercise and certain things. But when we think about travel and the the state that we live in today, and and not to get too theoretical on this, but obviously Maslow's hierarchy of needs and self-actualization being at the top of that pyramid. And a lot of people in travel, you know, they've got their shelter, they've got their, you know, they've got the basic economics of their life, but what they're really looking for at the apex is that experience they can go and have and come back feeling different. So transformation in travel, hence obviously the travel tourism uh council and what you're involved in. I see travel and I've experienced it myself, and I've encouraged other people. People heal through travel, um, they get distance and they get perspective, they see other people live. So there's so much transformative uh opportunities within travel. So tell us, because for you, the transformation economy is not just travel. If you're your transformation economy, you you speak at many different conferences. You know, travel is one of the, I would say for me, that's one of the big reasons I love this industry so much. But tell us more broadly, I guess, and then we'll come back to travel, how you see the transformation economy just applying to everyday society.

SPEAKER_17: 51:32

Yeah, well, the the way to think about it is uh is with the old uh you know, Ben Franklin phrase, you know, uh uh being healthy, wealthy, and wise. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Healthy, wealthy, and wise are down the plate. These are transformation industries. And what I've done is I've brought, and this is right in chapter two of the book, I've broadened that um to think about it's not just about uh being healthy, it's about having health and well-being. And health is generally, when you talk about health care in particular, it's taking something bad that happens, some of the trauma that you mentioned. And it is true that a lot of transformation comes out of trauma. Right. Uh and uh and and and tweing it in back to whole, so to speak. So from sick to well, from injured to healed, that sort of thing. Well-being is all the other things that that enhance our lives, that help us uh help us flourish in life. And and generally uh it's health care if the government or third-party insurance company is paying for it, and it's well-being if you are paying for it yourself. And that's what a lot of travel is, is that wellness you know, sort of aspect uh uh of it. And then it's not just about uh being wealthy, it's about have uh it's having wealth and prosperity, right? And prosperity is the key. Like uh like well-being is the is the end to which health is the means and prosperity is the end to which uh uh wealth is the means. And uh and prosperity is basically having a nice life. Right? How can you have a nice life and have it more abundantly? It's uh again, it's the it's the end to which you use your money. Uh and then uh wise is about really knowledge and wisdom. It's about uh learning things that from experience and applying them to experience is basically the definition of of knowledge. Uh and then uh and wisdom is about the outcomes from that knowledge and and and when you know what to apply, uh which part. Uh and it doesn't have to be you know the province of just the learned with PhDs and that sort of thing. And we have the phrase everyday wisdom, and and anybody can gain wisdom in what they're doing. And then there's one thing that Ben Franklin didn't think about, it's actually the proverb is actually older than he is, but there's one thing he didn't think about, uh, and that is purpose and meaning. So purpose and meaning is the fourth, I call these spheres of transformation. I didn't want an industrial word like industry, I wanted a very amorphous term because they all overlap and that sort of thing. But purpose and meaning. And purpose and mean is the is perhaps the most it is the most important one. I don't want to say perhaps. It is the most important one. It's at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, not at the top, as Victor Frankel uh taught us in Man's Search for Meaning, that that even in the Holocaust, people that had zero prosperity and almost no health and and weren't learning anything um could have if they had meaning in their lives, they could survive and and and get through that. And if you lost meaning in your life, you're you're basically you're gonna be dead in a week, is what he found out. And um and so we need that meaning in our lives. And uh and so so those are the four spheres of transformation. And you can think about your own business and you think about in travel. Uh yes, there's a well-being aspect to it. Um, there's also a prosperity aspect of where I can go and what I can do. Um, the knowledge and wisdom aspect of what you learn when you travel and how you then can apply that back in your life, and then as well as fulfilling your purpose of why you are a human being, you know, you specifically, uh, and gaining meaning from travel, all of that is wrapped up in there.

SPEAKER_03: 54:58

Yeah, no, this is so fascinating because as a marketer in travel and you're trying to understand the personas and the people that you're speaking to, and you look at multi-day chore travel, which is my background, you look at the types of people that take those trips, they're often uh nurses, they're teachers, they're typically people that have a post-secondary education, they have the means to be able to travel financially, and also have the time off. So you're and but when you actually start to pair it back, you realize that what people are seeking, they're seeking meaning. Um, that's a big driver. And so you can start to market towards that. And obviously, this is the commercial, I guess, application of trying to market to people in society that have a certain desire. But this is where I wanted to unpack it because you your um your theory and approach on this is so much more profound than just the travel industry. And I I'll I'll I'll want to bring it back to us because that's who our listeners are. Um but I think when you look at um evolutionary biology and the fact that people are social creatures and they desire connectivity and exactly what you said, uh meaning, um, is that they tend to then um seek out those types of opportunities that will give them uh uh ultimately well-being. Like so, like the exactly your point that it's actually they're they're better off, they'll live longer, they'll live healthier lives if they're better connected to other people. And so sorry, come please.

SPEAKER_17: 56:15

I'll give you instead of well-being, right? I'll give you here's the word. I used it briefly. Here's the word. What all four of the spheres do is that they and and what companies in the transformation actually actually all companies do this is foster human flourishing. Right. So flourishing is the is the topmost word. It's all about how do we live lives and live it more done, how do we flourish uh and become who we're meant to be.

SPEAKER_03: 56:36

Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. No, I I love that because it's that you know, pleasure and pain. We know we we seek out things that we um that will give us pleasure, but we obviously need to be careful of things we seek out that give us pleasure that could also cause us more permanent pain. So um, but yeah, so in terms of the travel industry and what you spoke about earlier today, I want to draw out some of the the highlights um because there were many. So obviously we started with the gumball analogy, but tell everyone uh what were kind of the big themes you wanted to get across today to the audience because uh you know you covered a lot, and um, but I want yeah, let's let's talk about the the biggest highlights and takeaways.

SPEAKER_17: 57:11

So so uh your biggest theme is to recognize the possibility of being in the transformation business. I guess I guess before that even was recognized people are being transformed in your experiences, whether you design it or not, whether it whether you ever it happened, whether you where you thought it ever thought it would happen.

SPEAKER_06: 57:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17: 57:26

You know, I used the example of speaking to the um uh American Alliance of Museums, you know, hundreds of people in the audience, and I asked them for a show of hands of all these curators and general managers of who is in the museum business today because of some experience you had as a kid, and 40% of the hands went up. Well, that's happen that's happening in every experience that you're staging, and tour guides and and attractions and everything that that it that it it will transform people and pretty much every day if you got any size at all. So so lean into it and recognize you can be in the transformation business. One of the things I love, I actually came up with this last night. I was very proud of this. I was trying to come up with something new for every presentation, right? When I showed that that progression of economic value for the transformation industry, and I got up that transformation at the top, I showed as a as a as an illustration of it. My my uh friend Kevin Delley does all these illustrations for me, they work out beautifully. This one he did beautifully because the person is standing on a rock, it's representing transformations, and he has a hat, he has a backpack, he has a staff, right? He's he's in your business, he's traveling, right? And and he's faced away, which I love, right? He's not faced at, you know, he's like he's looking at you know the future and what he can become. Um and and and the point I made that I came up with last night was that is recognize that you're not in the tour guide business. You're not guides of tours, you're guides of people. Right? That because guide is the economic function, it's right on the chart, right? You extract commodities, you make goods, you deliver services, you stage experiences, you guide transformations. Right, you can't do it for them. They're transforming themselves, you're guiding them through that. So just that little switch to recognize I'm not guiding a you know, a tour, I'm not here for the place. The place is the context in which people may transform and you guide them.

SPEAKER_03: 59:10

So that was the biggest highlight and for me of your presentation. Oh, and it was the aha moment in the room when I was sitting in the front row. And when you said that, I could also it registered with me instantly, and I could see that people were nodding their heads and acknowledging what you just said because, and this is where you know, I'm I love having these conversations with you because you're like one of those uh, you know, my favorite university professors that you'd like to be excited to watch their class, you know, to be in their classroom and then to apply things. And I'll I'll just use an example of, and this is where when I, you know, I read your book when I was graduating university, and this is one of those books that was you know a seminal in my life and I know for many others, and that's why it's so meaningful to have this conference meaning truly meaningful. It's increasing my wealth, having this conversation with you because when you think about things like Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism and this idea like the maximum good for the most amount of people, that's what I think about when I was like trying to organize a guided tour because you can't personally Personalize it for everybody, but you're trying to by and large make what's best for the group experience. And so when you think about uh philosophy, psychology, and the human experience, and that's what I thought you did so well in that moment. And the only other person I can think of that I um uh have similar affinity for, you've all know a Harari, who wrote Sapiens and he was a historian, he talks about the future, and he always asked about why he talks about the future when he's a historian. He's like, but it's the study of change over time, right? And that's what he's done looking back and why can't you project forward? And so having you of someone that has um this uh the scope and the understanding to then actually help us understand why we exist in this travel industry, not to be focused on our roles, you're a tour guide. No, your your your role is to guide people, right? And that's a very different proposition than thinking about how you're gonna price and how you're gonna package and how you're gonna distribute. And we get lost in that at a conference like this because the reality is it's all about the people and the experience they offer. Um so yeah, let's let's keep going on this.

SPEAKER_17: 1:00:57

So right, so so in terms of guiding people, and and like you said, you've got a group of people and you can't you can't customize it for all of them there. But what you can do is for every one of those is you can do things before and after that enhance the chances of transformation. And that's what I talked about. I call this encapsulation. So encapsulation is the way to turn any experience into at least a potentially transformative one. You're not guaranteeing that anybody changes. So so encapsulation is putting the experience inside of these three other stages. So the first one is preparation, right? What do you do to prepare them for this journey? Get to think about what the possibilities might be uh coming up, to think about maybe things in their life that that are in disorientation, as one other speaker talked about. Um and and that can all be done before they ever they ever get to you. And then you have the experience, and then what you need to do ideally immediately, but at least in the in the day or two after, is uh reflection, is think about that experience. And like what were the highlights for you? Why were they highlights? Are they connecting to something in your life? Did you see some does it cause you to see something do differently? Does it cause you to feel differently? Cause you to want to do differently. Uh, and then and then as you contemplate on that, sort of make a commitment that, okay, this is the transformation that I had andor want to and continue and and have in in the future. And then finally, integration is is um um integrate that into your life, is making it actually happen so that that feeling that doesn't and and and transformation doesn't dissipate over time, but that you it's where you ensure the transformation takes hold. And so the the TTC, for example, the Transformational Travel Council has this uh transformational travel journey, and it does that, right? It's just it you anybody can pick up. You don't have to be in a g guided tour. You can buy this transformational journey, consumable book where you're writing in that prepares you ahead of time, gets you to describe your experiences and reflect on them afterward, and then helps you integrate them into your lives.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:51

Yeah, you're on your own hero journey as you go through that experience and you take control of it, you're conscientious, you're documenting it, writing it down, and aware of the process that's that's underway. And this is where, you know, um when you remind us of our humanity, and the fact is that you know we're tribal by nature, it's you know, it's and one of the things that we keep coming back to is you know, in uh our modern times of technology is that people are more disconnected than ever despite having access to technology. So it's one of those things that, of course, people are going to gravitate more to travel and multi-day type experience as an example because they want to gather with other people, and even being able to unpack the idea of you know, the size of a group and the dynamic of the group and the guide and the whole relationship and what makes that so special, it is very much like organizing a group of people, a tribe. And and I think there was a book called Tribal Leadership, which was also I thoroughly enjoyed. Yes, that I took a lot of inspiration from in business into structuring companies and organizations and what people buy into as far as what the core values are. I think a lot of people in the last 10 or 15 years have been on this journey of defining their core values for a company, but ultimately it's how you connect people together that um that will share a similar faith or that will have value things similarly, and therefore you know there's a harmony in the group because they have shared common values. Or and so this is one of the things that I I find that uh when marketers or travel companies are feel feel like they're discovering something new, this is not new. This is this is this is this is our species, this is how we've adapted, this is like you're just now connecting with something that's much more profound than that.

SPEAKER_17: 1:04:29

Everything I've been saying is going on since you know time immemorial.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:33

So it's well tell tell us, Joe, I I'm um beyond travel for a moment. I'd love to hear your view on the big industries that are being impacted by transformation. And the reason I want to ask you this is because Michael Zeisner is going to be on this episode as well, and he's a big time investor in the He's the Warren Buffett of the Experience Academy. He is indeed. He's invested in fever and get your guide. Um but one of the things I was speaking to him about, and people will be a listen to is that he's very focused on the experiment experiential, um, whether it's psychedelics or even religion. And so it applies in many different areas of life. So, what I wanted to ask you with your new book coming out, what are the areas beyond travel that you think can get the most from reading about the transformation economy, understanding it, and being able to apply it?

SPEAKER_17: 1:05:17

Well, you know, I've uh um I'll start with I'll start with health care as a specifically uh as opposed to well-being, because well-being sort of like get it already. Uh and after the experience economy came out, I probably worked more with hospitals in particular than any other uh industry because research shows that the better the experience, the better the patient outcomes. And outcome is the transformation word, right? It's outcomes is what it's all about. It's it's helping them achieve their aspirations. Uh and and there's tremendous progress, but like ever since COVID, it's like fallen down again. I got talked to people in the industry and they complain about how they uh you know they don't have the budget for the experience and all these things. And and so I think that hopefully this like gives them the impetus again to recognize, you know, we're in the transformation industry and uh we need to act accordingly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:05

And the reason I wanted to ask you that specifically too, Joe, is because I often look for inspiration outside of the travel industry as a marketer or uh leader in this space or when uh investing to figure out what's going to impact travel next. And so let's bring it back to travel. One of the things we did talk about on our podcast together was Airbnb experiences. They're not here at arrival. I know they may be here in future.

SPEAKER_17: 1:06:27

Everyone here though may be here and you don't know it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:29

Oh, that's true. Actually, there are very good point. There's a couple people I know that are floating around from Airbnb, but they're not on the stage, they're not otherwise represented. But they're now getting back into this space, as you know, and there's so many other providers of experiences. And so I want to get your take on when you think when we move from the experience economy to the transformation economy and being involved with companies, organizations like TTC, who do you think's getting it right? And again, I use a small example with some of the multi-day tour operators only because it's part of my background and where I've seen it applied successfully, how to message along those lines, market, and then ensure that you deliver against that experience, then people tell other people and they keep coming back. Who do you see in the travel industry that is really ready for the transformation economy?

SPEAKER_17: 1:07:17

Yeah, I think um I think it's those that are are coming out of the wellness angle of it. You know, the wellness retreats and uh anything with the word retreat in it uh is is a good bet. Uh and then and then also the the multi-day, not in a city, you know, countryside, wilderness um um sort of places. Those are the those are the two areas that come immediately to mind um that are best amenable to do this, and probably they they may not articulate it in the same way, but they probably know that that what they're about is is some sort of outcome for the people that's under their charge for the for the time that they're there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:56

Yeah. No, those are two terrific examples, like retreats and getting outdoors. Um, and the benefit of even a term that's come up again is wild swimming.

SPEAKER_17: 1:08:07

Oh, yeah, I heard that one.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:09

Wild swimming, which is uh just get away from the pool and the spa. And all of these spas are now giving you access to the creek nearby or the the lake or the river. And so it's like just go outdoors and swim, is wild swimming. It's not even as exciting as being naked. It's just wild.

SPEAKER_17: 1:08:22

I assumed naked was gonna be part of it, but no, it's just I'll tell you, not in a pool is what it is.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:27

And who introduced us to this? The Japanese. It was one of the things that they've highlighted that like for overall health and well-being, that to get outdoors in nature, uh amongst in a forest, but then also go swimming, and it's just stimulating your your body and being in that environment is a transformational type experience. So this is where I think it's so early in 2025 and great timing for your book coming out in 2026 because we've got another 25 years with that book coming out of like there'll be people in 2050 that'll be like, Joe Pine, is that the transformation economy?

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:55

Exactly. There'll be a guy like me speaking to you in 25 years, it'll be like, and you're like people didn't know what it was at the time, just like you said to me. That's right.

SPEAKER_17: 1:09:04

People thought we were so ahead of the game with the experience economy in 99. Why we've come out with two editions since then. Yeah. Um, but it's like whenever you are, uh once you see it, you can't unsee it. And you recognize it, right? You know, I used to have to argue with people that the experience economy was happy. I mean, seriously, like make arguments, show data. That's now I just say it and everybody gets it. Right? Transformation economy is sort of like at that point, and then I'm hoping, like you said, in 25 years, everybody will get it. They understand, and you can see it more and more than it was. I people asked me, happen to ask me for 25 years. Well, when are you gonna write a full book on transformations? And I said, Well, one, the world's not ready for it, and two, I don't know enough about it. Yeah, and that today, the world is ready for it, and I know enough about it, and that's why I wrote the book.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:44

Well, and it's right on time with this next technological revolution with AI, and I'm not gonna talk about AI when I say this. I'm just gonna highlight the fact that when you have a massive disruption and people are displaced and their roles are being reviewed and questioned, all of a sudden the work they were trained for. So this is the impact that's now being thrust upon so many people and will continue for the next five to ten years, then you start to reevaluate your purpose, your meaning, um, and what you know how you're gonna provide for your family.

SPEAKER_17: 1:10:11

And uh and so one of one of the speakers, one of the speakers mentioned and talking about AI and all that displacement, and he said, and and I'm currently paying for my for my child to to get a computer science degree. Exactly. And you can just feel it in his voice, like he really doesn't know if this is gonna work out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:28

Yeah, Douglas Quimby shared I wasn't gonna say No, no, I've no, I think it's important because Douglas is um uh good friend and family man, and he's got his son in computer science, and he shared the Eric Schmidt, uh who obviously former CEO of Google, and um that uh in the next year all the programs are gonna be obsolete, and that could even happen faster. And so he's wrong, by the way. But yeah, sorry. Eric's Eric Schmidt is wrong. Eric Schmidt.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:51

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:52

Um but Douglas is is is wise to be concerned, at least about his son's choice. Yes. So yeah, so that's why I think it arrives right on time for what we're all gonna be experiencing, and there'll be many more examples of this to be able to share. But just a couple last things for you, Joe, while we're here together. Um, the arrival conference itself, being that it's your first time, I know you've you know you've spent a bit of time, everyone's come up to you after your session. Um, is there anything you you you've seen that's unique or standout about this conference and either preparing or the uh the reaction from the crowd or afterwards that is different than other conferences or other travel industry conferences?

SPEAKER_17: 1:11:26

Well, I I I'd say one is having uh having the pre-sessions, right? That that won the executive summit that I participated in on Monday, uh, which I understand that's the first time you've done that, but the response was overwhelming in terms of how many people were there, paying extra money, some people not even coming to the regular conference, just going to that one. Uh and the level of discussion, it was is very much very good that it was discussion-based. There was there were some uh panels, I was on a panel, uh, and others, but it was facilitated discussion to get them to understand the the possibilities and understand what's going on in the world, not just around transformation, around AI and and other things. So I thought that was very good. And then because of the the uh um rise of AI in the last few years, having an entire day on it yesterday uh was was very good. So recognizing I I think having a pulse on the industry, yeah, would be a way of summarizing that, right? Is that that arrival has a pulse on the industry uh and uh and addresses what they actually need, right? They listen. It's not just a matter of we're gonna do what we want to do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:31

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a really good way to put it, actually. And I it's uh certainly worth mentioning that executive day that you were a key part of, and Eric Blackford. And um, there was a small group of people that came together to facilitate that session, and as you said, it was oversubscribed. And I arrived on the day that people were coming out of the sessions buzzing about it, and uh obviously I'm sure they're gonna replicate this concept, and that is you know, obviously connected to the theory in your book and putting it into practice is that senior executives are looking to learn from others and to kind of transform their roles, their companies, by virtue of getting a better understanding of how the other organizations and thought leaders like yourself would help them approach and solve problems. They're not being presented to, they're actually having a conversation.

SPEAKER_17: 1:13:16

Right. Exactly, and that's key. And and and that I mean uh in almost any conference, the best part is the conversations. Yeah. Right. And the and the the the uh presentations are the meat for that conversation. And I love, for example, that lunch is an hour and a half, right? It's not like 45 minutes and back to it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:13:34

Right.

SPEAKER_17: 1:13:34

And and people are smart enough to know I'll also went, I'm not gonna get as much value from that presentation as I will talking to people outside the hall.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:40

Absolutely. Well, that is so well said because this is uh this conversation is the big highlight for me from this conference. I'm so glad that we got a chance to finally meet in person, Joe. Uh, I have the greatest respect for you. I want to make sure everyone can find out more information, including your Substack that I mentioned when you were publishing your book, you were releasing the chapters, and I found that so fascinating to follow your journey, and I can't wait to read uh the book itself. But tell everyone how they can find out more information about you and also uh some more details on when the book is coming out.

SPEAKER_17: 1:14:08

Sure, sure. Well, you can link in with me, Joe Pine, very easy to find. Um, we have our own website, strategichorizons.com, and there's a place you can that you can put in your name. We send out a monthly newsletter, uh excuse me, quarterly newsletter called Field Notes, as well as announcements about our books and events. You know, we have experience economy expert certification. We're going to have transformation economy expert certification and so forth. As you mentioned, I wrote the book on Substack. It's transformationsbook.substack.com, transformations with an S, uh, and got tremendous feedback from the people that subscribed, and the book is better because I did it that way, as well as it forced me to write it, you know, because people were subscribing to it. It's like over 1800 subscribers now. Um the book itself, I'm basically done with it. Actually, I actually uh finished the index on my flight here uh to DC from Manila, Philippines, and I finished uh the index uh and uh and answered a few questions last night on the uh that they had on the on the copy edit. So so why it takes this much time is beyond me at from Harvard Business Review Press, if you're listening, right? Read the books you publish and cut down your cycle times. But anyway, February 3rd is when the book is available. You can pre-order it on Amazon and anywhere else that you can you can do online uh right now. Uh and uh uh and I'm you know just now I'm just anticipating that day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:29

Yeah. Well, I was showing Joe as we were sitting down because I've got a number of friends and colleagues that can't wait to read it. And I showed him someone who sent me a message this morning saying I still can't, I can only pre-order, I can't get it until February. And so that's the way it is. Yeah, it's the way it is, but it's coming. That's that you know what he can do.

SPEAKER_17: 1:15:42

But you you can get almost everything on Substack, right? I mean there's a paid level and a and a and an unpaid level, but you can pay 20 bucks for a month and then read everything that I posted on it and get the entire book. You can learn about encapsulation, you can learn about flourishing, you can learn about the spheres of transformation, learn about the levels of experience we didn't talk about, but I mentioned in there and so forth, of which transformative is the higher, uh, and get all that value and suck it out if you want in one month and then cancel. I'm just I mean that's fine with me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:09

Well, no, I uh I'm just gonna add one thing to that, which is that I think one of the benefits of having followed your journey is that actually it gave me a chance to think through each of the chapters on their own. Sometimes you get a book, you thro go through it on a weekend, and then you need to reread it. And when I read books, especially something as profound as as yours, you know, I'm making highlights, I'm thinking about so actually I I appreciated going on the journey with you as a reader. And so, because I've already already been able to think through some of those things and then how they can apply. And I mentioned a couple of them in our in our other recording. So um, Joe, I can't thank you enough for being a part of this podcast. Obviously, I'm thrilled that you're here at Arrival, uh, paid or not. I just glad that you're here and now part of this community. And I look forward to keeping in touch and and uh we'll we'll have you back later in the season.

SPEAKER_17: 1:16:53

All right, thanks, Dan. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:56

I now have the pleasure to speak to someone I greatly respect and admire and have a chance to chat with at the arrival conference before. His name is Michael Zeisner, and he is an investor in the travel industry. He's got a remarkable background that I definitely encourage all of our listeners to look much look him up on LinkedIn and FMZ Ventures. I say Zed, I know the Americans say Z. So that will get that's my tell it gives us away. Um Michael worked for Liberty Group with uh Expedia for a number of years, then Alibaba, and he went out on his own and has had one success after another with investing. I'm sure um there's been a few along the way that didn't hit, but he's he's he's made some remarkably smart strategic investments in companies like Fever and Get Your Guide. And he is one of the people that really gets the experience economy. And someone referred to him last night as the Warren Buffett of the uh experience economy and travel. So, Michael, it's a great pleasure to have you on the Travel Trends Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_15: 1:17:49

Thank you. Uh it's uh wonderful to be here. Yes, fantastic.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:53

And we will have Michael back for a standalone episode, but I really wanted to make sure we at least had this opportunity now at the arrival conference. He was part of the executive day. Um, but for those people who are not familiar with you, Michael, or you you know, you walk amongst us in the crowd, and um many people know who you are, what you've accomplished, and I know you're a very humble guy. Um, tell everyone a little bit about your background and FM's adventures and what you guys do.

SPEAKER_15: 1:18:16

Um as you can hear, uh, we I think we made a joke about this yesterday. I'm French originally, but I've spent uh over 25 years in the US now. And uh I uh was a partner at McKinsey in New York and uh did a lot of work with media and travel companies in New York, and then had uh the great luck of working for one of uh the moguls of the media industry, John Malone, who uh still runs the investment organization called Liberty Media, and now known for owning Formula One and being a large largest shareholder and uh live nation, uh ticket master, and of course, many other media companies. And then um worked for uh over five years for Jack Ma at Alibaba Group. I uh was responsible for the international investments of uh Alibaba Group and uh I became uh an investor, uh venture capital investor seven years ago when I created my firm. And I created the firm because it was obvious to me at the time that we were at a threshold moment in that uh we were witnessing and experiencing the emergence of a new economic sector, which uh I refer to as the experience economy. And it was very clear to me that there would be a number of Amazons of experiences that would be created and brand companies, um a Nike of experiences, a Warner Brother of experiences, and I thought that I would uh be able to help the founders who would want to create these companies with capital advice and uh and relationships.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:37

Well, let's talk about two of those because yeah, you're very much ahead of the curve. Most people have come to understand the experience economy. Joe Pine uh just recorded with us, is gonna be part of this uh special event spotlight episode as well. And I was very keen, as I mentioned to him, to have the conversation with both of you because you know, him from uh the academic perspective with his experience economy landmark book, of course, and then this whole transition into the transformation economy. And clearly, you know, you sit at the intersection of those things. And and also this whole idea of experiential travel that you're focused on. One of the things I found fascinating from our conversation the other night was that it's it it applies beyond travel into things like psychedelics and also even the return of young people to uh uh religion. And I just so this is where I I want to have a very profound conversation with Michael in our full episode, but I want to give everyone a few um, I guess, a little uh insights into how that conversation will go, but also um specifically as it relates to the experience economy and knowing that you stepped out seeing this was going to be a big opportunity. You know, when I spoke to uh Rod Cuthbert from Viator, one of the things he highlighted is that Wall Street, when he created that company, that it was there was very much a transition occurring between he who dies with the most toys wins and this idea of greed is good and the whole Wall Street mentality of the 80s and 90s, to this idea that there's more to life. And part of that is having amazing experiences while we're here and people now shifting their priorities away from buying that boat to doing that African safari. And so again, you were very ahead of the curve and started investing in these companies like Fever. That's an incredibly like prophetic investment as far as I'm concerned, given what happened during the pandemic and the types of experience they started creating. So, what my specific question for you, Michael, is how did you identify those opportunities with Fever and Get Your Guy? Tell us a little bit about how those came together, what your involvement is or was to uh uh to get behind those businesses that people have looked back, just like I mentioned to you that Chris Hemeter from Thayer said it was the get your guy was the one that got away, but not for you, because you saw that opportunity. So, yeah, tell us how you've approached this since you got on your own.

SPEAKER_15: 1:22:41

Yeah, I I don't want to be one of those investors who only talks about their successes. So uh I have made many, many mistakes, and it's inherent uh to uh what we do as particularly venture investors that will make a lot of mistakes. But uh you can try to do your best to uh find the highest quality people and the highest quality ideas, and certainly in the case of fever and get your guide. Uh I was lucky, uh basically. Luck has a lot to do with uh success in life. Um it was very clear to me coming from Alibaba, uh, which of course is the largest marketplace company in the East, uh, relative to Amazon, which is the largest marketplace company in the West, was very clear to me that the marketplace business model was the dominant distribution business model for things.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:52

Right.

SPEAKER_15: 1:23:52

And I thought it was kind of logical that it would also become the dominant business model for the distribution of experiences. So I was actually looking for marketplace businesses that were thinking of themselves very broadly in that were thinking of themselves as versions of Amazons of experiences. So that's how initially we got connected.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:23

And which came first, fever or get your guide? Fever. Fever, okay. So tell everyone a little bit about fever, because I think that that get your guide. I my my father-in-law did a trip to Japan recently and he had to book a sumo experience. And I was telling Tao Tao about this, the co-founder who's been on our podcast, that my father-in-law said, I've booked on this site, I'm not sure if it's legitimate, it's called Get Your Guide. And I just laughed. I was like, that's actually one of the best global OTAs. You're fine. If you booked with Get Your Guide, don't worry, the tour's gonna run, everything's gonna be fine. But it shows you even with a large brand like that, the one that's lesser known from a consumer point of view is fever. But tell us a little bit about that business and how early you got in and the timing of that, because that's obviously just an incredible success story as well.

SPEAKER_15: 1:25:02

Yeah, I got in quite early. Um fever is very similar to uh get your guides, uh, except it targets a different persona, really. The way I think about the industry and the way I think about the structure of the industry is it appears that the consumer has decided that she will go to one company, get your guides, when she is a traveler, when she is a tourist, when she goes somewhere that she doesn't know and she wants to buy an experience, she's gonna go to that store that specializes in giving her experiences as a tourist, as a traveler. That's get your guide. Right. But that same person, she might live in Washington DC, uh, where we are now, or she might live in Paris or in London. When she is looking for something to do in her city, she's not going to get your guides. And she is going to fever. So fever is a marketplace of experiences. They tend to be different experiences, and they are the experiences that locals want to do in their city, basically.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:37

Well, my first experience with fever was living in Los Angeles and uh Stranger Things, which was a big breakout success for them at the time. And this is just coming towards the end of COVID, but we were still masked, we were still distancing, we could only it was a drive-in only.

SPEAKER_15: 1:26:51

In the parking garage. In the parking garage, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:53

Yeah. And it was a spectacular experience. We actually did it on my birthday because the kids were keen to do it. And uh, we had the most fantastic time. We were clearly big big fans of the show as well. And it was truly one of those experiential, transformative, immersive, all of those words wrapped into one experience. And fever was behind this. I didn't even know anything about fever at the time. But to highlight your point about in your own backyard, and that's certainly like these candlelight concerts that they do, and some of the experiences they create, and I say that word very intentionally, it's they create experiences that they then sell to people who live in a community. And it's that's you know, I know get your guide has their originals, and they've you know they've experimented with having their own branded uh day tours and that type of thing. But what fever brought to the market was so unique and so I would say you know, revolutionary is a big breakthrough. You know, I think a few companies like Meowwolf um is an example of that as well. And I don't think there's anything else that compares to a fever today in the in the marketplace, in terms of um how novel these creations are, and then the way they've been able to market that, because they are also very aggressive marketers. They spend a lot of money on marketing, but they do it um profitably, which is something that a lot of travel companies struggle with as well. So uh tell us a little bit more where fever's gotten to today, because I know they've had multiple rounds of investment. Conviviality ventures, I know uh was a fund that invested in fever. I had privilege to meet the founders um when I was in Paris uh a couple of years ago, and have uh have kept in touch.

SPEAKER_15: 1:28:22

Nacho Ignacio, one of the uh founders Nacho and Alex, yes, and uh Francisco, yeah, three founders, and uh the company continues to enjoy uh a lot of growth, uh a lot of success, and it's really a global company now present in uh hundreds of cities and uh leveraging its uniqueness. So it in that industry, as you say, it is really by far the uh only scaled player, and it has a scale advantage and an information advantage that uh I think uh puts it in a very good position with uh I hope a lot of headroom.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:13

For sure. Very repeatable business model in different markets and creating these new experiences. There just seems to be no shortage of growth opportunities for an organization like Fever. And um and get your guide. Obviously, they've gone from strength to strength as well. And that was one of the ones that you know, when you looked at Viator and Kluke and even Veltra in Japan, you know, them coming out of Berlin and Chao Tao obviously was here, he was on stage earlier. That was one that you got in fairly early on as well, right?

SPEAKER_06: 1:29:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:39

Uh tell us about what appealed to you about Get Your Guide and where that business uh has gotten to and stands today.

SPEAKER_15: 1:29:45

It's it's always the same, then uh it uh is kind of uh combination of the founders and their uh traits, uh their Ambitions and the elegance of the business model. And I know this sounds probably very trite, but I very much look for quality. That is the most important thing that I look for. Quality people, quality ideas, quality execution, and obviously I'd be a fool if I compared myself to Warren Buffett, but certainly that's something I learned actually from Warren Buffett. And I think it's probably the best predictor of long-term success.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:46

Well, and clearly you're always on the lookout, you're attending conferences, and so you are surveying the industry and looking at other parallels to try to figure out where to invest. And I think that clearly there's those VCs that say, you know, um you don't need to find us, we'll find you. Um but clearly lots of startups want to reach out to uh people like yourself or VCs that you operate. When it comes to people actually reaching out to you, I'd just love to cover that because I want to make sure that uh anyone listening to this either does so in the right way or that understands kind of the right process. So if someone was keen to connect with you or your team, tell us a little bit more about FM's Adventures, the team that you have, because I know you have a few other colleagues there that I've had a chance to meet, and um, and what your I guess approach is to investing. And if if people do reach out to you, what's the right way to do that?

SPEAKER_15: 1:31:35

Whichever way is comfortable. We're very specialized. We do experiences. Uh, as you said earlier, we think about experiences much more broadly than the conventional definition. So for sure, it includes what we're doing here in travel, which uh I call kinetic uh real-world, atomic world experiences, but we also spend a lot of time in uh psychotherapeutic experiences, uh, hence the interest uh that we've developed more recently, I would say, in uh experiential medicine. That's actually what the profession calls psychedelics is experiential medicine. And uh it's fascinating to see the renewal in psychedelics that uh we are witnessing. And then another category is learning uh in skill building, those are all experiences, uh virtual experiences and augmented reality experiences are very interesting to me. And particularly now that we're in a VR AR winter, I think that's the best time to invest. Uh it's a good way to put it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:01

It is definitely a winter.

SPEAKER_15: 1:33:02

Yeah, I like to invest in the winter. Um, but uh anyone who is building a company in that, or I should say scaling up, we're not early stage investors. And uh I don't feel we have the experience uh that to uh help early stage founders. There are many, many investors who specialize in investing in uh seed stage or early stage companies and have skills that we do not have to help those founders at that stage. Because of our life experience, we like to think we're more useful when uh companies are at the scaling stage and when they have to deal with different problems than earlier, for which we have more pattern recognition or direct exposure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:06

So would you ever come in at Series A and Beyond, or is it B C?

SPEAKER_15: 1:34:10

It's B C.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:10

Got it. Okay. Just important for our listeners because this is where you know a lot of startup entrepreneurs are trying to find their way and connect with the right people. And I did talk uh at length Chris Hemeter about this, given Thayer's role, and and that's why I wanted to clarify your position so you didn't just get a hundred people reaching out to you looking for seed investment. And I thought that was important to clarify. Now, when you look at the companies that are here at Arrival and where the industry is at the moment, what stands out to you as you presented it at the executive day, you're at the AI summit and that the AI forum, rather, and then obviously, you know, we're here kind of day one of Arrival 360. Michael, what's what's standing out to you? Is there any other uh whether are there companies or even overall themes or trends that you're paying attention to that standing out here? Or do you think a lot of these are now maturing and you're looking to other sectors like experiential medicine and and so on?

SPEAKER_15: 1:35:02

No, I think the experience economy is still in its very, very early innings. And if my read of the moment is accurate, then uh I think that we are at a pivotal moment actually, a threshold moment whereby the experience economy should, in my opinion, grow quite significantly. Um because AI in particular is going to bring about a lot of efficiency in uh services, manufacturing, with robotics and so forth. And that has good implications and it has bad implications. But uh one of the I think consequences of where we are in the really economic evolution of uh our system is there will be a lot more demand for experiences of all kinds. And so I think I'm very optimistic. Um I'm I'm excited about where we are.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:17

Well it's interesting. I mean, I've that's where I really wanted to get your perspective on this, not only because you were early in those investments, but the question still becomes I've got a friend Jordan Jacobs that runs a company called Radical Ventures. They don't invest in travel, they invest in AI exclusively, and he invests in a company called Cohare. And it was at a$2 billion valuation, he was adamant it's going to be a$200 billion company. It's now a$6 billion valuation. So his he was very bullish in every round. And as I was keen to kind of get a sense of, you know, when you look at the valuations of some of these companies, like a get your guide or a clue, when you have soft bank that comes in later and increases the valuations of some of these businesses. Where are we in the investment cycle and the overall growth? What you're saying to me, it seems um um is that we're still early. Like a lot of these companies still have great potential for growth, regardless of their valuations or some of their fundraising. So I don't want to get into the exact specifics, but it's more when you look broadly across this industry, um, there's a huge opportunity for growth. And that's that I think was one of the most inspiring takeaways from uh from our discussion that I think listeners will resonate with, because there's a lot of people that are coming to arrival for the first time that are, you know, they're they're new businesses. They're like the first night there was a company I was speaking to, a startup that'll be on our uh uh event spotlight, and they've only been around for four months. And some of those will come and go. And you've seen that uh over the years. Um, but the fact is that that there is energy and and smart people coming in with interesting ideas and trying to disrupt or do something novel or solve new problems. So that's that's inspiring to hear. What what um other takeaways have you had so far, Michael, from being here this year, given that you've been to many arrivals before? Um is anything else AI, obviously, you you mentioned.

SPEAKER_15: 1:37:54

Any other particular standouts from the sessions or the speakers that AI is obviously transformative for all industries, and uh it's good to see the robust discussion that we've been having the past two days here about the impact of AI on our industry. Um that's very positive, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:19

And one of the things we were talking about a bit for is this multi-day tour uh concept. And obviously, this is the first year they've done the multi-day tour track. I had the privilege to uh to moderate two of what will be three sessions, one more tomorrow. And Michael was kind enough to attend that session, and we were just chatting on it as we sat down. And that's another industry unto itself that is still not well understood. And there is some really exciting startups, and there's very few marketplaces, with the exception of Tor Radar, who are on that stage, that are really doing this well. But my understanding is get your guide is getting into the space. You don't have to speak about that because you probably have more information than uh than most of us. But um, I'm just keen to get your take on that from what you've gleaned so far about multi-day. I know it's kind of piqued your interest. Um, what does it take then for you to really investigate further and start to identify opportunities? What does that look like and what's your what's your process?

SPEAKER_15: 1:39:12

I like to think of it as a map uh or uh drawing a landscape and understanding the terrain, so to speak. Yeah uh who are the participants uh in the landscape, and uh who are the players, who are the companies, and I believe that life is long, and uh these relationships between investors and founders are very long-term relationships. At least that's my experience. And so you want mutually to get to know the people that you might choose uh to invest with and to associate with because you will be together uh for long periods of time. And so to me, it's a process where uh I get to know the founders and they get to know us, and uh sometimes it feels so compelling to join forces or to join journeys that uh we basically make that choice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:28

No, it's exciting. There's a number of startups that have entered this space, and some of the established players are now getting more into an MA, and as I mentioned to Michael, and he knows this himself too, obviously, with private equity firms coming into this category with great interest. And so it's it's one that I have um a great deal of experience and passion for, and uh and I'm still very bullish on myself. So I'm excited to see it start to get onto the main stage and continue to be a big conversation at Arrival in Valencia and and and further. Um but it is very different than Daytour. That was one of my big uh learnings coming to Arrival as a multi-day tour, is how different the two uh industries are in terms of technology and distribution and marketing. I just like you'd think there'd be a lot of commonalities, and there really aren't. And so I'm I'm keen to see how those mesh together. Um but in terms of your future plans, I know you're at some of the big industry conferences. Um tell us where your plans as we go into the end of 2025 and 2026. And I do want to make sure for those people that do want to reach out to you, obviously they can use LinkedIn or they can check out the website. Um, the best way to do that. So um, yeah, I want to give you the last word, Michael.

SPEAKER_15: 1:41:35

You're kind to do that. Yeah, I'm easy to find. I try to be very easy to find. So I'm Michael at uh FMZ Ventures.

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:44

As you would say. Yeah. I'll say the English. The English invented the language, so I'm just gonna half of our listeners are American, so I'm just giving people the gears here.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:52

But we um uh and I get called out when people actually do notice that I'm Canadian, the oot and a boot gives me away and the occasional A.

SPEAKER_15: 1:41:59

But it but it you crossed the border. Yeah. You came.

unknown: 1:42:02

You came.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:03

I live north of the wall and I'm very committed to this industry, this category, and so of course I was uh adamant to be here, and I've uh I have certain views on that I won't get into now, but I think that people should continue to travel. We need to support this industry um and rise above some of the geopolitical factors, which are understandable. Um, but at the same time, there's uh and this is in you know, uh my brother-in-law used the term about uh traveling to New York recently from Canada, and he's like, we like to zig when others zag. And it's one of the best times to cross the border, and there's great value for money. So it's like, you know, there's different ways to look at what's happening in the world at the moment, and this is where there's opportunities to invest, to grow, and um, but no, I'm looking forward, Michael, to having you back for our full travel trends episode. I'm sure our listeners are now as well, so we will plan for that. But thank you for joining us for the event spotlight and good luck with the rest of the conference.

SPEAKER_15: 1:42:51

Yeah, and thank you for this conversation.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:54

I now have the privilege to speak to Merica Brewster, who is the CEO and founder of the Vaughn Mack Agency, which is a creative agency that I have a great deal of respect for. I've seen her work for the last several years. We've never met until this very moment here at Arrival, but I know of her work through Bruce Rosard and not only the Arrival team, but even the experience this. You did the whole branding and it just stepped their game up substantially. So I'm familiar with your work, having checked out your website, and and I yeah, I love your creative work. And I was so keen to have you on the podcast. So thanks a lot for joining us.

SPEAKER_13: 1:43:28

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm a big fan too. I'm glad that this finally coalesced and I was able to meet you in person.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:33

Yeah, no, it's awesome. It's really fantastic. Tell everybody about Von Mac, the agency that you've built, and where that where that name comes from.

SPEAKER_13: 1:43:40

Yeah, I was hoping you'd ask me that because we were just talking about names right beforehand. Um so that's actually from my maiden name. Um, my maiden name is Mac and Ross, so America MacInroth Brewster. And uh hundreds of years ago, before they immigrated to America, they were the Von Mac and Ross, and it was kind of it's like a legacy and lore in my family. I remember being as a little girl, my father told me that, and I'm like, why did they take it off? That's the coolest thing ever. So when I went to go start my business, it's actually not a goal to start my own business. It's something that just happened organically. I had a lot of people that wanted to work with me and a fellow business owner at the time. Well, they weren't fellow, they were a business owner at the time. I wasn't yet. And they were like, Well, America, you can't bill people from your personal account. That's liability. You need to file something. And it was like, Well, I need to I have checks now. So I was like, you know what? Not even think about it. Von Mac, I'm putting it back, filing the LLC, and it's from then on, it's just been Von Mac. Luckily, it's kind of catchy. It just ha like my name could have been weird, but Von Mac works.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:31

It's memorable and it stands out. With the idea of building out creative, obviously, you need to be able to project that creativity. So the branding of your logo, how did you how did you get into this whole graphic design space? What was your background before you started the agency?

SPEAKER_13: 1:44:46

Yeah, so I'm actually not um my background is not in graphic design. I'm just I'm from New Orleans. I'm a native creative. Um I'm a strategist by you know, by trade, really. My entire background has been a strategy. But you know, being from New Orleans, I've always kind of had visions for things. So it's usually come out in ways of sewing costumes and designing the themes for costumes or events. I'd throw events and I'd get visions for things. So when I, as I said, you know, started von Mac, it happened, it was just organically and suddenly, and I was like, well, this is gonna be my vision. Um, I just happened, you know, you just round yourself, you know, intentionally with people who are just wonderful and you know, are growing in their own ways. And it's also a reflection of the things that you're interested in, right? So I have creative friends, and um, one of them is a tattoo artist, and I was like, Well, it's gonna be Von Mac. Okay, I want something with kind of a 90s feel. If I can do this and this is me, it's gonna look how I want it. It doesn't even matter, you know, what it's supposed to be to the world. I didn't want to be something, I wanted to it to be more of just what I could always want to do. So I like birds, which is it's a weird thing to say in terms of relation to travel. Um, one of my themes in costumes was birds. I got bird tattoo. And so I was like, I reached out to my friend who was he's a very prolific tattoo artist in New Orleans, and I was like, I want an icon for Von Mac, but I want the V and the M to be a bird. And so he just and so that's why when you look at my initial branding, the V and the M for the actual spelling of the Von Mac uh looks the V the V looks like a bird as well. And over a while it kind of morphed into something we've been elevating. It's been almost eight years since you know we've been around, it'll be eight years this month. Um, that we were like, okay, well, we're growing and we're evolving, we're becoming more and more developed. Uh, let's take it and go to our next iteration. So we did that last summer, and uh, we went a little bit more um, it was actually it still has a 90s feel, it's a little bit more urban in terms of uh street art and graffiti, which is just something that we're drawn to being from New Orleans as well. Uh, but it's still you can still in the icon you can see the bird that has the V and the M in it, and that's yeah homage.

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:45

I love it. And this is why I mean I should also mention that you guys are a full service tourism uh marketing agency, so you do everything from search marketing to content marketing and social, but you obviously have such a strength in the design, and that's what really stood out to me. Thank you. And it's really cool that being based in New Orleans, one of the things I do want to highlight for our listeners too is that you know you're 100% independent, which is sometimes very tough in the in the space, right? To uh lots of agencies get bought up and the talent then kind of dissipates. Um and then you're also a hundred percent woman founded and owned.

SPEAKER_13: 1:47:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:21

And so it's so cool to speak to you about this because I was raised by a single mom, and that's it's so for me, even when I'm trying to uh put together an episode and have the right guests to compliment, um, men are more likely to want to speak on podcasts, and I end up trying to make sure I have enough female leaders.

SPEAKER_06: 1:47:38

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:39

Yes, and I so I'm gonna my my I guess my challenge there is that or my criticism of other guys is the fact that they want to talk. You know, they that they're exactly mansplaining, right? They're like so they're and so um but so it's great to meet someone like yourself that is a strong female leader doing something really cool, entrepreneurial in the travel industry. Um tell us a little bit about how you started collaborating with Arrival.

SPEAKER_13: 1:48:05

Yeah, so um with regard to you know, there are a lot of men in the industry, uh, but Arrival and Bruce, you know, and Douglas and all are very, very much mindful of, you know, giving women a seat at the table as well, uh, which I will I'm gonna give them you know a clap on because I think that that is important.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:22

Yeah, and just unline your point there. I just want is Lynn, who's Bruce's wife, who never wants to be referred to as Bruce's wife, because you know she's the chief operating officer and he's the chief commercial officer. And so and and so, but I'm just making the connection to the fact that they are married and they both work at arrival, but Lynn has organized women's breakfast and like a special women's day, and like she has been a big advocate for for women, exactly what what you just highlighted. Bruce and Douglas as well. But I just wanted to call out Lynn because you know she's been so important to making sure that that is at the forefront and they are and looking at the panels and saying there's not enough women on stage. We need to do better.

SPEAKER_13: 1:49:00

Oh, I mean, I've quick aside, I've actually met some very prolific women at those events that she's thrown that have become real life long life friends. Nice. So and it's because of that. Um but yeah, with regard to um Bruce's podcast, I believe that was the question. Or how do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:15

Oh, just how you started working with arrival.

SPEAKER_13: 1:49:16

Oh, how started working with the rival. Oh, oh, this is a good one. Okay, so um I was actually speaking, um, speaking of, you know, other people helping um others in this industry and you know, have the spotlight. I I found that this industry, especially in destination experiences, we're really, really profound in bringing other people into the light, like you're doing, um, because it is there's so much more under the surface, in my opinion, that is going on and just having advocates pluck people up, right? So, what's happened, what happened years ago was I was uh on a panel for the port conference with Water Sports, uh with Greg Fisher. It might have even been a waiver as one or two. Yeah, so it was a long time ago. It was pre-COVID. And I was speaking, and Douglas was the presenter there, and so this was years ago, and it was right when arrival first started, and he heard me speak, and he came up to me afterwards and was like, We need women speakers. Um, you know, we would really like, you know, to have this discussion with you, you know, so on and so forth. And then um following that, uh COVID happened very quickly after, and everything shut down, and my business was very much like people were pausing, and it was crazy. So um I started the tourism strong movement. So the whole um Facebook profile, like postpone trips, don't cancel, the website brought bringing in people. So it's funny because Bruce happened to find me independently at that same time through that. And so I got an email from Bruce and was like, Who is this? Who are who are you? What's going on? And I was like, Well, I was actually just talking to Douglas. So it just kind of coalesced following to I did a um I did some speaking with them through their online events uh following that, and it's just continued since then.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:48

Oh, that's cool. And then clearly, I know you've been in you've been featured in uh a number of different travel industry publications for your work, and and um you've worked with a number of different clients that are connected to Arrival because clearly you're here, they see what you're capable of doing. Um tell us a little bit about the community around Arrival, like because I'm highlighting you know Tourpreneur, Viator, um Water Sports, those guys actually really interesting as well. They're gonna they've got a great podcast. Yes, they're wild, they're absolutely wild. But yeah, tell us how it's worked out for your business being involved with arrival, uh, as far as finding clients here and and building up more of a travel portfolio.

SPEAKER_13: 1:51:30

I would say it's one of the most worthwhile partnerships, friendships, endeavors, shows that um we are involved in. Uh we're involved in you know, local tourism uh events and uh associations as well as national ones, but this is the only one that speaks to the broadness, the breadth of in destination, because it is very so very, like I said, there's so much under the surface. It's just this is just the pinpoint of it, and it's been growing. Um but it brings everyone together in a way that we can speak, specifically being at the forefront of the tourism markets. So some of the other ones are just so huge where you have hotels and you have DMOs and all of that, and all of that is relative, and we have clients in that sp those segments as well. Um, but being at the front lines, the immediacy of seeing people who are very much booking at the same time in that hour is just a completely different beast than you know, marketing for something where it's months and days ahead of time. Now, I know that you do that in in destination experiences, but it's much less prevalent than when you're talking about hotels.

SPEAKER_06: 1:52:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_13: 1:52:32

So, yeah, so yeah, it's been amazing. We'll we will stick around.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:34

Oh, that's fantastic. And then this year specifically, what brought you back and and what have been some of the highlights or takeaways of this year that um you've benefited from, given that we're, you know, we're here on the last day, I guess. So there's one more morning tomorrow, but we're kind of at the end of the second day. Um, what have been some of the benefits of being here this year?

SPEAKER_13: 1:52:54

Hands down, the executive summit. Oh, you were here right from the beginning. Oh my god. Oh, cool. Yes, it was um I'm so happy they added that. I'm so happy they added that. I'm actually, believe it or not, I am an introvert by nature. I make myself extrovert. So when you see me walking around, I'm forcefully extroverting.

SPEAKER_03: 1:53:10

And thank you for doing the podcast because I'm sure it doesn't like come naturally. People are always so nervous and intimidated. So, yes, good for you for breaking out of your shell.

SPEAKER_13: 1:53:19

Thanks for having me. Yes, and thank you for noting that. I appreciate that as well. Um but the ex so with the executive summit, not only were was I able to get into conversations and hear things and validate a lot of my views, which made me feel great because in the space we're all kind of spread out and we don't really get to share our thoughts and what's happening with each other so often. I was able to sit at the round tables with people who were experiencing a lot of the same things as a business owner or at a top level, you know, viewpoint. Um, that it really brought those conversations together and I didn't have to really worry about someone thinking I was trying to sell to them or something because I'm a vendor, because that that's not the case. So it really opened it up and it broke down those barriers for me personally, and I was able to have those real discussions that really do matter to myself as a business owner and my clients. So it was awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:03

Oh, that's fantastic. That's great. I'm glad to hear that because the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from the executive day, and that's the day I arrived, and then I was part of the AI forum the next day. Did you attend that as well? I was recovering. Okay, you're recovering from the executive day? Okay. I was just curious to know if there was some uh some uh takeaways from that. But then obviously we've had two days now of the the conference. Yeah. Has there been any standout sessions for you this year or other speakers that you've particularly enjoyed?

SPEAKER_13: 1:54:29

You know, I've actually been following the women's things. Yeah. Um there's actually one that's coming up at uh 245 that I have marked off on my calendar. It's it's a panel. Um so yeah, I mean, is there's been a lot of things that um have kind of popped in and checked out, and again, a lot of it is just kind of supporting people who have learned from and grown with in this space. Um and also kind of validating, like, okay, you're seeing the same thing over here that I'm seeing over here. So I would say I don't have anything very specific. I apologize because it's all so broad and I've just been kind of soaking it in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:58

Yeah, that's all good. It's interesting when people attend some of these sessions. It's one of the things that's more common that I've heard, even with a mainstage speaker like Joe Pine, it validates what they're seeing. So they have uh an uh an inkling that this is a trend or something they should be paying attention to, like this transformation economy and people interested in retreats, and it's like actually this is the business we're we're in or we're gonna expanding into. So I'd love to just get your take on the industry too, given that you do uh work across this space. From either a design or a marketing point of view, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that clients are asking you in in the work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_13: 1:55:35

Uh well, there's a few. So there is uh obviously AI, there is an anxiety slash excitement, depending on who you speak with, with what's happening with AI. And you know, the crux of it all is what do I do? You know, you're asking me, and I'm being as forefront as as possible and saying nobody really knows, but this, these are the things that have proven to work thus far. Um so I'm seeing fragmentation a lot with regard to messaging and the need to really, really, really double down on your brand, your positioning, your point of difference across the board with regard to everything from reviews and review responses, you know, touching on your point of difference there, all the way through to um your call to actions and where you where people are speaking on behalf of your brand, those particular spaces. So we've been doing a lot of um work with our clients to pin it down even further because some of it is you used to be able to get away with having your point of difference and your call to action, your positioning in a in a a broad manner. You can say how you're different, like I'm the oldest or I'm the historic or what have you. Now it needs to be even more refined. Um, even if someone's not copying you, it still just needs to be refined in such a way that you have that rhetoric to give to your team. And so we're we're working on everything from print to keyword bidding to SEO A EO, all of that. Really, really fine-tuning that long tail phrasing of exactly what you have to offer in the most specific manner. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:01

Well, you brought up a topic I'd love to ask you about, which is print.

SPEAKER_13: 1:57:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:04

And I'm still a big fan of print.

SPEAKER_13: 1:57:05

Me too.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57:06

Well, because from a design point of view, there's so much you can do with it, it's tactile. Um, tell us about some of the latest print marketing work you've been doing.

SPEAKER_13: 1:57:14

Thank you for asking. Um, okay, so we and I do want to say this very quickly, to be clear. We do a lot of digital, we do a lot of performance marketing. I don't want to negate that in any way. Um, but for me, I think that again, the fragmentation elevates beyond uh anything digital. It is on top of that. And I I'm a really big proponent of having a brand and having marketing that builds upon itself and that has this big compounding interest, so to say, with regard to your brand, right? So we've done things, um, we've done billboards, very specific billboards. I'm not saying put something broad out with, you know, here's an alligator or a swamp tour. We, you know, one of the billboards um that we're actually, it's actually a series of ones that we are putting together right now. It's for a um a zoo, Promised Land Zoo in Branson, and it they have a specific Christmas event that is gonna be going on for quite some time, so it's not one day. But in preamble to that, we have the billboards that are coming out along the avenues to where it's located, uh, so that we're creating the buzz online, but when you're driving, you know exactly where to go and you're seeing these animals. Um, we're also talking about mailers. We've been um discussing mailers with some of my multi-day clients. So I'll touch on multi-day for you. Yeah, because thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:58:22

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_13: 1:58:23

Um, and that's actually, we see that growing. That's been a tough nut to crack and always has been historically, in my experience with other marketers. The thing about it is oftentimes, not every time, it's definitely skewing younger more and more. But historically, it has been an older, kind of more adult themed market. Um, and I love that it's skewing younger, and I love that there have been people who have been powering that through. But with my clients specifically, um, print mailers, personalized mailers, is they're the ones that are still speaking to the older market.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58:52

Most effective marketing. Yeah, direct mail works, personalized, great, well-designed, well-messaged direct mail is so powerful in an age where you're otherwise bombarded with email. Yeah. And all of a sudden you get something that you can open and that is personalized to you. It's why companies like Viking and Triple A. Triple A is a great example. Yeah. One of our brands in the travel corporation group called Grand European Tours based in Portland, we learned a lot from that business about direct mail, getting catalogs into people's hands, the number of touch points you needed, because it is a complex, considered purchase. And uh what's interesting, and part of the reason I wanted to ask you about the print side is that when uh exactly as you described, you know, there's the older generation that still like to get something in the mail, and they will go through a brochure and then they will get on the website and then maybe book, or they'll call in the contact center, or they'll go with the brochure. I've spoken to families to try and unpack how they ended up on tours so we could kind of kind of reverse engineer how we marketed to them and and got them to travel with one of our brands. And they would tell us things that you know, we ordered three brochures from three different companies, we went to their websites, we put the put them on the coffee table, and um, and then uh we ended up booking through the contact center, and oh, and then I booked new flight. On the website. And the reason they actually even got to the website is because we had paid advertising. And so it's it was like, wait a second. So we sent you a brochure, we used our contact center, we paid for digital marketing. And one of the companies that is now very progressive and having great success, a company called We Road, that I spoke about on stage because they're one of the hottest multi-day tour companies, but they're focused on 20s and 30s and 40s as well. But most of their marketing is out of home.

SPEAKER_06: 2:00:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:00:28

And they do takeovers of subway stations. That's so much. Yes. That's so much.

SPEAKER_06: 2:00:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 2:00:33

And people love it. Yeah. They so this is why I ask you about that, because I know uh the bread and butter a lot of times for digital marketing agencies is you know performance marketing. And you know, everyone's hooked on that drug that we need to like continue to make sure we drive enough traffic and clicks and bookings. But the beautiful creative work that you can do with a broader landscape is really exciting. So tell us some of the clients you work with.

SPEAKER_13: 2:00:57

Oh my goodness. Um, so we're very fortunate to have some some pretty prolific clients in the market. And it's, I mean, I like to say we sell the fun. Clearly, I positioned ourselves in tourism so that we could do the fun stuff. Uh so you know, the ones that are here specifically, we have um Brittany, who's been a long time client. She's with um Airboat Adventures in New Orleans. Swamptours.com was a fun project we got to work with her on. Uh yeah, we have um Mary. She's actually someone I met at the women's event a year or two ago at Lynn through. She is with um Far Horizons, which is multi-day archaeological base tours, which is super cool because you're going down the river and in Egypt and there's mummies in Indiana Jones stuff. I love it. Uh, she also has blue fern, and she's here in DC, so she actually kind of took me around DC, which is awesome. So she's here as well. I have John Peel, he's with the Hawaiian Council. I spoke with him um earlier this week. So we were talking about uh leading with your brand in authenticity versus big box tourism. I can go on, I'll stop. But yes.

SPEAKER_03: 2:01:54

Well, I just you may know, but that's it's interesting because one of the things that stood out to me there is I need to connect you to Zach, who's both the producer of our show, but he also runs dinosaur trips.

SPEAKER_13: 2:02:03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03: 2:02:03

And it's an amazing product, and his business is growing, and and um, and so they're doing more tours, and he, you know, he is he's done everything. Like he's a great marketer to his full credit, but he's been building out the website and the branding, and I know it could use the Von Mac touch and to take it to the next level. So I'll put you in touch uh with Zach, and he's gonna be listening to this as he records this, but as I as he edits this. But um, and I hopefully a number of other people will reach out to you after this as well. So um I want to make sure that you know I I haven't mentioned the website yet, so I can give you the chance to do that. Um, but please tell everyone how they can find out more about Von Mac and also reach out to you too directly, America.

SPEAKER_13: 2:02:42

Absolutely. So we are everywhere as Von Mac Agency on all the socials. It's V-O-N M-A-C-K Agency. So Instagram, Facebook, all of that. Our website is vonmacagency.com. Um so you can reach out there. My email, my name is spelled weird, y'all. So you can either just write hello at von MacAgency, that works, or you can do M-A-R-I-C-A at von MacAgency.com and reach us that way. We do not have a special uh phone number yet, so I don't know our phone number, but I will say very quickly that um we did realize that von Mac actually is the right amount of digits, so we're gonna try to get that one in the future with our phone number.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:19

I think most people should be able to spell out Merrica. And I was saying to Merrica, I loved her name as when we sat down to record, and that's what she was referring to was when we started recording because I know I mentioned about Von Mac, but I was specifically uh loved her last name, Brewster. It's her married name, and I was just like, I was like, where does it come from? I was like, because I grew up in 80s kids, Punky Brewster, and I've never met a Brewster before, and so yeah, so no, Merica Brewster, it's been a real pleasure to finally meet you.

SPEAKER_13: 2:03:47

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:48

Of course, I look forward to keeping in touch with you.

SPEAKER_13: 2:03:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:52

I am thrilled to introduce our next guest to our listeners, especially because many people would have heard his solo episode that was so incredibly entertaining, emotional. It was it was all the things. And I'm talking, of course, of Craig Dodge, who works for the FAR Circus way over in Cambodia and CM Reap. We had an amazing conversation after he had presented at the Arrival Bangkok conference. Bruce told me about his session. I watched it, I was so inspired. I reached out to Craig and we recorded a fantastic episode together. And here we are at Arrival in Washington in 2025. We finally got to meet in person, and I get to welcome him back to the podcast. So, Craig, it's so great to meet you. Thanks again for joining us.

SPEAKER_07: 2:04:38

No, thank you, Dan, for asking me. And if your listeners could see us, my face is red, blushing from thank you for your kind words.

SPEAKER_03: 2:04:45

Of course, of course. I uh I so thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, and you've got such a compelling story to share. And I want to just start there for the people that haven't listened to that episode. Obviously, I'm gonna encourage everyone after this event spotlight to go back and find the episode of Craig uh and the entire story of the Far Circus. I had actually been to the Far Circus when I was in Cambodia, and it was one of the big highlights of our time in CM Reap. And uh, but obviously I didn't know Craig at the time and his uh whole connection to it. But now I would love Craig, I know you've given a presentation here, uh, and I I know we can't do it all justice in the short time we have because there's lots of other things I want to talk to you about. But would you mind just giving a bit of an overview of uh the Far Circus and what your role was there?

SPEAKER_07: 2:05:29

Sure. Well, uh the Far Circus is a social enterprise that's offshoot of a nonprofit school, and our mission is to generate revenue through business uh activities to fund the school and also provide jobs to the graduates of the school. Um, and we do that through tourism, um, international visitors to Cambodia. We have nightly shows in CMREP. Um, we also do off-site performances, but the the and international tours, and we have graphic design and animation, and all of that's really uh been critical to funding the school and and giving jobs. And and the presentation this morning, thanks for mentioning that. And it just reminds, I hope it reminds people why tourism exists, why we're here, and it's really all about the people and changing lives.

SPEAKER_03: 2:06:13

Yeah. Well, and I'll just add one thing because exactly what you said, changing lives is what you do, uh, primarily for the people that actually work at uh or have the opportunity to perform and be a part of the Far Circus. And many of our listeners are probably familiar with the tragedies that occurred, uh, the genocide in uh Cambodia and what uh transpired there. However, this is one of those stories that highlights how important tourism can be in giving people opportunities, and then also giving an opportunity for travelers to do something good with their tourism dollars to be able to go to a venue like this and continue that journey of making sure that there more opportunities are created. And um, so uh Craig, tell tell us just everyone about your role there. And I know you're now officially retired, semi-retired, semi retired, yeah. You're an American, you've lived over there now for how long? Um almost 14 years. Oh, okay. And it's still home there. You're you know, you've built a house in CM Reap, but I think it's like tell everyone a little bit about your role.

SPEAKER_07: 2:07:13

So uh I came across them because I moved to Cambodia working originally for a bicycle tour. And I went there and I saw the circus. I used to pass the venue all the time and just uh had the stereotypical American image of what a circus was, you know, the red nose, fuzzy hair animals, and I just was not interested until they they came to my office and did a you know, invited me and my team to the show. And after seeing it, I just had such a powerful reaction of wow, I didn't expect that, because it's none of those things. It's it's the artists who have written, created, and performed stories based on history, recent uh folklore, and their lives. So when you attend it, you know you've just experienced something unique. And like you just said, it's tourism, I think, sometimes gets a bad rap. You know, people talk a lot about over-tourism and um irresponsible tourism. But this is really just the exactly the opposite, where people can enjoy a uh unique, authentic, powerful emotional experience and know that they made a difference in somebody else's life.

SPEAKER_03: 2:08:13

For sure. And that's where I encourage everyone if you belong to Arrival, obviously, you can see the video of Craig if you didn't have a chance to attend his session. I know a number of people have commented to me how powerful it was and we're keen to see you present again. I mean, uh, the fact you're here at the main Arrival 360 on stage uh speaks volumes of the fact that you know you were such an impressive speaker in Bangkok and have such an important story to tell. So obviously I'm thrilled that you're here. But tell us beyond speaking at the event, what else brought you back to the States and to be here at Arrival?

SPEAKER_07: 2:08:45

Well, yeah, those are two sort of big questions. You know, I I still uh keep on a personal note, I keep my healthcare here. I have family and friends here still, obviously, so I come back every year for personal reasons. Um, arrival, I really felt that I learned so much from their website, from their research during COVID, and was able to adapt it to our circumstances and make an incredible difference, uh, especially post-COVID. Um the things I learned from the arrival material uh were spot on about what to expect, who were the first kind of returning travelers would be, what their wishes would be. And you know, I think in anything, you you have to be attuned to what customers want, what travelers want. And then if you want them to come to your venue, you have to give them a reason and it's got to match what they want. And that that helped us tremendously. So I like to give back actually to Arrival. I feel like I'm um trying to share our experience, what we've learned for arrival, how we applied it, and then how other tourism businesses can apply it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:09:50

Yeah, and I think that's where there's yeah, there's so much to be gained from the example that you share. And obviously, being here at Arrival, you're surrounded by all of your colleagues. And uh Craig was telling me yesterday when we were chatting about some of the like where we're recording right now is in the exhibitor area. And you are a true expert in this whole space talking about the different uh OTA platforms with who you use for your res tech and who you distribute through and commissions and all this. I mean, you know it really well. So for you, what's otherwise stood out being at this arrival conference here this year? I mean, obviously it's uh the it's their big conference, so larger than what you experienced in Bangkok. But what are some of the other things that have stood out to you of being a participant here at Arrival?

SPEAKER_07: 2:10:30

Well, I'm really honored that you consider me an expert in the and far is uh is a pioneer, at least in Cambodia, for adopting ResTech and and successfully and that's why you can't retire because you're still running the e-commerce. Well that's why I've only semi-retired and and I still help them with that. And you know, I I I look at Arrival research and they have their guides on how to choose ResTech for you know the best to fit you. And you know, for us in Cambodia, the really the the choice was pretty simple because in Cambodia, payment gateways didn't exist until uh ResGo came in and said, you know what, we'll we'll write a payment gateway. And so we we use ResGo and they uh integrate directly with the Cambodian bank, and that was critical for us. So, you know, talking to or seeing and talking to the different ResTech here, it's it's really interesting. But I'll be really honest, from our perspective, it's about the personal relationships with those companies. I think we we can't overlook how important that is. And you know, we're all talking about technology, AI, uh, and OTAs and all of that, but at the end of the day, it's about people. And, you know, if you choose the right business relationships based on the people you're working with, that is more enduring, I think.

SPEAKER_03: 2:11:40

Yeah, for sure. And I think that's I mean, I've experienced that in my entire time coming to Arrival, the connections that you make here and the people that you expect to see. And it's actually come up in a few of these interviews as well, just how much of a community exists around arrival. And this community doesn't often go to other conferences. This is their big annual conference, or they go to the other additional regional conferences. And I'm actually hearing more of that this year, people saying, Oh, I'll see you in Valencia, or like that. I I go to all the regional ones and the global ones. And now this week there's been uh executive day, there was the AI forum, and I know you arrived for Arrival 360 itself. That was the main event for you coming across. And I'm genuinely keen to know about your kind of future plans for collaborating with Arrival. I'm hoping that you're coming back again, or I'm hoping that if we end up in Asia, you're gonna be back up on stage again.

SPEAKER_07: 2:12:27

Yeah, well, I don't know. I guess if they invite me, you know, that's a good sign that they had me back a second time. So I guess that was was okay. Um I'd like to help uh, you know, I wanna it it's really more than just far. And I think Arrival is a great platform for different experience operators to collaborate and understanding that all of us have different experiences. It's a different kind of experience, a different audience, different geographic location. But at the end of the day, we can be inspired by what some of our peers are doing in other places. And if I can share our experience and if it's meaningful to somebody else, uh that's makes me feel good.

SPEAKER_03: 2:13:05

Yeah, I can imagine. You well, you just have that way about you, Craig, that like, you know, you're a very likable person, and you're obviously one of you you strike me from the interactions we've had as someone that's just like always willing to lend a hand. Like it's just like you know, that you're gonna put you're the first to put your hand up if someone needs some support, help, or guidance, even with trying to figure out which res tech platform to use.

SPEAKER_05: 2:13:25

You all have your own views on that, we don't have to share them publicly.

SPEAKER_03: 2:13:28

Um, but um, because I know you you know you work with multiple partners, but you certainly have your preferences, um, as you should. And I think that's one of the key reasons that people come to a conference like this, is they get to speak to other people that use the platforms and to decide for themselves. But uh, I want to talk a bit more about your overall plans and specifically, you know, given that you haven't been able to fully step away yet uh from your important work at the Far Circus. What are some of the plans that the organization has in 2026? And I do want to make sure that if anyone is traveling to Southeast Asia, obviously, you're likely including Cambodia in that. You absolutely must because you've got to go to Angkor Wat. That's one of the reasons why um this incredible circus is in CM Reap, because there was already an incredible amount of travelers coming there and the infrastructure is just taken off. I mean, I from the the couple of times I've been to Cambodia on my most recent trip. I mean, now there's Starbucks and there's five-star hotels, and it's just like that was not the CM Reap I remember. But um nevertheless, there's something there for everyone now in terms of the types of accommodation, however you want to approach anchor or what. But what I'm trying to say is that you have to experience the FAR circus. So it's just nothing like it. So tell us what's ahead for you guys in 2026.

SPEAKER_07: 2:14:37

Yeah, that's a good question. And I think, you know, especially since COVID, we uh probably everybody was at a crossroads in one way or another. And and FAR certainly experienced that. And um I can share that you know, there was interest in from a more international entertainment organization to buy us out. And um finally I can I can reassure people that no, we're still independent and and we are always gonna remain a banks. It's a social enterprise that the revenue generated goes to the social cause, it goes to fund the school, it doesn't go to somebody driving Alexis or other, you know. But but um for the future, I think you know, now we have to um really make sure that we're standing strong on our own two feet. And we do have some minority shareholders, so we we've got to generate revenue to buy them out. Um we hope to do more international touring. Um that's always been a dream, but it's difficult for us to do with uh few resources. But the other thing that COVID taught us uh is we have to do better at um appealing to domestic market. Cambodia is very different, and we've always just assumed international tourism would be there, but COVID showed us that anything can come up. And um, so we've we're kind of tweaking things to get more uh promotional events in Cambodia, and uh that's been pretty successful. Uh the FAR Creative Studio of Graphic Design and Animation, that's another one of our business units. We're um trying to uh put more resources into that to get more design and animation projects. So that's that's probably what the two focuses will be for the next year.

SPEAKER_03: 2:16:12

Aaron Powell The other thing I wanted to ask you is some of the trends you're seeing in the region because you work with a number of different tour operators that build far into their itineraries. You obviously have lots of travelers that book through via tour and other platforms. And so uh keen to know travelers for bookings, I guess, for 2026, uh and I guess what you've seen over the course of 2025 too, about shifting customer behavior. One of the things that has been highlighted at the conference is the decrease in inbound to the US and but you know, the massive drop of 9% and the incredible rise of Japan that just continues. And one of the other areas I'm uh keen to get your take on is that uh Americans also have been the although outbound international travel is still up slightly, there's a lot of Americans that are saying I don't want to travel overseas because I'm concerned about how I'm gonna be received given these geopolitical events. So I'm I'm genuinely curious. Well, I mean I and that's where I'm like there's all these different uh factors at play, and I'm curious to know what you're seeing on the ground. Has there been a change in the type of travelers that you're seeing at the far circus? Is it still very word well diversified? And just out of interest's sake, give us a kind of breakdown of what countries or regions make up most of your business.

SPEAKER_07: 2:17:27

Yeah, they're all really interesting topics, and I think uh Cambodia appeals not specifically to nationalities, but more to a type of person that's uh looking for something a little bit more authentic and adventurous and you know, still wild frontier type thing. Um and we do get a good mix of people from all over the world. Uh this is low season for us in Cambodia, so we as in would be normal, tourism is down. But there's also the Thai Cambodia border dispute that is further suppressing tourism. Um, people aren't necessarily afraid to come to Cambodia or Thailand, but they're just afraid of you know logistics problems. They can no longer cross the border by bus like a lot of travelers do. They have to fly. Um and I think Thailand is feeling the same. Uh, Vietnam, I'm not sure. But for Cambodia, and I think for and I can speak for FAR specifically, but um, we have a good mix of people from North America still, and Americans are still looked at very uh favorably there. Um Cambodians overall are probably some of the most friendly, uh caring, welcoming people that I've ever worked with. Um, so you can feel very welcome there as an American. Nobody's gonna give you any grief. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:18:47

That is yeah, it's and I actually just wanted to underline that point, which is that you know, half of our audience is in the US, and clearly many of the listeners to this arrival event spotlight episode are based in the U.S. And so and most of you probably already know this, but I think it still bears repeating, which is the people that you meet when you're traveling, especially in destination, you they rise above that, and it's it's not even something they're just so happy to see you in the destination, and it's not even the point of the conversation uh to get into the politics of it. Most people are just genuinely happy to see Americans or Canadians or like they're just continuing to see international travelers supporting their destination. So keep traveling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 2:19:29

I ride bike a lot, and I'll tell you, get even out into rural areas and people are saying hello to you and waving, and you know, I never felt more welcome.

SPEAKER_06: 2:19:37

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_03: 2:19:39

And it's like, so uh and yeah, for anyone who hasn't experienced Southeast Asia, this is definitely uh a great time to do so. Um and so, Craig, on that note, I want to make sure that people know when to go, and I want to make sure that people know how to find you. Um so maybe you can answer those two together because people always wonder what's the best time of the year to go to Cambodia and what's the seasons? And so maybe you can just give everyone uh some guidance there and then also tell people how they can find out more about the Far Circus and also connect with you.

SPEAKER_07: 2:20:08

Sure. So when the best time to go is really depends on the person and what they're looking for. We have we have a definite, distinct high season and low season, which is uh coincides with rainy or dry season. And I think travelers are uh many travelers are concerned about coming during rainy season because they envision these all day long or week-long monsoons. But in fact, it's not that at all. Um, you know, you might get a couple hour thunderstorm in the afternoon, but Cambodia is never more beautiful and spectacular than during rainy season. You know, if you visit the temples after a rain, the stones just sparkle, or you're going through the countryside and the rice fields are just full of lush green colors as far as the eye can see. So and there's fewer people there. So, you know, you're gonna have a more pleasant experience. So my personal preference for when's the best time to go would be rainy season, which sort of is from like June through October, I guess, or July through October. Or September carries a little bit into October, but that's the best. If you don't want to deal with the rain, you come in dry season, which are the other months. Um, but it can be really that's it's hotter in dry season because there's nothing to cool it off. Um, far is year-round, anytime you want to come, we're there. Um, if you're looking for me, I might be on my bicycle in one of the jungle trails in Angkor, because I think this is the thing that tourists miss a lot. They don't know much about Cambodia, so they think the only thing to do there is Angkor temples, which are worth it. Um, and of course far circus, which is worth it. Um, but they don't realize that how many you know, jungle trails that are accessible and easy and magical and um other experiences like zip lining or um you know going to the mountain and hiking up and so yeah, I might be on one of those trails. You have to look.

SPEAKER_03: 2:21:54

Well, it inspired me that the fact that you're gonna stay there. I know you you there's things like healthcare, and of course you have to- I mean, being a Canadian, that's obviously you have we have to spend six months of the year in Canada, so it's one of the limitations that uh in order to maintain your healthcare and your coverage, um, given we have different systems. But the the thing I highlight is that you've chosen to live there, and I am uh you know, there's a few people that continue like you found a place that you love, you found a culture that you are you know very comfortable uh living amongst. And and I when we are in uh last time we were there with our family and we spent a week in CM Reap, and every night we went to the night market, and um and every night we went to the night market, not only we'd have fabulous food and have a wonderful wander around, and we do some shopping, we would also get our our uh foot massages and have a foot massage, like and this is where like uh they were two it was two dollars US. And this is only a couple years ago, it's probably now five, but like um uh for a one-hour foot massage. And often they give you a beer while you're yeah, that's true, actually. Yeah, you get a drink, and they have movies on and they have different like uh uh TV screens, and and so it was the highlight of our trip was every night that we would go in and all sit and get a fantastic foot massage, our entire family. And it was just an additional highlight that I was like, I I want to live somewhere like this where I'm just like this is my reality, not something that I only do, you know, once a year or once every couple of years. So full credit to you for can for living the dream and and and doing it the right way, uh giving back to the destination you're in, making a difference, and then also being able to find a lifestyle that you really enjoy.

SPEAKER_07: 2:23:31

Well, I you know, I wish I could take credit for any of that. But um mostly I think, you know, and these days a lot of Americans are looking at uh potentially retiring to places overseas because it's less expensive. It's people are finding that in the US they can't afford it. But you know, you can go to an area like Cambodia and it's very affordable. Like whenever I come back here and even here in DC, outside of the arrivals convention hotel, lunch is like four or five times what I would pay for it in Cambodia. So I'm like, wow, okay. But it it is accessible. So any Americans are who are thinking about, you know, concerned about the money, think it's it's one, it's scary at first to think about moving overseas, but once you do it, you realize that you know, you wake up in the morning, you're tired, you have coffee, you do whatever, and it's it's but yeah, and Cambodia is one of those places that you can do that pretty easy.

SPEAKER_03: 2:24:21

Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, it's great to finally meet you in person and wonderful to sit down and have this conversation with you, Craig. And I certainly I look forward to seeing you next time in CM Reap. I want to come back, I want to see you, I want to go, I want to go to the far circus together, and we can go get our foot massages later on. Absolutely. Ride a tuck tuck and experience.

SPEAKER_07: 2:24:39

Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:24:40

Great to meet you. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_07: 2:24:41

Thanks, Dan.

SPEAKER_03: 2:24:44

I now have the privilege to speak to the very first chief breathing officer that I've ever met from Breathe Alaska. She is the founder and CEO of this company, and her name is Cindy Brown Mills. So it's a pleasure to bring you on to Travel Trends. Thanks for joining us for this event, Spotlight arrival.

SPEAKER_12: 2:25:01

Oh, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03: 2:25:04

For sure. And this is where, with these recordings, I'm so keen to speak to people that I haven't met before and also that bring something new to the conversation. And when I saw that you were here, because we were rather selective as we have to be with the people that we bring onto the podcast, and we want to put these profiles together that have a really nice ecosystem of all the people that come together for the arrival event. So I am keen to not only get to know more about Breathe Alaska, but also what brought you to arrival. So let's let's start with Breathe Alaska, since we need to explain who you are and what you do. Tell everyone, Cindy, about Breathe Alaska and your role as this chief breathing officer.

SPEAKER_12: 2:25:39

So Breathe Alaska is a wellness company. So we provide wellness services, and I am a breathwork and mindfulness guide. So that is what we do. Um it's all about breath work and mindfulness, and we bring Alaska into that of the nature, right? We um in Juno, which is where uh where I'm from, is we're situated in the middle of the largest national forest in the country. I think it's in the world, but don't quote me on that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:26:10

Um and so bringing that into the mindfulness and um and just I want to make sure that for those of you at home that are like because some people multitask, it's breathe-alaska if you're quickly trying to find the website. I know so many people ask me to call that out because they're like, this is really fascinating, but I really want to know where I can multitask as I'm listening to it. And so as you people are now on your website as well, and I'm Canadian, of course, and Yukon is one of the places I'm so keen to get to. I have not been to Alaska yet. I have probably most of our listeners have done an Alaskan cruise or they have some understanding of Alaska. But tell us, did you grow up there? Is this home for you, or did you move there at some point?

SPEAKER_12: 2:26:51

Um, I I grew up in Salt Lake City and came to Alaska for graduate school uh to Anchorage and then came down to Juneau for a job. And I tell people met a boy, fell in love, had babies, been there for about 25 years.

SPEAKER_03: 2:27:05

Awesome. So it's very much home and has been now for the majority of your life, which is amazing. So good for you. That's an incredible place to call home. I know some people moved there during the pandemic. I have one colleague that moved to Alaska and absolutely loves it and was like they took the opportunity, once he could work remotely, to move to Alaska. It was a place he always wanted to travel to and decide I'm gonna live there and absolutely loves it. So I can't wait to visit. But tell everyone a bit more about the experience that they'll actually have with uh obviously you have a unique expertise, but tell everyone about the types of experiences you offer and these mindful kind of wilderness experiences that you bring people on.

SPEAKER_12: 2:27:42

So I have a an experience called mindfulness in the wilderness, and we bring people out into the forest and we talk about the benefits of the forest, the the benefits that the trees give us. Um it has such a profound effect on our bodies that the um chemicals that the trees give off. And we talk about the medicinal and edible plants of the forest. The beautiful thing about summer in Juneau is that there's lots of berries. So along the way, we can have a snack, um, eat some berries along the way, and then we get down to uh a beautiful beach, we do a meditation, and then we come back into Juneau and eat an amazing meal.

SPEAKER_03: 2:28:26

So cool. Well, on this episode, people have been hearing from leaders of industry that are in the transformation economy, like Joe Pine and investors like Michael Zeisner, who you just had a chance to meet, which is you know that but speaking to someone like yourself who's a true practitioner and can see the impact that it has on people's lives, because I I do firmly believe further to you know, Joe Fine's landmark work that we you know we're moving from this experience economy into a transformation economy. And I've been very focused on that in the travel industry for a number of years with companies that are doing multi-day trips and this whole idea of you know when you travel with a group, you come back changed, and you know you've had this great experience of connecting with like-minded people and you've gone on a journey. So tell everyone how you decided to create this business itself and how long you've had Breathe Alaska underway.

SPEAKER_12: 2:29:12

So two summers I've been doing Breathe Alaska and the mindfulness in the wilderness experience. And you know, what Joe Pine talked about in his session really resonated with me because that's what I do. Of course, I can imagine. Absolutely. You're sitting there in the audience thinking this is what I do. Um people that come on my experience are they leave changed. They leave you know, they may have come in very distracted, um stressed, overwhelmed, you know, especially Juno is a uh tourist uh destination for cruise ships. So a lot of people come off the cruise ships, although I do have a lot of independent travelers as well. And they come in um With all that that they carry in with them. And I sometimes I think it's really easy for me because the forest has that impact on people. Our trees give off this amazing chemical that has this profound effect on our bodies too. So they're doing as much work as I am to help folks. So as we walk down the trail, I know I leave feeling amazing too. It it has never felt like work to me, honestly.

SPEAKER_03: 2:30:27

Well, it's the parallel for me is there's a lady named Sahara Rose Devore. I'm not sure if you have met Sahara before, but she runs the travel coach network and the whole uh I've now joined as a as an advisor. I'm I'm a huge fan of what she does, but it's very similar in the sense that essentially the the travel coach network is designed to help people who are overcoming trauma or anxiety and using travel as a means to not not um only uh manage but also overcome some of these challenges. And I know you're looking at your website, that's some of the things that you speak to. If you're struggling with overwhelming emotions, such as anxiety, stress, grief, trauma. And we all are. Yes, it's a reality, right? It's just like you know, whether it's just how willing you are to go there and to admit it and to and to work through it. And so tell us a little bit about the types of people that are drawn to Alaska and specifically that are reaching out to you because clearly it's resonating. Right. And um, but uh tell us a little bit about yeah, the type of people that you are right now running tours for and how you see that growing and changing as far as like the ages, the demographics, some of the profile of the customer.

SPEAKER_12: 2:31:32

So it tends to be people that are a little bit older, usually, you know, like 40 and above, although I have had some younger people too. Um, and people who this resonate with, people who are looking for uh a calm in the storm to go out into the quiet instead of the high activity events and experiences that you have in Juno, you know, helicopters are great, but not when you need quiet and serene. I have had people on my experience who have had health issues and really are looking for that meditative state. Um so yeah, doctors that have come on and said, you know, I practice medicine all the time. I'm really overwhelmed, I'm really stressed, uh, I need this not just for me, but to take back to my patients. So lots and lots of different, you know, people from all walks of life.

SPEAKER_03: 2:32:36

Yeah. Well, I so I want to do an exercise in the breath work with you because I'm sure our audience will absolutely love this so they get an idea of what's gonna happen um on a breathe Alaska trip. And I just wanted to give a little bit of context too for our listeners, just from my experience. I mean, I started this podcast because my dad was dying of cancer. I took time out to take care of him and I said I was gonna start a podcast. And it was partially kind of a joke because my dad had a great sense of humor, as if that was going to uh be my new life, and actually it's turned out to almost be exactly that. Um, but it was almost therapeutic for me to go on this journey and to be able to share that experience with others. Um, and during that time of grieving, you know, there was certain um books I had read and even podcasts I listened to, and I discovered Andrew Huberman during that time. And obviously he's a very well-known podcaster, and everyone knows a lot of people know who Andrew Huberman is. But some of the episodes, even uh Dr. Peter Atia, to mention your point about doctors, um, that talk about the health span and the things we need to do so that we don't end up in the emergency room experiencing one of these like five horsemen of death as he refers to it. Um, there's all of these factors that led up to that moment. And so he described it as you know, he used to have these nightmares of someone throwing eggs off the top of a roof and trying to catch them. And it was like, actually, what you need to do is stop them throwing the eggs, not just try and catch them. And that's what he felt like at the hospital. And um, and so I want to give everyone some some of your wisdom and advice here. And and and uh, but Andrew Huberman has uh taught me the breathing technique um to help with um settling your mind when you feel stressed, which you know we all naturally sigh, and that's one way for us to like like we actually are relieving ourselves from stress and anxiety by sighing, whether we realize it or not. But the technique that um he had taught where you breathe in um as deeply as you can, and then you breathe in again further, and then you exhale very slowly. Yes, and then you do that multiple times. And I have found that even before I try and do some recordings, it really um settles my mind and overall body to be able to just be focused. So I'd love to learn from you, and I'm sure our listeners would as well. So take us through one of your breathing techniques.

SPEAKER_12: 2:34:48

So I will tell you that that um sigh of relief or that physiological side that is my one number one favorite because that is something we all do. It is our body's natural way to reset. But another one that I love is box breathing, and we've heard we've all heard of box breathing. But the reason that that is such a powerful breathing technique is it brings our body back into balance, but not only that, it gives us um clarity. So you've probably heard that um first responders, Navy SEALs, they use box breathing. And I've um talked to first responders that do this when a police officer is going to a call that's probably gonna be pretty serious and intense as they're driving their box breathing, right? Because it calms the nervous system and also brings that clarity and focus that they need going into a high intense situation like that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:35:52

And I am not familiar with this at all. Maybe some of our listeners are, but I'm I am fully intrigued. Okay. So walk us through how someone does box breathing.

SPEAKER_12: 2:36:00

Okay. So it's just like a box. It um four equal sides and for a count of whatever. So let's do it together. We're gonna do it to a count of four. All right. So we're gonna breathe in for four, we're gonna hold for four.

SPEAKER_03: 2:36:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_12: 2:36:15

Breathe out for four, hold for four.

SPEAKER_03: 2:36:18

Okay, let's do that together. That's 16 seconds. Okay, I'm gonna time I'm gonna time this as well to make sure I do this properly so I get the right experience.

SPEAKER_12: 2:36:24

Okay. Okay, so breathe. In hold. Out. Hold. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 2:36:46

That's it.

SPEAKER_12: 2:36:47

That's it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:36:48

Why is it and then is there a certain repetition that you mentioned uh ambulance drivers continuing to do this, like the 4444, like that 60 in the box, that you continue to do that for five or ten minutes?

SPEAKER_12: 2:37:01

Like you It really depends on what you need in your nervous system, right? But if you are driving to that intense situation and you only have two minutes, do two minutes.

SPEAKER_06: 2:37:11

Right.

SPEAKER_12: 2:37:11

If you only have the time to do two breaths, to do two cycles, do two cycles. Right. Um, it's whatever you need, and you know your body better than anybody else.

SPEAKER_03: 2:37:21

Aaron Powell Well, I know there's also that's a similar technique for helping you get to sleep, um, which is similar as just settling your nervous system and and um um your hypothalamus that clearly otherwise is like send you into this like fight or flight mode, and you're like, so how do you settle your mind? Tell us about why it's so important physiologically to slow the exhale. That's one of the parts that I found fascinating of like breathe in and then breathe in really um uh firmly again, and then slowly exhale. So the point that you are highlighting there is this you know, taking four seconds to slowly breathe in and then taking the four seconds to breathe out, and then but actually having those pauses as well so that we're not just right. Like in and out, which is obviously like more of an agitated state. Right.

SPEAKER_12: 2:38:04

Um So there's a couple things there that you were touching on. The first is the way we breathe physiologically in our body. So um if you put a hand on your chest and another hand on your belly.

SPEAKER_04: 2:38:17

Okay, I can't do that. I'm holding a microphone at the moment. Good thing we're not on camera, but yes.

SPEAKER_12: 2:38:21

You breathe in and just observe which hand rises first.

SPEAKER_19: 2:38:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_12: 2:38:29

For most of us, that's gonna be the one on our chest. Right, yeah. And what that is, is flight, flight, or freeze, right? That is our we're getting ready to battle something. And unfortunately, so in the past, that would only happen once in a while when you needed that focus, when you needed to be able to um have uh that narrow focus, uh, high adrenaline, more energy because you had to fight.

SPEAKER_06: 2:38:58

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_12: 2:38:59

You you had to save your life. Yeah, and when you were done with that, you were done. And now you started breathing down into your diaphragm, into your belly, which is rest and digest. Um, and that's where we as human beings were designed to be all the time. And just rarely we go into our chest, we fight off whatever we need to do, and then we go back to this relaxed state. Unfortunately, now that um fight, flight, or freeze is our our email inbox. That phone call we have to make, you know, that person we have to talk to.

SPEAKER_03: 2:39:31

Looking at our smartphone in the middle of the night when that screen all of a sudden and the impact that has on you psychologically and physiologically.

SPEAKER_12: 2:39:38

Yeah. So that exhale, that extended exhale, that brings us back into that rest and digest. It brings us back into our diaphragm. So if you if you breathe through your diaphragm and you do shorter inhales, longer exhales, that brings your nervous system back into balance and um reduces your stress level.

SPEAKER_03: 2:40:00

Fantastic. Well, now I want to I want to take this to Alaska. And one of the things, just to connect those two, Eric Blatchford, who was on this uh spotlight episode as well, a big time investor, but also someone that went to camp when he was a kid and has invested, he's bought the camp that he went to when uh as a kid because he's very focused on giving other young kids the opportunity to have a screen-free, technology-free existence for the summer and be outdoor in nature. So the part I wanted to bring it back to was this idea of going out and being in nature. And Joe Pine, when I asked him on this uh podcast as well, what are the two things as it relates to travel and transformation, he had retreats and then also the outdoors. And I'm sure you're familiar with I joked with him about wild swimming and this idea that came out of Japan of like being in the forest and you know being a better connected to nature. So when you combine breathing with being in a natural environment, especially one that is still as pristine and pure as Alaska, um, with the trees, and and so tell us a little bit how much more transformative that is than doing these breathing exercises in a big city like we are now or in a big conference area. What is the magnifier effect of being able to do that in a place like Alaska?

SPEAKER_12: 2:41:12

So, yeah, not only do you have the breathing that reduces that stress level, but we have all of those feel-good chemicals that our trees give off, especially in in Alaska. We have a lot of pine trees. They give off a lot more. So trees have a uh chemical that they give off called phytoncides. And those are it's like their immune system because they can't just shake off bugs and um fungus and things like that. So they have to give this chemical. So that chemical also has a profound effect on us. That's the magnifier is is the work that they're doing to provide the um more oxygen and these chemicals in the air that we, I mean, we don't even see them. And that's why we feel so good when we go out in nature, just without any of the breath work. We feel so much better when we go for a walk.

SPEAKER_03: 2:42:11

Yeah, that's yeah, and well, even that walk or walking meetings or some of the things that you can do. Um well, let's bring it back to uh why you're here at Arrival, and then I also want to make sure that people can find out more information to be able to take any of your trips or to connect with you if they're gonna be going to Alaska. Um, but tell us what brought you to Arrival this year.

SPEAKER_12: 2:42:29

I wanted to uh wellness is a an industry that is just or wellness travel is uh an emerging market. And I wanted to come and find like-minded people to and learn from them. I'm new in this arena, so I'm trying to figure out how to get the word out, how to um find the people who would really benefit from this kind of a transformative experience.

SPEAKER_03: 2:43:01

Fantastic. And this is your first arrival? It is okay, cool. And so what has been I know we're having this conversation on the uh you know latter part of the first full day of the conference, so there's still lots more for you to uh experience explore, but what has been some of the initial takeaways or the initial highlights of being here?

SPEAKER_12: 2:43:19

It has been that that uh session with Joe Pine and the transformative, you know, talking about transformative experiences because as I sat there, it was validation, right? That's exactly what I do, um, as we mentioned before, and keep doing more of the same, and here's how you can do it even better. So I was very excited about that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:43:41

Oh, that's good. And then what are you helping to get out? I I'm thrilled to hear that because it's Joe Pine's first time being here. I know the team put a lot of effort into bringing Joe here, and I think it was absolutely I mean it was a terrific beginning. I love Douglas Quinby's opening, I always do because he provides such great context. And I just genuinely like his style and approach on stage. Uh I've seen him for many years present, and I always like get a front row seat to listen to Douglas share some of the stats on the industry and then to have Joe. Um, so for me, and then Tao Tao from Get Your Guide. So it was a great opening session. Clearly, there's lots more ahead of us still. What are some of the other benefits you're hoping to get out of being here at Arriver?

SPEAKER_12: 2:44:16

Connections.

SPEAKER_03: 2:44:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12: 2:44:18

100% is connections. Um to give me advice about what are the things that I should focus on? Um, how how do I get the word out? Um, who do I talk to? All of those things. So, as I mentioned, connections.

SPEAKER_03: 2:44:35

All right, so let's make sure that people can connect with you because you all obviously have a chance to connect with people here, but we have thousands of listeners globally, and hopefully many of them will all of a sudden say, wait a second, I had no idea that this existed or how important this is. So, Cindy, tell us a little bit more. I know I mentioned the website, breath-alaska.com. What are some of the other ways that people can follow up with you? And also please mention some of the services that you offer. I want to make sure we highlight it as well because we didn't have a lot to uh chance to get into the detail of some of the actual experiences that people could book or engage you for.

SPEAKER_12: 2:45:07

So uh I'm on Instagram and Facebook as well. Would love to have you follow our page. There's a lot of Alaska, beautiful Alaska scenery that you'll see there, and we talk a lot about uh nature and and breath work outdoors. Um the website, as you mentioned, send me an email, call me, send a carrier pigeon. Um I welcome the contact, I welcome feedback, um, and just let's chat. The other services that I provide are um I do corporate um breath work sessions or um education in uh breath work. Yeah, I can do that virtually or in person, and uh I have a newsletter that goes out every month, and um, in those newsletters, it has a 10-15 minute breath work or uh meditation or something that goes with it every month. And pretty soon I'll have memberships. I also do online or virtual classes that are an hour long.

SPEAKER_03: 2:46:12

That's great. Yeah, I noticed on the website you had retreats and workshops, and clearly you know, Joe Pine talked about retreats. That's actually like that's the first thing we're seeing with this whole transformation economy that you're definitely ahead of the curve on.

SPEAKER_12: 2:46:23

So And I have a retreat. Um, I think that this is really unique, and that is for triathletes. So it's breath work for specifically for triathletes in the different disciplines of a triathlon. And we talk about it as breath is the fourth element. So just a little plug for that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:46:40

Oh, that's awesome. No, it's great to see everything you have going on, and I'm convinced that this is you know the early stages of what you'll be uh a great example of someone that's kind of led the way in transformation economy and be back to speak on stage at arrival in the future. Oh, I hope so. Well, Cindy, it's been lovely to meet you. I wish you every success, and let's definitely keep in touch.

SPEAKER_12: 2:47:00

All right, thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:47:03

I now have the pleasure to speak to Rob Keene, who is the co-founder of Project Expeditions. Now it. Yeah, there we go. Perfect. Nice to meet you, Rob. This is our little and our first time sitting down. We've messaged each other and we're looking forward to catching up here at Arrival. And I thought, you know what? Let's just dive right in and have a recording together and talk about what you do, what brought you here, and some of the insights. But yeah, Rob, tell us a little bit about Project Expedition, what you guys do.

SPEAKER_10: 2:47:27

We'd absolutely love to. Firstly, thanks for having me. It's it's funny. We we've I feel like I know you, but we've only met in person two minutes ago. So, Project Expedition, um, we're we're a platform of tours and activities. We're we're an OTA. Um what we are doing though is we are selling primarily B2B through travel advisors agencies, host agencies um in the United States and Canada. So very much a North American source market. And where are you based? I'm in New York. The accent won't give that away. No. That's not home for you originally. It's not. And it's uh there's there's a joke um internally that like I I I've got to know the US travel advisor space. Yeah. Don't ask me about the UK.

SPEAKER_03: 2:48:06

Well, we actually I think have a friend in common, uh, Anna, who runs Imagine Experiences. Yep. Yeah. She was raving about Project Expedition, which is why uh I wanted to meet you and actually get to know more about what you guys do. Because I I have checked out the website um when she was telling me about all the business they're getting from you guys. So yeah, tell us a little bit about a bit more about uh what brings you here to arrival and uh if you've been to arrival before.

SPEAKER_10: 2:48:31

Um uh yeah, guilty. Uh this is my first arrival. Yeah, okay, there we go. I feel bad. I haven't made uh made one um un until now. Um Anna, she's she's phenomenal. She really epitomizes what this this industry is. Just a first and foremost, a great person, fun person, and enjoyable to work with. Um yeah, I think we've we've been working with her for a couple of years now. Um we what we're doing is we're we are partnering up with tour companies, uh, activity companies, transfer companies all around the world. Um and we're we're trying to get a bit of every category, um, tours to activities, private to small group to large group. Um but we're trying to find great quality. And I mean that's the buzzword curation that everyone's saying. Um we are just essentially finding good companies, putting them into one place, and then going and selling to our network of advisors in the United States.

SPEAKER_03: 2:49:19

Very cool. So, yeah, perfect place for you to be. And obviously, you being based in New York and us being in Washington, super close. What about um arrival from you know the fact it is your first time has stood out to you so far? What have been some of the uh the benefits, the highlights, and maybe even some of the partnership opportunities?

SPEAKER_10: 2:49:36

Yeah, I primarily came here to learn. Um, we are in this industry, uh, we build our business off this industry, um, but we haven't really um until recently got to involve some of the industry events. So I wanted to come here to firstly meet a lot of key people we work with, meet a lot of key players, meet some of the restex, um, and everything in between. My take is it's it's just been a really nice, welcoming vibe. Uh, I felt it as I walked into the hotel. Um, you feel it when you walk into some of the rooms, some of the networking, and I think sometimes networking can be a scary word. Um I feel everyone's approachable, easy to start conversations with, and and that's that stood out to me not just as a first impression, but right through to today.

SPEAKER_03: 2:50:16

No, that's awesome. I mean, I've been coming to arrival now, I think, for about seven years. I came to the second arrival ever. I can't claim the uh to have attended the first one, like so many people here. But the interesting thing is that there are so many people that come back and they're diehard arrival, and this real sense of community here. And this group of individuals, they I I always talk about the fact that you don't see them at other conferences. So this is their big conference. A lot of smaller operators, mom and pop businesses, they travel uh internationally to be here, and there is that real sense of community, and so that networking component I know is so important to a lot of the attendees, and they get such great value from that. I meet a number of people who are like, I haven't even attended any sessions, but I um sessions are always for me, I I always seek out the knowledge and guidance from others. Have you attended some of the sessions? And if so, what have been some of the standouts for you?

SPEAKER_10: 2:51:05

Yeah, I've been I've attended a lot of sessions. Oh, you have to. So I guess I I I wanted to come here to learn as I was saying. So it was really important to me to get to a lot of the main sessions, some of the breakout sessions and the seminars. So it's been really exciting just to, I mean, A, just see some of the data that Douglas reported yesterday on the industry, where it's going, and also just some of the hard data that's not great to see, but it's it's helping us all understand it, most importantly, then react and do something about it. So the data was fascinating. Um that's been a big standout. But also just watching other players in the space, what they're up to, how they're thinking. Um, we can learn from each other, and I think it's it's really been notable to me that there's there's competitors um in each of the sectors within uh the Tours Activity Space that have been quite open about what they do and their challenges. And I think that's a really great uh sort of setup for us all to learn from each other and ultimately elevate the industry.

SPEAKER_03: 2:51:55

Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because when we look around the room where we're recording right now, we have a lot of the big technology players. You have Bokoon and you have Viator and you've got Peak, and you've got all of these intermediaries that the suppliers utilize to distribute their tours. And what's fascinating to me is the amount of feedback you get from other people about their experience working with those providers, and that can really help you make a decision. So, as much as you can get pitched from one of them and try and make decisions based on commissions or functionality and their pricing model and um the different OTAs that they integrate with, ultimately you speak to someone else that has grown their business and utilizes a platform, and that to me is the most valuable to make a decision. And I've heard a few people say, you know, that I won't mention the specific brands because each clearly have their die hard fans uh and loyalists, but when you hear people speak about their preferred platform, they're so passionate about it. And I'm trying to convince you as to why. So tell us a little bit more about Project Expedition, and I'm obviously this is a great opportunity for you to be able to grow your business here. Um, where are you guys headed in 2026? What are some of the things you guys are working on?

SPEAKER_10: 2:53:03

Yeah, a lot of a lot of exciting things happening, and I guess that's one of the other big takeaways from this week is it's been great getting to meet a lot of our existing supplier partners, but I've tried to not spend this time sitting down to do some of the account management or how do we grow an account or fix some of those kind of just day-to-day challenges, but actually talk to people we're not working with and also look at how we can get into new verticals or new areas. So, tying that back to Project Expedition, um we've really been laser focused on our client side for the last 10 years. That sort of explains why we haven't been at an arrival. It's we're traveling all over the country meeting travel advisors and their conferences and things like that, and ultimately trying to get sales. That's ultimately how we double down on getting our business off the ground. And what's been cool about our sort of B2B setup is our clients tell us what we're missing, what we're not good at, and we love being told because it's telling us what to do and telling us how to build our own business. So we we started with just tours and activities. In the last couple of years, we got very into transfers. Um simple product like an airport transfer is very, very popular with our clientele. Uh, our clients encourage us to get into the shore excursion space, so we're doing a lot more there, like tying like itineraries and day tours back to a cruise itinerary. Um there's been some conversations this week about sort of the the next sort of sector for us, which could be events, uh show tickets, um, game tickets, that kind of area we have clients uh clients asking about it, but we don't really do much of it now, and that's something that could be coming soon.

SPEAKER_03: 2:54:26

Yeah, so that's one of the things I also wanted to get your take on is based on consumer activity, which you know is a big focus of our podcast and trying to understand the signals that people should be paying attention to. I was keen to get your take on what it is you're seeing because we some of these conversations that have appeared on this spotlight episode have highlighted that culinary, especially in Japan, like there's certain and that was obviously what uh Douglas mentioned on stage as well. So I pick up on Douglas's excellent research and and and the stats, like the US being down nine percent, um, but then Japan being up. And it's like there's always winners and losers in travel, as I've been highlighting on some of these conversations. So tell us a little bit more about some of those trends you're seeing. Obviously, you're making key decisions about your business based on consumer feedback. So, what are some of the the overall trends and themes that that that you're seeing that maybe even coming here, you're like, yes, we've already been seeing that, and then Douglas pointed it out, but it was already obvious to you.

SPEAKER_10: 2:55:17

Yeah, and you you've already touched on a couple of the things that we're seeing. Um, for for our clients, primarily US and Canadians, so the feedback on what we see, it's it's obviously limited to that. Overall, it's it's it's positive. Uh every metric is up. Um we're we're heading in the right direction. I mean, we're we're fortunate in a way we're not as exposed to the US inbound market. Um, but we are still seeing more Americans going to Hawaii than last year. Um and options like that. Within like the sectors, we are seeing still a continued shift towards small group and private, away from some of the larger groups. We're seeing that push towards culinary that you already touched on. You I think you mentioned Japan. We're seeing exactly the same where we we are struggling with Japan, to be honest. We need more supply. Uh it's it's kind of oversold at the moment.

SPEAKER_03: 2:56:02

Well, that's an interesting thing though, because we were talking uh with Lauren, who runs Erigato Tours, about some of the issues of overtourism in Japan and just trying to get people further away from an urban center. One of the things I didn't mention in that discussion, but I thought it's worth highlighting now, is that Shannon Stoole, who runs the Adventure Travel and Trade Association, and one of the stats he pointed out to me is that 90% of travelers only travel with about a hundred miles of their, I'm not using the word miles because I would use kilometers, but uh it was an American reference. So a hundred miles of their arrival destination, they don't travel that much further afield. And that's obviously one of the keys that Lauren highlights will help Japan is getting people to more remote areas where there's operators that are keen for that business. It's you know, Tokyo, Kyoto, um Osaka, those cities can only handle, they've already they're already big cities and they've got tons of tourists. And so, what are some of the things that Project Expedition could do to help in in that regard with introducing new opportunities to explore further afield?

SPEAKER_10: 2:57:04

That's that's a great question. And you actually touched on one of a number of my takeaways from this week. Um to date, we've been very uh client-led, um, which is super important. If a client's saying they want something somewhere, we're gonna go and source work for the supplier to hopefully be able to sell that. Um in terms of what we can do to influence, it's really at this point we have a pretty large network of advisors. We've preferred with a lot of the major consortia in the United States. We can help um push certain products, certain destinations. And some of the conversations this week have been well, if a supplier or an operator is coming to us and saying, Could you get something that's further away or not mainstream, we can use our network um to push that uh and for us to actually dictate, well, here's a great experience. Um we we really haven't done much of that. It's been quite reactive to clients. Um I'm one of my takeaways is we can be proactive in partnership with our supplier partners, who are frankly the experts.

SPEAKER_03: 2:57:57

Right. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And I think that's where uh educating consumers as well or travelers to be aware of some of the challenges and the fact they're likely gonna have a better experience if they choose not only uh more far-flung destinations, but also shoulder seasons. That's one of the things that we've certainly seen as well. Is uh you know someone has commented that May is the new July. I've heard the same on October. Yeah, exactly. And it's and it's so people are very aware that certain destinations are particularly overcrowded at at peak travel times. And um, and there's also been this trend. I know you were at the uh Virtuoso conference as well, and one of the things that they highlighted was cool cations, this idea that people are traveling to Scandinavia and knowing that you know southern Europe is so hot in the summertime. Um so, yeah, since you do have such a global view, what are some of the other destinations that are standing out for you in 2026? You mentioned more Americans going to Hawaii. What are some of the other standout places that are worth noting?

SPEAKER_10: 2:58:58

Yeah, I mean the biggest one for us is probably gonna continue to be Italy. Uh and we're talking more more than a quarter of our business is Italy. Um and just me sort of coming to the States, I moved here 10 years ago. Um, I was I'm still surprised uh by the size of that. Um so we expect that to continue. Um we're doing some some some work there already to like sell beyond the standard Rome, Florence, Venice to try and push sort of let's say mid-tier destinations. We are seeing um things further out. It's we've already talked about Japan. The other one that's been coming up for us is Australia and New Zealand. Um there's sort of two things that we're pushing there is the cruise market and also just the land vacations that are going in. And then in the United States, Hawaii and Alaska are really driving it for us. The US as a whole is our fourth biggest destination market, um, but it is primarily driven by those two. And then just we're here in DC, and I've had some great conversations here, and there's more we could be doing to push some of these East Coast cities, uh, DC being one of them.

SPEAKER_03: 2:59:56

I want to make sure that people can find out more about you. Guys, and um obviously you your other co-founder, the rest of the team. Uh, given that we're obviously a large global B2B podcast, if you have any ways for partners that want to work with you guys as well. But yeah, Rob, keen for everyone to know how to find out more about you and Project Expedition.

SPEAKER_10: 3:00:15

I really, really appreciate that. So our platform is just ProjectExpedition.com. Um if you are a tour operator activity, uh a supplier that's interested in working with us, you can go online and sign up, or you can reach out direct to me. Uh we can put my email in the in the notes. Um, if you are a partner via a travel advisor or any kind of indirect channel where you are interested in offering a selection of tours and activities, we would love to hear from you. Um feel free to reach out to us as well. It's all projectexpedition.com.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00:44

Awesome. And it's yeah, Rob at projectexpedition.com. I'll throw that out there. We'll put it in the notes. I'm sure people will reach out to you, and I certainly look forward to keeping in touch and seeing you at the next arrival.

SPEAKER_10: 3:00:53

We'd love to. Yeah. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00:56

I now have the privilege to sit down and speak to the CEO and co-founder of Babylon Tours. I know a lot about Babylon from my good friend Ben Sand, who runs Tour Optima. And I know that your co-founder was on a panel earlier today, but I now get to speak to Arno Azale.

SPEAKER_05: 3:01:13

Pretty close, right? Very close.

SPEAKER_03: 3:01:15

Oh, so close. But yeah, Arno, it's great to have you on Travel Trends in this special event spotlight of uh the arrival episode. But yeah, thanks for joining us, man.

SPEAKER_09: 3:01:23

Thank you. Appreciate it hearing.

SPEAKER_03: 3:01:25

So you built this business way back in 2012. Tell us a little bit about the origin story, where you guys are based, and how you got Babylon tours off the ground.

SPEAKER_09: 3:01:32

Uh so the origin started in Paris. I'm from Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles now, but I spent six years living in Paris. I moved there with my wife, who's French, and a new baby at the time. And very quickly I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do a job in French. Like I my French was not as good as I thought it was. So I realized I needed a job in English, and I saw someone giving tours in the street. I'm like, that's really interesting, and I could do that a lot better, I'm sure. And uh sure enough, I looked online, found a job posting for free tours. You know, Sandaman's free tours?

SPEAKER_04: 3:02:09

Yeah, of course I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 3:02:10

So I was a free tour guide.

SPEAKER_03: 3:02:11

Make all your money on tips, right?

SPEAKER_09: 3:02:13

My wife, I mean, she made fun of me at first when I told her free tours, but we were laughing all the way to the bank. Actually, in Paris, you don't put cash in the bank, just so you know. Um I was killing it, but I was 30, and most of the guys were barely, you know, scraping 20, 21. So I didn't know if it was like a long-term career, you know, decision at that age with a family, so I had to think a little broader. It took me about a year or two. Um, my co-founder now, Dario, was actually working at San Antonio doing tickets, ticket sales, because they do sell tours also. And I was uh giving tours, and so I started coming up with different ideas. Maybe I can open my own thing, and I landed on the idea of doing museum tours at the Louvre. That seemed like something I'm interested in. I really didn't know the Louvre, but I love art. So I decided to kind of give myself a crash course. It became my temple every night. I would go in and just basically learn it by like by the back of my hand, so every time I could create a tour that was a crash course, in my opinion. And then I started doing them for free to my free tour guests. I'd say, hey, who wants to see the Louvre tonight? I'll take six of you, let's go. And uh, I don't want any money, I just want you to leave me a review. And those reviews turned into building the number one tour in Paris, really, like in three months, and then that was in 2012, all me doing the tours, and then I sold it to the idea to Viator. It took some time, but they adopted it, and then right away I had a business, like Viator blew it up.

SPEAKER_03: 3:03:43

And where does the name Babylon come from for a tour business from an American in Paris?

SPEAKER_09: 3:03:47

So the initial iteration of my co-founder of me starting a business was not Louvre Museums. We went through many plans that didn't pan out. The first one was that we realized Sanimans they only did tours in Spanish and English. I think they still do, and we had tons of Brazilians, Italians, Germans, people that didn't really speak either, but would just come on the English tour or go into Spanish and they wouldn't tip because they didn't really understand anything fair enough. And like there's no tours for these people, so we're like, let's create this kind of lost languages, the forgotten languages almost tours, and uh so we can mess around with the Tower of Babel kind of idea, and Babel turned into Babylon, and it's it's not that deep, but it is that is the evolution. Babylon came out, my wife is at the table, Dario said it, my co-founder, and she's like, I love it. I'm like, all right, great.

SPEAKER_03: 3:04:31

Yeah, well, it's memorable. That's one of the key aspects of marketing, right? Babylon. But I had a certain uh origin story that differed just based on the name. Um, so Babylon Tours, you guys decided on the brand, you guys were in Paris. So tell us a bit about your partner and how you guys then started scaling this business. I get the you started on your own, you got the reviews, and then all of a sudden Viator kind of really lit up your business because obviously they're a massive distribution platform. Correct. Um, but how did you actually then with your partner choose to scale this business globally?

SPEAKER_09: 3:05:04

So we well globally came a bit later, but we had to just obviously start hiring guides like the amount of bookings, and we didn't want to turn down one. That would all we wanted to keep the reviews and keep everyone happy, like the quality separated us from everyone, everyone else, right? Keep these reviews, keep everyone happy. Um, so I had to train guys that didn't know the tour or find guys that knew how to you know do it and tell them my way of doing it and uh replicate what I was doing. And of course, very soon after the guys were much better than me, and I wasn't able to have time to even do the tours. I was just managing the company. And he was doing things like finding website designers and you know, doing the logo, all the stuff I didn't want to get into. I was just kind of handling the actual tour side and the quality control. Then my wife, I think, actually said, You've gotta don't pull your eggs in one basket. You should try and open a different city, a different market. And I thought that would be impossible. I'm so hands-on, how am I gonna do that? But we tried Amsterdam. I figure it's close enough. If there's an emergency, I can take a train. And it's a smaller market, it's not like doing London right away. Let's let's see if we can do a small city that's close by from a distance. And that gained traction really fast, actually. So then soon enough we did London, and by that time I moved out of Paris, I'm like, well, I'm doing everything now, you know, out of my house. I'm not giving tours anymore, so I can we decide to go back home or my home. Yeah, she'd follow it. With another kid.

SPEAKER_03: 3:06:18

Right, good, that's great. So you actually managed to start a family on this journey of entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_09: 3:06:24

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And uh and so did my partner, a little bit later than me. My co-founder did too. But he's he's in Paris, so we do have you know both time zones covered, and now we have a lot of help, but that took a lot of time to get there. I think before COVID, we were really doing everything just the two of us. I answered every call, 24-7, customer service, that was me, every booking, you know, every reply, every refund, you know, it all went through us.

SPEAKER_05: 3:06:45

You know the hustle.

SPEAKER_09: 3:06:46

Yeah, but I mean it felt good. I mean, COVID didn't feel good in any way, really, but it felt nice not to have to fire or furlough or deal with any, you know, that it was just the guides that were my main concern.

SPEAKER_06: 3:06:55

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 3:06:55

You know, trying to keep them busy and keeping them with us so when we got back, we can come back strong. And we were able to do that. And you know, sadly so many weren't able to come out of that as well as we did.

SPEAKER_03: 3:07:04

Yeah, no doubt. Well, I do want to touch on that, but I also just want to give everyone a better understanding of you know, from those people listening to this and trying to understand how you were successful in scaling this company, but also what's unique and the real differentiator with Babylon. So uh that's one of the things I'm always so keen to get into on our podcast, because that for me is often the difference maker. So, you know, there's timing, there's luck and good fortune, there's you know, there's smart uh teams that come together, there's investors, but really obviously it's the combination of all those those things, timing is considered to be by far the most important, but it's the sequence of events, the fact you built this business as a standalone, and then you were able to hire guides and you were to solve these problems as you came up against them. But what was, I guess, the core value proposition for Babylon? Like if you started with the Louvre and then you're sort of uh opening tours in London, yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 3:07:53

What was special about Babylon to special definitely is well, a few things, but mainly for the size of our groups. So now it's pretty common, but it at the time really wasn't to do just semi-private or private tours, right? Louvre, we never took more than six, we still don't. And then other museums we never go really past eight to this day. And we never really straight at doing a million things. We don't have any transportation, it's all walking tours. So museums and walking tours, when we open a new city, it's usually focused on either a major museum or attraction, and that will base other tours around walking tours within that city. And it's a formula that's really worked, and you don't have to have a lot of overhead to open it, you just need great guides. That's the hard part. The quality is what sets it apart from the rest. Others care about numbers, we care about reviews. If I get a four-star, I will, you know, lose sleep at night. It just means we've done something wrong, the guide's wrong, or or you know, maybe it was a mistake. It can't be. So it's dedication to the quality and the small group size, which again was less popular. Now it's it's a crowded market. I think every time I came to arrival, they were showing this trend, especially after COVID. You know, you look at Douglas's charts and stuff. Like, well, people want smaller groups, they want more intimate, they want more personalized. Like, yeah, we know this, and now everyone knows. So every city you'll have the copycats, but that's that's great. I mean, I think it it's quality prevails, and there's monsters that do the same kind of general tours as us, but we're not really competing. It's it's a total different price point. Again, a lot of people are complaining this year about the year they had, but in our area it wasn't, it wasn't as we did quite well. And I think if anything, we we might have lost in some markets because more competition, not because of less less tourism and uh and the higher priced uh items.

SPEAKER_03: 3:09:33

You mentioned 2012 was when you started. Arrival's now been around for about eight years, I guess. And um, when did you start coming to Arrival?

SPEAKER_09: 3:09:40

I've I've been to everyone except for the one in Bangkok. And oh sorry, there's the one in UK I didn't go to as well. Berlin, COVID, when they all got stuck there, I yeah, luckily missed the flight. So I wasn't at that one. Yeah, all the other ones I've been to.

SPEAKER_03: 3:09:54

And I heard the people that got there because people had turned up and they still got together and had to be. Yeah, I'm kind of sad I missed it, but I mean cool. So you've been there on their journey. So let's talk about 2025 arrival and the fact we're here in Washington slash National Harbor together. Um, what were some of the things that you are looking forward to this year? I know you attended the executive day, there was the AI forum. Keen to get your take since you know this conference so well and have been in this industry so long. Um so there's I'm sure there's reasons that you come back every year, keen to hear what those are, but also what was unique about this year that uh on the agenda that stood out to you?

SPEAKER_09: 3:10:31

A few things. I really did enjoy the uh the initial conference, the executive conference. I don't know how many people it was, I'm not good at gauging that, but I think I knew half of them, which is rare usually. You just kind of get lost in the crowd. I did know a lot of people, and and interesting to see, you know, ideas they're bouncing off and and troubles they're having, successes, and you know, what where their plans are. And obviously a lot of smarter people than me in the room. That's always nice to hear good input. There were investors and venture capitalists and all kinds of fun input. So I enjoyed that a lot. The AI conference, you know, people say blew their mind, but I was it honestly hurt my head. So I just they're going around in circles, you know, debating if there's God. I'm like, okay, well, they just know God exists, but whose God it is, and I don't know. So it was a little much for me, but I obviously we can't ignore it, but I feel like everyone just very clearly doesn't know what they're really what they're talking about. There's an idea there, but we're not quite there yet. So I keep an eye on it. Um I'm here also. I have tech that I built for my uh company that I need as necessity, but I know it's gonna be very helpful for tour operators and tour guides. So I'm I'm starting those conversations and uh getting people excited about that coming out, tour operators and booking softwares uh and things they can they can test out in some demos there. So that's really new for me. And then tonight it's Yom Kippur, so everyone's gonna be partying and you know doing their conference tomorrow, and I'll be fasting alone in my room, super timing on this conference.

SPEAKER_03: 3:11:57

Well, I know Arno and I were talking about this because uh Gillad, our friend, has already flown out to get back to his family. You are here because you actually need to be here afterwards, so you can't actually get home in time.

SPEAKER_06: 3:12:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_03: 3:12:09

Um, but let's talk about some of the aspects of arrival that you benefit most. So, like putting the executive day, I guess, was about 100 people. I think they wanted 85, they got 100, so it actually turned out to be great. I know their plans are to continue that and the AI thing. Uh we spent a lot of time talking about AI, so I'm actually gonna not dive into that path because um I'd rather actually talk about Arrival 360, and you know, we're here at the end of the first day, and keen to know if there's anything different about this year in terms of uh the vendors that are here, the sessions you've attended so far, and I'm also keen for you to share what you guys were presenting. I know it was your co-founder on there with Ben from Tor Optima. I know what a big conference this is for him and they're a partner of yours. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about what the experience has been so far this year with 360.

SPEAKER_09: 3:12:58

I mean, I'd love to say it's super different in every way, but it's it's uh there's a reason I come back because I know it's gonna be great, right? So it had it it keeps that authenticity of being just super helpful, and even the most random conversations you think is not gonna be useful, and you'd be so surprised what comes out of it. Just the connection, even is just like, oh, I know this guy who does that, and so it's worth making the effort to talk to everyone. So because I make so many meetings, uh I miss out on all the great sessions, which is used to be kind of the best thing I would get out of it, but now it's just more uh I'm pulled in so many directions, but but always great things come out of it, and then you know later you can watch them online and recorded, and that's all right. But you hear good things, like, oh, I watched this great session, and so yeah, you miss out on some, you can't do everything. Yeah, yeah. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 3:13:40

Well, and I I guess similar to you, I love coming to arrival, it's a fantastic conference. I've been coming since the second arrival. I'm obviously thrilled that the multi-day tour has now taken on um a role and will continue to grow. Um, but one of the things I was keen to get your take on for many of our global listeners, knowing that you are uh a regular attendee, so it's hitting all the highlights for you. Um, but in terms of some of the trends, because one of the things I always look forward to is Douglas Quinaby's opening session, you know, producing a report. I certainly enjoyed his session today. And it's interesting, you know, uh I have heard other people, whether it was Joe Pine's session, uh, is that they're nodding that yes, they're seeing these trends. And so, you know, he's doing a report based on people like you giving them the feedback of uh what people are telling you or what you're seeing. Uh so I'm really keen, Arnold, with their time together. If you wouldn't mind sharing some of the trends that you're paying attention to with Babylon tours going into uh 2026, clearly you have a business model that's working exceptionally well with the group size, which is obviously very important. Um, but are there new destinations you're interested in expanding to? Like what are some, or even one of the things he showed on stage was you know the rise of um uh food and cuisine tours, like that being for the younger generation as well. And I keep hearing more and more about Viator and some of these OTAs that are seeing a great interest level. So that's what I'm keen to know. You, from an experience point of view, working directly with customers, creating these trips, what are some of the trends you're paying attention to?

SPEAKER_09: 3:15:06

I mean, within tour operators kind of peers, I see a lot of you know, cross-pollination, cross-selling, uh acquiring mergers, and it it's everything seems to be that they realize there's so many trends, like the food one is is a perfect example, right? Um we open markets based on you know our kind of trajectory always. We're going to handle it the same way with our formula, but it's true that there's so many other markets within the city that we're just not gonna tap into. So it'd be silly not to, you know, combine forces with a food tour. Now, they are they seem like they're all tours, it could probably run the same, but they are very different animals. We've looked into that, and it's like, well, if someone knows how to do it well, then it's worth you know connecting with them, and whether it's getting a commission or doing some kind of cross-selling, and I see that happening a lot because it just makes sense, money on the table. You have customers, they want to do everything, you can't do everything as well as you do what you do the best.

SPEAKER_06: 3:16:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 3:16:02

So I see that happening a lot. I see a lot of always arrival, just new people starting their interesting businesses, interesting tours, and they're they're thirsty for knowledge and thirsty for information, and it's uh it's cool, you know. I'm old now, I'm like a mentor. It's weird.

SPEAKER_03: 3:16:16

It's funny because it's totally audio, but I'm sure people even like um Arno when I was chatting with yesterday, he's got a great sense of humor, as you can probably tell, a very dry sense of humor. Um, you know, perfect for running tours because obviously people get a kick out of you, and I imagine you did well, you definitely definitely did well with the tips. And then, but as far as where you're headed with Babylon, um, one of the things I'm always uh keen to highlight, because you mentioned things like startups, and they're here, we've had uh we've interviewed a few on this this episode, and this is all part of the ecosystem of people coming into this industry, trying to solve new problems, investors trying to figure out who to back. You know, there's you with a company that's successful, it's growing, you're trying to maintain that. Um what are some of the things that you are looking to announce, launch with Babylon for 2026? And I also want to make sure that people can find out more about Babylon Tours and be able to follow up with you and the team if they want to. This is a B2B podcast, so many of these could be partnerships. Um, but yeah, tell us where you're headed in 2026 with Babylon Tours and how people can connect with you guys.

SPEAKER_09: 3:17:13

What a wonderful opportunity to plug everything.

SPEAKER_05: 3:17:15

Yeah, here it comes.

SPEAKER_09: 3:17:17

We're opening Barcelona. Honestly, it would be open today if I could find a minute to get on my computer. I have everything set to go. So Barcelona's opening within days. Uh that's been held off. It's late to the party. It should have been open ages ago. My fault. Barcelona's opening. We open usually two cities, but we have our four cities. We're gonna do two in US. We operate in US mostly in Europe, so in US is DC, New York, and Chicago only. But we have the big anniversary next year, so we're gonna open uh Boston and Philadelphia. We think we'll get some traction there, and they're just great cities anyway, for walking tours and museums. And uh this this tech is most that's my baby now. That's I'm most excited about, and that's for really B2B. That's for everyone. That's guide scheduling, uh direct in one place, availability live. Someone books, it connects the guide, assigns them automatically. And if he's working for you, he's a freelancer, his availability closes for me. The guide hasn't had to put their availability in 50 places, it all goes to one place, and we're all connected to their live availability. And I know it's something I need, and I know if I need it, they all need it, and sure enough, everyone's very excited. So that's where we're headed. That's a veils.app, which is you can sign up for a demo there. But uh yeah, new for new for us and doing all the the testing, but getting it ready for hopefully have a booth at arrival next time, Valencia.

SPEAKER_03: 3:18:30

That's cool. So you've got the Babylon tours, you've got the tech side of the business now, and that's obviously the big growth and focus area is like keep the core business running, continue to expand, but now leverage the technology that you've built because you have a core competency and understanding in what's needed, and now you've got the solution to be able to sell to other partners. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 3:18:48

And right now we're just like I said, I don't even know where it's gonna go. I just know everyone needs it, so there's no reason not to, you know, everyone's got their own built-in similar kind of thing, but like this is ridiculous. The guides suffer, yeah, and then then tour operators suffer when they're double booked or you know, messed up. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I'm working on this, I can't do that tour. That shouldn't happen anymore. This needs to be streamlined. You know, they say how the industry is fragmented, but it gets worse as you get lower, you know, down the chain. And this could be a really easy way to consolidate it. That's cool and automate it.

SPEAKER_03: 3:19:16

How best for people to follow up with you? LinkedIn, email, what's the best way for people to reach out that want to uh collaborate with you, especially with uh the Vail's app launch?

SPEAKER_09: 3:19:24

Yeah, um, you can email us, uh, or I guess LinkedIn's best to reach out to me, but also we we just launched our new website, BabylonTours.com. Nothing crazy special, but it needed a seven-year update, so that's done. I'm really excited because that was a long process. So they can yeah, email through the website, reach out through LinkedIn, not too hard. Awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 3:19:44

It's great to meet you here. I've got a real I've uh thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you over the last couple of days, and um, I look forward to keeping in touch with you and yeah, I wish you much success in the year ahead, buddy.

SPEAKER_09: 3:19:54

Likewise, Dan. Thank you. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 3:19:57

I now have the privilege to speak to someone that I was very keen to include in this recording because she's come all the way from Slovakia to be here for arrival. It's her very first time at the event, and obviously I'm always keen to make sure we have great strong female leaders represented because we certainly have a lot of men that reach out to be on the podcast. And Gabriella came over with a keenness to be on the podcast. And when I learned more about her story and her background, I was like, we absolutely have to record together. So we're doing this at the last minute to make sure she gets into this series. And uh I want to introduce her to you now. She runs a company called Gabby Goal, and she is one of the reasons she's here is to promote Slovakia as a destination. So, Gabriela, welcome to the Travel Trends Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_16: 3:20:44

Thank you very much. Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER_03: 3:20:46

It's great to have you here. So tell us, I guess, first of all, about your company, your business, your background in the travel industry.

SPEAKER_16: 3:20:55

So my name is Gabriela Radimakova. I'm from Slovakia, from a capital um city Bratislava. Uh, I'm originally a marketer and project manager, but I always like to travel, and more I traveled, um, more I realized how Slovakia is uh still undiscovered country for tourists. And uh later I uh came with the idea to do the tours to Slovakia, uh firstly, like one-day tours, and uh I want to do it more because I think it's a great destination that people don't know about. Honestly, Slovakia doesn't do really good marketing, uh, so I would like to promote it more to the tourists because I know um most of my tourists are from America and they are um really interesting in Slovakia because not a lot of people know, but Slovakia has the most castle per capita in the world.

SPEAKER_03: 3:21:47

Well, see, that's one of the things that stood out to me when you mentioned about Slovakia not doing great marketing, and I was uh mentioning to Gabriela uh Albania. I do some work in the region. I'm not an expert by any means, I uh but I'm familiar with some of these companies that are in Croatia, and Albania was I was using as the example because they've invested very heavily in tourism marketing, and they were the kind of the undiscovered destination for Europeans, and now they're starting to get on the radar with Americans, but really Americans are in Croatia, and all the Europeans are in Albania, and but very few travelers really know about Slovakia, so there's not a great strong presence from the tourism board. So this is where it relies on you to come to a conference like this and to get on a podcast like this as well, and this is why I was so keen to have you on it. So, well, first of all, tell everyone a little bit about Slovakia and why people should travel there.

SPEAKER_16: 3:22:43

Okay, so Slovakia um is a country um located in the really central of Europe. Uh so not a lot of people know, but it's just one hour drive from Vienna. So people discovered about Bratislava when they are in Vienna uh already. Uh we used to be Czechoslovakia, that's how probably some people know about us, but we divided in 1993. So we are kind of a young country that doesn't help to our marketing. So uh now we are not Czechoslovakia, uh, we are Slovakia and Czechia separated. Uh so what to tell about Slovakia? It's an amazing country, uh small. Uh we have like five and a half million inhabitants, but we have the most castles per capita in the world. We have a beautiful nature, mountains, caves, lakes, um natural beauty and amazing culture and food.

SPEAKER_03: 3:23:36

Well, and one of the things I wanted to highlight too, because this is where when you discover a hidden gem, and there's a certain time when the rest of the world doesn't know about this destination. This is uh that there's great value for money, and there's obviously not the same issues in other destinations with overcrowding and over-tourism. And that's one of the reasons I was keen to have you on and shine a light on Slovakia. So tell us, you mentioned one-hour drive from Vienna. So tell us about the opportunities for someone that is in the region to either add Slovakia in, because obviously that's one way to get people to travel to Slovakia, and another one is to travel to Slovakia for their next holiday, which it was again one of the things I was so surprised about a destination like Albania, the number of people that are actually fully holidaying in Albania. So I'd love for you to cover both. So if someone's gonna do a short trip, uh, what would be your recommendations for them? And if someone's gonna try and plan to come for a week or 10 days, what would be your suggestions there?

SPEAKER_16: 3:24:37

Um, I understand for tourists who come to this region, they want to see more countries, and it's really easy because um Hungary, uh Czech Republic, and Slovakia and Austria are really close to each other. So definitely recommend it for a one-day trip to Bratislava if they are in Vienna. It's like must to do. Uh, but I um try to motivate people to spend more days in Slovakia, so it's uh really a lot to do, even for like a week or two weeks. It depends on um of the time. So uh, if I have a tourist for like more days, uh we cover, of course, the capital, the mountains, some of the beautiful um castles, um, according to their taste. We have, for example, the castle where the first uh Dracula movie was filmed. Not a lot of people know, but it's a really amazing castle. Uh, and thermal springs as well. So a combination of um uh nature and history and uh relax and everything we can do in a few days.

SPEAKER_03: 3:25:36

Yeah, that's cool. Well, I'm keen to eventually travel there, but tell us a little bit about the the company you run and then ultimately what brought you here to arrival.

SPEAKER_16: 3:25:46

Uh so I uh started a company recently, uh just a few months ago, uh, because I wanted to do the more days tours in Slovakia. So I'm now an official travel agency in Slovakia. Uh and uh I'm running it by myself and my small uh team for now, but uh we are raising all our uh local people who love Slovakia, who live in Slovakia, and who are full of the passion, and that's what I want to keep, you know, to be still personalized, to be still like authentic.

SPEAKER_03: 3:26:19

And so you're running uh multi-day tours? Is it like so it's part of the offering uh different itineraries? Is it for uh for small groups or private groups or independent travelers?

SPEAKER_16: 3:26:30

Um so I doing both one-day tours because that's what they ask for now uh a lot, you know, one-day tour from Vienna, because that's what uh their time allowed them. Uh and also like multi-day tours, and it's for private um private tours. So I am focused focused on uh um private groups. There are small groups of uh uh like families, so not like open big buses tours, so really uh smaller groups where I have a chance to tailor the experience to their needs.

SPEAKER_03: 3:26:58

That's great. And then coming to Arrival, obviously you've traveled a long way to be here. Uh what were some of the things you were looking forward to being at Arrival? And what has been, I guess, the reality now that you've been here for a couple of days and experienced your very first arrival conference?

SPEAKER_16: 3:27:15

Um so as I um took it really seriously with my travel agency. I know this is like really, really big uh conference about travel industry. I heard about it before. And as most of my clients are from America, I decided to to fly here and uh to uh get knowledge, get connections, tell about Slovakia, and um eventually like uh elevate my business to the next level.

SPEAKER_03: 3:27:41

That's great. And I know there's been you know three days of sessions, and you've kindly attended some of the multi-day tour sessions, but what have been some of those other standouts for you in terms of the speakers and the content here at uh at arrival?

SPEAKER_16: 3:27:55

I really enjoy the content. I think it covers a lot of uh different topics, also including AI. I also um attended the AI conference uh before. Uh and I love it because either like the speakers who can uh who had something to say, you know, in the industry and have a lot of years of experiences, but also operators that are on the um that are doing the same things, but in their country, in different region, we can um exchange the experience and make connection. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 3:28:25

Yeah, for sure. I mean I I saw you networking and getting a number of opportunities to meet people, and I thought it was great to see you. And this is where, like, ultimately to get the most out of a conference like this, you really have to hustle. You've got to make your effort to go up to people after their presentations, share your business card. And this is where uh you have a great respect and admiration for someone that's so entrepreneurial and also wants to make the most out of the time year. And so I'm keen to know like from what you initially envisioned to what the reality was. Um what is your overall perception of arrival? Uh, how much did you benefit from it? And I guess ultimately are you gonna be coming back next year?

SPEAKER_16: 3:29:04

Um I would say it exceeded my expect expectation, even uh it's a huge, I mean, and the people are really friendly. I usually don't come with expectation because then I can be disappointed. Uh, but I had some and I think um it it's it's great. So let's see what it will bring, and I hope I will come next to you too.

SPEAKER_03: 3:29:26

Oh, that's great. And one of the reasons that uh when I spoke to Douglas and I asked him the question about, you know, oh, when we finished our conversation, as people will hear at the end of this highlight episode, is that I um the ultimate gift that I can give back to the team at Arrival is the collection of conversations that I've been able to capture here, and obviously yourself, Gabriella being a key part of that, because you may not have met Bruce or Douglas or some of the owners at Arrival. And there's obviously many more people that are going to be listening to this that even if they were here at the conference, they didn't get a chance to meet you. And that's one of the challenges when you've got nearly a thousand people. You can't meet everyone while You're here. And so there'll be certain misconnections or opportunities. So this gives you a platform and uh an opportunity to present yourself to them, to the organization. So potentially you could be involved in a panel in the future, especially as we expand the focus in multi-day and arrival moves to Valencia, which will be a lot closer for you to be able to travel to. And then, but uh back to your business and where you're headed in 2026. Tell us a little bit about more about Slovakia in 2026. I love the fact you mentioned, you know, the most castles per capita of any country in the world. That's a very fascinating stat. And it's one of the reasons that people go to Germany and take river cruises and they want to see all the castles from the Rhine. And so these are the things you need to draw out, and you know that, but I'm saying as a marketer, you need to draw out about a destination to give people all the reasons why you should travel there. So, what are some of the things that, despite the tourism board themselves not leading the charge for Slovakia, what are some of the other things that would be interesting for our audience to know about Slovakia, especially going into 2026 as people are looking at transformational travel or wellness travel? What are some of the other trends you're paying attention to that Slovakia offers up?

SPEAKER_16: 3:31:09

Authenticity. Uh, because it's less tourist, and I think more and more travelers try to avoid, you know, like uh so many people, either in the cities on the Christmas markets. We have anyway, amazing still um Christmas markets with the local atmosphere. Uh so I think it's uh it's all like it's like uh undiscovered. There are castles, there are beautiful natures, forests, caves, and mostly it's not so touristic and it's more affordable because it's still a bit cheaper than in surrounded countries.

SPEAKER_03: 3:31:40

Well, say no more from my point of view, because one of the destinations I've been raving about in the past year is Colombia. I have talked, I've done a destination spotlight in Colombia, and I think it's one of those destinations that in 2025, going to 2026, the value for money, like ultimately the culture, the authenticity, like it's one of those destinations that goes on the radar because it has all these elements, it's ready for tourism, and then the value for money. Because ultimately, especially when you know we heard a number of people on this episode talk about the uncertain times we live in. It's exactly what Douglas talked about at the beginning of his presentation. You know, the the reality is as many people who are in the mid-range, which is the vast majority of travelers at the end of the day, when you look at travel spend, there's many people like that middle income that are trying to decide whether or not they're gonna spend money on vacation. And the most incredible thing as a traveler is finding value for money. When your dollar can go much further and you can go out for dinners and you can really treat yourself, and you can, you know, uh and and certain destinations present that at certain times. And it sounds like to me, Slovakia is one of those destinations.

SPEAKER_16: 3:32:41

Yes, definitely. And uh, I forgot to mention that uh the beer is still cheaper than water. So that's not very well.

SPEAKER_03: 3:32:49

It's funny we mentioned that because one of the things about Czech before is that people used to talk about how cheap the beer was in Prague. That was like one of the reasons that all the Brits had to go there for their stags and like you know, when a destination became popular, everyone heard that there was cheap beer in Prague. That's no longer the case at all. Prague is as expensive as other major European capitals now. So the obvious the opportunity is there to travel to Slovakia. Any other tips or suggestions for people planning their next trip to Slovakia?

SPEAKER_06: 3:33:17

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03: 3:33:18

Or their Slovakia. Their first trip.

SPEAKER_04: 3:33:20

Their first trip to Slovakia. Just go.

SPEAKER_16: 3:33:23

Just go reserve more days because uh a lot of uh travelers that I met like uh actually changed their plans and stay longer because they were so amazed how beautiful country it is.

SPEAKER_03: 3:33:35

That's great. Now I want to make sure everyone listening to this can find out more information uh and connect with you. So tell us please, Gabriella, the best ways to do that.

SPEAKER_16: 3:33:46

Um okay, so um you can contact me on the uh my website, gabigotravel.com.

SPEAKER_03: 3:33:53

Just spell that out just to make sure because I don't want anyone to mistype that in because I uh I initially struggled with the pronunciation. So yeah.

SPEAKER_16: 3:34:00

I'm struggling with spelling, but I'm gonna try. It's G-A-B-I uh G-Otravel uh dot com.

SPEAKER_03: 3:34:10

Perfect. Okay, you got it. There you go. Everyone got that typing it in right now. Bringing up the website. So many people multitask when they're listening to our podcast. So I want to make sure, okay, so the website is one way, but what about connecting with you, email, LinkedIn, social channels? Where else should they look to uh to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_16: 3:34:26

Yeah, on the website there is WhatsApp. So uh a lot of uh people searching for the tailored experience, so we can design uh the tours according to your needs, whatever you interesting about, like castles or more like REST, or whatever your like vulcable um capabilities, so uh we can tailor the tours according to your needs. So contact me on the WhatsApp or email, all works.

SPEAKER_03: 3:34:49

That's awesome, Gabriella. Well, thank you for being here at Arrival this year. It's so great to see uh fresh talent coming into the conference and people with a new perspective. Thank you for being persistent about connecting with me because I one of the things Gabriela, the time zones, we had a scheduled recording, she wasn't able to make it because it was showing differently in her calendar. We met at the end of the day. I was like, let's sit down and record now because if we don't do this now, it may not happen, and I want to make sure you're included. So thank you for following up and making sure that we recorded this together. And I certainly looking forward to see you again when you come back to arrival and maybe potentially traveling uh to Slovakia one day.

SPEAKER_16: 3:35:25

Thank you very much, though.

SPEAKER_03: 3:35:28

I now have the privilege to sit down and speak to a startup CEO that I actually mentioned earlier on the podcast because I met him on the first night and they've only been around for four weeks. The company is called Day Of, and the CEO is Mark Eater. Welcome, Mark. Great to have you join us. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. Of course, buddy. So let's talk about what brought you here to arrival, but let's first, I guess, tell everyone what Day of actually is.

SPEAKER_08: 3:35:53

Yep. So uh Day of, um, we are a four-week old startup, that's true. Uh we uh connect conference attendees to things to do in the host city.

SPEAKER_03: 3:36:01

Okay, perfect. That was like awesome, like eight-second elevator pitch. It was just like, so you connect conference attendees to what they can do in a host city. So it makes total sense why you'd be at a conference.

SPEAKER_08: 3:36:12

Yeah. Yes, especially one for experience providers. So our primary focus is um helping folks who are attending conferences basically more seamlessly book activities in their downtime or free time before, after in the evenings around a conference schedule. So um talking about arrival, uh arrival obviously is ahead of the curve with this idea because it's for experienced providers in the experience industry. Um but if you open the arrival app, you'll see local experiences and you'll see some arrival partners have offered their tours in there. So imagine that, but now take that to every possible conference and also to group bookings and uh corporate groups attending conferences, exhibitors, sponsors, client-facing teams, and that's where we see Day of providing a distribution channel for provider uh for suppliers.

SPEAKER_03: 3:37:00

So the brand name then I guess is connected to Day of Conference, like that you're is that tell us how the uh the branding came about.

SPEAKER_08: 3:37:06

Yeah, so we're a little lucky in the sense that Day of has a lot of stuff that works with it. Um the branding actually came from um a previous came from our original goal, which was uh we wanted to solve travel logistics, and I'll I'll spare you the backstory, like incredibly detailed, ill-fated trip planning business, no business model, pivot. What we realized was that logistics matter the most to travelers when they're in a destination, um, when they're looking for something to do day of. Um, and so we have this whole bit about um basically how the logistics of your plan pigeonhole what you can do. Um, and so the value of that really accrues to suppliers. And so day of was originally this idea of helping travel experience providers find literally the only people on earth who could feasibly buy their perishable inventory. Um and as we look for a distribution channel, um, we came across conferences and it still works for conferences. What are you gonna do day of? What are you doing day of the conference?

SPEAKER_03: 3:38:08

Yeah, I like the branding as day of travel, day of dot travel just for all of our listeners that want to learn more information. But the co-founder you're here with, Misha, tell us about your roles and where you guys are based.

SPEAKER_08: 3:38:21

Yep, so uh Misha and I are in uh Durham, North Carolina. Um obviously a huge travel hub. Yeah, the mech the Mecca. Mecca of tech as well. Um but yeah, uh so we're friends from grad school. We did our PhDs together, we both have PhDs in computer science, and we've been doing AI since like 2013. So we're being on the technical side, and um I had this interest in travel. I approached Misha, I was like, hey, let's work together. So my job is uh I've done a lot of product in my previous role. So I've been I'm our CEO, and Misha is our CTO, he's stayed much more technical.

SPEAKER_03: 3:38:55

There's a few questions I want to hit you with, but at the same time, I realize you guys are fresh and new. And like um if you were on stage pitching for this, obviously people would start asking you questions like, you know, why wouldn't someone use get your guide and how do you differentiate yourself? And I'm not gonna take that approach to our conversation today because I would rather spend our time together talking about your vision for what you're about to build, given your background and the fact it is so new. So tell us, I guess, where you are today. I know you're only like say four weeks into this uh business concept. Um tell us what the vision is for dayof.travel, and especially given the fact you just mentioned that you've been an AI and that's been a big topic. There was an AI day. So, what is the AI play, if you will, of Day of Travel? And tell us about what your what your overall vision is for this company.

SPEAKER_08: 3:39:39

You would think that would be a question I'd have a very quick answer to at the moment. I would say it's evolved considerably. And one of the things that I mean, this is probably every early stage entrepreneur's journey, uh, especially if you're getting into a space that isn't something you've worked in before. I prior to this, I spent the last five years uh building virtual property insurance uh inspection technology for large residential property insurance carriers. So our our vision truly is we want to solve travel logistics. That's like in our big mission statement, if you will. And to us, that means making it seamless to discover and book things to do while traveling with a heavy focus on on feasibility. So we're not trying to come up with some you talk about AI. We're not I'm not gonna outcompete ChatGPT in personalization. But to me, what's more personal than your schedule? Um, so where you are, where you need to be, the things you've already planned, like you want to fill those gaps. And so the vision is to basically be that answer for anybody anywhere looking to find something to do, to find something to do while they're traveling, and starting with conference travel.

SPEAKER_03: 3:40:50

Now let's get into some of the specifics. This is where I'm keen to understand how the business model works in practice in terms of who the customer is, and then ultimately, you know, the who's going to be utilizing the service and how you're gonna connect them to the provider. So the what's what would stand out to me is that you rather than grading these experiences, that you are connecting with providers that offer these tours, uh, since there are so many operators that are really keen to get that business, especially in the US right now, where international travel is down by 9%, and that's six million travelers, as you heard from Douglas Quinby's opening session today. So there's no shortage of operators that want the business, and that that is their specialty. They operate these day tours. And you're trying to connect, again, you can correct me on this, I'm keen to get your take, is that you're trying to connect conferences that will then be able to create an opportunity for people to take those uh experiences. So my first question is who is the customer? And I guess that is the conference provider, and then what is the experience for the guest or the customer itself? Is it an app-based experience? Um how do you tie in to the to the convention organization?

SPEAKER_08: 3:41:54

So, I mean, in like the canonical sense, the customer truly is probably a supplier in the sense that customers are the folks who are paying you. Our users would be conference attendees, um, sponsors, exhibitors. The way they would access us, uh, you know, our vision is to integrate into conference apps. Um there's a handful of ways that we're playing with right now to see how this uh pans out. And we're we're gonna be testing a handful of those later this year with some prospective conferences. But well, you know, one is quite literally it's in front of you, it's in the app, it's fine something to do, maybe there's discounts. Uh honestly, to me, that sounds a little bit too undifferentiated. The part that makes me um much more interested is a focus on premium experiences for a corporate audience. So the reason conferences uh stood out to us as a prime distribution endpoint is because they have this kind of unique dynamic. It's a geotemporal surge in purchasing power that descends on thousands of cities around the world every week. Um I mean you take a mid-size conference, 6,000 people. Let's say say you got a$75 a day per diem on your card. So 6,000 people, four-day conference,$75 a day. That's$52 million in purchasing power that shows up net new revenue, by the way, to any local business. And it's not already tied to lodging or airfare, it's they are there to spend that money, and nobody is starving in their hotel room. People are out there spending money doing this stuff already, but it's all fragmented and unattributed. And so I hear fragmentation, I hear opportunity.

SPEAKER_06: 3:43:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 3:43:32

And so consolidating that into a direct channel for suppliers to access is I think what we see as the model that comes here.

SPEAKER_03: 3:43:42

So I love when you mentioned per diem, because the thing that always makes me uh laugh when I hear that term is whenever I see a Ruth Chris next to a big convention center because everyone's got their daily per diem and they're going out for a steak dinner that one or two nights that they're away. And there's a direct correlation to the businesses that operate near facilities based on this concept. And it's like that, and so people do often in organizations, they have a corporate travel uh structure or plan, and they have these per diem. So it's interesting you point that out because one of the things obviously you're very focused on is what problem you solve, and then how do you solve that problem? So you need also need to know who that customer is and what is their available spend. So it's interesting you mention that right off the bat. That's uh that shows you've done your your homework.

SPEAKER_08: 3:44:27

Uh yeah, I mean it the I would take it a step further though and say that while that's valuable, and that was what we started looking at, where the real opportunity seems to be emerging from a lot of our like customer development conversations is exhibitors and suppliers. And I I've mentioned this conference distribution endpoint, and like unspoken here is how the hell do we partner with conferences? What's in it for them? Um well, conference planners are frequently asked, well, okay, often conferences are organized, and the revenue generated by conferences cover the operating budget of whatever the association is that's putting on that conference. There are 272,000 association meetings in the United States alone every year. It's like probably 270,000 more than I thought there were. And they are driven by revenue. And who is providing the vast majority of revenue? It's the sponsors and the exhibitors. So these planners want to satisfy and indulge whatever the exhibitors and sponsors need. And frequently they're pestered with requests for, hey, I want to take clients out here, I want to do this there, where can I take them? How can I book this? Sometimes they bring in a DMC, not always, but the DMC works for the conference planner, not for the exhibitors. So they might be there to answer questions. But unless it's a sizable enough event, the DMC, it's it's not worth their time and their high-touch experience. So where we see the opportunity is a marketplace for the exhibitors who aren't just spending a per diem, but rather it's corporate marketing dollars. It's your your budget to take clients out because you're closing deals. So it's a different sort of ROI on the experience, and that's where we're hearing probably the biggest market pull.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45:59

Interesting. And then coming to arrival, I'm also keen to know how you discovered this conference and what actually attracted you to coming to arrival. I mean, there's some obvious things that stand out to me, but yeah, how did you find out about it and what was sort of the appeal of coming?

SPEAKER_08: 3:46:13

So the um we originally found out about it because uh with this basically this logistics focus, our original pitch for this business before we focused in on conferences was help travel experience providers find literally the last people on earth who could buy their perishable inventory. Well, travel experience providers, like where can we go learn about this? Arrival. Um, and we've been working with uh Gilad Baronsteen's an advisor for us, and he introduced us to Bruce. Um, had a call with Bruce, and you know, he suggested this would be a great place to learn. He asked some like really good, challenging questions too. Um, I one of my more enjoyable conversations I've had so far to like really, you know, poke at this idea and see what there is.

SPEAKER_03: 3:46:56

Bruce and Douglas can both do that very well. So it's uh Gilad, as you know, is a good friend of uh of mine, and I've known him for uh about a decade, I guess, and he's been on our podcast multiple times. And I was when I met you guys on the first night, and you mentioned that, I was like, uh, like but tell everyone how you got connected with Gillad in the first place.

SPEAKER_08: 3:47:15

Yeah, so um went folks right last year with this ill-advised trip planning business. Again, so this idea, I stand by it. It's a good problem to solve, it's a bad business. But basically, the hardest thing to do in travel planning isn't finding something to do, it's figuring out how to do all the things you want to do. So we took basically get operations research algorithms who are technical people, like you don't need AI. This isn't a chat GPT problem. This is like how airlines make sure their pilots and planes and crews are all in the right place at the right time and adaptive to weather. And basically we wanted to solve this problem of helping people. You've got a hundred recommendations from friends, chat GPT, internet, click a button, see a feasible plan, iterate with it, land on something. From that, we were referred to Gillad because of U Trip. And uh so we struck up a conversation at Advanced Focus, right? We ended up meeting there, uh we chatted, hit it off. Um, and uh after a couple months of like talking to him and getting his advice on things, we decided to ask if he could formalize this relationship with us. So you know he's now part of the company.

SPEAKER_03: 3:48:16

That's fantastic. That's a great origin story, and obviously relationships are incredibly important, and also I like the words, ill-advised, which I mean, so many travel planners. I mean, Rod Cuthbert just cuts through them so well when he's moderating any of these startup panels, and people are always terrified when Rod Cuthbert turns his ire against them, and especially with a travel planner, he eats those for lunch. So um, I can imagine how that would have gone. But nevertheless, day of is the business today. You're obviously here at this event. We're at the end of the first day, very keen to see how it's all come into practice. What have been some of the benefits of being here so far? Has it been some of the connections, relationships? Obviously, you get to be on a on a globally important podcast like this. So that's gonna be like, you know, there's the there's the big highlight of coming to the conference. But yeah, what have been some of the other benefits so far?

SPEAKER_08: 3:49:04

We found what we believe to be a great business opportunity in a space that we have been exploring for a while, but don't know a ton of depth about, and especially on the experience side. So some of the most valuable conversations we've had have been with operators who know the space, and it's been incredible how just friendly everybody is and willing to share and stand and like no no no no, this is how the process works. One of the big things I've learned today is the mechanics of integrating with um with your your fair harbors, Bokoons. Uh, and the val, you know, I thought everybody was a res tech with a distribution channel. I talked to uh Prio Ticket today and like, no, no, they're a true channel manager. The other ones are just the res techs. You know, I'm probably saying something wrong, but this is as my understanding evolves, like it's been one of the most valuable things, and also just the business model and you know, the challenges of merchant of record, but like the opportunities that come with that as well. And for us, this is all supply side. We're going next week to a demand side for us conference in in Las Vegas, IMEX America's conference, which is meeting planners and conference planners and CVBs and DMOs. And we have just as much to learn on that side. There have a little bit of a leg up. My sister is a meeting planner, so that was kind of our entry to the space. Um, we've had a lot more conversations on the demand side. Obviously, I think in this industry, I think it's pretty well understood that supply is going to follow demand pretty hard. But if us uh if we're gonna succeed, we have to have supplier liquidity. We can't create like a marketplace product with three things in it. So we have to know how we can provide valuable supply, the type of experiences and attractions and things to do for that that will appeal to conference attendees.

SPEAKER_03: 3:50:42

For sure. And then clearly there's still a couple of days left of the conference. Uh, what are you hoping to leave with? Uh, what are some of like what will be look success for you having attended arrival and wanting to come back and also participate in future travel industry conferences?

SPEAKER_08: 3:50:58

Yeah, I I think because we are early and this is our first arrival, the network is a big thing. I think more practically, probably a path to integrations with some of these uh ResTechs and distribution channels, uh excuse me, uh channel managers. Um, you know, we've we've talked to a handful of them. Sounds like been moving forward on some of those conversations, which is great. Uh Misha and I are both technical. The building's the easy part for us. Um so understanding the space, mapping it out, the sales and marketing side. Uh we actually made one really great connection. He's uh shouted out, I guess, here. Um Secret Food Tours. Um Oliver? It's Oliver, yeah. Yeah, great guy. He he came up to us and was like, This is a great idea. I had this idea five years ago. Here's how you need to go do it. Uh but it was one of the like what was an intense conversation. But uh it was a really, really valuable conversation. He's helping us out next week. He's like, hey, I have a food tour in Las Vegas. Like, look, it's gonna be like a thousand dollars. I'm gonna give it to you for free. Take people out, show them the value of what this could be like at a conference. That's how you're going to get your customers. I'm like, that's a great idea. Thank you. Uh so we're working with him right now. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03: 3:52:04

And he's an intense dude. I had dinner with him last time. Uh we were together here at Arrival. And uh he scaled his business to$20 million in revenue in a very short order. And so you don't get there without having that tenacity and the like keenness to make sure you're using your time as wisely as possible. He's super efficient with how he approaches things and what's kind of the next thing that he needs to accomplish to grow his business. So, yeah, good person for sure, you to be connected to, and also just getting to know this community. I think that's clearly what's already happening for you. It's like an incredible ecosystem at arrival. So I can't imagine a better conference for you to be at at this stage of day of. So, Mark, I've obviously it's great to meet you and know that there are startups like yours that are coming to arrival for the first time because one of the things that I had highlighted in speaking uh to Joe Pine and to Michael Zeisner and even Eric Blatchford and some of these real captains of industry that are here at an event like this is how important it is to have smart young people. The fact you guys are both PhDs in computer science, the fact that you have chosen to invest your time to solve something in the travel industry. There's clearly lots of other verticals you could work in other categories like finance or healthcare and probably make even more money. However, hopefully you're going to be able to make enough money to be happy and enjoy running this business. But I think it's really important to bring fresh blood into our industry. It's kind of one of the reasons we started this podcast is to make sure that people were connected to the information that they could apply or have benefit from or have an opportunity to present themselves to uh a global audience. So I'm keen to make sure that people can find out more about you guys. Obviously, I've mentioned the website, but you guys are probably both on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_08: 3:53:39

Yeah, that's my social network. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:53:40

So tell everyone where they can follow up with you, connect with you for uh for opportunities to collaborate.

SPEAKER_08: 3:53:45

Yeah, um, definitely day of dot travel d-a-y-o-f dot travel, uh, cheaper than dot com. Um uh yep, I'm on LinkedIn, Mark Eater, my uh co-founder, Misha Mikhailosvetz, um Ukrainian. Um might be hard to smell is to spell, but you'll find him. Um and uh you can shoot me an email at mark at deev.travel, so M-A-R-C, uh, the correct way to spell it. And um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:54:13

And eater is E-D-E-R if you're trying to type it into Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 3:54:18

M-A-R-C-E-D-E-R.

SPEAKER_03: 3:54:20

Not to be confused with Eater, which is a great website as well if you want to find out where to eat in a local destination.

SPEAKER_08: 3:54:25

Yes, it was also um you know a great thing to have a last name that rhymes with that when you're like a chubby nine-year-old kid.

SPEAKER_03: 3:54:32

So well, you're super fit now, so obviously it worked out for you. But uh no, Mark, it's a real pleasure to meet you. I wish you guys every success at the conference, and I certainly look forward to keeping in touch. Perfect. Hey, thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. My next guest requires no introduction, but I'll give one anyway because he's an old friend of mine from the multi-day tour industry. He was at Intrepid for many years running Urban Adventures. He's known to many of you. If this was like a smartless intro, I'm trying to figure out what the other hosts would say as I start to reveal more and more about who this is going to be. He runs the everything uh AI travel podcast, and he also is a successful startup founder with a really cool AI video company called Vidario. So if you haven't figured out already, it's Tony Carn, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, Tony.

SPEAKER_11: 3:55:19

Thanks, Dan. Good to be with you, buddy.

SPEAKER_03: 3:55:21

Yeah, absolutely. So here we are at Arrival. You've traveled all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Tell us what brought you here, and obviously, one of the things I know is the AI forum, which you've been such a critical part of bringing together for the first time here at Arrival.

SPEAKER_11: 3:55:35

Yeah, for sure. It's a good innovation of the arrival crew to bring AI in as a standalone day. Um, was unbelievably well patronized as well. Um Alex Brainbridge and I actually did a pre-event um uh on the Monday before the Tuesday forum itself. Um, and to be completely honest, we thought no one would turn up and we thought that we'd wait ten minutes and then go get a beer. Um and we got to the room that it was standing room only. So um uh yeah, well patronized, a lot of desire for information um in the industry from about AI, which is fantastic because people, you know, they need to be aware and and people are educating themselves. It's it's a really good thing.

SPEAKER_03: 3:56:13

Yeah, that was a terrific way to start. There's the executive day, the AI forum, and here we are on uh the second day of Arrival 360. You kindly spoke at our AI Summit last year. You're attending and speaking at our AI Summit again this year. Uh, your colleague from Vidario, your co-founder, is going to be presenting and doing a demo. So if you're listening to this after it's recorded, check out our YouTube channel to find uh both Tony's talk and his co-founder's demo because Tony is a great practitioner in this space, and you're a great example of someone that has quickly been able to upskill yourself and then be able to provide valuable guidance to the community. And I'm most of our listeners know I've referenced you know more than a dozen times when I'm speaking at events, but I always get asked the question, where should we go for more information? And uh your podcast newsletter is my answer every time. And so, anyway, credit to you for what you've built. And I love that we can also share the stage and be at events like this, and people come up to both of us and want to collaborate with us both. And I think that's the beauty of it. I but I and I do think the last thing I'll say is kind of as a is that uh we now have a privileged position, both you and I, that we have built something that is meaningful and that people want to be a part of, and therefore those other people that are now still doing and now doing the we'd like to be on my podcast, it's are are gonna be less successful. So there was a window of opportunity, like anything, and and thankfully both of us are you know are now in the position by virtue of the fact we started doing this a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_11: 3:57:43

Um timing is everything, James.

SPEAKER_03: 3:57:44

Indeed, indeed, yeah. So I'm a huge fan of yours, um, personally, professionally. I always look forward to seeing you and keeping in touch. And obviously, um I'm excited to do the AI summit together. And but I want to finish off and make sure everyone knows how to connect with you, how to stay in touch with you, and uh I just want to say thank you again for our friendship and collaboration.

SPEAKER_11: 3:58:04

No, I appreciate all those comments, Dan. Um uh like and yeah, I'm a very open person, right? So uh um uh people um should not be afraid to reach out and connect with me. Um I'm I live on LinkedIn. Uh you do indeed. So uh you'll always find me there. Connect with me on LinkedIn, you can message me on LinkedIn. Uh you're probably gonna need a quicker answer from me there than um than emailing me. Um so just Tony Khan on LinkedIn. You can subscribe to the newsletter straight from my profile on on LinkedIn. Um trying to make things people uh easy for people, um, and that will uh uh you know that will get you that kind of roundup once a week of what you need to know to stay in touch of this huge change that we're all about to go through. Um and I was asked uh at the end of the AI forum, um, each of the uh people that kind of helped facilitate the day were uh asked uh you know um um asked one question of one of the other participants. And my question um to Travis Pittman from uh to a radar was you know, if if I work for a company and my boss, you know, the CEO is not on board with AI and our company's not on board with AI, what should I do? And I think Travis answered that question exactly how I would have. Like I'd be starting to look elsewhere, right? Because um, as you said, this is gonna be a huge disruption. Um, you need to take some own personal accountability for yourself and start learning if your company's not gonna do put in the effort to to train you. Um but it's gonna be a skill that every employer is gonna look for in the future. So um, you know, this is not head in the sand time for for people. Like really if I could implore them um to to like really look into this, take some action, you know, um and the simplest action is just like hit subscribe on that newsletter as your first step, and I'll guide you through it from there. Um but you know, uh please don't just ignore this. For sure.

SPEAKER_03: 3:59:57

No, you're spot on. Susan uh debate. Bodice, who runs uh who works at Easel now, she's with ResD for a long time. She was in a career transition last year and she joined the AI Summit. She joined every session, she actually won for the most interaction engagement, so she won a prize. And when I first met her, she's like, Do you remember I'm I'm the lady that you sent a shirt in the mail to? And I was like, Oh my god, that's you, Susan. And she was saying how much it she benefited from hearing everybody in the AI space, and she landed this great new job. So it's exactly that point. But you she had to take the initiative, and that's why obviously we're doing what we're doing to create those types of opportunities because there isn't yet, and I think there has to be, to the point you made earlier, more formalized training, especially for the travel industry. So we'll we'll pick up on that for sure. But yeah, thank you again, Tony. Safe travels home, and I look forward to seeing you at the next AI forum.

SPEAKER_11: 4:00:46

Perfect, perfect, buddy. And um, yeah, uh before this professional education becomes something, there's the uh the ad hoc version, which is um uh the forum that you got coming up, right? Uh um uh the summit. Um like follow um Susan's lead, right? Just jump into every session or every session that you can make to educate yourself, like just take one day, like to get yourself up to speed, and it's gonna be a big benefit for everyone.

SPEAKER_03: 4:01:13

That's awesome. Thank you again, Tony.

SPEAKER_11: 4:01:14

Cheers, mate.

SPEAKER_03: 4:01:16

Hi everyone. I now have the privilege to speak to Daniel Certa, who is the CEO and founder of an incredible food tourism company called Eating with Carmen. He's based in Playa Carmen in uh Mexico. So he's traveled to be here for his very first arrival. And we've just had a chance to meet. I was so keen to have you part of this recording and this special event spotlight episode for two reasons. One, obviously, food tourism. It's uh everywhere. Uh looking at Viator's report and Douglas Quinaby's opening, and Mexico. Um, and uh you've traveled internationally to be here, and Mexico is a place that I want to explore more and learn more about, and I'm sure our listeners do too.

SPEAKER_14: 4:01:58

So, Daniel, welcome to Travel Trends. Well, Dan, thank you so much uh for having me here. It's uh it's an honor to be here with you and be able to talk a little bit about us and our experience here in Arrival. Um, as you probably said, my name is Daniel Cerda. I'm originally from Chile, um, but I've been living in Mexico for the last uh 15 years. Since I left Chile, basically, uh I've been working in the tourism industry. I used to be a lawyer back home. Uh of course I don't do that anymore. Um, AI is taking that away anyway. Yeah. So it was it was a good change at that time, right? Um and uh I used to work uh for tourism. Uh I was a uh scuba diving instructor uh for a few years uh when I arrived to Mexico. Um then I pivot to tour guiding. I was working with a very big uh company over there called Ocean Tours that is actually here as well.

SPEAKER_06: 4:02:45

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_14: 4:02:46

Um and then from then uh I said okay, I need I need to do something else. I don't want to uh just stay where where I was, you know. Um so I decided to uh to build something that uh it was uh kind of like I was looking for a passion uh related thing to do, something that I was really gonna enjoy doing it, you know. Um and I've always been a foodie, I've always been uh a traveler as well. So what I did every time that I travel, or what I do every time that I travel, is to try to go and you know try authentic food, right? Because I think that you get to know the place better by food, right?

SPEAKER_06: 4:03:22

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_14: 4:03:23

Um especially the local food, you know, the more the more local, the best, right? Um so I had that idea. It's not a new idea, right? Uh but at the time in Mexico, um it's all about the execution, the branding and the execution. Exactly. At the time in Mexico, in Playa del Carmen, in that region, uh there were a couple of food tours. Um but I said uh probably we can do this uh a little bit different. Um so we we started uh with eating with Carmen uh in Playa del Carmen, that's why the name, right? Carmen goes to Playa del Carmen. Now we are a little bit small with the name because we have been uh expanding to uh eight different cities in Mexico and uh also now internationally. Uh we're gonna open soon in Chile as well, in Santiago. Yeah, nice. Um so uh our our base is in Playa del Carmen. Uh we have um tours uh also in in Cancún, in Puerto Morelos, in Toulouse, uh Mérida, Mexico City, and uh Cabo San Lucas and uh uh San Jose del Cabo. So we are we're everywhere. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05: 4:04:20

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03: 4:04:21

We thank you so much. Such a cool story. I didn't realize you're originally from Chile. I'm actually headed there next week. Oh, that's amazing. It's a beautiful place, huh? Beautiful country. Yeah, I've had the privilege to be there once before. I can't wait to get back. And uh and one of the things that you know when people come into this industry, I always find it fascinating. It's always why I want to start the conversation to get to know the person and then what they're working on, because usually they're so interconnected. The fact you were a lawyer, obviously it's impressive. You have that you've gone through that whole schooling, but then realize that's not what you want to do day to day, and you fell in love with tourism, and obviously you're already in love with with food and like the the magical combination of those things, and now there's a huge interest in in food tourism. So you are obviously we're ahead of the curve. Tell us a little bit about what you're seeing as far as these trends, where are these customers coming from? Like what platforms are you getting a lot of these bookings from, especially as we sit here at Arrival. I'm just genuinely keen to know what you're seeing coming into this conference. And I'm gonna ask you obviously some of the benefits of being here and what some of your insights are. But yeah, coming into this, what has been your experience and where are you seeing success and growth?

SPEAKER_14: 4:05:28

Okay, so um the market is growing, right? It's been growing steadily uh since 2017, at least that we are in the business, right? So every year for us, at least, it has been better and better. Uh, I see much more interested of interest of everybody into food tourism, you know. Um food tours are just a part of food tourism, right? Um and uh we do a great work uh working with uh OTAs, right? So we have a lot of people that come to us through Viator, through Get Your Guide. We are also working with Civitatis. Uh we used to do, we used to did good and great with Airbnb experiences, uh, but now that they changed the platform, that changed uh dramatically for us, unfortunately. Um and also I think well the benefits of of being here is exactly that, to connect with all these people that you are always uh working with but you haven't seen their faces before, or you haven't actually introduced yourself uh formally to, you know. Um it also helps you to find some other peers that are in the same industry so you can share some insights, right?

SPEAKER_06: 4:06:35

Totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_14: 4:06:35

Uh and to make new business and find new applications and all this AI stuff that is going on that you need to be on top of it. If not, you're gonna be left behind, right? So I think that it's it's been an amazing experience, very busy. You know, there's always somebody to talk to, there's somebody always somebody to have a meeting with, but uh that's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_03: 4:06:56

So tell us a little bit about the types of food experiences you offer. And I'm also keen to know like the when I from an operations point of view, how do you make your food tours stand out and unique from just anybody that can start doing a food tour?

SPEAKER_14: 4:07:10

Sure. So so we have um we we we focus on Mexican food for sure. Um depending on the city, we have different kinds of tours, right, related to Mexican food. So for example, in Playa del Carmen, that is our base, our our main you know, market, we have uh the authentic local experience, which is uh authentic Mexican food, you know, street street vendors and you know, small family-owned restaurants outside of the tourist path. So the idea is to take the tourists away from all the main tourist uh places in the city, right? So basically two places that you wouldn't be able to go by yourself. Um we also have uh a tour that involves uh Mexican beer and seafood. Nice, right? Like the sound of that. Oh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 4:07:51

What's that called?

SPEAKER_14: 4:07:51

Yeah, it's called uh Mexican beers and seafood madness. Ah, okay, I like it. Yeah, we have another one that is a little bit more high-end that uh is uh tequila mezcal with a gourmet dining. Tequila is my choice of cocktail anytime. I love tequila. Oh, yeah, it's it's it's a big thing in down in Mexico for sure. And uh also in Tulum and in Playa del Carmen we have a vegan food tour, so we cutter the Mexican food to to vegan uh public, right? Which is all pretty interesting as well.

SPEAKER_03: 4:08:20

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely interesting for the vegans. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_14: 4:08:24

Exactly. Well, that was the whole idea, right? To to to get to all of that market, right?

SPEAKER_03: 4:08:29

Um I tease my brother's vegetarian, my brother-in-law's partner is vegan, and so I always tease the vegans because I and it's amazing now what they can do.

SPEAKER_05: 4:08:37

They can make like a Thanksgiving dinner with a vegan, they can make things taste like turkey and actually like the places that we visit during the tours are Mexican food.

SPEAKER_14: 4:08:47

Like it's actually like you're eating the same food, but on a vegan version, you know, made of beans, made out of lentils, you know. So it's uh it's no longer fl flavorless. It's not like you're getting the almost the full uh experience. I mean, if you are vegan, it's it's difficult to eat in Mexico, let's say, right? Because there's a lot of meat involved, a lot of pork, right? So we want it, we also wanted to to include these people that are you know vegan into trying Mexican food and you know really know what what it is about, you know, without having to try meat or anything related to me, you know? Yeah. Um and we um what do we do is we just don't do food tours, right? We um also include a lot of city touring on our on our uh food tours. We do some street art as well, right? So we have uh Tulum and Playa del Carmen, Cancun, all of that area is uh full, full, full of street art. So we also feature that on our tours, right? And um, of course, the history of the food, how the preparation, etc. And um we also go deep into Mexican history, history of the area, right? So the idea of uh us as a company is to become your friend on your journey to Mexico. So we we train our guides in order to end up the tour being you know a friend of the people that we take into the tour, right? So then you can ask for advice, or how can I get a taxi or what do you recommend, you know? So we're not just uh somebody that takes you to eat and that's it. We try to go beyond that and create a relationship with our with our guests.

SPEAKER_03: 4:10:19

Yeah, that's really cool. And then you mentioned about some of your plans to expand to other cities. Um tell us a little bit about what's in store for 2026, and ultimately I want to make sure that all of our listeners can find out more information about you guys and and connect with you directly. So, but yeah, tell us about some of your the new launches or new Sure.

SPEAKER_14: 4:10:37

So uh this is this is just right out of the oven. Um we are uh expanding now internationally. We're gonna open in Santiago, Chile, which is uh Oh, you're going home. Yeah, I'm going home. Nice. Well, I'm not going there. We have people that help us there. Yeah, I would love to go there and try the food for sure. Um because I miss it a lot. Uh so that's what is coming for for now, for this winter, summer down there. So we are uh gonna be hopefully busy during the months of December, January, February, which are summer holidays over there. Um we're expecting to have uh a lot of international travelers uh there in Chile and uh in Mexico. We have plans of expansion, but uh that's um we don't know exactly where and uh when, right? So I prefer not to talk about that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:11:23

Yeah, fair enough. Well, and depending on when people listen to this, they can obviously check out the website or reach out to you directly and get more information about some of the latest developments. Obviously, eatingwithcarmen.com is one way to find out more about you guys, but clearly you've got social channels and uh you're likely on LinkedIn as well, I'm sure. So yeah, let's make sure that all the international partners out there that are keen to collaborate with you because I've had and people have heard it on this conversation, whether it's sitting on panels or being able to be featured on a podcast like this. I mean, it's always I find it so rewarding. And next time we see each other again, and you're like, hey, there's three people that reached out to me from the show, or we got some business, we got some direct clients. Uh, and I absolutely love that because obviously that's why I I love doing the podcast. So tell everyone how they can connect with you and sure.

SPEAKER_14: 4:12:08

Well, you can you can reach out, of course, through the website, uh, as you said, eatingwithcarmen.com. Uh, you can find us in uh Instagram, right, Eating with Carmen Food Tours. Uh TikTok, same, Facebook, same.

SPEAKER_03: 4:12:22

Nice, perfect.

SPEAKER_14: 4:12:23

Uh LinkedIn, you can find me as uh Daniel Cerda, right? Um, so I mean you can find us everywhere.

SPEAKER_03: 4:12:29

Yeah, I know Arrival was putting a putting a real big focus on the social channels as they needed to be, and specifically TikTok. So it's great to hear that you're uh on that channel and active on that channel. Maybe that's actually just one last question for you is like the importance of social marketing for food tours.

SPEAKER_14: 4:12:43

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean social media is everything at the moment, right? So um it's very important to be present in all of these platforms, even though you might not get too many, you know, sales from it. You know, I think it's important as a presentation card, right? To have something there going on that you are actually doing the effort of creating good content, you know. We also we also work hard on YouTube. We're actually going hard on our YouTube channel. You can also find us on YouTube as Eating With Caimer Food Tours, and there we we upload a lot of content of value about Mexican food, about Mexican landmarks, about Mexico in general, right? So you you can find a lot of information on value about Mexico and Mexican food on our YouTube channel and on our blog as well.

SPEAKER_03: 4:13:25

Fantastic. Well, I'm gonna follow your social channels and I'm gonna make plans to come and visit you guys and uh experience it for myself because I love Mexican food. I like the tours you've just described. I am salivating at the idea of the food and the drink. And so, yeah, I look forward to seeing you in Mexico and uh wish you every success at the conference and everything planned with the business of the year ahead.

SPEAKER_14: 4:13:45

Well, for sure, Dan. We will be very happy to see you around there, and thank you so much for your best wishes. And of course, again, thank you so much for having me here.

SPEAKER_03: 4:13:52

Thank you, Daniel. You're very welcome. So, Alex, first of all, welcome to Travel Trends. Thanks for joining us. Hi, Dan. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, that's that's a pleasure. For sure. Not only is it great to have you here uh in Washington, not only recording this together, but also having you as part of the multi-day tour series. I appreciate you making the trip across all the way from Amsterdam and then also being on stage to talk about multi-day. But before we get into that, tell everyone a little bit about Toursetta and what it is you guys do.

SPEAKER_19: 4:14:24

Yeah, absolutely. Uh Toursetta is uh is an all-in-one platform for multi-day and specifically for group tour operators. We help uh tour operators optimize booking flows, automate their operations, and improve um customer satisfaction in many, many ways. So the platform consists of different modules to power multi-day tour operators and uh essentially make their life easier.

SPEAKER_03: 4:14:47

Yeah, that's what we do. That's great. I know you did a fantastic job on stage. Tell us a little bit about this session because I always prefer it when uh our listeners can hear from a guest who was on a panel. So tell everyone a little bit about the panel you were on earlier today and some of the takeaways.

SPEAKER_19: 4:15:02

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So the panel was about the travel tech challenges when it comes to multi-day. Uh, we had uh we had four people on stage. Uh that was a fantastic stage, I have to say. Uh, we discussed uh different uh options on how you can structure your tech around your company, what are the challenges, how what to focus on. And my biggest takeaway from that was that uh the the multi-day, and I wouldn't say this is something new, but you know, like this is this is always good to uh to repeat, is that the multi-day um technology segment is way outdated compared to other uh verticals when it comes to travel, hotels, and even day tours, right? So for multi-day, there are not that many software solutions that would power them, you know, like from A to Z. So this is this is a true challenge, and this is like what uh three of the companies uh presented on stage, try to solve in one way or another. Um, and this is like what we discussed about essentially. So that was a great stage overall, and thank you, Dan, for organizing that. And thanks for thanks to Revival for you know like hosting that as well.

SPEAKER_03: 4:16:15

Yeah, for sure. I was thrilled that Arrival decided to go down the multi-day path this year. And obviously, yeah, it was an honor to MC that session and to have you guys on stage. I think we had you know the three right topics to focus on the challenges around distribution, technology, and then marketing that uh we're gonna be wrapping up with later tomorrow. But the um the session that you were a part of was obviously really important because a lot of companies are trying to figure out whether they buy or build. And it used to be the case they had to build, and now they actually can buy this technology. And the other thing that is interesting to me about what's happening in this space is that the multi-day tour industry, obviously, I'm a big fan and supporter, and I see the potential. There's a lot of new entrants. And I know uh outside of this, Alex, we're doing a series together on emerging tour operators, and we have one of your clients, a lady named Nabila, who runs a company at Dose of Travel, that I hope our listeners will check out as well. Because it's really fascinating to see a new tour operator that doesn't really know the travel industry trying to figure out what platform to use. So tell us a little bit about your the learning so far with Torsetta with finding these types of companies. I know obviously you're gonna make more partnerships here at Arrival, but tell us a little bit about the partners you have so far and specifically about Nabila.

SPEAKER_19: 4:17:27

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And thank you for mentioning the doz of travel club and uh and Nabila in particular. So yeah, um, I would say, you know, like we partner mainly with group to operators um that would make from anywhere from half a million to 10 million, and then if they are uh above that, then we would do some custom work for them. So, you know, like speaking of buy versus build, we decided initially we started um working as an agency, right? So I besides TorSetta, I also run a software development company. We build different types of software for our different verticals, and uh most of our clients are multidata operators for who we build a lot of custom bespoke systems, and we realized that uh all of those systems they are very similar. Let's say 80 to 90 percent of all the features, they are um you know, like they're pretty much the same across uh across the requirements and and and their needs. And we decided to build our own system and uh targeting specifically those companies, right? Like if the company is large, uh then probably they would need some custom integrations with different IPI providers and and so on and so forth. But for companies, let's say below$10 million in annual revenue, then um they could do pretty good uh with their with the with the pre-made with the pre-made software, like or you know, with the booking system that we uh offer. And uh there are so many challenges uh for me as a business development person in my own company, explaining them first of all why they would need this software, because most of the times they run their company out of uh spreadsheets. And this is something very common within the industry that there is no automation, uh, there is no clear booking process, it's very clunky and and outdated as you know, as we already discussed. And uh the challenge for me as the as the founder of the platform is to explain them what what is possible, what can be done to improve their life overall and to improve their um uh their customer experience. Because again, if you sell a tour that is five thousand dollars uh a person, uh then you you have to provide this great technological experience as well, not just not just the tour experience, right? Otherwise, why put why would people even book with you? Because this is very different from uh from purchasing uh simple uh$30 ticket as for day tours, which has its own complexities, but for multi-day tours, you have to convince uh your travelers to invest even more than that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:20:07

Yeah, no, it's it's really interesting that you've got this new group of entrants coming into the space, and then obviously you have established players. So tell us a little bit about that because I'm keen to know when you're looking at established tour operators, um, where Torsetta fits into the consideration set for them. Because obviously you stood on there on stage and you know we've got tour radar here. Um but yeah, just so that the established operators, because I know it's not just for emerging operators.

SPEAKER_19: 4:20:33

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, so Torsetta itself is the very modular platform. So we also work and we are on boarding currently a couple of uh larger tour operators who would be using us as the as the basement to build their ecosystem, their technical ecosystem. So Torsetta is very modular. We have a lot of different components that they can save their time and money on, so they don't have to reinvent um the wheel from scratch uh and essentially use whatever we have built and invested a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of um effort, uh rather than you know, like just building that themselves. And uh in essence, uh that this is how we build even as a part of the agency, right? Like we have a lot of different pre-build modules, and then we build things and customize things as they as they need them. And this is very simple. Um this is very simple as an idea, but when it comes to implementation, it's a little bit more complex, but still it saves a lot of time and a lot of money, and you know, like time and cost is what we all care about, of course. So, yeah, that's that's how we work.

SPEAKER_03: 4:21:41

Yeah, no, I appreciate that context. I wanted to share that with our listeners since so many of them are tour operators and try to figure out platforms. The other thing I just want to go back to is the fact obviously we're here at Arrival, and I know we had the multi-day tour track. I know you were here for the AI day as well. I was just keen to get your kind of highlights or takeaways from arrival here in Washington in 2025.

SPEAKER_19: 4:22:02

Yes, for sure. So I have to admit that um I this is my first arrival in the US, first of all. So this is very different from the European one for sure. Uh, I enjoy it a little bit more. Uh, and specifically, yeah, of course, and specifically the multi-day, uh, the multi-day track. Because previously that was about day tours, and this is great, a lot of insights, a lot of companies representing different day tours, and also the booking platform and big booking platforms and and everyone else. But the multi-day space is that is something that a lot of even day tour companies are trying to get into. And I received a lot of feedback um uh after the session, and I also received a lot of inquiries from day tour operators asking us hey, we run day tours at the moment, so what can we do to start doing that for multi-day? Because there from the operational standpoint, it's very different. Those are two different types of companies, right? Like here, you got a simple payment system, here you got installments, deposits, and and and whatnot. So a lot of insights were uncovered um during arrival. This is like what I like a lot about that. Also for the AI day, there was yeah, there were a couple of great sessions where we no longer discuss AI theoretically, but also practically, right? So there were a couple of great examples when um um when we were presented a couple of options uh on stage how AI can help and streamline the life of different operators and multi-day auditors. So, yeah, a lot of different sites on the AI world as well. And yeah, I think it's great for sure. Next year I'm coming to Rival again, and hopefully in Valencia, arrival will continue, you know, bringing in even more companies and more insights when it comes to multi-day, specifically the multi-day, the multi-day track. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:24:02

Yeah, I know it's certainly my understanding from Bruce that we're gonna continue on the multi-day tour track. So I know looking forward to sharing that with our audience that you know multi-day will continue in Valencia and then then uh um uh Spokane, Washington uh next year as well. So I want to make sure though, Alex, that people can connect with you outside of this, uh, follow up and get more information. So would you mind obviously torseta.com is the main place, but where would you suggest people reach out to you and learn more information?

SPEAKER_19: 4:24:31

Yeah, absolutely. They can always check out my LinkedIn. It's Alex Raggin. Um you can find me there. And uh feel free to add me to your connection list, uh, send me a message. I'll reply everything myself. I reply very quick. So if you have any questions, if you need insights, feel free to reach out and I'll be happy to help.

SPEAKER_03: 4:24:49

Eric, thanks so much for joining us on Travel Trends Again. I'm happy to be here. Obviously, we're sitting here at the arrival conference. You are a key part of the first session, the very first executive day that they held here. And I'm keen to know some of the big insights and takeaways from your presentation. I didn't have a chance to attend yesterday. I know people were raving about it. And so I really wanted to get your take on some of the big trends. But yeah, tell us a little bit about the presentation and what you came here to uh to talk about.

SPEAKER_00: 4:25:15

Uh sure. I mean, so I so I love the arrival conference, and I always have it. This is the first time they've done this arrival executive summit, so it was a really good audience, about a hundred sort of uh movers and shakers in the business, owners, owners and founders mostly of experienced providers. And so uh Bruce and uh and Douglas asked me, you know, tell us, tell us, give us a take for what's coming through the boardrooms, what are the considerates or considerations you're seeing, not just at experiences, but across the board. And so I looked at sort of the travel industry writ large. I said, well, there's a couple of trends that are um not gonna go away anytime soon. One is climate change, it's here, it's real, the keeling curve keeps going up. Uh there is no institutional desire to do anything about it. And I said, So here's an easy prediction. Things are just gonna keep going the way that they're going.

SPEAKER_06: 4:25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:25:58

And of course, you know, some people are sort of laughing, some people are kind of groaning. And I'm like, I'm not trying to be political. I'm just saying, I think that's the fact on the ground. And, you know, practically speaking, if you're in the ski business, the season is gonna keep getting shorter. If you're in the day tour business in the south of Spain, summer is gonna get harder and harder for you to do things. And you know, it's just sort of saying, okay, so that's a trend, but on a more serious note, it does mean that in your business planning, you got to be building that in. Um, another thing I talked about was was border policy in the U.S. Basically, I made the point to everybody. I said, listen, everyone in the tourism industry is doing a bit of a victim thing. Say, why are they targeting us? And I was like, they're not targeting you. This isn't about travel at all. This is about an immigration policy. And because about, you know, some it depends on the numbers you look at, but about half of illegal immigration in the U.S. comes through overstay tourist visas. It just makes sense that, of course, they're trying to cut down on the number of tourist visas. And of course, they want to make it less attractive to come to the U.S. And when it comes to the uh, you know, the issue of some place like Canada, well, that it's not about tourism, it's about trade policy. And you can disagree with the trade policy. I mean, I'm a dual citizen, I don't like the fact that the policy is basically trying to take Canadian manufacturing jobs and move them back to the U.S. And I completely understand why Canadians are angry, but there's nothing targeted here at the tourism industry, and that trend is not gonna go away either, because you know, you can't sort of sit there and say, well, something's gonna happen in the midterms that's gonna reverse all the policy. That that's not that's not the real world, that's not how it works. And so I was trying to say to the group stop being victims about this and just recognize that for the next you know, good stretch of years, the reputation of the U.S. as a place to come on vacation, you know, it's gonna take a while to recover. It just is. And you you can't you can't get around that. So I talked about that. I talked about AI quite a bit, of course. But um, you know, I also uh talked about my favorite thing, which is the the uh the counter AI, which is uh, you know, people getting back into IRL because I think I think it's so important for people to sort of embrace their inner kind of adventurer and and actually interact with with the real world. And and one nice thing about arrival, you know, that the group here is all experiences-based, and a huge number of those are guided experiences. So you actually get to a place and you're being walked around a city or you're doing a thing with another person who's local to that person. And I I mean, I I understand there's gonna be a role to play for for AI and the on on the ground experience, but nothing, nothing you could possibly replace that human connection.

SPEAKER_03: 4:28:25

I now have the privilege to sit down with Douglas Quinby, who everybody knows who listens to the Travel Trends podcast, and of course everyone knows that's listening to this from Arrival for the event Spotlight. One of the big highlights for me from the very beginning of coming to arrival was seeing Douglas speak. Obviously, I knew him from his time at Focus Right, and when they started arrival, I was at the he kindly asked me to come in and speak at the second ever arrival conference in Las Vegas, and we talked about multi-day, and this year you and uh Bruce and the team had a whole multi-day tour track, but the part I was most excited about is your introduction. And it was no, I uh every time I'm in the front row, you know, I take pictures, but I I'm taking pictures of the slides, and I'm always asking you, can I get the deck afterwards? Because you're always going to reveal some great research, some lot of valuable insights. I love your delivery and your style. And uh, and so I've really wanted to get you on this event spotlight so that you can share some of these amazing highlights. So, Douglas Quinby, welcome back to Travel Trends.

SPEAKER_18: 4:29:22

I I like the way you're talking, Dan. Just keep keep going, keep going.

SPEAKER_05: 4:29:26

And you inspire me in one of my next trips I want to do is a Japanese cycling tour. I know that's what you had done a couple of years ago before.

SPEAKER_18: 4:29:32

It's five years ago now. Oh wow. The year before COVID. So 2019. Yeah, I did a cycling trip through uh um Hokkaido, northern island. Yeah, northern island, Japan. The Hiroki. So I can't remember that it's like a national or maybe it's a state park on the northeastern part of the island, like through the there's a mountain, very mountainous region. Yeah, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 4:29:53

So we had taken a trip just pre COVID to Japan as well, and it's amazing to see what Japan, how they've Entered the global stage uh at every conference now. They're JTB is here, Japan was represented, even the stats you shared about the US dropping by nine percent um in terms of international travelers, and then the growth in uh Japan is surging, it's massive, right? So let's hit all the stats and highlights. I'm not gonna force you to do an introduction, everyone should know who you are, everyone knows about arrival. Now we have uh legend himself, but Douglas to be able to share some of the big highlights from your opening session. So take us through some of the biggest trends that you wanted to highlight to the audience.

SPEAKER_18: 4:30:30

Holy smokes. Uh so okay, well, um I mean I Let's do five. Let's do five. Let's do the top five. Uh so I'd say number one is uh so number one is navigating uncertainty. Uh there's been uh the most extraordinary uh so shifts across politics, technology, and uh the economy. I mean politics, I'm not gonna say anything more other than that. I think it's self-explanatory, but there's been direct impacts on obviously the U.S. market, I don't think intentional, uh, but we've seen a clear uh fall off in international arrivals. Probably uh the forecasts are about six and a half, six point six million fewer international visitors to the U.S. So that really changes the landscape and it's things that operators have to adapt to. Then on the technological front, of course, I think we're all in the middle of you know, the most profound technological shift of all of our careers. Anyone who's listening to this, even if you were around during the advent of the internet, um, which I was, um, I'm not gonna make any presumptions, Dan. No, I was there for the dot com. You're a handsome young man, so to be kind. Um but uh and what's interesting is you know, and I there's a book um that it's been talked about a bit. Well, I've I've talked about it uh here, and interestingly, Eric Blatchford, uh the second CEO of Expedia, and who's been an industry friend of mine for many years, came and spoke at our executive summit. And he wrote referenced the book too. So this is Ray Kurtzweil's The Singularity Is Near, which I recommend. It's been really helpful for me in thinking about thinking about kind of the future and some of the implications because the changes that we're confronting are so profound, sometimes it can be hard to see around the corner. Like, because you don't realize, right? Like, you know, who could imagine, you know, in 1994, the you know, you when before the internet was commonly used, like all of the changes. Like it's you know, and I think we're at that kind of same place.

SPEAKER_03: 4:32:33

Well, share that quote about airline tickets.

SPEAKER_18: 4:32:36

Well, yeah, because I yeah, so I was at this uh remember being at this conference, a travel conference in 1994, and uh they were talking about you know booking online, and in the middle of this session, this uh VP of sales from a big European airline just got up and said, There's no fill-in-the-blank way anybody's ever gonna buy an international airline ticket online, right? And that and so I always think of that of that uh quote when I'm when I'm facing like a big shift in the future and you can't see around it. So I think like just AI is gonna be in everything we touch, like just like the internet is today, and that's just gonna be a part of our personal lives and our work lives in uh in a ubiquitous uh way. And then the other piece is the uh is just the economic outlook is is so uncertain. And so there's just a very uh I was uh the I was listening to uh some you know some news, TV news, um they had an interesting commentator. I mean, generally I don't recommend people watch news on TV, but uh this one kind of perspective that I'd heard where it's we're kind of in a no hire, no fire kind of space, although there is some firing or at least letting go, I think, more and more of. But um it's just a very unsettled business environment, and people, a lot of organizations are in a uh a wait and see, and that just creates some uh some cautiousness, right? And I think consumers are feeling cautious, especially uh mid-market and kind of lower income. Of course, you're if you're affluent, especially in the U.S. And that was a that's uh another really important uh theme that we talk about is we're just a very clear bifurcation of the consumer economy. So you've got two customers to serve. You've got the uh the affluent uh for so for the experiences sector, it's about a fifth of the market, and those folks they're feeling good, a lot of confidence. Uh consumer uh they're they're spending, they're consuming, they're traveling, all is good. Um but for the other uh four-fifths of that uh consumer segment, they're feeling a bit uh uh compressed, you know, between rising costs and uncertainty around their personal situation, their personal finances. So they're traveling less, they're trading down, and that's and we're feeling that across the industry.

SPEAKER_03: 4:34:56

Yeah, and that was certainly as part of the opening of your presentation. I just want to connect a few dots really quickly because on this podcast, the special event spotlight from arrival, we had Eric Blatchford join us. He talked about the executive day. We've had a number of people compliment how well that day went, the interaction and engagement. So that was obviously fantastic, the AI forum, of course. Um but then specifically on your have you had Eric on the podcast?

SPEAKER_18: 4:35:19

Yes, yeah. Eric's been on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 4:35:21

I think, yeah, I saw that. Okay. Yeah, he was fantastic. It was um so he was uh he has a standalone episode coming out in season six as a captain of industry, but he's also on this episode that people would have heard him talk about the the trends that you just mentioned. And so um but just to connect the two, because obviously there were two things you really highlighted there. One of them is the technological transformation, and you used this great quote from Eric Schmidt talking about the fact of the former CEO of Google, he talked about the fact or had a quote about that programmers are gonna be obsolete in a year, essentially.

SPEAKER_18: 4:35:53

We're gonna be replaced by AI programmers, the vast majority, right? That's a consensus in Silicon Valley, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 4:36:00

And Douglas highlighted to his uh the audience who uh uh uh that his son is about to graduate from with a computer science degree.

SPEAKER_18: 4:36:07

So that I'd pay for it. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 4:36:09

So you've got that.

SPEAKER_18: 4:36:11

Money well money well spent, right? No, no, of course. No, that every every dime I've spent on him is uh no, it's worth its weight in gold for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 4:36:19

And it will like and he's gonna be in such a good place with that degree in understanding computer science to then be able to vibe code and to be able to, he's just gonna become 10x uh multiplier of his skills with AI. Um but the thing that you also were getting into there that I found really fascinating was this concept of the that kind of budget conscious traveler and the luxury traveler, and just how important the budget conscious traveler is to arrival operators. It's about 50% of the business. So when you you showed two different graphs.

SPEAKER_18: 4:36:50

But on the second graph, uh because there's yeah, there's population and there's kind of spend or consumption. So you have one fifth of the Yeah, explain those, please.

SPEAKER_03: 4:36:57

Yeah, I think our audience would be keen to understand that.

SPEAKER_18: 4:36:59

Yeah, so we think of it as so our basic basically segment uh so there's basically the affluent and the um uh kind of middle income, you know, uh, you know, or less affluent uh traveler. So from a population standpoint, it's about a fifth of the population fall into that affluent group, which is household income of 150,000 or more. And then uh but that one-fifth of experience as travelers account for about half, actually 47 percent of all experiences uh spend. And so the the the key takeaway here is you know you customer segmentation is really important. And and we've been hearing this from operators a lot. Okay, the top end of the market, small group, you can luxury, upsells, you know, it's really doing great. But then you know the bottom end of the market, you know, kind of price sensitive, you know, the scaled um, you know, experiences are also doing well, and the kind of the mid market is struggling. And you hear the same thing in the hotel sector uh as well, where it's the top end and the bottom end seem to be doing okay, and the middle market is um because folks are you know, folks are trading down.

SPEAKER_03: 4:38:00

Yeah. So I know our listeners and I have to be mindful too of our time together because you're actually about to go on for another session in a few minutes. So we're gonna have to keep this session tight, but people can listen to the podcast that you're on, and obviously we did a preview episode, but I really wanted to have you. Just tell me to keep my answer shorter, Dan. I'll talk to you all day, Douglas. You know how much I uh I uh enjoy our conversations, but uh I want to just go to two uh make sure we cover two things. One is on that research, I want to make sure that our listeners can find out more information on how to get access to those reports. So I know if you're with Arrival, and obviously this is a combination of people listening to this that know travel trends and no arrival, but if people want to get access to that data that you shared on stage, how do they do that? They need to become an insider, they need to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_18: 4:38:46

Well, a lot of you know, a lot of these things too, we just cover on our on our site. I mean, we have a weekly newsletter, and that's all you know kind of free, and we have a lot of free stuff there. So um, you can just search a lot of this on at arrival.travel. Yep. And then if you want to go in deeper to the research, we have a subscription or like a membership service, which is uh uh frankly uh massively underpriced, in my humble opinion.

SPEAKER_05: 4:39:05

But I would agree. Um especially when you're used to what you used to charge in other roles.

SPEAKER_18: 4:39:11

No, no, exactly. But we want to make it accessible, right? So basically for a few hundred bucks, you know, especially if you're a small to medium-sized operator and you want to have access to some of those insights, we try to make it accessible.

SPEAKER_03: 4:39:20

And that's your background and expertise. I mean, you're a researcher at heart. You're an amazing presenter and I appreciate that. And that combination of both, it's like that. I think that's where, you know, I know I'm gonna get valuable insight. You could hear the audience reacting or people taking pictures. So it's so I want people to get all of that uh beneficial. And the other thing uh uh beneficial advice and guidance, but the other thing I wanted you to highlight first, Douglas, is some of your big uh takeaways from this conference in Washington this year. Since we talked about all the things we wanted to do or you guys wanted to achieve uh with this Arrival 360, and I know next year it's in Spokane, Washington. So I just want to make sure that our listeners hear directly from you and ultimately what what were the big highlights of Arrival 360 here in Washington this year?

SPEAKER_18: 4:40:03

You know, uh when I get asked that question, I always have I I always have such a hard time answering because uh, you know, it's such a diverse you know, it's such a diverse industry. And, you know, there's so we've there's probably okay, we have like 400, 400 and change, you know, companies attending here, but just among the supply side, so the operator community, there's probably probably 40 to 50, uh 40 to 50 different types of businesses, right? Like it's not just okay, tours, activities, and attractions, right? It's um just within the tour sector, there's so many different businesses. Just so just here's one example, right? So I I met I met uh at this at the conference and and I was not aware, but he's been coming for three years. Uh Jonathan, and I apologize, can't remember his last name, uh, but he runs a hip hop party bike uh business in Houston, Texas. He started he started in 2022. He does uh he's got four four bikes, he does like 30 departures a weekend, they're all sold out. And you basically, it's groups of folks who get on the party bike and you're listening to hip hop with an ex like a you know a knowledgeable kind of DJ and driver, and you have a blast. And uh like it's you know, I I'm like I'm ready to go to Houston, right, to to give this. I'm because I'm just so personally, I'm a huge Juice World uh fan. I love yeah, Juice World, uh you know, rest in peace, and uh you know, Kendrick Lamar, and so many that I've like really gotten into as my kids started listening to them like wow, this stuff is pretty uh insightful and poetic. So there's just just one example. And so for me, yes, okay, we had Airbnb speak and some great stuff there. I had a great conversation with uh Tao Tao of Get Your Guide and so many great companies that are speaking here and lots of insights. But for me, the highlight is always just meeting so many incredible entrepreneurs and operators that are doing um doing amazing things. And I'll just the last thing is I'll say is um you know that also includes you, Dan. I mean, when you like stepped into this from your uh in this role of uh creating a podcast, I'm like, I have to admit honestly, I'm like, really? Like we need that's you know what the world needs is another podcast. But you've done just tenacious, right? An incredible job of breaking through a lot of the you know the noise in the industry, and you just regret all of these great speakers, and you're just so passionate about the industry and been such a supporter of us since the beginning, and um we try to do the same for you, and I'm just uh uh uh just uh incredibly appreciative and um and amazed at uh what you've been able to do. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03: 4:42:52

That's very kind of you, Douglas. I'm I'm uh I'm welling up because it means a lot coming from you because I have the greatest respect and admiration seeing you on stage. You know what's the first one. Okay, now let's just stop and talk. No, it's cool, let's hug. Okay, let's hug.

SPEAKER_04: 4:43:03

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 4:43:04

I'll shift topics and um uh next year, Spokane, Washington. Yeah. And so obviously I love collaborating with the. Where the hell is it? I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_05: 4:43:12

Why are we going to Spokane? What's going on? Yeah. I loved when we did the one with Bruce, and I said, What why are we going to Washington? And you were like, Yeah, Bruce, why are we going to Washington? So why are we going to Spokane, Washington next year? What's the reason?

SPEAKER_18: 4:43:23

I think it's Spokane. Spokane, I'm sorry. That's okay. You're Canadian. I'll let it slide. Okay. Um we're always, you know, we're always looking for new a couple of we're always looking for new venues. We want to bring people to new places. Uh we always um looking for great venues and it's a beautiful venue with a uh convention center attached to a hotel in a beautiful setting, and it really enables us to you know, one of the great things about that we try to design at our event is we want to have it um kind of where the meeting space in the hotel is together. So yes, we're going to the sessions and having the networking, but people also, you know, they meet up at you know at breakfast. They meet up when they're in the elevator or on the escalator or at the bar at the hotel. So you create this kind of uh this like you know community surge, right, where you're all around and it creates this kind of family feeling and like everyone's you know here together. And yeah, so it's uh that's and then just the outdoors, the nature, there's so many great things to do. We have lots of uh lots of plans for it.

SPEAKER_03: 4:44:22

Oh, it's like so exciting. And I guess um knowing your session starting shortly, and obviously we're gonna get more time together, but I just want to just finish by saying my ultimate thank you to you, Douglas, for the opportunity to collaborate together to be here. And um the feeling is certainly mutual, but ultimately is gonna be this recording is my gift back to you guys with all of these amazing people that come together, because what I want for you is to be able to hear those people, some of the people you haven't met and learn their stories, just like John from Houston with these hip hop the conversations I have, I find them so delightful, so interesting. And you then get to listen to this and play it back. And so that's why I was keen for you to be a part of it and and to be on this recording. And so, of course, thank you again for all of our collaboration. Thanks so much for joining us on this event spotlight from the arrival conference in Washington, D.C. in the first few days of October of 2025. I really appreciate everyone making the time to join us for these conversations, and I hope you found them really fascinating and learned as much from these speakers that were there over those few days, whether it've been the executive day, the AI forum, and then the three days of arrival, including the multi-day tour track that I had the honor to emcee. And you heard from a wide array of voices that you can expect from future arrival conferences. So hopefully you'll plan to join us in Valencia next year, the end of April, and then in October, the arrival conference will be in Spokane, Washington. And for more details on both of those, check out arrival.travel. And don't forget we do post clips and highlights on our social channels from all these conversations, which you can find on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube at Travel Trends Podcast. And you can also check out Traveltranspodcast.com slash spotlight for more spotlight episodes just like this. Hopefully, you are already subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice, and we also do send out a monthly newsletter as a recap, which you can subscribe on our website as well. Thanks for joining us for this event, Spotlight. Thanks again for the ongoing partnership to the arrival team, and until next time, safe travels.