Travel Trends with Dan Christian
#1 B2B Travel Podcast. If you are looking to stay ahead in the travel industry, this new podcast hits all the highlights! The Travel Trends Podcast is where industry leaders converge to share & shape the future. Whether you're an emerging entrepreneur, a seasoned industry executive, or a dedicated travel professional, you’ll be able to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Uncover valuable insights, innovative strategies, and meaningful connections that will elevate your travel business or career to new heights.
Travel Trends with Dan Christian
Innovation, Leadership & the Future of Travel with Erik Blachford
Want a clear-eyed look at where travel is headed next? Erik Blachford, early Expedia leader turned board member at Zillow, Hipcamp, and Fora, joins us to unpack what the future that actually works looks like — AI behind the scenes, humans up front, and real-world experiences that no screen can replace.
We trace Erik’s journey from building one of the first online travel agencies to backing companies that are reshaping how people stay, plan, and explore. From outdoor escapes to modern travel advising, his perspective connects decades of innovation with what’s coming next.
Erik shares how the smartest teams are using AI right now to compress product cycles, improve workflows, and sharpen marketing efficiency. He’s candid about the limits too, noting that most gains today are cost savings rather than new revenue streams.
At the heart of the conversation is human connection. Travelers still crave reassurance, curation, and accountability, one reason multi-day tours remain mostly offline and travel advisors are seeing a renaissance. Platforms like Fora illustrate what “human in the loop AI” really means: powerful tools empowering trusted people. We also explore a growing countertrend to constant connectivity, including wellness travel, digital detoxes, national park road trips, RV adventures, and the return of small-group journeys. When travelers set their devices aside, communities form in trails, lodges, and around shared tables — and that’s the magic they remember.
See Erik speak live at Phocuswright (Nov 18-20). Save $250 with code:TravelTrendsSpecial25.
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The #1 B2B Travel Podcast Globally. Over 100 Episodes. Listeners in 125 countries. New Episodes Every Weds.
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Mark Zuckerberg talking about um everybody's got room for 12 friends in their life. They only have three. Well, we could fill the other nine with AI. I couldn't agree, I couldn't disagree with anything more profoundly than I disagree with that.
SPEAKER_03:Right?
SPEAKER_02:And uh, you know, I feel like there's a certain art to life, and and the more that things become technical, it feels like we're trying to make all of life transactional.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Travel Trends. This is your host, Dan Christian, and today we're gonna be speaking to Eric Blatchford, who is a true captain of industry, the second ever CEO of Expedia, and wait till you hear the incredible things that Eric has done across his career and how much everyone is gonna be able to learn and benefit from our conversation with Eric today. But I just wanted to give some context since Eric and I had a chance to sit down and record this live in person in Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago at the arrival conference. And I just published the full five-hour episode. Thanks so much to Zach for navigating that whole production. But we recorded so many amazing interviews. We wanted to incorporate as many conversations as we could, and we certainly did. So you can look for that full five-hour episode, watch it in parts, but we've been getting some fantastic feedback already from certainly the team at Arrival, but many others who have been meeting some of the amazing people that come together for that conference. I hope you enjoy the full arrival episode. And we have been in an incredibly busy travel schedule. I've just arrived back from World Travel Market in London, and I'm heading to Focus Right in San Diego next week. If you are interested in joining us in San Diego, we actually still have the discount code on the homepage of our website, traveltrendspodcast.com, so you can save$250 and join us next week for the FocusRight conference and also be featured on what will be our last event spotlight for 2025. We have one more coming out later this week. We have the spotlight episode from the Adventure Travel and Trade Association, which is relevant to today's conversation because Eric Blatchford is a board member of ATTA. But I just wanted to highlight last week at WTM, Matthew Gardner and the team kindly invited me back. I did a presentation last year on the top five marketing trends for 2025. And this year we did the top six AI marketing trends for 2026, which was off of the back of our AI summit, which was incredibly well attended. We had so many amazing speakers, and I put together this six-part highlight of the amazing recommendations that came out of that conference. And they moved our session from Wednesday to Thursday because it's a three-day conference. And Thursday is the day when a lot of people tend to not turn up and it's much quieter at WTM. So they put a huge effort this year into getting people to stay on the Thursday. And that included moving our session from Wednesday to Thursday. Now, for those of you who were there, remember our session from 2024. We actually had about 150 people that couldn't get into the theater, and it was such an incredible turnout. Well, I was a little bit concerned that we would have like a half-filled theater on Thursday. And uh indications were strong early on last week when we had our event in London. We had uh over 200 people turn out for our VIP get together as a thanks to the travel massive community for supporting our AI Summit. And then on the Thursday, uh the event was is lined up and it was an amazing turnout. The theater was full, it was standing room only, and unfortunately, some people couldn't get in. I just wanted to say thanks to all of our listeners. We sent our newsletter out just before the session, and we certainly have been promoting it on our social channels as well. But it's so wonderful to see our listeners come together and so many of you there for our session. So a huge thank you for me to all of you for being a part of WTM and and joining our session. That was certainly one of the most fun uh sessions I've ever been a part of. So thanks again to Matthew for moderating and the World Travel Market team for inviting travel trends and myself to be a part of it. We certainly look forward to 2026. We've had a massive 2025, and I'm ready for one more trip and then planning everything out for next year with our team. But today, we are just in between our deep dive into the world of emerging tour operators that Tour set a kindly sponsor. We have three fantastic episodes that you've just heard. And coming up next, after today's Captain of Industry spotlight with Eric Blatchford, we're going to be diving into the world of loyalty, which is sponsored by our friends over at Loyalty Co. and Status Match. More details to follow on them later. But today I really wanted to bring in Eric Blatchford into season six of our podcast on Captains of Industry. He is such an inspiring entrepreneur. He has such a remarkable experience with boards. He's joined the Forum board most recently. He's been with Zillow. Just wait until you hear his story. I start at the beginning so that we can get his background to talk about investing and the future of travel, which I found very reassuring because he takes a really interesting perspective on AI, and that is very much about the human connection. He owns a camp, as you'll hear, in Quebec, where he grew up. And it's very much about getting people, in this case, students, to be connected in the real world and away from their devices. And it's one of the things I think we all love about travel. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome in one of the true captains of industry, Eric Blatchford. Eric, thanks so much for joining us. Happy to be here. For sure. And it's great to have you on our Captains of Industry series. Given your impressive background, the introduction that people just heard. Obviously, you joined us once very kindly when we were in Denver. You and I had a chance to sit down and you were on the Adventure Travel and Trade Association episode. I know you're an investor there. So it was great. Many of our listeners have heard that you know brief conversation that we had. But today on the Captains of Industry series, I want our listeners to get a much fuller understanding of your background and what you've accomplished in the industry, but specifically so we can get into the big trends that you're seeing in 2025 and beyond. So, Eric, if you wouldn't mind just giving everyone a little bit of your background and how you got into the travel industry and your key role at Expedia and what's happened since.
SPEAKER_02:I think I think of myself more as a lieutenant of industry than captain of industry, but that's very kind of you. Um sure, I was on the founding team at Expedia, which uh as people might know was uh within Microsoft. It was incubated there, and then we we spun it out as a public company in 1999, which seems like an awful long time ago now. But it really was one of the very first of the online travel distribution platforms, the the OTAs, as everybody calls them now. And uh I was running marketing at the time we spun out, and then I ended up being the second CEO and took that through the um uh the sale to IAC and the subsequent integration of hotels.com, hotwire, uh kind of building the expedia that you know today. Um from there I went on uh worked for an environmental services company called Terapass, doing uh carbon offsets and trying to fight the good fight with uh climate change, which uh I think all present evidence suggests was was not very effective. And then uh and then ran a tour operator called Butterfield and Robinson, uh very high-end sort of cycling tours before heading off into the investment world with uh TCV, where I was there as a venture partner for uh about eight years. Um and then since the pandemic, I've been on my own doing uh angel investing, sitting on a bunch of boards, including uh consumer tech, travel, and outdoor companies mostly.
SPEAKER_00:And CC TCV, just everyone knows, was one of the big investors in Tour Radar. Tor Radar, of course, is uh a big partner of ours. They're one of our sponsors of our AI Summit. So you know Travis and the team. You were, as I understand it, the first chairman of the company.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was I was very early in investor in Tour Radar. I'm a huge fan.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And so that's one of the things I want to talk about is the multi-day tour space because it's one of the areas that have let has really lagged behind other sectors of travel. And when you and I spoke at the ATTA, it's one of the things I was keen to ask you, and you were highlighting just that OTA is here we are 20 years later, and they still don't get the multi-day tour segment. And you gave some specific reasons as to why that's still the case. But tell everyone a little bit about your current reality. So I know you you you actually you bought the camp that you went to in uh when you grew up. So you're originally Canadian, but you went to business school in the States. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But tell everyone a bit about your life now and some of the things that you're involved in because it's really impressive. The the boards that you're on, and again, I know I'll talk you up and you're a very humble person, but um but I think it'll be interesting for our listeners to know all the things you're across.
SPEAKER_02:Um well, listen, I've I mean I've been lucky with the stuff that's sort of come my way and sort of hit the radar. Um and uh I what what I basically have done is sort of I I guess it i if you had to look at the different buckets, the kind of a consumer tech bucket. Um so I'm on the Zillow board, a big real estate company, and in the past I've been on Glassdoor, I was on the Peloton board for years, uh big health and fitness company. Probably people know Peloton, um, and uh the nerdy board, which is an ed tech company. So that's but that's been interesting. And then I've done a lot of straight-up travel stuff, and I'm still on. I just joined the board at uh fora travel, for instance. Saw that, yeah. Uh I'm on the board at uh Bus Bud, which is a big marketplace for for buses and stuff. And then I've also got uh a big bucket of outdoor uh stuff. So I'm on the hip camp uh board, and I do, I I in fact do own a summer camp, a wilderness summer camp in Quebec that 500 kids a summer. Uh no screens, no tech, just learn how to paddle a canoe. Uh and I uh you know I'm an investor in outside uh inc, you know, I I I really I really like that intersection of technology, travel, and the outdoors, and of course ATTA, which we we talked about before. And I've been lucky enough to get to pursue it. You know, it's nice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I know you obviously you are a real outdoor enthusiast and clearly you love travel, but you've been able to successfully combine your passion, your interest with a number of very successful travel organizations, obviously, starting with Expedia, but also you've been outside the travel industry with companies like Zillow and sitting on the board of obviously one of the biggest real estate uh technology companies in the U.S. And certainly HipCamp is one of my favorite companies. I just love hip camp. I lived in California during the pandemic, and I used hip camp all the time. And it was, you know, people that had farms where all of a sudden it was, you know, very much the Airbnb for camping. And that's an exciting business. Tell tell us a little bit more about HipCamp for our listeners that may not be familiar.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, sure. I mean, hip camp is basically a great idea translated into a company. And the the great idea, Alicia Ravassio is the uh the CEO there. Um and she realized that there was a lot of the best campsites in California. I mean, it's all over the place now, but just originally California were actually located on private land. And in particular, she she was one uh she saw one that was close to a surf break, and she realized maybe you just go to the owners of the private land and say, Hey, could we actually camp here? And of course, people have been doing, you know, cowboy camping for years and years, but she was the one who actually said, wait a sec, maybe a lot of these folks could actually, you know, a lot of the campers would be willing to pay a few bucks, and a lot of the owners are like, Yeah, actually, it's great to have people on my land. I don't mind. And so what's happened is across private land all over the place, and uh the company's bigger now. Now it's expanded into RVs and commercial campgrounds. I think I think Kipcamp now has more places to camp than any other place in the U.S. Is that right? But it started off that was sort of the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, and I that's why I love that concept. And clearly you've been attracted to businesses that are solving unique problems, and you've gotten in very early with a number of these companies. And so I'd love to understand, given that we had Chris Hemeter lead off this season, and one of the things we really focused on was investing in travel in 2026, and he highlighted that he's never been more motivated and excited. He doesn't he's never seen as an exciting time to invest in travel as as as we have today, which was a great quote to lead off our season. Um but I'm genuinely keen to understand your perspective on uh investment and the types of companies you look at, like the stage of investing. Obviously, you're fairly early. Um, but tell us what some of the things you're looking for when people are pitching you on investing in a travel venture.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. I mean it's that old thing about you know, uncertainty breeds opportunity, right? And right now, I I mean I I definitely can't think of a time when there's been more uncertainty uh in the market right now. And of course, a huge amount of that is AI, but there's more to it than that. It's also that a lot of the distribution channels are starting to mature, people are looking for new ways to do things. And and you know, I guess of course in the internet that happened, and of course that happened again with mobile. And here it is, it's more than just AI, it's sort of a recognition that all the things that have worked are are are still working, but there's all this room for innovation, and you're starting to see it pop up in all kinds of interesting ways. And I I think partly just because AI makes it so much cheaper to write code, we're gonna see a huge upswing in innovation because it's getting really easy to just try stuff out. And I'm really impressed by by how many people are coming up to me and how many people are pitching me on stuff that's that's not, you know, um, hey, why don't we like use other people's trip photos to plan your trip? Like we've we've heard enough of those, you know. But people starting to come up with really interesting stuff around um, oh, I don't know, figuring out how to size yourself up against your competitive uh your market and and really sort of understanding how to dive deep in data and use it in new ways in the travel market, which is you know, it's not the sexy stuff, but boy, can it ever help your business.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. One of the things that Chris talked about that I know really resonated with our listeners is that he gave some beneficial advice to the startups out there that listen to this podcast, and one of them was don't cold pitch our organization. We don't take uh generic emails into Thayer. And so one of the things he highlighted was that if you can't get an introduction to me, that's your answer. Is that and so how does it work for you? And I'm I'm asking you that question to avoid the scenario where people just all of a sudden find out about you, try to connect with you on LinkedIn. I'm sure you get inundated all the time. And I love that you walk amongst us at conferences like this, given how high profile you are. But you know, when people are trying to connect with you, or in general, we're trying to connect with an investor like you, what would be your recommendation to do it properly?
SPEAKER_02:Uh well, I'm not a firm, I'm just me. Right. So even if people do reach out directly, I just yeah, there's only so much bandwidth. Sure. However, having said that, um, the truth is I actually like listening to things from all over the place, and and plenty of people approached me at conferences. Um I've I have in fact, I'm I'm bringing it upon myself here. I have in fact even invested in somebody who reached out to me cold on LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_00:Is that right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you might know Sheree Robinson, who founded Taste Master Taste Makers Africa years ago. She reached out cold.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And on the second or third trial, I was like, this person is really persistent. She's really let's get in touch. And so I invested it. It was and and you know, actually, she had a great run until the pandemic. But so uh so you know, although you know you just never know where good ideas are gonna come from. I think if I were a firm, I would definitely feel the same way Chris does. Yeah. As it is, I feel like I think you know, lots of people pepper me on LinkedIn. I don't think everybody really expects a response, and and and hopefully they don't because it's just too much. I'm just one guy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I appreciate you sharing that too, because I think that's inspiring. And again, this is where you know there's many different ways to uh on your path to success. And I have heard other VCs talk about the fact that once you have a successful business, don't worry about finding us, we'll find you.
SPEAKER_02:And well, yeah, that's true. But but it's also, you know, if you're a really early stage angel person like me, I mean, part of the part of the attraction of it is you got to just be curious about what's going on, and you have to actually like sort of working with people as they get stuff started. I mean, I right now there's two or three different places of people I can think of where I'm kind of just a mentor. I'm not an investor particularly. That's not the way it worked out, but I like what they're doing. I mean, there's a bunch of people doing all kinds of interesting stuff around kind of affinity travel. Not exactly a tour operator, not exactly a community building. I just find it interesting and I try to help what I can, even if there's no investment possibility. Yeah, sometimes that's how you learn to inform the stuff that you do end up investing in.
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SPEAKER_00:And now back to the show. The other thing I wanted to ask you too, given the high profile boards you're on, and specifically for a so Jake Peters is a friend of mine. He's a CTO, one of the co-founders. He's fantastic. Yeah. He's speaking at our uh AI summit. So depending when uh you're listening to this, I would definitely encourage checking out Jake Peters' session because he is so forward-thinking. And the whole team over there, I mean, they're you know, they're just raised$60 million, as you well know, uh, now joining their board. So what I wanted to ask you, Eric, was that when you're looking at companies and trying to decide where you're going to invest your time, to your point about the fact you're, you know, your bandwidth is limited, and so you have to make very strategic decisions whether it comes to joining a board like that. So this is where it's a very different stage of growth when they can reach out to you to say, would you like to join our board? What do you look for when those offers come your way? And you know, what ultimately is it that makes you say yes?
SPEAKER_02:Oh well, uh, everyone is different. I mean, uh honestly, you know, you I I I wish I could give you some sort of a framework. I can't really. I mean, the case of fora, uh to me, it's sort of this combination of I love the ecosystem. I've I've sort of uh for I've always sort of been around kind of the um uh the travel, travel advisor uh uh ecosystem and understand it pretty well. And it was really needed some innovation. Here comes fora, great innovation. And then the more I looked at it, the more I thought this could be one of the great companies in terms of human-in-the-loop AI. I mean, imagine taking all these travel advisors who you trust and then giving them AI tools that are super powerful, but actually probably take a little training that your typical consumer traveler isn't gonna do. Right. And also just the fact that I mean, you know, business travel, small business travel, even sort of visiting friends and relatives has been kind of boiled down to it's almost like ATMs, right? But but leisure travel, the stuff that you're dreaming about that you want advice on, that hasn't been yet. And I think the idea that there's a human in the loop there and is often somebody that you trust, because a lot of the fora advisors are actually helping their own friends or their friend circle. I just think it's there's a kind of a magic in there because you're you're blending the kind of the social transaction and the commercial transaction in a way that I think can really work well. So plus that, and I just, you know, Henley and Evan and Jake are just amazing in deal. It it always at the end of the day, it always comes down to I'm never gonna join a board or invest someplace if I don't think the founders are great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, just on fora for another moment here is that you know, what's interesting for me tracking your career, given that you ran XPedy at a time where everyone was convinced that travel advisors were gonna go away. And this whole concept of an OTA, to use an example of an ATM, like that, you know, an automated telling machine. My mom worked at a royal bank in Canada for many years. So she was a teller. And it was always that the tellers are gonna go, so you need to retrain yourself to become a financial planner, which is what she did. So she, you know, when she worked her way up in the bank to be able to manage people's finances as opposed to just and but tellers are still there. But to travel advisor, I mean, this is where Matthew Upchurch is virtuoso, whom you know as well, the idea that it was a career versus a job, you weren't just an order taker, you were someone that was actually going to help really truly advise. So an agent versus an advisor. And so that idea of an online travel agency was this big disruptor, and here you are 25 years later, taking up a board spot on fora, which is you know powering travel advisors with incredible technology. So where I'm going with this is I'm I'm keen to get your take on where the industry is in the moment with B2B and travel advisors and the role they play in the customer journey because it seems like they are undergoing an incredible renaissance, and companies like them, there's so many people that I know that have become fora travel advisors. They're now selling travel, booking travel for their family.
SPEAKER_02:Tell us a little bit more about what you're seeing there. First of all, you're looking at one. I went through all the training and I've had a great time. But I I've bothered all my old college friends saying, hey, give me some travel to book for you so I can understand the platform. And it works great. You know, it's it's it's it's really good. Um look, I think it's I think the thing about travel over the next little while is it's sort of a choose your own adventure kind of situation where uh depending on the kind of trip you want to take, you're probably gonna want to use different kinds of channels. And so, you know, leisure leisure travel that involves a sort of a collaborative dreaming process. You know, a four-agent's fantastic. Um the quick in and out of New York City, need a hotel for two nights, and I know exactly what part of town I want to stay in. Expedia is still great, right? It just it sort of depends on what what you need. If you're if you're bound up with a bunch of corporate policy stuff, yeah, you're you're you're tied to a TMC. If on the other hand, I don't know, you're going to a you want a specific cruise thing, you probably get to go to a cruise specialist agency. So I I think it just sort of depends. I will say one kind of funny thing on the uh, you know, everything old is new again, uh travel agent thing. Um, my big introduction to travel agents actually was at Expedia when we bought classic custom vacations. So now known, I think, just as classic vacations, which is based in Hawaii, and the guy uh who owned it, Ron Letterman, was the one who was like, Oh, you guys don't understand. 90% of my business comes from travel agents, and that it will always be that way. And I will never distribute through you guys the way that I distribute through them because they actually know what they're doing. And he was blood busting our chops a little bit. Um, but you know what? It introduced me to the the we we had a travel agency advisory board back then, and I'm talking almost 20 years ago now. But I suddenly I sat in a room and I realized, wait a sec, these are hard-driving entrepreneurs, these are incredibly smart and driven people, and we need to be on onside with them, not trying to oppose them. And very similar to sort of the way that the uh the bank teller world evolved, that's what's happened with travel agents too. And now the travel agent of today is a long, long way from the person who would just sort of, you know, book a paper ticket for you in the, I don't know, 1980s or something. It's a completely different breed of person.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's interesting, even when we look at the example with Tour Radar, and we were 10 years on from Tour Radar first coming onto the scene and then the major investment that you had led, being the chairman of that organization, even today, you know, 70% of their bookings still occur offline, which is still a shocking number given what the industry we we thought was going to happen with making them uh bookable in real time. That was the kind of the big push. But still, people want to speak to another human, they want to get reassurance, they've got questions about visas and packing and um the different destinations, so they still trust a human, even though AI is now playing a role. But obviously, you know, as as you said, uh what's old is new again. Like that's actually something that was there before and it still exists. So I'm keen to get your take on on the overall trends, Eric. And 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_02: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 sort of 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's 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_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: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 say, okay, so that's a trend, but on a more serious note, it does mean that in your business planning, you gotta 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 so I talked about that. I've 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 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 AI and the on on the ground experience, but nothing, nothing could possibly replace that human connection.
SPEAKER_00:Trevor Burrus, Jr. Well, you mentioned a number of fascinating trends there, and I want to go back and unpack a couple of them, especially the geopolitical, because that's actually something that I know given our global listeners, we have listeners of about 125 countries. And one of the things that I just want to highlight to them from your perspective as we have this conversation here in the U.S. and in Washington, and we think about the global ramifications, and the reason I want to dive into this is because you know I had the privilege to oversee all of the marketing and digital activity for one of the world's largest uh privately owned travel companies for nearly 10 years. And the reason that I I raise this in in that context is because we had the good fortune of being able to find other markets to drive sales. If you are a standalone tour operator in a single city and people are not crossing the border, for example, there's very little you can do about that. You're kind of it's totally beyond your control. But I want to talk about the fact that there are winners-losers all the time with these big travel shifts and trends. And that was literally the the um the concept of the show was finding out what are the trends post-pandemic, what's the same, what's different in customer behavior. And I always want to highlight opportunities for growth. And so what I wanted to ask you is given these geopolitical events, the realities that we're currently in for all the reasons that you've mentioned, what are some of the growth opportunities that you see as a result of that? And what I'm asking is you've got load factors that are uh uh flight load factors that are reduced inbound to the US, people are going to other destinations, and Canada, one of the big things that's happening there, of course, is there's this rise in domestic tourism. So all of a sudden there's a huge boom of Canadians exploring their own backyard. But interestingly, I'll say one last thing and I'll hand it over to you, is even Americans now who are concerned about traveling abroad for concern of how they're going to be perceived or received in the destination, they're also choosing to do what I remember seeing so clearly living in LA when the pandemic started. Once people could travel, they were s exploring all the national parks. And that's exactly what's happening now. We're seeing people returning to national parks, they're renting RVs and in in high numbers again. So tell us, Eric, from your perspective, what are you seeing as based on those geopolitic political factors, what are some of the growth opportunities on a on a global scale that you're looking at or paying attention to?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, you you just hit on a couple of things. Um I mean, what one is sort of the redistribution of travel from countries, you know, people who would have been going to the US um now are gonna go other places. I mean, you know, we're not in the middle, I mean, you know, knock on wood, we're not in the middle of some global recession here. I mean, people are still traveling. Right. They're just not traveling to the US, they're gonna go somewhere else. So, I mean, uh, instead of going to New York City, maybe you're gonna go to Montreal from a place like London. Well, great, that's good for the Montreal economy, for the tourist economy. The the rub, of course, is that the people who run the day trips in New York are not the same people who run the day trips in Montreal. And I would say it's a very good time right now, if if over the last five years, as a uh as sort of a day experience operator, if you have expanded into multiple multiple geographies, you're pretty happy about that now. And you're you're allocating resources. Um when it comes to national parks, it's sort of an interesting thing. The um, you know, this year for the first time in a while, Yosemite was actually down 10% year over year because people are. A little worried because so much cutting uh there's been so many cuts to the federal uh uh front to the federal park system in the U.S. Um, I think that really benefits the Canadian system, though. I think there's tons of people who were within sort of driving distance. I mean, one of the things we've we've noticed at hip camp for sure is RVs are more important for sure. I mean, you know, RVing is an adventure of its own kind, right? Um, and we're finding that the can't the camping um business overall is actually down a little bit. I mean, hip camp's doing fine, but if you look at sort of all the big players and so on, it's because people are taking fewer road trips to go to the national parks, which means that they have fewer nights on the way to and from. You know, a lot of people, the classic road trip is to kind of go from campsite to campsite, stay in national park, campsite, campsite, national park, and do a big circuit in 10 days or something like that. And there's a little less appetite for that because people are worried about what's going to show up. Oh, sorry, what's going to be there when they show up at the national parks. I think that's an overblown fear. Yeah. And from everything I can tell, actually things are actually working pretty well. But but you know, it was really in the news a lot in the spring when people were making their plans.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's why I find it fascinating to being able to have a conversation with someone like you that has access to that data and insight and knowledge. And obviously, I I know you probably have to be mindful about what you share sometimes when there are publicly traded companies. Um, but just to go a little bit further on this, with companies like Forra, especially when we think about Americans traveling outbound, um, what are some of the other trends that you're paying attention to about Americans exploring the world? Is there different destinations that they are like are they more focused on Europe? Are they more focused on Asia? Have you seen any shifts in outbound consumer behavior or even reduction too, Eric, of those numbers, given some of the things we talked about, people choosing to stay home?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, I mean it's only a matter of time before Americans start sewing Canadian flags on their backpack again.
SPEAKER_03:I've heard that's already happening. It's probably already happening.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, we all remember that happening back in the early 2000s during the uh the uh Iraq war. Um, I'm sort of kidding. Um no, I I I haven't seen that really show up in the numbers yet. Um what you do see showing up in the numbers, though, is um uh or or I see anyway, uh across travel stuff is um there is definitely some economic uncertainty starting to to come in. Um uh the people at the very high end, you know, the the U.S. traveler, um, of course, at the very high end, they live a completely different existence. But even even sort of the um the upper middle class uh traveler who is still feeling confident is still traveling, but there is going to be some wobble as people a little lower down. I mean, people are kind of scared about AI coming and taking their jobs. Or as they say, you know, it's not the AI that takes your job, it's the person who can use the AI, whatever the the current sort of uh phrase is. People are nervous about that, and um, you know, especially uh if the younger people who are earlier in their careers, you know, those jobs, whether it's just frozen up for now or whether the jobs are never going to get filled, we don't know. But I mean, there is sort of creeping white-collar unemployment um at this point, regardless of kind of, you know, that's certainly the vibe anyway. Whether people have actually lost their jobs yet or not, is more people not getting hired into jobs that would have existed and now don't. Um and I think there's a palpable sense of nervousness around see the the AI, it's not a recession exactly, but the idea that AI is going to suddenly put people into a different economic bracket where they're not gonna be able to afford to travel as much. I think people are worried about that. And I have to say I kind of agree.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I'm glad you brought that up because certainly the headlines, whether you look at Accenture cutting, you know, 11,000 jobs or even reason uh Lufthansa talking about restructuring with AI. And so there's a direct correlation between not only restructuring cost cutting, but then also raising. A company like WeTravel just recently raised$92 million. And I captured the screenshot of the headline because it was$92 million to invest in AI for multi-day tour. And I just I smiled and and and thought to myself, I it's a headline I wouldn't have expected to see because you've got two different things happening. You've got people losing their jobs, and then you've got investment going into companies with the idea they're going to be hiring people. I definitely think that, and and this is my perspective, it sounds like we're similar on this, is that with those headlines of job losses, people are starting to question whether or not they want to take that trip this year. Anything that, you know, that slight sense of a recession. And again, these are the signals that we're trying to pay attention to because it's always easier to look back. I mean, a recession is defined, as you well know, as two quarters of contracted growth. And you just say you don't know you're in a recession until you're in a recession. And then the question is how long is it gonna last? So and we've seen we've seen but we've seen more impressive growth numbers in the last quarter from both US and Canada with the DeFi. So it's it's difficult to read the signals, but I do think you're absolutely on to something with people being concerned about what it's gonna mean for their job with AI.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And also, you know, me, it's you know how they they used to say that people who live through the depression for the rest of their lives, they always thought there was gonna be another depression, or they couldn't just sort of spend money easily. Yeah, well, I think people who live through the bubble popping in 1999-2000 always see another bubble, but I swear, I see another bubble. I mean, it feels to me like people are quite right to be worried about the big hammer that could come down sometime soon because there's too much riding on the success of AI right now. And I think everybody feels it in their bones. And the fact that um, you know, it's interesting, you talk to people here at Arrival, you talk to the folks who are um executives and who are running their companies, um, and there's real palpable pressure to figure out how to use AI. And I think some of the pressure is coming from just the media hyping up all the money that's been raised for the hyperscalers that it's sort of like, well, you guys better figure out how to make this work, otherwise, the stock market's gonna crash. I mean, that's that's not a super healthy sort of push for innovation, I don't think. And I I am a little worried about that. Whereas at the same time, like I said, most of the stuff that we're seeing uh in terms of AI success, it's it's cost reduction. It's making people way more efficient, it's meaning that you can get the work of three people done with one person. So that might not be a layoff, but that's jobs that that aren't being created. And I think everybody in the in in any any business where you've got structured data and you've got a bunch of rules to apply to the data, you know, customer service, accounting, law, tax, you know, you name it, right? I mean, we all kind of know the laundry list, those are the things where people are getting more and more eff uh efficient, but it doesn't necessarily bode super well in terms of like uh the the boat rising, all all tides rising for travel spending, because that that is core travel market, too, right?
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SPEAKER_00:And now, back to the show. I want to get into the pros and the cons of AI because you specifically called out the need for human interaction, obviously, you being involved in a camp and and not only having had that experience as a child yourself, and obviously you're a family man, you so you uh with your children, this is something that you clearly have a passion for, and for others to be able to experience a screen-free summer or you know, the the absence of technology. So let's talk let's talk about where the benefit is, and then let's talk about where you see that if anything, there's gonna be a greater desire and need for human connection. Um so let's talk about the benefits. You obviously efficiency. So tell us about some of the things that you're seeing companies, how they're applying AI to be successful. Um I would love to hear that from your point of view given the companies you sit across, because I'm sure every one of those companies is touting whether they get their investment, how they're gonna leverage AI to automate as much as possible. So tell us what some of the biggest opportunities for AI, and then let's get into the counterside.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I would say, I mean, uh uh automation, yeah, but it's not necessarily automate uh as much as possible. What you're trying to do is automate the stuff that's got the highest leverage to it and the places where it sort of makes the most sense. Um, you know, a place like Zillow, for instance, um, we can make our our the real estate agents who are the core kind of uh Zillow customer, um, you know, we can make them so much more efficient by providing them with the right tools so that they can handle their workflow better. So a lot of a lot of workflow type tools, and of course those can get used internally as well. And then what you end up with is you've got the same employee base and you've got the same task list, but your cycle time is way up. So you can get stuff done a whole lot faster. And the smaller the company, the bigger that effect, right? I mean, right now you can do things with a three-person company that it would have taken you 30 people to do before. And and I've seen that over and over again now. And part of it is because writing code is so much easier than it used to be for folks. Um, I am not yet a vibe coder, although I have tried a little bit. Well, you know, I've I've I've messed around a little bit, but I found that trying to do anything that actually um, you know, could actually survive in the real world, building uh whatever it might be a transactional platform or something like that. Um, I don't have any kind of coding skills. I'm not technical, I'm a marketing guy. Uh, and I find that having just a little bit of coding skills still helps a lot. That'll change. That'll change over time. I know that at uh a lot of companies now, um, you know, using Replit or the other tools, product managers now deliver working prototypes into the kind of meetings that when I was a product manager, you would sit in there with wireframes. Well, that's a massive difference that's gonna save everybody just weeks and weeks and weeks. So I think that the main thing that I'm seeing, again, call it cost savings, time savings, it all ends up being the same sort of thing. What I haven't seen much of, oh by the way, more writing marketing copy, I mean, there's a bunch of different instances of that. I I struggle to point to a single place where um somebody's using AI in a way that is clearly bringing them in incremental revenue. That I haven't seen. I've seen I've seen a lot of machine learning and AI applied against marketing campaigns and making them more efficient and figuring out how to hit your sort of efficiency frontier on spending, but that that's not the same as bringing in brand new revenue. I I don't doubt that it's happening. I just haven't seen it in my world yet.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the reason I want to ask you that question is because when you see the headlines and you see these valuations, to your point about the fact there is going to be a correction, I'm convinced there is as well. Some of these valuations are just totally out of whack. You see a company like Oracle all of a sudden having a massive surge, Larry Ellison becoming the wealthiest person in the world. And the reason for that is because they did a big deal with ChatGPT, but they haven't even raised the amount of money yet that they're planning to spend against that. And so um there was a bit of a a correction on that. But nevertheless, there's all of this hype, there's all of this unrealized opportunity, but I think we are in some cases, there's so many parallels to the dot-com era where we're getting ahead of ourselves, even with generative optimization compared to SEO. Even uh Brendan will talk about the fact that it's only about five percent of traffic today, not 50%. And so it is coming, but it's it's one of those things where you always ask overestimate what's gonna happen in a year, underestimate what's gonna happen in 10. And so I think that the Amazons and these companies are here with us today, and they're the ones that will stand the test of time. But a lot of companies will fall away as the correction happens. So let's talk about the flip side. So, if those are the opportunities for where companies are leveraging the technology and highlighting to their investors, what are some of the areas that you would highlight as kind of the detractors or the where areas, and I'll call out one specific example from my experience, a company called WeRoad, the group travel company, based out of Italy. They've had incredible growth and went from 10 million to 100 million in four years, and they're very much the anti-AI. And I've seen companies like EF that have done studies that highlight that younger people are abandoning dating sites and they're traveling because they want to meet people in real life, not on a screen. Um, so tell us a little bit more about the camp and your overall view on this kind of anti-AI movement and what the opportunities are there. Because I do think there's gonna be another swing back to those companies that actually were there all along, but right now are undervalued because people aren't seeing the fact they're gonna benefit from the fact that their businesses are not gonna be automated and that people are gonna want to still meet with or congregate with other people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, listen, listen, I mean, well, I'm an old Butterfield Robinson bike tour guide, right? So I believe me, I believe in the power of wind in your face and sort of good fun people to have dinner with. Um, I think that um, you know, a lot of stuff has been pulled online in the last 10, 15 years. You read Jonathan Hayt, you read The Anxious Generation, it's very clear that social media is net net a negative for society. I I don't have any compulsion of saying otherwise. Um at the summer camp, we sort of see it through the lens of the parents who are so grateful when they drop their kids off that this is gonna be the only two or three weeks of the whole year when they're gonna actually interact with other kids on a day-to-day basis, and that's all they're gonna do. There's no screens, there's no technology, we put everything in a bag. On the first night, we end up confiscating all the phones that they try to sneak in, you know. That's just that's just of course their kids, you know, that's the way it goes. Um, but I can't tell you how much the kids appreciate it. And then one of the things that we've done is when they when they get on the bus to go back out of the city um at the uh the end of their time up there. Um we used to give them their phones when they got on the bus, but the parents were like, please don't, because when they get off the bus now without having had their phones back yet, their parents say, We get to see our kids again just for a bit. And the parents decide when to give them their phones back. But the crazy thing is, it's it's it's really is um it's taking them from one reality, putting them into another. But you know, we're we're we're supposed to be around other people, interacting with other people. We're not really supposed to. I mean, you know, Mark Mark Zuckerberg talking about um everybody's got room for 12 friends in their life, they only have three. Well, we could fill the other nine with AI. I couldn't agree, I couldn't disagree with anything more profoundly than I disagree with that, right? And um, you know, I feel like there's a certain art to life, and and the more that things become technical, it feels like we're trying to make all of life transactional. And that's just not, you know, if you're anywhere around the travel industry, you know, you know the difference between a a sort of a super efficient transaction that um let's say let's say you go to one of the hotels where there's not really a lobby anymore, you know, you can sort of check yourself in. I try all these different sort of things. Yeah, there's a time and a place for that, right? But there's also a time and a place for the like Danny Meyer hospitality where you actually want to talk to somebody and get a feel for a place. And that's that's true up and down. And I I I I think you're gonna see, you know, digital detox at a bunch of different kinds, you know, wellness is on the upswing, and that's gonna absolutely coincide with uh with a lack of technology. People are gonna want to escape these AI agents and their AI companions. I mean, uh, you know, the one thing I will say, my observation from the camp is it only really works well if everybody stows their device at the same time. If you have 20 people and all 20 don't have a phone, you have this really interesting, nuanced conversation that if one person has a phone, everybody else just sits there going, Hmm, when do I get my phone back?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's so true. I've talked at the at ATTA about an eco-lodge we've been to, and they only had internet um in the main foyer area where people would congregate and they would turn it off. So when you had to have dinner with everyone at a group table, everyone was forced to interact. No one had any internet access or cell phone access. And it was wonderful. And it was like, and and for that younger generation, which is why I love what you're doing with the camp, because you know, I've having had uh young kids growing up through screens and trying to decide when they would get a phone, is it 12 years old, when would they get access to social media? And now we're even seeing that countries like Australia are now waiting until 16, like the negative uh effects of social media and being connected all the time and how it's rewiring our brains, mental health issues. There's many reasons now for parents to be concerned and to be able to choose uh uh an alternate course and also send them away to a summer camp. So on this topic, Eric, what do you think of the opportunities? Uh you mentioned wellness, and I think you're spot on with that for sure. That like the idea of digital detox and people having uh going on retreats and people taking better care of their health. What are some of the other trends on that side where you think that actually there is businesses today that are undervalued where you know people are going to embrace other opportunities to travel? And I'll give one last example. I'm heading on a cycling trip. Um, next week I'm in Patagonia. In advance of the ATTA conference. And um, we had our call with the 11 of us before, and I'm so excited to go on this cycling trip, the 11 people on our call, and we were told that just you know, uh throughout the day, you're not gonna have any internet or mobile phone access. And so we you hopefully will in the villages we stop at at night have some access to internet, but don't rely on it. So I had to tell my wife that she's like, Thank God for you, it's gonna be a forced digital detox, and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. So that's one example. And if I love that, I'm chances are I'm gonna continue traveling like that. So yeah, tell us where you think the opportunities might be.
SPEAKER_02:Sure, sure. I mean it was I actually it's funny you bring that up. I spent 12 12 days this summer up in the Yukon on a canoe trip with absolutely no access. It was glorious. I have to say, it's funny how it doesn't take long at all before you just don't miss it a bit, uh, which is which is a truism. Um I think there's a bunch of different uh companies or sort of categories that have been kind of written off way prematurely. Um I was making the point yesterday, people were talking about the use of photography um in travel marketing. Uh and I've sort of made the point, it's like, you know, um life is not a business, and travel has a lot more to do with art than commerce if you're if you're traveling for the experience of it. And nobody wants to see AI generated photos of a trip because that's the trip that they're planning on taking. They want to see photos of the actual people who did the trip, right? And nobody wants to re- nobody wants to pick up, you know, the new version of travel and leisure, knowing that the articles were written by AI. They want it to be written by a travel writer. They want it to be, you know, this magical journey so they can imagine themselves there. And it's, you know, when I sort of talk about the fora thing, it's like people don't want to ask their AI, what should I do for vacation? And based on all the things I know about you, I think that you should go to Tuscany. I mean, that's not, they want to sort of have a little back and forth. It's about it's about the art of living. It's it's not it's not all about efficiency. And I think one of the things to to paint with a brat broad brush here, I think you do have a thing where a lot of the um the momentum around some of you know using AI as though it's going to be the great oracle that plans all your travel for you, I think is coming from a sort of a Silicon Valley engineer's mindset. And we could use some more poets in the mix.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a really good point. All right. So, Eric, there's one more question I want to ask you in our Captains of Industry episode, given that you have such a privileged view from sitting on these boards and everyone understanding your background as far as what you're paying attention to in 2026, whether it be investing, your own kind of personal preference for travel. I love asking this question because for me, when I speak to someone like yourself or Michael Zeisner, just to mention Michael, and the fascinating conversation I had with him, and he'll be part of the series as well, is he's focused on the experiential economy. So he looks at tours and activities and how travel impacts people, but he's also looking at psychedelics and psilocybin and attending conferences. He wants to go deep into experiential travel and this human desire. And even we were talking about religion and the younger generation starting to re-embrace religion again. So these are the things that keep him up at night and keep him focused on what does that mean in terms of companies I should invest in. So I'd love to get your take on you know, you're an outdoor adventure enthusiast. What is it that you're really paying attention to in 2026 that might be of interest to our listeners?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, you just sort of said it. I mean, I the the the more time I spend around AI, the more I am an outdoor adventurer and enthusiast. Um I just I I I'm really believing that um it's very important for the world that the more the more that our our lives are mediated through screens, the more important it is for us to find affinities and to find ways of actually interacting with other people. So, I mean, you talked about the dating thing. It's not like dating apps are gonna go away, right? But it also it all does come down to in-person meeting up. Um I think that you're gonna see, I mean, it's interesting. One of the things I talked about yesterday, for instance, was um people traveling now uh with their running clubs. And that's not something that was happening too long ago. It's because people are very lonely. I mean, technology makes you lonely, and therefore you want to go and travel with other people. One of the things I will predict, and I really think is true, is over the last, say, 15 years, the trend in multi-day travel has been from um folks sort of signing up for a spot, or usually, but usually as a couple, right, on a trip, the bunch of strangers who are doing the same thing, sort of taking a leap of faith that they're gonna be interesting and they'll they'll make some friends maybe. Then the trend came away from that to only private trips. And suddenly everybody went, Oh, I'm just going with my family. I don't want, I don't want the unwashed, you know, public around. Well, I predict that's gonna swing back, and more and more people are gonna start signing up for multi-day trips with a bunch of people they don't know, often an adventure trip, because that's a pretty good filter for people being cool, yeah, I think. You know, and and I think we're gonna see a real real resurgence in that market. I think I think people are writing are sort of writing it off and saying, oh no, everybody is gonna have their own personalized travel. No, no, people want to do stuff with other people, and uh, and I think there's gonna be great investment opportunities in that. I really do. I think it's sort of uh, you know, mobile hospitality, if you will. But I think the idea that everything is gonna get sort of subsumed into AI is um is just plain wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well that's exciting to hear, and I think there's a ton of opportunity that is yet to be realized for what is likely to come uh within the next 12 to 18 months, let's say, when there is a correction, and I will be tracking it closely as I'm sure you will too. I thought it was gonna happen when ChatGPT 5 came out, and all of a sudden people said, actually, it's a bit of a jerk and it's not a professor in every topic. And so it can just take one of those moments that all of a sudden the market starts to correct itself and realize it's not necessarily gonna be the panacea for all of our challenges, and then all of a sudden you're gonna have the floodgates open to many traditional businesses and many in the travel industry, because I'm bullish on this sector, as I'm sure you are as well, just given the demographic, right? So well, Eric, it's been such a pleasure speaking to you again. Thank you for joining us for our Captains of Industry series. You are a true captain uh from my perspective, and I'm sure uh to all of our listeners as well. So thanks for making the time for us, and I certainly wish you all all the best in the year ahead.
SPEAKER_02:Always a pleasure, Dan. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks so much for joining us on our latest episode of Travel Trends. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Eric Blatchford, a true captain of industry. We're actually going to keep up the captain of industry theme going into season seven and eight into twenty twenty six. If you're interested in partnering with us, be sure to reach out. You can find out more information on Travel Trendspodcast.com as we prepare for 2026, including our events and campaigns that we're running with a number of partners. We've got some amazing custom content planned with Deloitte, Travel Zoo, and a number of other spotlight episodes. And as I mentioned at the beginning, the arrival spotlight episode is out. The Adventure Travel and Trade Association episode will be out shortly, and then right after we're in focus right next week, we'll be releasing that special event spotlight as well. Don't forget we do send out our monthly newsletter. You can register for that at Traveltrendspodcast.com, and we post clips and highlights on all our social channels, which you can find on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. And next week, we begin our deep dive in the world of loyalty, the first time that we've looked at loyalty. And I'm really excited to bring this series together with our partners over at Loyalty Co. and Status Match. So make sure you're subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice for the first episode to go live next Wednesday. Until then, safe travels.
