S1E8: Global Perspectives in Hospitality Tech
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In this insightful episode of the Travel Trends Podcast, host Dan Christian welcomes Ian-Michael Farkas, the esteemed entrepreneur and growth catalyst, for an engaging discussion on hospitality, sustainability, and technology. Prepare to explore the core of the evolving landscape of hospitality tech, understand the nuances of global perspectives gained from Ian-Michael's experiences in Tel Aviv, Sydney, and Miami (currently based in Colombia), and gain valuable perspectives on the technology shaping the future of the industry, including AI, drawing from his work with Local Measure, SiteMinder, AWS, and his current role as GM for LATAM at NLX.ai.
Ian-Michael, a unique global talent, shares his experiences and insights from working with leading technology companies in the travel and hospitality sectors. He discusses the impact of technology, including Artificial Intelligence, on the future of the industry. Based in Colombia but with extensive experience in global hubs like Tel Aviv, Sydney, and Miami, Ian-Michael offers a broad perspective on the challenges and opportunities within hospitality tech. He is currently leveraging his expertise to drive growth and operations for NLX.ai, a leading platform for AI-powered conversational chatbots in travel and hospitality. Beyond his professional insights, you'll also discover his engaging personality and impressive performance in our Travel Trivia challenge!
Curious to explore the global intersection of hospitality, sustainability, and technology?
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Dan: 0:15
Our next guest is an old friend as well. His name is Ian Michael Farcass, and we worked together for many years when he was running local measure, which was a innovative web two startup. Ian Michael has now gone on to create shrimp partners and has really focused on helping multiple different tech companies grow their businesses in North America and Latin America. He's got a very interesting life story in his journey from Columbia to Australia to Miami back to Columbia, and a very global role and focus. So I thought it would be a terrific opportunity to have. A good friend that I always look forward to seeing at conferences and doing our regular partnership calls. Have him come on and tell us what's happening in the travel industry and the trends that he's seeing. So, welcome today, Michael. Good to have you with us.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 0:58
Thank you so much, Dan. What a privilege to be here in this new podcast that you're putting on. It's always a pleasure, as you said, to having a chance to talk to you and exchange and bound some ideas on the travel industry.
Dan: 1:12
Well, and thanks to you cuz you've been a great supporter of the acceleration team since we started and it's been nearly two years. And it's always interesting in those life moments, the people that are there for you and the people that disappear, go silent. And you were one of those people that was very engaged, gave great feedback, did excellent client introductions, and I would say it was a key factor in the acceleration team being the success that it is today. So so I just wanted to acknowledge that first off. But also I was really keen to have you on because I always enjoy our conversations and what I hope today in the discussion that we're about to have is that everyone gets a sense of. The types of discussions or conversations we regularly have about what's happening in our industry, what's happening with travel and technology. There's no shortage of times. You and I have discussed AI web three blockchain and that's where today I really wanted to have a a wide ranging discussion about all of those trends and themes that are impacting travel. But to give everyone a bit more context so they can appreciate your background as well as I do. Why don't we start from the beginning. So give us an overview of your career to this point, because it didn't start at local measure, of course. But just take a few minutes and walk us through your career revolution and where you've gotten to now.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 2:32
Absolutely. Thank you again. I think reflecting back on, on, on the journey that got me here is, is is exciting and I can tell you this. You're gonna pick up from my accent that I was that I speak Spanish. It's my native language. I was born in Columbia. I've moved to Israel for a couple of years in the late nineties, and then I head back to Columbia to start my own business. A media agency that was selling to hotels and restaurants. Quickly I was able to actually find a buyer to, for that business, which helped me fund. My trip to Australia where I migrated and began my studies of business management focused on tourism. I did a thesis on pricing strategies for ecotourism operations, and from then on I kind of realized that my true passion lied in the intersection between hospitality, technology, and sustainability. I I live some of my best years in Bondi Beach. For those who are aware of Sydney, Bondi Beach is one of the most majestic places in the planet. I did my rounds there working in bars, restaurants, nightclubs even opening a hotel. And after a few years I head back to Columbia for a short trip where I I, I, I, I saw my sweet my, my high school sweetheart, and we fall in love all over again. We moved to Buenos Aires. We lived there for a while, and then I kind of saw her on the idea of Bondi Beach and she got it. And we went back to Australia where we spent a decade, and I kind of settled down at that point. I was very privileged to meet a woman by the name of Deanna Vaga. She gave me my first shot to work for this was a hybrid public and private organization for the city of Sydney at the Sydney Conventions and Visitors Bureau. That's kind of when I got my first corporate job, so to speak. I was responsible of generating revenue and building strategic alliances with all the hotels and large venues because the entity, the agency was responsible. For beating and trying to wean major events, whether association events like the long, the World Lung Cancer conference, recurring event, or all the way from the World Cup or the Olympics. Then I had a small stint at a catering company where I was leading sales and marketing. And then at that time in my life, I kind of had that aha moment. Where I realized that I wanted to be in travel tech, I, I felt technology was gonna be the, the, the thing that was gonna really help all the operators and companies and really tap into something that I would enjoy and be motivated. And then I met someone by the name of Les Kel. I might have pronounced his last name wrong, but he's one of the founding partners of a. VC firm in Australia called E V P one of the early investors of SiteMinder who gave me a lot of mentorship in how to get into this business. And in fact, introduced me to Mike Ford and Di Williams, who founded SiteMinder, who eventually I ended up having an opportunity to work with them. I also met Jonathan Baruch, who was one of the first Australian entrepreneurs. Who build an online business of Fast flowers.com au. With that, then he built a company, which was a really interesting geolocation social app that never really got traction, but then he changed it into a B2B business, which ultimately became local measure, which was helping hotels improve the guest experience using geolocation data. I love the concept. I love Jonathan and the team, and that kind of got me into working for those two companies for a while until I kind of convinced and pitched the Board of local measure and the team of SiteMinder that yeah, they wanted to expand beyond the borders of apac, that the US was a big opportunity and that I wanted to lead that expansion. So that's how I ended up in Miami for the last 10 years leading. The go to market and building an office and just creating I guess one of the most meaningful parts of my career has been going through the rollercoaster of a high growth startup in the us. Tapping into that hospitality and travel industry, meeting some of the great ones growing to really an amazing size company and then seeing. The pandemic hit us and almost seeing our entire revenue slash So and about six months ago I, I decided that it was time for change and I moved back to Columbia where I am now. And I started a, a consulting business. And to be fair, I'm still very much in trying to figure out what that looks like, although I already have a few clients. But going back to your introduction, Dan, I think it was you who initially inspired me to really think about building my own consulting firm and helping other companies accelerate their growth using my own skillset. So I have to thank you as well for the conversations and the time and, and the inspiration to get me to where I am today.
Dan: 8:38
I appreciate that, but certainly all the credit is yours. You took the risk, but you highlight something that clearly we have in common, which is seizing those opportunities. And when you're talking about your background, there's clearly an element about. You know, making sure you're in the right place at the right time. Like the efforts that you made to position yourself to be in Australia, to network with those individuals and to develop and grow your skills around go to market strategies for B2B SaaS companies. And I just wanted to highlight to everyone how innovative local measure was at the time that it really broke onto the scene. Although sometimes with innovative technologies, the initial concept doesn't prove to be the most revenue generating. But when we saw local measures technology for the first time, I remember one of the terms that your team introduced us to was geofencing and job, and we were looking at it for our hotel collection, red Carnation Hotels, and we were using another platform to harness user generated content, which clearly we all know is incredibly important in increasing conversions online. So getting people to share their stories and experiences. That was certainly the big web 2.0 shift and we had to encourage them, used to use hashtags and what your technology was able to do was to. Pinpoint and that was the amazing thing when you just put in the geo coordinates and dropped a geofence on a specific point of interest like a hotel or a theme park. Cause we also looked at it for theme parks, and I know those were customers of yours as well, where you would see the social content that people were sharing. They don't necessarily know your brand, they don't know the hashtag, but they're sharing pictures. At the hotel of their breakfast or their dining experience or their drinks, and then you, you've actually created the opportunity for businesses to showcase that content with their permission. So it was a very clever concept and and so that's where you and I connected and that's where our journey of collaboration started and we brought it on board, that platform for a couple of brands in the Travel Corporation group. And, and we had success with it. But it's interesting to hear your evolution and that's why I say I give you full credit for taking the next step because another person I'm keen to ask you about is Chip Conley. Some people know Chip from his work with Airbnb, and that's also someone that you've come into close contact with and has inspired you. More recently with your latest venture. So maybe, is it all right if we jump into that? Cuz I, that would probably be interesting for people to hear about the Modern Elder Academy and the recent retreat that you were at and some of the learnings you had from that and how you're applying that into where you're headed next.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 11:08
A Absolutely. I think that's a, a very interesting story as well because for many of you who have ever experienced navigating a midlife transition chief Conley. Who most of of the audience probably know because of the book Wisdom at Work that he wrote. After he sold his hotel collection, he then became Brian Cheskys right hand in terms of he was the Chief Hospitality Officer for Airbnb. After that scene, he built basically a school dedicated to helping. People navigate midlife and beyond called the Modern Elder Academy. I was going through one of those midlife transitions myself and I felt that it really resonated. So I started to have conversations directly with Chip about kinda his idea of how these would work for people that were not necessarily 50 years over, but younger like me. And he was really open to it. In fact, he said his audience was as young as people were in, in their twenties, that failed at these transformational experiences. Made sense. So about six months ago when I was really like in the, in the, in the top of that midlife transition, I decided to attend a Mastery Week called Regenerating Soil and Soil pe people, planet and Purpose, which was led by a really important activist in our generation called Paul Hawken. Some of them some of you might know him because he wrote the drawback and also regeneration solving the climate crisis in one generation. And he, not only did he share that I was there for a week in Baja in one of his campuses, he's got another one in in Santa Fe. But we spent 20 of us in a cohort of people. Like really immersed in sharing not only the intimacy of the fact that we all accepted that we were navigating this transition, but we talked about how we can bring purpose into our lives. And Paul Hoen shared his wisdom. Jeff Hamoudi, another co-founder of Mia was there facilitating, and these amazing people inspired me to really. Align kind of my, my, my soul and my purpose with my work and my skillset. And that's how I came to now with two co-founders. I have, I'm working on building a hospitality concept that is meant to unlock that collective agency that we all have in helping regeneration practices the movement. Succeed. So I I, I, I don't have the concept still ready to be shared here because it's in the works. I'm just putting a team of really amazing professionals. But yeah, I think for anyone out there, the Modern Elder Academy is an incredible opportunity to tap into just a practice hacks and habits that can help you navigate. Your life into kind of a second part of your adulthood and, and bring meaning to it.
Dan: 14:40
It's interesting you mentioned the concept of agency with that business development. One of the presentations that really stood out for me in the last year was at the arrival conference last October. And the founder of Meow Wolf was, which I was not familiar with Meow Wolf, I sure was. After his presentation and that night I went to one of their art installations in Vegas. And so it's immersive entertainment. It's really fascinating concept. I hope Disney buys them at some point. And the whole team does exceptionally well, although they're already doing just fine. But it was the concept of agency. So when you explore these artistic venues, you're exploring them. At your own pace and at your own discretion as the experience unfolds for you? So I'd say I really, it's, it's, it's a fascinating concept of how people are really engaged with immersive exhibits and giving people that ability to act with their own agency. Like the example of opening up a fridge and having the, the in their property they have in. In Denver, which is a house that you walk into, and this is one I haven't been to, but I've seen videos and it was part of his presentation. It was very impressive to see many people who have seen it on social channels because it is, it has gone viral with all the people sharing images of themselves walking into the fridge, like growing up in a suburban home where everything is very homogenous and you, you know what to expect in a kitchen and all of a sudden you open up the fridge and you walk into the fridge and, and you not sure what's gonna be on the other side, or you get into the washer and dryer and it's a slide that goes down. Like it's really, and so I just wanna touch on that for a moment because that's where you're definitely a big thinker and I think that's what's helped you in your career, no question. But with this concept now, so when you mention the idea of. Unlocking Collective agency. Is that along the lines of what you're proposing with this regeneration movement?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 16:38
Yeah, I, I think, you know, Paul Hawkin is the best version to explain that in, and I encourage anybody to go into the Regeneration Project website, but, It's very overwhelming when you think about big problems like climate change or macroeconomics or the war in Ukraine. Like there's, there's things that suddenly feel like you are not able to do much. But the word agency really comes into play here because you do have the power to influence others. You do have a unique set of skills. And opportunity to drive change in your own life and in the life of others. And, and that's where the agency comes along, is that specifically in, we're gonna talk about travel trends here. The, the idea of intentional travel is one that comes to mind when. You think about the opportunity that you have to make real choices about where you're gonna go, how you're gonna travel, how you're gonna invest your money, who you're gonna take, and what kind of experience you're going to go to in terms of coming back to your home and bringing some of that and changing the way that you live, and then influencing your community and the people that surround you. So I think this is, it's really important to. Honor and respect the agency that you have as an individual. And I think that's where kind of the idea that I have is about using hospitality technology and the regeneration movement to unlock the collective agency of people that wanna have intentional travel and then help people doing the hard work of regeneration in their lands to find additional sources of income. So I'm I'm really excited about that and I've got some amazing people that I've shared the story about what I'm thinking about, and it seems to resonate. So that's why it's kind of like something that I feel it's coming together slowly, but it needs all the due diligence and discipline because it's something that I, I'm really invested in.
Dan: 18:50
Well, let's get into that a bit more because we haven't yet on this. Travel Trends Podcast. Spent a lot of time talking about sustainability, and I know that's a theme and a passion of yours as you highlighted in the beginning, in terms of bringing three aspects together with hospitality, travel, and sustainability. And so it needs to be for all of us that wanna plan to continue living on this earth, unless we're blasting off to Mars, it's incredibly important for all of us to make sure that we are traveling sustainably. But there's so many different. Yeah. Ways that travel companies are approaching it today. And I'm curious to know, when you talk about sustainable tourism demand is on the rise, I'd love to know a bit more from what you've seen that convinces you that travelers are. Are interested. I know you are also interested in passion led travel, which is something that we connected on when we were doing some work with Dharma, which is all passion led travel experiences. I know that really stood out for you and hopefully continues to be a successful model for them. But let's, let's specifically focus on sustainability for another couple of minutes just so you can, I think swell equity was another example. I know you mentioned regenerative travel, so tell me a bit more about traveling in this age of climate change. And how the, the trends that you're seeing that are convincing that consumers are changing the way they travel based on sustainability.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 20:10
Absolutely. So let me, let me throw some, some data here for you because both Peter Kern and Glenn Fogle from Expedia and booking.com have recently released reports on these specifically. Booking.com says that 71% of travelers wanna make more efforts in the next year to travel more sustainably, and that's at from 61% from last year. 53% are more determined to make more sustainable, sustainable travel choices when they travel now than a year ago. 53%. That's a huge spike. And I think it's about 400 more than 400 travel provi. 400,000 travel providers have been awarded or recognized to have some kind of a sustainability practice by booking.com. Expedia on the other side is saying that 70% of consumers that go to their site are willing to sacrifice convenience. To be a more sustainable travel. So that's where, I mean, sustainable travel is the bad is on the rise everywhere you see it. People, whether it is because of the pandemic and you know, the, the carbon emissions of of all of our industry really went down and people started to think about, okay, if I am going to travel, What I'm actually going to do, is it one travel that really is meaningful? And I think there's a really good podcast by Rich role that just came out called Traveling in the age of climate change. And I think that really resonated to me because yeah, I, I think tapping into this idea that there's a community out there and I, I, I tell you this story, which is interesting, I there's a Seattle travel agency that's, you know, very well known. I, I don't wanna say the name, but the CEO said to me, I believe travel is the only way to get to the American people. To have empathy because when they travel outside of their borders is when they can connect to other cultures. And the more people travel, the more people go out and connect with other cultures, the better we're gonna be become as human beings, as a global community. And so I think all of that is just part of what I I believe. And Addie Goldstein, a good friend of mine who used to be at Selena and then build a Cloud kitchens company in Mexico. He then exit that company and he recently he's, he's been helping me a lot think through all these ideas. He's the one who's been tapping into this passion led tourism building swell equity, which is a, it's tapping into another really interesting travel trend, which is this idea of a, a property technology, a PropTech solution that offers fractional. Ownership. So anyone who's not a a a like a, a sophisticated investor can tap into investing in second home ownership or vacation rentals. There's a lot of companies like here that are doing that as well that are doing really well and are tapping into Airbnb demand and swell equity in particular. I love it because he's just tapping into. 10 amazing surfing spot locations and giving a hundred investors the possibility to own a chunk of that 10 houses and then actually use them with their family over a 10 year period. And I think that's, it's, it's really interesting how these different forms of investment and travel and all that are kind of merging into one.
Dan: 24:22
Well, you've brought up something too that merging and things coming into one with. And how consumer behavior with sustainability for sure, with the pandemic, we saw the impact of people traveling in peak numbers in 2019, and then the results of people not traveling. The examples like the cruise industry or certain cities being completely overrun. And there was a number of efforts that have been undertaken to try and correct course, some successful, some not. As travel comes back, but nevertheless, All of a sudden another major topic has emerged. And you know where I'm going with this, because the other day I was I was taking part, I'm part of the travel tech fellowship as you know, in one of the sessions that the group. Was focusing on was the metaverse. And I feel badly for the poor guy that came in to present on the Metaverse because clearly everyone just wants to talk about AI and not about the metaverse. It was like there was all this talk about the metaverse and everyone's quickly now moved on from that, including meta themselves, it would seem. But so I wanna ask you about AI because all of a sudden AI dominates every conversation. And so. Even to the point where when talking about sustainability, that's everyone just wants to talk about ai. So I know you've gotten a lot of consideration to this and you've even been kind enough to give us feedback on one of the startups that we've been prototyping and exploring. So I would love to know, starting with an overall theme about the impact you think AI will have on business models for travel. So what, how significant impact and, cause I'm sure the people out there listening to this that sure, they've used chat, G P T, and they've tried to put an itinerary together and they're like, I don't get it. Or it's hallucinating, or it's not giving me the information that I need. And so I. I would love for you to just kind of walk through, so give everyone a better understanding of what you think the actual potential is, because there's a lot of hype and I want you to cut through what you think is real and what you think is gonna happen. Cause I know you've looked at a lot of the plugins, for example, that some of the big OTAs have started to leverage from open ai. So the floor is yours.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 26:26
Well, look, I, I think the, the signals are clear. Three out of the inaugural. 12 or 20 plugins that open AI release were travel, OpenTable, speedia, and Kayak. There's no doubt that from influencers to major brands like Expedia, everyone is trying to figure out how to integrate generative AI into their business. And, and you asked the question about the business models. I think one has to come to terms. With the idea that a large language model capability with an open source that's accessible to anyone at the speed that it is, and we are all seeing how quickly these AI revolution is hitting every single industry. It's the impact it's going to have on I think, kind of two areas. One is how this is gonna change the customer expectations and behavior. Because clearly I am going to expect that any brand will answer me any questions that I have on a magic box in the center of the ux, like, and that, that, that means that companies that have traditionally spent billions of dollars to try to tap into the existing legacy platforms that. Have the monopoly on travel planning, like Google and Facebook, might as well have a shot to take that in-house by being able to answer travel planning questions. So I think if you think and consider four use cases, really four main use cases for the travel industry, where generally AI can be integrated, you can think of it as in the pre-sale, the sale, and the post-sale. And I mean, Okay. Okay. Those three are the obvious ones, and then there's the internal help desk kind of employee side. But let's focus on those three on the journey dynamic content generation for plan for travel planning. Imagine that now any OTA doesn't have to rely on Google to, for people to actually get inspiration about their travel planning, because you can answer any question about, Hey, What should I do for my honeymoon? And then come up with incredible human-like itineraries and inspirations. So that's number one. How do you tap into that? And you have companies out there with proprietary data that can build these own large language models themselves and create moats around it. Even Google CEO said it. We have no moat because there are open sources. Open source language lecturing which models that companies can tap into and large databases of travel preferences themselves to build really good responses with this chat bots. Second part of it is during the sale, and this is all about travel merchandising. You and I had a conversation about this. I told you I was really excited about the return of magazine, like. A, a generation of itineraries, like imagine how companies are gonna be able to come up with bundling of products based on their inventory custom to what the a customer type into that search box, the travel planning information, and a text image video infographic. Response for you, Dan, for your honeymoon. And you can click buy and upsell along the way. That can now be done without the amount of money or time that was preventing many companies to consider this. And then the third bit is everything about post post-sale. And I'm involved in several projects at the moment with one of the companies that I'm working with in doing these, which is. Everything that happens post sale, like very simple things about understanding how to provide customer service using conversational AI and integrating it with generative ai, but putting the guardrails that enterprises really need to make sure that the but doesn't at least hallucinate, but actually takes you down a structured journey of having a high. NPS from the customer and, and now with large language models and analytics, which is one of the companies that I am now acting as, as their general manager, does exactly that, which is this idea of having intent, clustering, intent, accuracy, prediction, testing, debugging all in life. Generally ai concept that reduces the amount of time that these companies can bring a really crisp customer, genuine and experience using these models. So I think that all is my first thought about how are you as a travel company are thinking about these four use cases. And the fourth one, meaning. You've got 5,000 employees, how are you using these to give them access to the benefits, the knowledge base, and all that? And I think that that is my first reaction about how things will dramatically change with generic e v i ultimately will Google be the travel planning monopoly that it is today? Who knows? Will Expedia spend another two,$3 billion a year for customer acquisition to get inspiration, to get those who've been inspired by Google? I don't know, but I think that's where I'm most excited about is the legacy companies transforming their business to adapt to these new technology and also the speed at which a newcomer can just tap into these technologies and create a real challenge. To the bigger players.
Dan: 33:11
Yeah, no, it's very interesting. It's an exciting time to be in this industry, in this space with ai, especially for people like us that have been in the industry for many years and lived through the.com era. My first startup was in the.com boom. And so experiencing web one, web two, and now we all thought Web three was going to be blockchain. And quickly even that has over been been overridden by, you know, I know you're, we won't discuss NFTs today, but What was really this web three focus all of a sudden has become, everything is about ai and what I thought, what I find really exciting about this moment that we're in right now is that you see the logical applications of the technology. So you take existing workflows that you have today, whether it's copywriting as probably a great example, or developing to roles that clearly can see, you know, they essentially, both of those roles are largely becoming prompt engineers. Which will likely be the word of the year and go in the dictionary, I'm sure. But you know, that's everyone's hiring for prompt engineers. You just need to learn how to prompt the AI to get the best answer for it. But a lot of those initial applications are write a job description, write a press release put together a, a business plan, take data and manipulate it. Take your Google Analytics data like the, you're taking some of the things you do today using AI to improve processes to be more efficient. To get more accurate results. But then there's those people that are looking at it as a real game changer. And I think we, obviously, we both know about Brian Chesky and Airbnb's plans talking about travel is broken, where people look at travel today as where and when. And part of their focus with leveraging AI is to understand who the people are and what they want. And that is a really fundamental shift to travel companies that think about putting products together and selling that product to certain seasonal with certain seasonality built in this really upends business models. And it creates opportunities for thousands of startups to be able to create new business models to challenge some of the incumbents. So there's definitely gonna be a lot of disruption. And it's an exciting time if you're embracing it and finding a way to leverage it. And so I guess my one other question on this, and then I'm keen to ask you about a few other things rather than completely dominate the conversation with a ai, but I. How do you think consumer behavior will change? How do you think, whether it's airlines or hotels, I guess, using those two, because in the travel industry, those are some of the biggest players. How do you see them being impacted by this technology and, and really how do you see the initial impacts of consumer behavior? I think both of us can agree chatbots as a perfect example where you can decrease the effort on your contact center by having most of the ability to answer a chat bot. And get accurate, timely answers to most of the information you'd otherwise call someone or message'em before. So that's, that's one perfect example. But please give us a couple other ones in terms of what you think consumer behavior will change. So,
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 36:04
Sure. Look, I think, and I'm not expert on these, but to me we have to understand how much the pandemic has already. Change customers expectations. They do want 24 7 service over the channel of their choosing. They expect that if you're asking them for personal information, that you're actually going to use it. And after these six months of Chachi pt, clients will expect to ask open questions and expect answers to anything they ask on any given website. So just those things. Will determine a lot of the new customer journeys that travel brands are gonna have to start thinking about. I do agree that AI won't take your job or mine or anybody's job, but someone using AI will. And I think that's the real message to you that traditionally in travel, These are often high ticket sale items, and operators are very proud about the high touch service that they offer. The human component of helping you go through these journey and automating these has been a struggle for many who even consider themselves as innovative because the technology wasn't there five years ago, four years ago, even three years ago. It caused more pain than it it, it helped. But what is true and remains true, and I keep hearing these on more and more now that I am so deep into helping an AI company that does conversational and generative AI work with travel brands, is that when you have a hundred agents and you're having to put your best talent to do interactions with your customers that are really low value when they are, have 20 years experience doing amazing travel agent kind of interactions. You really understand that we need to use these technologies to elevate their time. We need to use AI to make sure that the humans that we are gonna keep, that we are considering. To nurture and to retain because talent is hard to find, hard to retain. These technologies should just enable them to be more productive and to focus on conversations with other humans where technology just will never replace that connection. So I think consumer behavior will, will change in expecting and understanding that I know. What a low value, quick answer should look like from a bot, and you should give me a bot when I want to know your opening hours, your locations, and the price of a ticket comparatively to 20 sites that I should not wait for five minutes to speak to a human, but hey, if I need something, a lot more complex. And I just want to talk to someone because I'm unsure and I want, I want guidance from not the collective wisdom of the internet, but from you, Dan, who has been to Los Angeles. You live there and you know people there, and you can tell me what the best burger is and where to get a cocktail of tequila. Well, you know what? I wanna talk to you and that's the difference. So I think. One of the most interesting things in AI for me right now is tapping into companies who are seeking to innovate, but understanding that this is not about replacement. This is, this is about enablement of your talent and in another great tool to retain them as well.
Dan: 40:21
Yeah, well, I can answer that question for you. It's Volcano Burger in Los Alamitos in Orange County. My team told me about it shortly after I moved there. It's right across from Los Alamitos High School where our kids would've gone. Have we stayed? Yeah. And I'm embarrassed to say I probably made a few more trips there than needed during the pandemic just to get outta the house. No, but once in a while. But it's it's interesting what you mentioned because the one other theme that I wanted to talk to you about, and then we're gonna get into our travel quiz in a moment. But the one other theme that along these lines is whether or not people want all in platforms. Or they're gonna work with individual technology providers. And I'll just give you a quick example and then keen to get your thoughts is that, you know, when. Yeah, just speaking tr about the traditional travel industry, you of course had a travel agent who would take care of all your travel bookings and when you're dealing face-to-face, in most cases, with a person at a a, you know, a retail fixed physical retail location. And that person would, using all of the tools at their disposal, phones, fax machines, they would put together a trip for you. And obviously a lot of companies offer packages and they'd put things together with air. But as the internet came along, all of a sudden there was this concept of online travel agencies. Whenever I say ota people like just. What is ota, and most people do know that, but online travel agency. But basically it's an online version of what a traditional travel agency, meaning they bundle things together. They offer flights, car, hotel. Those were kind of the main three. But of course you could then go direct to budget, Herz, Avis. You can go book your car, you can go direct to any of the hotel chains and book your accommodation. So you are free to choose and self-select. The technology has made it possible for people to put their own trips together. Airbnb being a perfect example. You book your accommodation, you can book your flights, and there has been a big rise in independent travel, but there's also been a focus for travel companies, booking.com. You mentioned Glenn Fogle. With this idea of the connected trip, this idea that you have one provider that you use for all of your travel bookings. And they own the consumer journey so that you are dealing with one. So essentially you're dealing with a, a, a virtual travel agent and booking all of your products through one platform or provider. And that there's then seamless integration of your flight arrived. You have your car rental booked, you've got your hotel, and then any activities cuz they've all moved quickly into the activities space. And the part that I would always highlight when I was speaking at conferences, talking about the travel corporation and group of brands, was that essentially you're just building a tour. Like, you're literally just piecing it all together and ending back where we started, which is we offer fully organized tours where you didn't have to worry about a thing, book a tour, you just gotta get on the couch. Your hotels are taken care of, your rooms go to your, your bag goes, go to your room. And people still love that category of travel because it's a packaged tour, even though there's difficulty with the terminology or the idea that what a tour represents to people. But I guess I'm just making the point that. That is a connected all-in experience. So my question to you is that when you look at our industry going forward, do you think the winners are more likely going to be the major OTAs that integrate AI technology in a really effective way because they've got significant traffic, large databases? Or do you think this is an opportunity for more. Scrappy upstarts, and maybe it's a combination of both, but again, I'm keen here answer where you have a company like Airbnb come along that carves out an entirely new way of people to stay, which I. We won't get into that, how that's kind of gone back to base station rentals and but nevertheless, the idea being, is it gonna be some incumbent businesses that are gonna really leverage this and accelerate their business models? Or are we gonna see more of a trend of upstarts using ai? Cuz if Airbnb's rebuilding their business using ai, there's no reason why a new startup can't start from scratch with that as built into their D N A. So I'm keen to get your take on that because that's where I'm excited to see over the next six, 12 months. And if someone's listening to this podcast two years from now, obviously they'll have the answer from the future. But how do you see things playing out?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 44:24
Look, I, I, obviously I'm not, I'm not that great at predictions, but I'm gonna encourage people to get inspiration from one of our great media companies in our industry skit, but the with Raffa's team who I think are in Ice line now celebrating their 10 year anniversary. And they have done a lot of research on these, and I think it's a combination of both. But I think the key point that I've. Kind of learn from them, but also from a few other companies that I've been following a lot is this idea that the answer is not gonna be global. Because what you're describing to me sounds like there will be places like Asia Pacific where there will be a super app that's gonna take care of everything for one single consumer from end to end and, and you can see examples of that right now, like. Jania backed by Self Bank with John Jo Kim and Andrew Kim, CEO and, and lead Strategic Partners doing, they just acquired go go Travel the Israeli company. And they are that like 70% of all travel things are bought in South Korea in that app. Like car transportation, airlines, insurance. You name it, they just did a an aligns with hopper, so now they're into FinTech as well. So you can see how there is room in certain cultures to become a super app. I don't see them replicating that success in the us. In fact, they themselves are looking at now a cloud business in the us. So I think in the US there will be definitely a. The legacy like Google, and again, going back to Skip's take on how Google is really the dominant player that even though they divested in travel, we all feel like maps and, and, and their flights and, and, and their generic AI and all the announcements on ai, ai, ai that all's gotta kind of. Become that description of what you just did, but at the same time, consumers who are sophisticated enough who are more of this side of the world, culturally, I don't think that we want to give everything to one. I think we're gonna still be hybrids. We're still gonna look for new innovators and with without a doubt, with the amount of entrepreneurship. And the ecosystem of capital locators that take high risk. And with the access of L LM models, you can guarantee that in the next three years we see companies that before were almost impossible to build, and that a few kids on a guy garage will build and will literally be competing against someone like booking.com who may feel like they have. Enough inventory and partnerships in place to protect that. And, and the and, and the, and the acquisition of Customers Funnel really worked out. But I don't, I don't know if that's gonna be enough. So I am I, I, I think, look, something that I, that you and I have been talking about a lot is the only thing that's gonna prevent companies to become very successful. Is if you start building a business that's too far from the transaction, you know, if, if, I think what you need to figure out is how can you get closer and closer to the transaction to own the customer and make money on the, on the business. Because all ultimately these other businesses around them, I don't know how they tend to be stickier enough in the ecosystem. So exciting times ahead for sure. And. I don't know if I, I think there's a, I I was lucky enough to work with Union Hospitality Group, you know, Danny Mayer's group long time ago in New York, and I met some wonderful people there, like Ron Parker and Christina Toia, who shout out to them because they, they're just a announced launching a new business call Hospitality multiple. And they're seeing this trend of smaller entrepreneurs being able to tap into the whole network of capital investment and grow smaller concept into much bigger concepts. But obviously, you know, a, a talent like a chef doesn't have the knowledge and understanding like startup people in tech have. So I think that definitely there is, there's a lot of signals in the market. And people willing to take smaller incumbents, not just in technology, but just in travel and hospitality, and take those concepts further along. And they will challenge, they will be, they, they will be challenging some of the bigger ones. I think I went around a lot of things. Did I answer your question?
Dan: 49:41
You did. Yeah, no, it was fascinating. I mean, this is exactly the type of conversation that. I was keen to have with you because of our conversations are often exploratory so things aren't definitive. And that's part of the, the nature of our world and it's part of advancing and making progress. So I know we could continue for another hour, but being mindful of our listeners cuz you and I can hang out again soon. But I wanna get to the trivia and I wanna see how you fare on this best of five. So are you feeling lucky? Are you ready for your trivia questions? Oh, well I've trying, I've tried to customize them based on your background, so that'll give you a bit of a hint. So let's start off with first one. What is the only South American country to boast an Atlantic and Pacific Coast?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 50:30
Columbia.
Dan: 50:31
Yeah, there you go. One for one. Good. I was glad you, I was, I was actually genuinely worried. You might not get that and I was gonna be like, I have to explain it to you, but No. So you got that. Number two, what capital city. Is closest to the equator. Yeah, two for two. Well done. I asked our friend Christian from to radar, the northern capital and he wasn't sure it was Reykjavik, but so I thought I, yeah.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 50:58
I've actually walked the line of the equator
Dan: 51:00
Is that right? Very cool.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 51:01
Yeah, yeah. I, I walked it. Yeah.
Dan: 51:03
Oh, very cool. That's my next big destination is the Galapagos. I think you know that. And I'm keen to, to go there shortly, but. All right, here we go. Number three. Moving on from South America to a country that you carry a passport from Australia. What are the two animals that are featured on the Australian code of arms? And a bonus answer, what is their significance?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 51:28
The, the kangaroo and the imu,
Dan: 51:30
Well done. You're three for three. This is impressive. Do you know what their significance is of those two creatures being on the coat of arms?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 51:37
I would say they're unique to Australia.
Dan: 51:39
Neither animal can walk backwards.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 51:41
Oh wow.
Dan: 51:42
So, yeah, so the vision is always moving forwards. Both animals only ever move forwards, just like Australia. I, I was in Canberra cuz you know, I lived in Australia for a few years and I love Australia and shout out to all my friends in Australia. So next one I'm keeping on,
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 51:57
I love it.
Dan: 51:58
what is the name? The often referred to nickname for the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It often gets referred to as this, the. Think of your closet.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 52:09
The whole hangar.
Dan: 52:10
Yeah, the coat hanger. I'm gonna give
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 52:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You gave it away.
Dan: 52:14
you, I'll give you a three and a half of that one. So my final question for you which goes back to a conference we were both attending in Chicago and you invited a group of us out and gave us the finest taste of tequila I'd ever had to that point, was it Don Julio in 1942? Was that the
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 52:33
I, I don't, I don't remember because like you said, at that point, was that one. Now I can tell you another four different that I like.
Dan: 52:39
Well, at the particular place we were clearly it was the standout and you kindly ordered that for for all of us. And I wasn't quite the connoisseur then as I am now with tequila. But I thought I would share this with you, which ej who ran our Australian. Asia Pacific Digital team at ttc kindly got this bottle for me because he knew I liked tequila and I was still living in LA at the time. But my question for you is, which famous celebrity created and sold this brand? Casamigos.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 53:12
George Cloney.
Dan: 53:14
Well done. Very impressive. Do you remember how much he sold it for?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 53:17
I think he was over a billion dollars.
Dan: 53:19
Yeah. Staggering. Exactly. Yeah. Which is why I don't see him acting anymore. So
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 53:23
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I, I think I'm, I'm more, I'm more excited about Ryan Reynolds, who also did a gene and a, a gene brand. Sold it for a billion dollars. They bought a soccer team, and now the soccer team has been like, All over the news because I love soccer. In fact, right now there's a, an amazing soccer game, but the Ryan Reynold's story of entrepreneurship is like George Clooney. So yeah, I'm, I'm familiar with that. So,
Dan: 53:50
Yeah. There you go. Another great, great Canadian success story. Van City Reynolds. His yeah, not only his maximum effort agency that produces all those incredible commercials and his foray into aviation, gin and Mint mobile. And of course Rexo fc, which for those of you listening to this, I'm sure you've already watched it and are ready for season two. But Ian, Michael, this has been a real pleasure. I look forward to speaking to you again very soon. Thank you for doing this. You also inspire me and I look forward to seeing how your business evolves and keeping in regular contact and hopefully doing this again at some point in the future. Is there anything you wanna leave our listeners with, any recommendations from you in terms of where people should look for more information to get up to speed on these trends? Any any parting thoughts from you?
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 54:39
First of all, just really, I truly want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to be part of your podcast and being able to just share our normal, intimate conversations out into the public. It's been a really beautiful experience for me to reflect back. And put some notes together just to prepare for today. My departing thoughts will be for those navigating any midlife transition check out modern Elder Academy. For those of you who are looking to grow your business in the travel industry, seek Dan for help. He's done an incredible job to understand and build talented people around him. And if you're looking at South America, Same. I'm trying to do the same. And travel is truly the funnest product to sell in the world. So I'm excited to be part of this industry. And Dan, thank you so much for just being you.
Dan: 55:46
Gracia amigo. Next time we'll do it in Spanish. I'll keep working on my Duolingo.
ian-michael_1_05-17-2023_132541: 55:50
You got it. Thank you.
Dan: 55:51
Thanks again. Take care of you, Michael. Bye for now.
