Shows
Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 3. Episode 6 - Chris Andrew, Scrunch AIThe show with Chris and co-hosts Lori Timony and Christian Watts was one of the most practical shows we've had about AI in a while. Scrunch is going deep with AI search, and Chris provides some great tips and ideas in this show, I highly recommend you take a listen to this quick clip and hear Chris's main points:"The first thing we've outsourced at scale to AI is BROWSING""The customer journey is changing radically""We're living in a new era of discovery""Customers move to simplicity with AI Search""Disruption o...2025-03-3046 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 3. Episode 5 - Jessie Fischer - GuestOSGet introduced to Jessie Fischer, Founder & CEO, GuestOS. Jessie got an early start in the hospitality business, starting when she was 12 years old, working at her family's motel near Yosemite National ParkGuestOS is an AI-driven concierge platform tailored for the hospitality industry, aiming to enhance guest experiences through personalized, 24/7 multilingual support. Founded in 2023 by Jessie, the company leverages AI to automate and enrich guest interactions. Personalized Guest Interactions: Offers tailored recommendations based on guest preferences and behaviors, facilitating seamless communication via SMS and voice. Operational Efficiency: Streamlines hotel operations by managing reserv...2025-03-0644 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsGreg Fisher, Founder and CEO of Wave Rez and Tripshock introduces his new book "Mastering OTA's."Greg Fisher, Founder and CEO of Tripshock and Wave Rez and author of "Mastering OTA's" joins the team at Experience This! Travel to discuss the need for and rise of niche OTA's, how Google is changing the search and buy landscape and of course, his new book and how it can help you grow your business.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate...2025-02-2651 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsEpisode 52 - The Hosts Discuss (Argue?) About the Potential Disintermediation of OTAsHow will AI Agents impact OTAs and Google's Market share?We have a difference of opinion - shocking I'm sure.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2025-01-1925 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 3. - Episode 2: TikTok About To Go Dark / AI UpdateThe plan was to have an AI update with Tahnee Perry from A25 featuring a discussion about her toolkit (115 and counting!). But since this is the week (January 17 to be exact) that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold the U.S. ban on TikTok, we pivoted to also include Madi Rifkin, founder and CEO, Mount for her perspective. As a Gen Z entrepreneur with an "armyShow videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts a...2025-01-1954 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 3. E1 - The Hosts Make their Predictions for 2025Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2025-01-151h 06Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2 - The Final Episode. 2024 in ReviewThe Experience This! team joined an Arival Pro Insiders Meetup for a discussion about Bruce's top 10 trends from 2024.Not predictions or forecasts, but what were the top trends with a look back at the top trends from prior years.For this show, we use a Zoom format with a few guests participating live and in real time. Enjoy!Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:2024-12-3156 min
Travel Trends with Dan ChristianLive from Arival: Interview Highlights Part 2Send us a textGet ready to immerse yourself in the future of travel! Part 2 of our exclusive series from Arival 360 in San Diego takes you behind the scenes of the dynamic tours and activities sector—a thriving heartbeat of the travel industry.This episode features insights from an all-star lineup of industry leaders, including:Sarah Dines, Chief Commercial Officer, Viator Lori Timony, Go City Kelsey Tonner, Guest Focus Shradha Bhatia, WithLocals Oliver Merneck Leverne, Secret Food Tours Ryan O'Grady, Fotaflo Alex Grant, Travel C...2024-12-132h 28Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsS2, E 21 Meet Justin BuzziRap, Going Viral, Mastering Content, Customer Retention, Franchising and more with Justin Buzzi, CEO and Founder of Get Up and Go Kayaking!Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-12-0552 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsS2, Ep #20 Patricia Yates, CEO of Visit Britain/ Visit EnglandPatricia Yates, CEO of Visit Britain/ Visit England fills us in on her recent trip to China, Visit Britain's upcoming launch of the latest "Film Tourism" campaign "Starring Great Britain" and how DMO's should consider the challenges of regenerative tourismShow videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-11-1045 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsS2 E.19. Erika De Santi of We RoadErika De Santi of We Road, Co-Founder and Chief of People Experiences joins Lori and Bruce to discuss We Road's secret sauce behind the companies highly successful growth strategy. Learn about how they are building communities one trip at a time.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-10-2748 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsShow #48 - Andy Moss, MindtripJoin Christian and Bruce as we learn about Mindtrip, one of the hottest AI startups in travel. With a recent raise of $12M bringing their total funding so far to $20M, the group of 12 founders have experience from companies including Google, Apple, LinkedIn, ShopStyle, Roadster, Ariba. They're new to the travel industry and very confident they can duplicate their past successes. We have to admit, what they're working on has great potential and we love their approach of putting the traveler in the center of everything.They are specifically and definitely NOT a Trip Planner. H...2024-09-251h 08Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsShow #47 featuring The Godfather of Tours & Activities - Rod Cuthbert, founder, ViatorThe god-father of tours and activities, Rod Cuthbert, joined Experience This! hosts Lori Timony, Bruce Rosard and Christian Watts on the most recent Experience This! Travel show. What a pleasure to share stories with "the man, the myth, the legend"! Rod shared his amazing founding story and how Viator was created as a spinoff from a failed Sabre Corporation project (good thing for Rod). He gave a lot of credit to Dominique Exmann who pioneered the rollout of Viator-branded, exclusive 'Skip the Line' access and VIP experiences at iconic sites including Musée du Louvre (Louvre Museum) Vatican City Sta...2024-09-141h 11Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsS2 Episode 14 Dan Christian of Travel Trends Podcast talks Multi Day ToursDan Christian of Travel Trends Podcast joins Bruce, Christian and Lori to discuss the growth of the Multi Day Tour Market highlighting distribution, tech, funding, raises and more!Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-08-1549 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsPete Comeau of Phocuswright joins us for a chatJoin Bruce and Lori as they sit down with Pete Comeau from Phocuswright to delve into PCW Barcelona, the future of Travel Tech investments, AI advancements, the Next Gen Traveler, and much more.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-07-1141 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsShow #42: The Experience Economy, It's About Time Well SpentIn this episode co-hosts Lori Timony and Bruce Rosard are joined by special guest Aransas Savas, Strategic Lead, Meaningful Motivation and Co-host of The Experience Strategy Podcast, as a leader of the Stone Mantel Team. An an Experience Strategist, Aransas helps companies ranging from Fortune 100 to startups integrate coaching principles into their employee and customer experiences, enabling them to have a greater impact on customers, employees, and companies by providing more value. We talk about the Experience Economy, what it means and how it relates to our world of in-destination experiences. One of the biggest takeaways is S...2024-06-0630 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsWhat's up with Airbnb Experiences?There's so much happening at Airbnb related to Experiences, some of it well known, and some of it still being discovered by our industry.The big news, of course, is that they are removing 5000 experiences from their platform. And the way they did it, sending emails to experience creators, giving them two weeks notice and just cancelling trips that are already booked taking place after June 30 has really rubbed most of us in the industry in the wrong way. But the fact is, there are a lot of other ways these experience creators can sell their tours...2024-05-2555 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsNew Growth Strategies featuring Sarah Dines, Chief Commercial Officer, ViatorViator sells more experiences than anyone in the world, by a wide margin.And they want to ensure they stay in the lead by continuing to focus on their top of the funnel and user acquisition strategies. At the same time, they want to rely less on Google. Social commerce is in its infancy, but it's going to come soon and it's going to be huge. Social channels and video and platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest are getting closer to being one click away from a booking and Sarah is working to ensure that th...2024-05-2555 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsExperience This! Show #39, Season 2, Show #9: The Future of SearchExperience This! Show #39 is one of our best yet. Today I heard three phrases I haven't heard before:SGE: Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a new approach to search results. It's an experimental search experience that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to provide users with quick and clear overviews of search topics—without having to click on individual webpagesSTS: Strategic Text Sequences. OK, what?Harvard researchers introduce Strategic Text Sequences (STS) to influence LLM-driven search, especially in e-commerce. STS strategically inserts token sequences into product information, boosting visibility and rankings. The framework ar...2024-04-3055 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsBuilding Women Entrepreneurs in the Travel and Tourism IndustryMeet Iris Serbanescu, owner of Wmns Work a Tourism Business Accelerator Program for Women and Non-binary early stage entrepreneurs. Meet Megan Kennedy, founder of Good Trip Adventures and past participant in Wmns Work. Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-04-2546 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show 6: Weekend Update!Joined by Stephen Oddo from Walks (subsidiary of Hornblower Group), we discuss the latest updates with the Hornblower Chapter 11, the shake-up at the top of Rezdy & the Fareharbor connection, and rumors from Tripadvisor / Viator. This is a show not to be missed.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-02-2442 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show 4: Innovation (or lack of) in the Travel IndustryMeredith Rangel of Bookable Tourism joins us to discuss innovation in the Travel Industry. Is the industry lagging behind. Are some sectors ahead of others? Is the market too fragmented to create the right conditions for innovation?Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-02-2440 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show 5: Distribution and Trade ShowsThe plan was to talk about distribution for the in-destination experiences sector. What's new, what hasn't changed. But the conversation started with discussions of trade shows and again, what's new and what hasn't changed. There were definitely some different points of view, surprise, surprise and our featured guest Peter Muttitt held his own with co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, A...2024-02-2453 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show #3: Christian's Top 6 Gen AI Topics entering "Year 2"Who knows more than Gen AI for Experiences than our co-host Christian Watts? We say "nobody"!This show covers Christian's Year One overview and his prediction of what the top 6 topics for Gen AI will be for experiences as we enter "Year 2" of Gen AI.Here's a source for writing prompts that we mentioned on the show:beta.openai.comShow videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your p...2024-01-2147 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show #2 - A Mini Masterclass in Brand Marketing with Catherine WarrilowIf you are looking for a mini masterclass in Brand Marketing, you have come to the right place. Catherine Warrilow, Director of Brand Strategy for The Plot, joins Bruce Rosard and Lori Timony in an "all you need to know about Brand Marketing in 45 minutes" discussion. This show is especially important for those smaller businesses that are unsure how to think about their brand and why they should. Follow that with actionable advice that Catherine freely provides.Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follo...2024-01-1535 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsSeason 2, Show #1: Bruce's Top Ten TrendsBruce's annual review of top trends for in-destination experiences with critiques from co-hosts Christian Watts and Lori Timony.Bruce's list includes the most important things for the in-destination experiences industry to be paying attention to. Here's an article Bruce wrote on these top trends going into 2024. Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.2024-01-1346 minExperience This! Travel Industry Insights and OpinionsShow #30 - AI in Experiences, AI tour guides OR Human Tour guides. OR a hybrid approach.AI tour guides vs human tour guides.Obviously, AI tour guides have more information and facts. Clearly, AI tour guides can create better stories, as long as you don't need them to be true.I'd still bet on the human though.But there's a hybrid approach, where the AI (in this case a character - Miss Moneypenny) enhances a currently operating experience.Is this the way forward?Show videos are posted on YouTube, subscribe and Like!Comments and discussions on the Experience This! LinkedIn Page (Follow us a...2023-11-2959 min
Travel Trends with Dan ChristianArival 2023 Conference Review: Travel Experiences, AI, and Industry InsightsSend us a textIn this special live episode of the Travel Trends Podcast, host Dan Christian brings you the excitement of 'Travel Trends on Tour' live from the Arival 360 conference in Orlando, Florida, featuring industry experts Mitch Bach and Lori Timony, as they explore the incredible benefits of attending Arival events and share highlights from the 2023 conference. Prepare to explore the core of groundbreaking innovations showcased at Arival, including a lively discussion on the power and potential pitfalls of AI, understand the crucial importance of human connection in our businesses and at...2023-10-3144 min