Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and Opinions

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 and Discuss!)Podcasts available wherever you get your podcasts:Spotify, Apple, etc. - Subscribe and rate the shows.

Uncover extraordinary experiences with Claus Raasted, founder of the College of Extraordinary Experiences! Explore immersive learning, bringing people together organically, radical innovation, and the future of the experiences industry.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.

Christian, Bruce and Lori discuss the current and future state of experiences.  What's a pop up experience and what about sports, dining, concerts?   Are consumers still just buying the traditional products or is there a whole new world out there?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.

Christian, Bruce and special guest Tony Carne discuss a wide variety of topics including multi-city experience companies, wellness, passion travel, using AI for trip planning (yes again) and using AI as a tour guide. Startups and recent investments featured include Staples putting travel agents in their stores (what?), Boddy, Modern Adventures, Tailbox, Travelshift.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.

Listen in as Lewis Krell (formerly of U Trip a Trip Planner start up now in the graveyard), Jeff Kischuk (of Tripian an up and coming start up), Bruce Rosard, Christian Watts and Lori Timony discuss the future of Trip Planners.  Will we ever see one succeed?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.

There are very few investors who focus exclusively on the Experience Economy.Michael Zeisser, Principal, FMZ Ventures, is one of the most prolific and he joined us for a fascinating conversation on his perspective.Michael's background includes the McKinsey ecommerce practice, working as a senior executive at Liberty Media, at the time the controlling shareholders of IAC including Expedia and TripAdvisor, then went to work at for Jack Ma at Alibaba where he lead international investments.He now runs a solo venture fund and is an investor and/or board member at companies including GetYourGuide, Fever, Bla Bla Car, Atlas Obscura, Easol and Reddit.Michael discusses his theory about the Experiences Economy being the next economic sector after the information age and how travel is an important element at the top of the pyramid of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.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.

A major deal was just announced, with two of the leading reservation technology companies in the world merging. Rezdy, based in Sydney Australia and Checkfront, based in Victoria Island Canada power 1000's of operators around the world. Rezdy also provides connectivity to 1000's more operators with the Rezdy Channel Manager.Co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard are joined by Stephen Joyce, VP Content, Arival and original OG of Restech for the In-Destinations Experiences industry as co-founder and former CEO of Rezgo.There will be a lot more to come on the pros and cons of this deal for the industry, distributors and operators. Experience This! will for sure continue to watch this story.What does this mean for our industry?What does this mean for operators 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.

A timely discussion with a variety of opinions. Many opinions. Lots of problems, not so many solutions.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.

OTAs are the fastest growing distribution channel for the Experiences Industry. And there are a lot of mixed feelings out there in operator land. In this session we focus on Niche OTAs. Niche OTAs focus on a region, on an activity type, or in the case of our guest Melanie White from Virgin Experience Gifts, a different type of distribution - gifting.This is a really interesting show that we encourage all operators to listen to and come up with ideas for new distribution channels.Arival wrote an article on niche operators with lots of great info, available hereShow 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.

Pricing, variable pricing, dynamic pricing - which one is right for you? What's the difference between variable and dynamic pricing?We are joined by two experts with strong opinions discussing how the experiences industry has a lot to learn from hotels and airlines. But will the infrastructure support advanced pricing?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.