Experience This! Travel Industry Insights and Opinions

S4 E5 She Shapes History: The Hidden Stories of The Women Who Built New York

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:00:00 -0400

Lori, Bruce and Christian are joined by Beth Santos and Nikki Padilla Rivera to discuss She Shapes History New York, a walking tour concept focused on the hidden history of women. From storytelling and experience design to creator-led travel businesses, this episode explores a fresh and meaningful direction for the experiences industry.

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S4 E3 Will Tour Operators stop buying software? Vibe Coding introduced!

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 20:00:00 -0500

What if tour operators could build their own software in minutes without writing a single line of code? In this episode, former Carpe Diem CMO Oli Green introduces “vibe coding,” a new (not so new) AI driven way to create custom tools just by describing what you want. Build dashboards, landing pages, and operational tools instantly. But, when should you build something yourself vs. pay for existing software?

S4 E2. The Party Economy meets the Experience Industry and Batch is leading the way

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:00:00 -0500

Group celebrations aren’t just trips. They’re high-intent, multi-booking moments. In this episode of Experience This!, we talk with the CEO of Batch about how celebration-driven demand is reshaping discovery, booking behavior, and operator strategy.

S4E1 Driving an 85% repeat rate and bringing a 40 year old Tour Business into the digital age

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:00:00 -0500

Sustainable Travel, Intellectual Travel, Niche, Luxury Travel, Food, Discovery, Small Groups. You name it and Mary Collins from Far Horizons and Blue Fern Travel covers it all. She's a rockstar and she joins Experience This! Travel to give us the full picture while also keeping us laughing.

S3 E 15 Keyguides Connect - redefining the hunt for the perfect Tour Guide

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0500

Nick Gray, Co-Founder of Keyguides Connect introduces his approach to how Tour Guides are searched, booked and run their businesses.

S3 E 14 Peek raises $70M and acquires ACME Ticketing and Connect & GO

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 16:00:00 -0500

Josiah Filler, CRO at Peek joins the Experience This! Travel Show to discuss Peeks $70M raise and acquisition of Connect & Go and ACME Ticketing.

S3 E13 James Lemon from Stripe talks Instant Checkout inside Chat GPT

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:00:00 -0500

James Lemon from Stripe joins us as we discuss Instant Check out in Chat GPT, the world of Agentic Commerce Protocol vs. Model Context Protocol and how operators can ready themselves for this new world.

S3 E 12 Rediscovering Groupon with Carrie Keplinger and Masha Sharma

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 16:00:00 -0500

Groupon is dusting itself off, investing heavily in Tech, becoming an AI first company and dominating the Things To Do space. Listen in as Carrie Keplinger and Masha Sharma walk us through why the TTD vertical at Groupon has seen double digit growth for the past 6 quarters.

AI Search with Scrunch.ai

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 15:00:00 -0500

Season 3. Episode 9 - Murray Decker

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 20:00:00 -0400

In this episode we learn about multi-day tour tech from Murray Decker, founder and CEO, Tour Amigo. Tour Amigo is a leading SaaS platform for the multi-day sector. There are surprisingly few SaaS platforms for multi-day tech, and Murray discusses the challenges and the differences he sees with the Destination Experiences sector.

Arival has just launched a new research study on multi-day, the first full study on tech and distribution since our 2021 landmark research project.

Arival is also featuring a multi-day track at Arival 360 DC, Sept 30 - Oct 3, 2025.

Season 3. Episode 6 - Chris Andrew, Scrunch AI

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 14:00:00 -0400

The 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 of Word of Mouth?"
"SEO is evolving but AI permanently changed the Customer Journey"

There's a lot to discover in this show!

Season 3. Episode 5 - Jessie Fischer - GuestOS

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 21:00:00 -0500

Get 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 Park

GuestOS 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 reservations, itineraries, and guest data, allowing staff to focus on direct guest services.
Emergency Response Initiatives: Developed AI-powered hotlines during crises, such as the California wildfires, to provide real-time information and support to affected communities.

GuestOS positions itself as the first AI-native concierge for hotels, focusing on unlocking new revenue streams beyond room bookings by managing the discovery, booking, and payment process for onsite experiences.

For more information, visit their official website: guestos.ai.

Greg Fisher, Founder and CEO of Wave Rez and Tripshock introduces his new book "Mastering OTA's."

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 16:00:00 -0500

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.

Episode 52 - The Hosts Discuss (Argue?) About the Potential Disintermediation of OTAs

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 19:00:00 -0500

How will AI Agents impact OTAs and Google's Market share?
We have a difference of opinion - shocking I'm sure.

Season 3. - Episode 2: TikTok About To Go Dark / AI Update

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 18:00:00 -0500

The 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 "army

Season 3. E1 - The Hosts Make their Predictions for 2025

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 20:00:00 -0500

Season 2 - The Final Episode. 2024 in Review

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 11:00:00 -0500

The 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!

S2, E 21 Meet Justin Buzzi

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Rap, Going Viral, Mastering Content, Customer Retention, Franchising and more with Justin Buzzi, CEO and Founder of Get Up and Go Kayaking!

S2, Ep #20 Patricia Yates, CEO of Visit Britain/ Visit England

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 06:00:00 -0500

Patricia 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 tourism

S2 E.19. Erika De Santi of We Road

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 08:00:00 -0400

Erika 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 #48 - Andy Moss, Mindtrip

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 02:00:00 -0400

Join 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. Here's how they describe Mindtrip: "the most personalized way to discover, plan and organize any adventure — aound the world or in your own backyard."

Add to that, it has built-in group chat which is a definite difference maker and automated travel organization software (like Tripit for example).

This is a company to watch for sure, we had a great show with Andy.

Show #47 featuring The Godfather of Tours & Activities - Rod Cuthbert, founder, Viator

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 17:00:00 -0400

The 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 State Colosseum, Eiffel Tower and more that led to their leadership position in the market, and the acquisition by Tripadvisor (and compared that to what GetYourGuide and Klook are doing to catch up by raising almost $1B each!

We discussed open marketplaces (like the current Viator) compared to curated sites like Civitatis and Headout. We talked about bootstrapping compared to seeking VC funding and Rod's really interesting comment about the value of having professional investors and the experience they bring. Of course he mentioned our mutual mentor and good friend, the late, great, Philip Wolf, founder of Phocuswright, one of the most innovative thought leaders on the intersection of travel and the internet from the early '90s, and the impact he sees with our creation of Arival.

Fascinating show, thanks Rod!

S2 Episode 14 Dan Christian of Travel Trends Podcast talks Multi Day Tours

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Dan 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!

Pete Comeau of Phocuswright joins us for a chat

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 16:00:00 -0400

Join 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 #42: The Experience Economy, It's About Time Well Spent

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 10:00:00 -0400

In 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 Stone Mantel's research (and others) that show that for people who are taking care of their basic needs (food, housing, health insurance, etc.), they put more value on their TIME than their MONEY. What does that mean for our industry and how do we all optimize people's time to ensure they consider their time with our company "Time Well Spent". This is a super important topic that we'll be discussing more here and at Arival, exploring how the in-destination experiences industry can learn from the broader Experience Economy experts, scholars and practitioners.

Aransas brought up the interesting topic of customer journeys. We've all discussed our customer journeys, but are they ever right? How can they be if we don't know what "mode" our customer is in? This is such an important point. Listen to learn more!

What's up with Airbnb Experiences?

Fri, 24 May 2024 20:00:00 -0400

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 and activities and one of our guests, Madi Rifkin, Founder and CEO, Mount represents a new kind of distribution partner connecting experience creators with vacation rental hosts.

The other, bigger news, is Airbnb's announcement about Icons. Here's their announcement:
Airbnb is introducing Icons, a new category of extraordinary experiences hosted by the greatest names in music, film, television, art, sports, and more. Icons let you step into worlds you’ve only ever dreamed of. Drift off in the Up house. Spend the night in the Ferrari Museum. Hang out with Kevin Hart. Today, we’re unveiling the first 11 Icons on Airbnb, with new experiences dropping around the world throughout the year.

“Icons take you inside worlds that only existed in your imagination—until now,” said Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO. “As life becomes increasingly digital, we’re focused on bringing more magic into the real world. With Icons, we’ve created the most extraordinary experiences on Earth.”
Interestingly, most of the Icons will be available for free and the rest will go for less than $100 per guest, said Airbnb. Airbnb plans to make 4,000 tickets to these Icons available in 2024. Listen to the show to hear why they're doing this, but in short, its all about collecting user data and building the "Solar System" that is part of Airbnb's go forward strategy.

Their new Group Functionality is similar. They want to start collecting user data from everyone in the booking, not just the person making the booking. Sound familiar?

Enjoy the show!

New Growth Strategies featuring Sarah Dines, Chief Commercial Officer, Viator

Fri, 24 May 2024 19:00:00 -0400

Viator 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 those bookings end up on Viator.

Once again, our conversation on Experience This! was fascinating!

Experience This! Show #39, Season 2, Show #9: The Future of Search

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 20:00:00 -0400

Experience 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 webpages

STS: 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 around STS leverages the Greedy Coordinate Gradient (GCG) algorithm for optimization.

And my favorite from our guest Janette Roush, EVP Marketing and Digital, NYC Tourism + Conventions:
"The Shitification of the Internet"

Our other guest, Brennen Bliss, Principal, Propellic, shared his deep knowledge on what's going on here as search is going through dramatic changes, right here, right now.

Some references if you're interested in this topic (and since you follow Experience This!, you likely are):

Janette's recent post on LinkedIn: "I'm hearing rumors that vendors are starting to sell destinations on a service to influence how the destination appears in outputs generated by LLMs - which sends my BS detector through the roof...."
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7187875476504293377/

Christian Watts writes in Phocuswire about Gemini, Google Travel and the Threat to OTAs: https://www.phocuswire.com/gemini-google-travel-threat-to-online-travel-agencies

Two part story from Mario Gavira, Vice President of Growth and Brand at kiwi.com, "Preparing Travel for the Future of AI Search"
https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-marketing-ai-in-search
https://www.phocuswire.com/travel-industry-ai-search

Building Women Entrepreneurs in the Travel and Tourism Industry

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:00:00 -0400

Meet 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.

Season 2, Show 5: Distribution and Trade Shows

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 13:00:00 -0500

The 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.

Season 2, Show 4: Innovation (or lack of) in the Travel Industry

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 13:00:00 -0500

Meredith 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?

Season 2, Show 6: Weekend Update!

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 13:00:00 -0500

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.

Season 2, Show #3: Christian's Top 6 Gen AI Topics entering "Year 2"

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 16:00:00 -0500

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.com

Season 2, Show #2 - A Mini Masterclass in Brand Marketing with Catherine Warrilow

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:00:00 -0500

If 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.

Season 2, Show #1: Bruce's Top Ten Trends

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 15:00:00 -0500

Bruce'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 #30 - AI in Experiences, AI tour guides OR Human Tour guides. OR a hybrid approach.

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:00:00 -0500

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?

Meet Claus Raasted, the founder of The College of Extraordinary Experiences

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:00:00 -0400

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.

What's next in the world of experiences and what is an experience anyway?

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0400

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 #26 - Focus on Startups

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 22:00:00 -0400

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 #25 - Trip Planners - Chances of Success?

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0400

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 #24 - The Experience Economy

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 22:00:00 -0400

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 #23 - Breaking News! Rezdy and Checkront Merge

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

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 #21 - GetYouGuide raises another $194m - opinions from the industry

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 11:00:00 -0400

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

Show #20 - Niche OTAs

Fri, 19 May 2023 21:00:00 -0400

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 here

Show #19 - Dynamic and Variable Pricing - What's the Difference

Fri, 19 May 2023 21:00:00 -0400

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 #18 - Women in Travel Tech (part 2)

Mon, 01 May 2023 10:00:00 -0400

Once again, Experience This! features two women who have advanced into the C Suite of travel tech. Susan DeBottis, Chief Growth Officer, Rezdy and Cady Wolf, industry veteran from Travelocity, Switchfly and Sojern and now founder and CEO of consulting firm A23 Advisors and Founder WiTT (Women in Travel Tech) join the Experience This! hosts to continue the discussion focused on womentin travel tech, especially focused on the Experiences sector.

Show #17 - News of the Day

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0400

It was pretty big news last week when Airbnb Experiences announced they were putting a pause on adding new experiences on the platform, including for existing experience hosts.

Given that Airbnb has had such a big impact on the In-Destination Experiences Industry, there's a lot of talk about what comes next. In 2016 when Airbnb launched Airbnb Experiences that was the beginning of usage of the word Experiences in place of what the industry was then known as, "tours and activities".

While the impact has been huge, the sales volume has not. That's the main topic of show #17.

Plus we discuss the demise of Heygo, a virtual travel company that raised $20M in VC funds in February 2022.

Show #16 - The New Funnel for Experiences - Content Creators

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 20:00:00 -0400

You're an Experience Creator, you get business with direct bookings and through distribution. Now there's a third funnel that is going to grow exponentially and be relatively low cost. Content Creators, also known as influencers have new platforms to work on to make your job as an Experience Creator easier to figure out who to work with, how to work with them, and what bookings they deliver.

This show features two of those platforms, Sally Bunnell, founder and CEO, NaviSavi and Ryan McElroy, co-founder and CCO, Jerne.

Lots to learn on this show!

Show #15

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:00:00 -0400

"Old school" chat bots, new chat bots powered by generative AI, what's the difference?

Guests Daniel Pino and David Kunze have experience with both and the discussion was interesting as we peer into the not to far off future.

Who will benefit most from this first wave of innovation from Generative AI? Experience operators? Restechs? Distributors?

Listen in for our perspectives and share yours on our LinkedIn page.

Show #14 - Cautious optimism for 2023 / Google Things to do update / AI at Arival

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 15:00:00 -0400

On show #14 we had two guest stars, Alexi Tabrizi, Senior VP Global Sales, Big Bus; and Tina Kyriakis, found and CEO, Alternative Athens join us to talk about their experience talking to 100s of people at Arival and ITB. We talked about where the Experiences industry is right now, hint: "Cautious Optimism" , the ever changing but must use Google Things to do, and the extraordinary keynote and follow up breakout session by Marc Mekki including a dramatic case study featuring the AI version of Alan Turing.

Show #13 - The Rebirth of Alan Turing and What it Means for Experiences

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Host Christian Watts and Marc Mekki, "Innovation & Design Thinking Speaker" who presented the keynote at Arival 360 Berlin that everyone is talking about. During Arival, Marc brought Alan Touring to life in a remarkable display of using Generative AI. He gave himself a challenge (and showed how he accomplished it) to create a tour company in less than 4 hours with less than 100 euros.

Christian and Marc get the conversation going on the impacts of AI on the Experiences industry that we can't even begin to comprehend.

Episode #12 - Women in Experiences

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 12:00:00 -0500

Women In Experiences - climbing up the ladder, challenges along the way, gender pay gap. Dominique Sidley from Merlin, Judy Gauthier from Go City and Natalie Hernandez from Xplorie join Lori, Bruce and Christian to discuss the state of Women In the Destination Experiences industry leadership today.

Show #10 - Social Platforms & Influencers

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 17:00:00 -0500

We are joined in this show by Marica Mackenroth Brewster, founder & CEO, Von Mack Agency. We talk about the "Trip Hacks experiment" , YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, new influencer platforms, MrBeast and more.

Link to video below

Episide #9 - News Update and ChatGPT Pitch Show Info

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Our hosts Lori, Christian and Bruce talk about Destination Experiences news, investments and upcoming events.

Introducing a ChatGPT Pitch session, live streamed on LinkedIn on Wednesday February 15 at 12:00pm EST. This pitch session is for innovative, future ideas that have not been developed yet. What would you build if you had $150K and needed a product ready for market by June 1 2023?

Show #8 - Immersive Experiences

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 13:00:00 -0500

This is a great episode featuring Vince Kadlubek, co-founder, former CEO and visionary, Meow Wolf; and Ana Araque, co-founder, Imagine Experiences and a 30 year veteran of the travel industry.

Highlights of the show include super interesting answers to "what's an immersive experience"? Ana talking about Imagine Experience's James Bond and other experiences featuring live entertainers.

My personal highlight was listening to Vince talk about Immersive Experiences, leading to our discussion about Passion Travel (a concept we discussed with Dan Christian from Dharma on show #3), and then to Transformational Travel.

Great show Christian, Ana and Vince, thanks!

Episode #7 - The latest from APAC. China opens, Tech, Loyalty & more

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

This show starts to scrape the surface of what to expect in APAC as China begins to re-open to inbound and outbound travel. We feature three experts, Baidi Li of Go City, Hannah Pearson of Pear Andersen and CC Chan of Global Tix to chat about the latest from APAC including Tech, Loyalty programs, when will China business really return and what will they expect when it does.

Show #6 - Experiences Industry News Update

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard discuss the latest news happenings in the Experiences sector. China's re-opening, India, Corporate Event Experiences, NFTs and more.

Show #5 - Talking about Groups

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Show #5 covers an often overlooked opportunity in the Experiences Industry - Group Sales. Instead of chasing individual sales withe high acquisition costs, groups represent "old school" distribution and a great way to build a base of business. Hear from two experts discussing their views on this critical channel for success, Joe Martin, Uplevel Tourism and Fabio Monteiro, SUMMIT One Vanderbilt

Show #4 - The most widely read articles on arival.travel in 2022, Passion Travel, more

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 19:00:00 -0500

This show features Janelle Visser, editor for Arival reviewing the most read articles on arival.travel in 2022. We are also joined by Dan Christian from Dharma who discusses the passion economy and how it is fueled by content creators and influencers. Next the conversation jumps into OTA's and distribution, and women in travel tech.

Show #3 - Top 10 Trends: 2022 ----- > 2023

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 08:00:00 -0500

In this episode we discuss the Top 10 trends in the Experiences Sector - looking back to Bruce's predictions in 2022 and forward to 2023. Guests Carlee Stellfox Loya, Robin Harnish, and Dan Flores join the discussion.

Show #2 - The End of GetYourGuide Originals (for now!)

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 14:00:00 -0500

Co-hosts Lori, Christian and Bruce are joined by Stephen Oddo, President of Walks and Devour Tours and Jose Arozarena, founder & CEO, Amigo Tours to talk about GetYourGuide's decision to end its Originals program.

Program Note: On March 6, 2023 at the Arival 360 Berlin event, GetYourGuide announced that Originals is back in a modified version (which is consistent with what they said when they decided to end the program in Q4 2022.) Stay tuned for an update with Experience This! and more special guests.

Video Link below

Show #1 - The Pilot

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:00:00 -0500

Co-hosts Lori Timony, Christian Watts and Bruce Rosard introduce the Experience This! Show.
What is it? Why is it? How is it?

Including brief introductions and a conversation about ChatGPT in the experiences sector of the travel industry.