My Main Stage Compatriots discuss the Future of Travel Tech

The only group left to thank and share learnings from are the brilliant folks who joined me on our Main Stage at this year's Travel Tech Summit at Virtuoso Travel Week.

I began as I do each year by thanking all of our participants and reminding us all that: Technology is at the core of every modern business. Due to technology's elimination of geographic and other barriers to entry, Innovation and a Human Connection are the only ways to stay relevant in our modern fast-paced economy. Simply put effective utilization of technology and an innovation mentality are two of the key elements needed for your business to succeed in the future.

Immediately after I was joined on stage by my very close friend and lifelong innovator Matthew Upchurch . Matthew shared with us his and Virtuoso's deep commitment to and long history of innovation. And reminded us that “automating the predictable to humanize the exceptional” has been his driving vision for decades. It was also the first thing that Mattew and I bonded over a decade ago in the early days of Utrip.

After Matthew's welcome and inspiration I dove straight into my Five Key Travel Tech Themes and Trends Keynote; more on that next week. During my talk, I was fortunate to be joined on stage by several prominent industry thought leaders to help provide additional perspective and to share their own insights and wisdom.

First up, Charaf El Mansouri of DHARMA joined me on stage. Dharma is a perfect example of the trend of Monetization through Travel. Dharma works with major global brands like Netflix to enable them to further monetize their audience through travel offerings. Charaf shared with us how he spotted a major change in consumer preference, from ones focused on destinations to ones focused on passions. Based on that he built a business helping brands with passionate followers, like Equinox, to engage them further and increase lifetime value.

A few minutes later, I spoke about the trend of the Financialization of Travel. The power of these financial tools is that when they work properly and are calibrated with sufficient data, they enable the business to increase profitability, while at the same time giving travelers the confidence to book more travel, further out. We then heard from Ethan Hawkes of Hopper about their continued innovation in the Financialization of Travel arena. They have seen incredible results and are now sharing their capabilities with other travel companies.

A bit later we spoke about the megatrends of the Connected Trip. I like to define the concept in a way that is focused on the traveler, thus by my definition the #ConnectedTrip is a concept focused on a future state of our industry where all elements of a trip are connected; or Smart. Enabling data, preferences, and other information to be captured, stored, and shared so that an entire travel experience is optimized to its most personalized state.

From there, I gave the stage to my friend Shane O'Flaherty who leads 微软 's travel industry efforts. Shane has spent many years working on this difficult but endless valuable opportunity to bring about the Connected Trip. He reminded us that it all starts with data!

Shane also emphasized that to achieve our collective goals we all have to work together as an industry to push this concept forward. He concluded by speaking about several elements of the #ConsumerJourney and the different needs they have that can be addressed by #AI ; one of my other macro themes.

After the conclusion of the Five Themes Keynote, we invited three Virtuoso innovators on stage to share some of the incredible work they are doing to further innovation at Virtuoso and across our industry.

Travis McElfresh , Virutoso's SVP of Digital & Consumer Products, and Helen McCabe-Young , Virtuoso's SVP for Marketing, kicked off the segment by sharing an update on the development of Virtuoso's Technology Platform and the open philosophy adopted across the organization. This was followed by Barbara Joseph who runs Virtuoso's Tech Partner Program, sharing all that is new on that front and highlighting the first batch of technology partners who have joined the program; many of whom presented at our inaugural Tech Summit.

Lastly, we heard from the brilliant Carolyn Corda who recently joined the team at 德勤 helping lead their travel data and analytics practice. Carolyn spoke about changing consumer trends and technology adoption across our industry and other luxury businesses.

She reminded us that the trends are on our side: more people are prioritizing travel and personal experiences, a deep focus on sustainability, shifting economic power centers, and more!

From there we split into our deep dive tracks focused on #AI , #Sustainability Tech, Supplier #Innovation , and Advisor & #Agency Technologies. I was thrilled to share some learnings from each of those breakouts earlier this week!

I have so many people to thank for helping put on this incredible Summit but most of all I want to thank the hundreds of people who joined us, packed the rooms, and engaged deeply with technology and innovation!! Thank you!!