Lonely Planet CEO Luis Cabrera

Lonely Planet is an iconic brand within the travel industry, with their blue travel guidebooks serving as a staple in adventurers' backpacks for decades. So how does a company with that history to connect with a digital-first generation?

CEO Luis Cabrera discusses leading the company in building awesome products that travelers love, and that provide the same level of local expertise on any travel destination you care to visit, with a more diversified editorial perspective.

Follow Lonely Planet on Instagram, and learn more about the Pathfinders program at pathfinders.lonelyplanet.com/ 

0:00 — Intro and Luis' professional story (including what working in Web 1.0 was like and how he got big corporations to start to think digitally)

4:45 — Technology-first vs. user-first mindsets: How to flip the process from, how can I implement a cool feature, to how can I solve a problem for my user and give them an experience that they love? Including real-life example in flashmob ecommerce UX research. 

14:10 — User-first, innovative processes in large corps, aka, how to get your boss or client to take a risk… and when maybe you shouldn’t?

18:45 — Luis joining Lonely Planet: What he fell in love with (spoiler alert: it’s the power of the brand), and how he’s tackling transformation. 

29:28 — Pathfinders program: Lonely Planet taps into social media and influencers to modernize and broaden content available to users. Here’s some of the story behind it. 

38:40 — What’s the moonshot: What can Lonely Planet be in Luis’ wildest imagination?