August 12, 2025 • 59 mins
Join us at Arival DC from September 29 to October 3, 2025, and be part of the most transformative event in the experiences sector. Use promo code FOADACHDC to get 10% off the AI Forum for Destination Experiences and Arival 360 DC combo ticket (excludes Pro Members). Plus, as a special bonus, you will be guaranteed a feature on the Event Spotlight that Dan will be recording live at the event!
As Douglas Quinby, CEO, and Bruce Rosard, CCO, shared in our recent conversation, Arival DC isn’t just another industry conference - it’s a meticulously curated gathering of the "the 1% of the experiences sector." Visionary creators, resellers, technologists, and leaders from across the ecosystem - think day tour operators, multi-day specialists, tech startups, and platforms like GetYourGuide and Viator - will come together to shape the future of travel experiences.
This year’s event is packed with groundbreaking programming:
- Monday: The Executive Summit, where industry leaders tackle the strategic challenges shaping the next decade.
- Tuesday: The first-ever AI Forum, offering hands-on guidance for integrating artificial intelligence into marketing, customer service, and product development.
- Wednesday through Friday: The main Arival 360 conference, featuring a brand-new Multi-Day Tour track alongside its established programming for day tours, activities, and attractions.
Throughout the event, you’ll hear from industry visionaries like Joe Pine, the "godfather of the experience economy," who will explore the shift from selling experiences to enabling transformations. Key trends like the rise of experience-driven travel planning, the revolutionary potential of AI, and the demand for transformational experiences will dominate the conversation.
And don’t miss Dan, who will be MC’ing the Multi-Day Track at Arival 360 on October 1 & 2, guiding two full days of sessions dedicated to the future of multi-day travel. From trends and technology to tour operator strategies and distribution, this track is a must-attend for anyone in the multi-day travel space.
Don’t wait - secure your spot today! Use promo code FOADACHDC for your discount and guarantee your feature on the Event Spotlight.
Mark your calendars and see you in DC!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You know, the most exciting thing about the event
and the incredible feedback thatwe always get is just simply
the assembly of the people whoare there.
This is the 1% of theexperiences sector.
Experiences sector this is themost innovative, creative,
(00:24):
influential creators, resellers,technologists, innovators in
everything around experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello everyone and welcome to a special event
spotlight of travel trends.
This is your host, DanChristian, and in today's
episode we're going to bespeaking to Bruce Rosard and
Douglas Quimby from Arrivalabout their upcoming event in
Washington DC from September29th to October 3rd.
We have a special promo codefor our listeners of 10% off.
You can find it onTravelTrendsPodcastcom homepage
(00:55):
and everything about Arrival youcan find out at Arrival Travel.
That's Arrival with one R, butthe event kicks off on the
Monday with an executive day.
Tuesday they're doing an AIforum Wednesday.
Thursday, friday we are doingthe Arrival 360 at the event,
and the reason I say we isbecause I am actually hosting
and emceeing the multi-day tourtrack with my friends, like
(01:15):
Travis from Tour Radar, and I'mso looking forward to it.
I did a keynote many years agoat Arrival Conference.
I've been a huge fan of Arrivalfor many years and I had the
privilege to do a keynote onMulti-Day Tour and I'm thrilled
that it's now finally a mainstage track with at least six
sessions that you can lookforward to and you can find out
(01:36):
more details on the websiteabout the event and to get
involved with us, because I hopethat many tour operators take
the chance to come to Arrivalthis year for the first time and
realize all the benefits thatI've had over the years in terms
of marketing and technology anddistribution.
There's so much here formulti-day and, of course,
there's so much that they alwayscurate for all the day tour and
(01:57):
experience operators as well.
It's going to be an amazingweek and for those of you who
take advantage of the 10% offer,you can again find it on the
homepage, but the code itself isF-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C.
That's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C.
Use that promo code to bookyour ticket and get 10% off.
And when you do, send me anemail to let me know that you've
(02:20):
booked your ticket and you'regoing to be there, because I
will schedule recordings withall of those people that booked
a ticket using that promo codeand come and join us at Arrival
when I am recording podcastsover the Wednesday, thursday and
Friday.
So send me a note and we willbe doing a special event
spotlight at the event itselfand I would love to include you.
So please drop me a line, letme know if you're going to be
(02:42):
there and we'll schedule time torecord.
Now let's get right on with theshow, because there's so much
to share.
Douglas and Bruce, welcome backto Travel Trends.
So great to have you with us.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Thanks for having us, Dan.
It's great to be here.
It's always a lot of fun.
Love your podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Dan, I listen to Travel Trends all the time when
I'm walking my dog late at nightor sunset, which is my favorite
, and it's it's great to be on.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I know, and then, and then, bruce starts texting me
or calling me like oh.
I've got this dog walk idea,that dog walk idea, you got to
listen to this podcast or that.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So at least one out of every 10 of those ideas is a
good idea.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
We can, we can.
We can discuss that in ourweekly.
Sorry for that, douglas.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But, yes, Bruce, both of you guys I appreciate you've
been on the podcast before.
I definitely encourage all ofour listeners to check out any
of your individual episodes tolearn more about why you guys
are icons in the travel industryand two people that I greatly
respect and admire.
But the one thing, obviouslywith the two of you guys here,
Bruce yes, for sure, You're oneof the biggest fans of the
podcast.
I greatly appreciate that.
(03:47):
You text me, you email me,You're very active and engaged.
And so, Douglas, yes, I hopesome of those things work out,
but obviously you guys inspireme in many ways as well and I'm
certainly looking forward tobeing together for this whole
week in Washington.
But before we get into that,give us a little bit of context
of where you guys are.
I know, Douglas, you'retypically based in Atlanta with
your family.
Is that where we find you today?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And how's your summer ?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
been, it's been really hot Dan Really really hot
.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Hot Lana lives up to its name, right.
Hot, hot and humid, hot andhumid.
Outside walking the dog atseven o'clock in the morning it
says it's only 70 degrees, but Icome back drenched like 87, 90%
humidity.
It's a steam bath outside, sohopefully it's a little bit
cooler where you are in Toronto,right?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, Well, actually we're feeling the heat a little
bit, given the summertime, but Ihad an amazing travel
experience to Europe this summerand I know you guys both travel
a lot.
Any other travel highlights foryou this summer, Douglas?
You take some time off with thefamily.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, we have a lot of family down in Florida, so
it's not nearly as exciting asprobably most of your listeners
this summer, but, yeah, justlazy time with the family in
Florida, which is actually quitenice For sure.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Exactly Time to pause and reflect and then get ready
for what's going to be anincredibly busy fall and
preparing for 2026.
And, bruce, obviously you'rebased in Colorado, but you're
not in Colorado today, you're inWashington.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I am in Washington DC , got here for a really cool
conference called Align AI andthe biggies were here.
I mean, we had OpenAI,microsoft, google plus, plus
plus speaking and it was justgreat to really get absorbed
into that, especially as wethink about and prepare for our
AI forum that's going to behappening at Arrival this year.
(05:35):
And yep, so I'm in DC, eventhough Arrival DC is not
actually in DC, it's in Maryland, but that's a whole other story
.
And it is hot and humid here.
I in Maryland, but that's awhole nother story.
And it is hot and humid here.
I left the East Coast.
One of the main reasons was toget away from the humidity.
In Colorado.
There's no such thing.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So looking forward to getting back there.
That's cool.
And then, one thing I alsowanted to highlight too, since
Bruce and I also, just likeDouglas and I, were great
friends and we obviously knoweach other's families and our
kids are both into baseball.
You and I are huge baseballfans, of course, bruce, and we
talked about that on our podcast.
You're from Philadelphia, and Iwent to Cooperstown with my son
about five years ago when hewas 12.
And we had that epic experienceof playing Cooperstown, going
(06:14):
to the Hall of Fame, and, as Iunderstand it, you're heading
there tomorrow with your son, isthat right?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
We are.
We're heading to the BaseballHall of Fame tomorrow.
That's going to be super fun.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Although no one that's listening.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
knows what day tomorrow is?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, people will be coming up and they'll be asking
you about it when they see youin Washington.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So that's fantastic.
Looking forward to it, cool.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And a famous Philly just got inducted, Dick Allen,
who is one of the more you know,really misunderstood players in
Philadelphia Phillies history.
So I'll be looking forward toseeing his plaque and his story.
All right, but let's talk about.
Let's talk about travel.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let's specifically talk about the reason that you
guys are in Washington or not.
So, bruce, let me ask you thatquestion, since you're in
Washington at the moment.
This conference itself is notactually in Washington.
It's across the river, inMaryland.
So tell everyone why Washingtonslash Maryland this year for
the Arrival 360 conference.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know we get the question all the time like why
don't you go here, here or here?
And since we started Arrival itwas Vegas, orlando, vegas,
orlando, vegas, orlando.
And the reason is because thecheapest place to run a
conference is Vegas, unless yougo to some of the really
(07:32):
expensive hotels, but even stillyou get a lot more for your
money there and on the easternside of the country it's Orlando
and that's where we startedrunning our events.
But once we got moreestablished people said let's go
somewhere else and we wanted togo somewhere else.
And when you search around fora 1,000-person conference it's
(07:54):
not easy to find the right spots.
Like we're kind of in themiddle of we're not big enough
for a big conference center andwe're too big for most hotels.
In the Washington DC areathere's a hotel, the Gaylord
National Harbor.
That's a great hotel, greatvenue overall for arrival and it
happens to be across the riverfrom DC, so from the hotel
(08:17):
beautiful views of DC, but it'sin National Harbor, maryland.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, but, bruce, I do think a few people would
probably say would probably saythey also kind of like to go to
Vegas and Orlando.
It's not just because it'scheap.
I mean, there are some prettycool things to do there and
actually some pretty amazingoperators and attractions.
But, yeah, it's always great toget out to different
destinations.
(08:42):
I mean DC too.
I mean holy smokes.
But yeah, it's also it's alwaysgreat to get out to different
destinations.
I mean DC too.
I mean holy smokes.
There's so many incredibleoperators there and so much
history.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And yes, so great place and it's just hard, like
price-wise.
Why don't we go to New York?
Why don't we go to Chicago?
Because it just doesn't fit thebudget of most of our attendees
or what we'd be able to do, butanother, another common.
You know, if you can look at it, we used to always do our
European event in Berlin becausewe wanted to be timed closely
to ITB, and we made the decisionthis year to go to Valencia in
(09:15):
Spain instead, and that turnedout to be a phenomenal decision
and people loved it, and we'regoing back to Valencia next for
our next European event.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, you brought up an important point there.
That I do want to highlight toall of our listeners as well is
that since the beginning ofArrival and the opportunity I've
had to attend the conferences,speak and collaborate with you
guys, one of the things that'salways stood out to me is that
the people that come togetherfor an Arrival conference you
don't typically see at the otherbig conferences.
You guys have carved out areally incredible niche, not
(09:44):
only within the wholein-destination experiences and
what I truly agree that everytime Douglas says it he's heard
me mention it on stage that itreally is, as far as I'm
concerned, the best part oftravel and the reason why we
travel and the types of peoplethat come together for this a
lot of smaller operators, thatthis is affordable, it's
accessible to them and so it'svery important.
(10:05):
So actually it's accessible tothem and so it's very important.
So I actually it's worthhighlighting that and obviously
I've enjoyed the conferencesbeing in Orlando or Las Vegas or
San Diego, but I'm excitedabout Washington and being in a
new destination, becauseobviously it'll bring other
people together tour radarsholding an event there, so
there's new, fresh things thatcan happen when you're in a new
destination.
So lots of reasons.
I'm looking forward to it andobviously it's a little closer
(10:25):
for me being in Toronto.
But, douglas, one of the thingsI want to bring you back in the
conversation on and then we'llgo back to Bruce to talk about
the executive day and the AIforum because of this epic week
that you guys have planned.
But tell us a little bit aboutyour vision and overall view for
Arrival 360 this year.
A little bit about the speakers, some of the content.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
What excites you in preparing for this big event?
Well, so Arrival is it's allabout the well, you said it, I
mean the best part of travel,right?
So, creators of experiences, sotours, activities, attractions,
events, all of the things thattravelers do when they get there
and why they go.
I mean, we have a lot that wecan talk about.
(11:10):
On the content, I'd just sayhonestly for me, the most
exciting thing about the eventand the incredible feedback that
we always get is just simplythe assembly of the people who
are there.
(11:31):
This is the 1% of theexperiences sector.
This is the most innovative,creative, influential creators,
resellers, technologists,innovators in everything around
experiences.
And it's not just you know, toyour point too.
(11:52):
It's not just the largestcompanies Like, of course we've
got, you know, leadership fromlike Viator and Get your Guide
and Kluk, and you know Airbnb iscoming and a lot of these
bigger brands.
But Klook and Airbnb is comingand a lot of these bigger brands
.
But a lot of the reallyinteresting and, for me
(12:12):
personally, inspiring attendeesand work that's being done is by
people who are just creatingexperiences that are having an
enormous impact on our industryand on local communities.
We have Craig Dodge, who's amarketing director from the Far
Circus in Cambodia, which hasbeen a school that has.
(12:36):
It's a social enterprise.
It brings in underprivilegedyouth from across Cambodia,
privileged youth from acrossCambodia trains them to be
circus performers, and severalof their graduates have gone on
to university In fact, severalin the United States.
We're hoping to have a fewattend in DC, and so he's going
(12:57):
to go share the story.
Not just about this, and it'salso one of the top attractions
in Cambodia as well, right, soit's not just about kind of the
business, but it's also aboutthe local impact that a lot of
these businesses can have.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned Craig
Dodge because, by virtue of himspeaking at your conference in
Bangkok and Bruce telling meabout Craig, we actually had him
on the Travel Trends podcastand he was such a fascinating
guy to interview because he's'sAmerican, has lived in Southeast
Asia, for you know, for 10 or15 years and has worked at this.
You know this nonprofitorganization that has helped so
many kids out of poverty andalso really kind of help rebuild
(13:34):
a community after you know thethe tragic events that unfolded
in Cambodia, and so it's it'sit's a remarkable story.
I've been to that circus.
I didn't know him at the time,but I was able to cover that
when I chatted with him.
So these are the interestingpeople that you bring to an
Arrival Conference.
Tell us a little bit about someof the other big speakers.
Obviously, you've got Tao Taofrom Get your Guide.
You've got Papine from Viator.
(13:55):
You have obviously the bigheavy hitters.
But I know how much time andeffort, douglas, you put into
curating speakers and thecontent.
Having been on the other sideof multiple conversations with
you to figure out you knowshould I speak or what should I
speak about, how's the best fit.
You put so much care andattention into the content and
you bring together some reallyinteresting people, so who else
might you draw out that peoplewill benefit from hearing from
(14:16):
at the event?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
You know, I love, I always love and hate this
question because there's 60-plusspeakers and I think all of
them are.
There's a reason why we choseall of them right and invited
all of them to speak, but here'syour favorites.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I just want to know your favorites, oh great.
Well, Dan, you're always myfavorite, no so look I just,
maybe I can walk through a few,no.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So look, I just maybe I can walk through a few.
But so the mission of the event, fundamentally, is has never
changed and it's always abouthelping this industry grow.
And how do we do that?
We bring the industry together,we help them connect, we help
them understand what the heck isgoing on and, frankly, in 2025,
this has been, in some respects, you know, harder than than
(15:04):
ever.
The, you know, most of ourattendees for the US event will
be from North America.
Typically, it's about 65%, 70%,and about two-thirds are on the
supply side.
So, operators, of course, theUS travel industry has been, you
know, one of the most what'sthe right word?
Kind of uncertain, right orvolatile, and so we've heard
(15:28):
from a lot of operators thatit's been a very challenging
year, especially if you are,excuse me, very focused on and
dependent on that inboundinternational tourist,
especially if you're trying toserve Canadian inbound arrivals,
for example.
So, and there's been a lot ofuncertainty around the economy.
So a fundamental mission at ourevent is always okay what's
(15:53):
going on in the industry?
What are the big changes andchallenges that are underway
that our industry is facing, andhow do we assemble and navigate
through those and come out onthe other side, you know, with a
really strong you know positionfor our industry.
So it's really about engagingin a conversation.
(16:15):
That and this is the work thatwe do all year with our research
and content to try tounderstand what's going on, and
so it's like a.
It is like a live conversationresearch project, you know
consulting, you know interactivetown hall that takes place, you
know, over several days tofigure out.
(16:37):
You know what's going on.
So I'll highlight, you know,just a few things that I think
are really important.
You know, in addition to the AIforum which Bruce has taken the
lead in designing, which iskind of a pre-day on the 30th of
September, on the Tuesday,where it's just all things kind
of AI and applications forexperiences, businesses at a
(16:59):
very practical and verytechnical level, where you'll
get to sit down and actually dowork with experts on all sorts
of facets of applying AI intoyour business.
We'll also have some really keysessions on and some work we're
doing, for example, withBrendan Bliss at Propellic on.
You know, how are AI overviewsand AI mode and chat?
(17:22):
How is this transforming theway travelers are finding and
discovering experiences?
How do operators andexperienced providers need to
kind of rethink their productand marketing.
So we'll have a few sessions onthat.
There are some reallyextraordinary changes taking
place in just the travelerorientation, around the reason
(17:47):
to travel.
So you know, we've seen areally big shift.
I think of this as like aseismic kind of a generational
shift from beingdestination-driven to
experience-driven.
And we especially see this withyounger travelers, where it's
less about I want to go here,what do we do there To I want to
(18:07):
go do this thing, where's thebest place to go do this?
So increasingly, trip planningand the travel decision is being
experience led.
And how do we as an industrycapitalize on that?
We have a keynote speaker thateverybody should know, joe Pine,
(18:28):
who's considered the I mean,it's like the godfather or the
grandfather, I'm not sure whichof the experience economy and
the godfather.
But there's an overview articleon the Harvard Business Review
website which everyone can lookup, on the experience economy,
where he talks about theprogression of economic value
from commodity all the waythrough experience.
(18:48):
His next big piece of work ison the transformation economy
and transformational travel.
He'll be speaking about thatand what that means and what
travelers are looking for andwhy it's such a big deal,
especially with the youngergeneration in particular of more
affluent travelers who havealready kind of gone to Paris
(19:09):
and seen the Eiffel Tower withtheir parents when they were
kids and now they want kind ofthat next experience.
And then just a couple of otherthings that are really
important.
One is just navigating thechaos and we have a lot of
sessions that are going on.
I'd say it's a question that I,in every conversation I have
(19:30):
with an operator, anybody in theindustry today, the first thing
is what's going on?
Like what?
Are you seeing what's happeningin the market?
Are you, is everybody up?
Are they down?
Like what's going on?
And it's a really hard thing toreally capture because there is
not.
Most of the companies in thisindustry are private, data is
(19:50):
not readily available and shared, so it's a lot of this people
trying to figure out what'shappening, especially
challenging.
This year We'll be talking alot about that and discussing
some of the big themes that arethings that operators in the
industry should be doing to toadapt.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And that'll be coursing through a lot of our
conversations over the over thefull week.
Well, one of the things thereas far as what's happening, by
the event, you'll have at leastsome of the top line responses
from the global operatorlandscape survey that goes into
the field first week of August,right?
So we're serving thousands andthousands of operators from
around the world to find outwhat's happening from their
perspective.
(20:35):
So we'll have a much betteridea in a few months.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, for sure, bruce , and I'm just going to
highlight a few of my favorites.
I'm going to call them out sothat they actually know just how
much I love them.
Joe Pine is one of those.
He closed out season five ofour podcast.
It was extraordinary.
He just did a Substack postabout that experience and how
excited he is for Arrival.
So it was really nicely how hetied it together with his new
book coming out, because he wascertainly an inspiration to me
(20:59):
getting into this industry,because the timing of his book
and myself graduating university, you know it was a source of
inspiration to many of us.
So for sure he's the godfatherof this category, of
highlighting the whole idea ofexperiences.
I mean it was like theexperience economy.
He's the one that coined theterm, and so Joe Pine.
But you've introduced so manyfantastic speakers over the
years, like Vince Cadillac fromMeow Wolf, which is one of the
(21:22):
most extraordinary sessions thatI've had the privilege to see
at an arrival conference, and Iloved his and I came up to you.
I remember that session.
I was just like this wasamazing.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, it was almost like a meditation, I mean it was
.
I mean I felt like he had.
He had put the audience in atrance.
I mean it was quite and ifanyone, yeah, definitely go, go,
go, experience some Meow Wolfexperiences.
The space in Vegas is justunbelievable.
You can even see some videos ofyou know where he's Vince is
(21:51):
amazing.
Does a lot of this stuff onYouTube and TikTok to get a
sense of just howtransformational some of those
experiences can be?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
They recently announced their next location,
New York City.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Oh, is that right?
I hadn't heard that.
Yeah, because it's Omega Martfor all of our listeners in
Vegas.
Definitely make that part ofyour next trip to Vegas.
Have a trippy experience atOmega Mart.
But just highlighting thatthese are some of the people.
Now, when I was looking at theagenda, you've had people before
like Jeff Walker fromUndercover Donut Tours I was
also one I actually reallyenjoyed, and so I was just
trying to call out the fact thatit's not necessarily about the
(22:28):
most you know.
You've got Jeanette Roush,who's going to be amazing for
brand USA like their SVP andchief AI officer Like that'll be
awesome, but, um, but you'vegot people that are like chief
eating officers, like MidjiMoore Um, you've.
You've also got AkilahMcConnell, who does like I, also
a chief eating officer.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
And she, by the way she's, you know she's she's
going to do something that Ithink a lot, a lot of people in
our industry are have beenthinking about.
You know, there's been anextraordinary shift in case you
hadn't noticed in the politicaldiscourse in the United States
and what that means for thepublic conversation and what it
(23:08):
means for topics like diversityand inclusive history, and
there's never been well, Ishouldn't say never, but
certainly in my experienceobserving politics in the United
States, it certainly feels moredivided than ever in my
lifetime.
And she's going to tackle avery difficult topic on the main
(23:30):
stage of how do you bringpeople together on a tour, how
do you navigate really difficult, potentially controversial and
divisive topics, how do youdeliver authenticity and
navigate truth anddisinformation and
misinformation An essentialtopic.
(23:50):
And she's got, I think, in somerespects, one of the toughest
yeah, one of the one of thetallest orders for the main
stage at Arrival this year.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And Akilah might still be the position of best
speaker in history at an Arrivalevent.
Right, that first one she didthat was on a similar topic, her
tour that followed in MLK Jr'sfootsteps, and if she's going to
top that, it's going to besomething to see for sure, yeah.
(24:20):
But I think we should take astep back, dan.
This event that I was atyesterday in DC talked about
like airline ancillaries, mostlybeing how much they're making
on their ancillaries, whichbillions of dollars.
Now, what's their ancillary?
It's bags and seats.
Right, that's not ancillary, itjust means they push their
(24:42):
airfares to different pieces.
But airlines, hotels, kind ofthe standard OTAs, are all
really looking at experiencesnow, as and and what I think
they realized, not an ancillarybut another product that can
help build loyalty for theircustomers and that can make the
destination experience a betterexperience for their customer.
(25:07):
And the rest of the travelindustry is really kind of
coming along now where seven oreight years ago when we started
Arrival, it wasn't there.
So when you have airlines,hotels, dmos, travel agents or
travel advisors that are allreally saying what's going on
with experiences, how do we getinto that world, how do we
(25:28):
resell that and not just makesome money on it, some extra
money, but also really give thatloyalty to our customer and be
there for our customer, so we'rethere for the entire journey
with them, and that, I believe,is really kind of a big part of
the shift in what Arrival is allabout.
This community that cametogether for the first time in
(25:58):
2017 and is now the solid kindof community that the rest of
the travel industry is lookingto to learn about destination
experiences.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
For sure, and you're expanding beyond that.
I think that's one of the bigshifts for 2025 that you have
built this incredible communityof individuals around the day,
tours and experiences, and youbring a community together.
It's unique.
But you're now expanding intothe executive day, the ai forum
and and so I want and then alsowith the arrival 360, which I'm
(26:24):
particularly thrilled about ismulti-day.
Given the fact that's mybackground, douglas kindly had
brought me in to 2018 to speakin vegas about multi-day, and I
had many day tour operators cameout to me afterwards to 2018 to
speak in Vegas about multi-day,and I had many day tour
operators came out to meafterwards to figure out how
they could participate withinthe operation and product
development process to be builtinto these multi-day tour
itineraries.
So I do think it's exciting tohave both under one roof and to
(26:46):
connect them.
But let's talk a little bitabout to your point, bruce.
Take a step back, give anoverview of the week.
So, and given you played such abig part in the executive day
and this AI forum in particular,tell us how you see the week
playing out and tell us a bitabout the executive day and the
AI forum.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah, great.
So, first of all, in 2018, if Irecall, your speech or talk was
about passion travel, right,which is what Douglas's research
talks about how Gen Z,especially Gen Y that's what
they're all about is passiontravel.
So you were six or seven yearsahead of your time, dan.
(27:24):
Congratulations, because that'swhat people want now.
They want to follow theirpassion when they travel, and
that's what you were talkingabout then and that's what we're
still talking about today.
So we're starting out the eventon Monday with our executive
summit.
It was an idea we had.
It was kind of born from whereDouglas and I both came from,
(27:45):
focusrite, which is where we metand where we first got involved
in running events, et cetera,and it's very much an executive
level conference.
And it's different when youhave C-suite people that are
together in a room and they knowthey're surrounded by the other
leaders of the industry and wedon't need a C-suite title.
(28:07):
It depends on what companyyou're at, what your title might
be, but it's really about theexecutives who want to push this
industry forward being together.
We're kicking that off with akeynote from Eric Blatchford and
for those and you had EricBlatchford on the podcast, just
a short stint with him when youwere at the ATTA Elevate from
(28:30):
Denver.
I listened to that just lastweek.
It was great because Eric'sgreat and he's going to do a
keynote to kind of really lookto the future.
You know he's very much afuturist.
Those that don't know who Ericis he was one of the founding
members of Expedia, second CEOof Expedia and he's had a long
career after that of investingin travel, et cetera, et cetera.
(28:50):
So we're really excited to havehim kick off.
And then he's going tocoordinate a panel discussion
including Joe Pine, which addsjust this whole other voice, the
godfather of experiences, tothat discussion, and a few other
investors who really look attravel every day Claude
Bernstein, kara Whitehill.
That panel discussion willreally kind of get things going
(29:14):
because those people are allgoing to be saying what's
happening next.
That's the whole point.
Then we're going to go into acouple roundtable discussions
where this is very muchpeer-to-peer.
Roundtable means everyone inthe room at a roundtable
facilitated discussions, sothere's no one on the stage at
that point.
It's all the discussionshappening at the table.
(29:35):
So the whole point is peer topeer, c-suite learning from each
other, talking to each other,exploring with each other,
surrounded by a couple offacilitators and people who are
really looking into the futureof the industry every day,
because they're putting theirmoney where their mouth is.
They're investing in it.
Douglas, you were very involved, of course, in the content of
(29:58):
Executive Forum and it's soimportant what we're doing with
that.
Do you have anything that youwant to add from that
perspective?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, I think you summarized it well.
I'd just add that the visionthere is to try to surface at an
industry level the kinds ofconversations that we know are
taking place boardrooms andexecutive among executive teams
across the industry, in theindustry and to have leadership
(30:32):
come together and really take astep back and think okay, what's
you know what's happening inour industry over the next five,
10 years, 15 years, like from astrategic, c-level perspective.
How is AI really going totransform our industry from, you
know, from the back office, toactually delivering experiences
(30:54):
and guides, the changes that aretaking place in weather and
climate, which is already havinga real, direct impact among
operators, especially inSouthern Europe but elsewhere.
What does that mean for productstrategy and the rise of
platforms and OTAs, which hasbeen such a huge and impactful
(31:18):
topic across the industry,especially because there's no
part of travel that is asfragmented and complex some of
the larger ones, and thatcreates an amazing kind of
breeding ground of opportunityfor platforms that can come in
(31:40):
and simplify things forconsumers.
But it adds a whole host ofcomplicating business factors
that I think that just aboutevery operator has to, you know,
has to contend with.
So it's.
And then there's the future ofexperiences and how people are
traveling and how that's howthat's shifting.
So it's, it's these, it's a,it's a day to spend thinking
(32:00):
about the industry 10, 15 yearsout and and connecting with uh
fellow, uh leaders to begin tocreate a, you know, a map.
And one of our intents is thatwe will generate from all of
those industry conversations,which will also look at a range
of things like just, for example, there's no industry
(32:23):
associations for professionalstandards or best practices.
You have local associations incertain cities, but there's lots
of challenges there.
So we'll generate an output ofsome of those challenges and
perhaps that can spur otherdevelopments in our industry to,
you know, raise the bar andcreate a better future for
(32:43):
experiences, known as experiencestrategists, which until I met
them, I didn't know that was athing, but it very much is, and
they're at the top of the heap.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Phil Pine's actually part of their group, which is
how we met them, and they'regoing to be facilitating the
whole day.
So the whole day is all aboutthe people in the room working
together, that whole.
You know, arrival in general ispeer to peer and this is peer
to peer of the executive suite.
Basically, let's move on toMulti-Day, which you're helping
us because you are the man forMulti-Day and you know everyone
(33:22):
for Multi-Day and you've beenhelping us.
You know, really try to buildthat program, along with getting
a lot of support from TourRadarand Travis Pittman, their CEO
in general, really reach out tothe industry.
They're doing their ownAdventure Together event the day
before Arrival, actually thesame day as the Executive Summit
that Monday and we are lookingto really bring multi-day into
(33:48):
the world of Arrival because,let's face it, our experiences
in a multi-day travel experienceis not that far off from a
one-day travel experience and wethink it makes a lot of sense
to bring them together.
We had a great multi-day eventin 2021.
It just happened to be onlinebecause it was 2021.
So we're really looking forwardto that and integrating that
(34:10):
into Arrival 360 in October.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
It's a monumental development.
From my point of view, it makesthis really a landmark event
for the wider travel industry toembrace the opportunity to go
to Arrival, because I've alwaysseen benefits as being a
multi-day tour operator in mybackground of attending Arrival
and now all of a sudden it'sgoing to unlock a lot more
(34:35):
multi-day tour brands that willsee the benefit that I was
seeing then.
But the more that actuallyattend the conference, the
better the content.
And also this is where theinteresting stat when Douglas
and I were together at ITBearlier this year, one of the
stats they had shared.
They do this daily newsbriefing and one of the things
that highlighted was that daytours that group travel has
(34:57):
overtaken independent travel asa percentage of.
And why is that happening?
Obviously, the rise in solotravelers, solo female travelers
, is one of the big trends, andsolo female travelers are often
looking to travel with a group.
There's been a huge rise infemale led tour operators and
female-specific travel, evencompanies like Intrepid that I
know will be there that runfemale-specific trips to places
(35:19):
like Morocco, and so there'smany reasons why group tours are
thriving, weroad being a greatexample that both of you guys
know and a number of differentcompanies that are going to be
there, from Globus to the TravelCorporation brands and all
these operators that areavailability booked on Tor Radar
, because Tor Radar iseffectively the only really
large scale OTA for multi-dayand it's amazing that we can
(35:40):
even say that in 2025.
But some of the other players,like Get your Guide and others,
are moving into this space.
So it's a really exciting timeto be in multi-day and exciting
time for Arrival to be expandinginto the multi-day category.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Well, let's face it, a lot of multi-day operators use
one-day operators to build outtheir longer itinerary.
But where do they connect?
Is it random?
Or where do they connect otherthan maybe finding those one-day
operators in the city thattheir manager is looking for?
What's the best food tour inBarcelona If they're doing a
(36:17):
multi-day tour through Spain, etcetera?
This gives them the opportunityto really meet with the one-day
operators and help put theiritineraries together.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
So just to give everyone a bit of an overview,
because I want to make sure wetouch on the AI forum as well,
Because, as far as sequence,we're like executive day on
Monday, as well as the tourradar organized adventure
gathering for those people thatare going to be in Washington
for that Tuesday, of course, AIforum that we'll come back to in
a moment.
Then Wednesday, obviously,everything really kicks off for
arrival 360, which then has theway you guys have structured it
(36:49):
is there's going to be threemain stage multi day tour
sessions where we focus on onand I will be moderating those,
which will be a real honor andthrill for me.
So we're going to have threegeneral sessions on the main
stage, at arrival, to talk aboutmulti-day.
We're going to focus ondistribution, so Travis is going
to be part of that session.
We're going to have anothersession on marketing, so
effectively marketing multi-day.
(37:11):
We'll talk about trade marketing, digital marketing and brand
all three of the stars that needto align to be successful with
marketing multi-day.
And we're going to talk abouttechnology challenges, which is
something that's absolutelyconsistent in the day tour
market as well.
But there's unique challengesto multi-day, given the size and
scale of these operators andthen there's going to be three
(37:31):
breakout sessions in addition tothat to talk about product
creating multi-day tour productthat people will actually buy.
The Connected Journey.
So having Ben San and the TourOptima guys there and then also
selling through travel agentsand travel advisors, with Shana
Zand joining us, as well as EvanFrank from Fora.
So there's a lot to lookforward to in the multi-day tour
track and I definitelyencourage you to join us for
(37:52):
Arrival for all of the content.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I love that.
We don't even have to talkabout that.
That's the multi-day.
I mean there's a little bitmore, but you just covered it.
And again, thank you forhelping us with that project and
coming on board.
And if anyone has any questionsabout what's going on, what the
hell is Arrival doing onmulti-day, just talk to Dan I
think it's dan attraveltrendspodcastcom.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, feel free to reach out.
And Kimberly, who is obviouslyworking with you closely on this
as well, who's been inmulti-day for many years, she's
great to work with.
She's been doing a lot of thesponsorship, and so there's a
great team that's been comingtogether to make sure the
multi-day tour is wellrepresented.
We've got the right speakers,the right topics and I think
(38:39):
it'll become a core part ofarrival going forward, because I
think a lot of these operatorsthat listen to this podcast,
from Colette to Tauk, there's somany not only large-scale
multi-day tour operators, butthere's many emerging, smaller
multi-day tour operators as wellthat are getting started.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well, yeah, the last research, Douglas said there was
, I think, 100,000, and otherresearch said 10,000.
It's somewhere between 10,000and 100,000 multi-day operators
and we're doing more research onwhat's going on with multi-day
specifically.
We won't have all the resultsby the event, but we'll be
publishing those results,probably Q1 in 26.
(39:11):
We were looking at what we needto do to have the best event in
DC and how can we not really godeep into AI?
We've had AI since.
If Gen AI started with ChatGPTin November of whatever year
that was, it was that March thatwe had our first AI session
that kind of blew everyone'sdoors.
(39:33):
A guy named Mark Mechie bleweveryone's doors with his
keynote, and so we've been doingAI since it came out.
Gen AI came out with ChatGPT andI'd say we were doing five or
six sessions at our last event.
But we really wanted to gofurther because the industry
(39:53):
needs to.
There are other AI events, butnone that focus on destination
experiences.
So we wanted to make sure wehad content for our typical
audience of tours, activities,attractions, experiences,
one-day experiences for DMOsbecause that's a very important
part of the overall segment, ofcourse, and they all need to
work together and for themulti-day operators.
(40:15):
So we went and got a group ofexperts in those segments.
You know yourself and Travisfor the multi-day, christian
Watts and Tony Karn who used tohead up Urban Adventures for
Intrepid for the experiencessector, ventures for Intrepid
(40:36):
for the experiences sector,joshua Ryan-Saha, and you
mentioned Jeanette Rausch thatis head of Brand USA's AI
efforts for the DMO sector, aswell as CA Clark from Miles
Partnerships.
We have this committee, thisgroup of people that are helping
to put on the best content wecan for the sector.
What's interesting is we mightknow today what we think we're
(40:59):
going to talk about, but Octoberis still a couple months away
and there's going to be some newdevelopments.
So we're going to make sure westay on top of all of it and
we're going to you know we'llhave.
We mentioned Brendan Blissbefore.
All of us know Brendan verywell and what Propella is doing
to make sure that search anddiscoverability as it moves from
just Google and Bing, forexample, to the LLMs and what's
(41:23):
going on with how the LLMs areinteracting with SEO etc.
And really make sure that theaudience understands what they
need to do to be discoverable,because it's not the same as it
was.
You know that's just one example.
We have another friend of ours,tani Perry, who's going to come
and talk about the key tools,because the tools are always
(41:45):
changing and not just here arethe tools, but how do you use
them, and you know, play, showand tell, and we want to make
sure it's very show and tellinteractive.
We're going to have somedebates, we're going to have
some teams that build touroperators pretty much on the fly
using these tools.
So really looking at how anyonethat comes to this event can
(42:06):
put AI into effect the next dayafter the event and go, because
if they don't they're going tobe left behind after the event
and go, because if they don't,they're going to be left behind.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, and just to add some context too, for both our
listeners and also the overallAI forum for destination
experiences, is that of course,we have our AI summit at the end
of October.
Most of our listeners are fullyaware of that.
Bruce and I and Douglas werechatting about how best to
collaborate on this becauseessentially, there's a key
difference between the two.
One, travel Trends.
Our AI summit is virtual and soyou can obviously attend
(42:39):
anywhere, and that's intentional, based on the success we had
last year, to keep it in thatformat so that we can have
speakers and presenters andattendees around the world,
across the entire travelindustry.
So the whole theme for us ishow AI is impacting the entire
travel industry.
So, from air theme for us ishow AI is impacting the entire
travel industry, so from air tocruise, to tour operators, to
travel agencies, and Bruce isactually going to be doing a
(43:01):
session at our conferencespecifically on tours and
activities.
So Tani and Christian Wattswill be part of his session and
what they're doing.
And Bruce had reached out to meand it's actually interesting
timing because I was togetherwith Douglas at ITB at the time
and I saw the sessions thatDouglas and I were doing in the
morning about product and theywere very well attended and
people were enjoying thesessions.
But the AI sessions in theafternoon, the room they had was
(43:23):
clearly far too small.
It was lined up like at least100 deep on either side with
people that couldn't get in andthe only people that could
eventually get in is whensomeone had to go.
A few people would quickly subin and these AI sessions some
were valuable.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I was one of those people.
I didn't bother waiting in line.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
You just pushed yourself in.
But I said to Bruce right afterI'm like there is an appetite
and an interest here.
People want to know how it'sgoing to affect their career,
they want to know how it's goingto affect their companies and
it absolutely justifies a fullday on its own to have these big
conversations on the Tuesday.
So you've obviously given quitea few highlights and a bit of
an overview there too, bruce, ofwhat to expect on the Tuesday.
(44:00):
But I also want to highlightthat, going back to the, you can
attend for one day or multipledays.
You can attend the AI forum onthe Tuesday and actually get a
ticket, a combo ticket that willtake you through Arrival 360.
You can actually get a 10% offdiscount.
I'll put the code in that wehave.
It's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C, but Iwill post that because I don't
(44:20):
know if you want to rewind andget that.
But basically, I encourage youto attend both and be a part of
the AI day, because it's soimportant to understand what's
happening with those tools andtechnology and how it's.
So I think it makes sense tocall it out specifically.
You mentioned some of thespeakers.
What are some of the other?
Ultimately, bruce, what are youlooking for year one for the AI
(44:43):
forum?
What are you looking for theoutcome to be?
What are you the peoplelistening to this trying to
debate?
Should I attend?
What do you want them to beable to walk away from this
session with?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Sure, I talked about a couple of things, but I'll add
one is distribution right,which is one of the most
important topics in our industry.
It's what everyone always talksabout.
I want more direct business,right, like that's a very much a
theme for most operators, butthey have to work with OTAs if
(45:14):
they want enough business, right?
So there's that channel mix andit's always the yin and yang of
our industry.
It's why we have Viator, getyour Guide and Airbnb on the
main stage telling us about whatthey're up to, because all the
operators need those channels tohelp them fill their tours, et
cetera.
But at the same time, they wantmore direct business.
(45:36):
What's going to happen when AIcomes in?
There's going to be a debate ofwell, will that push more
business to direct or will thatpush more business to third
party?
No one knows right now, andthen there might be other
distributors that are coming outof the woodwork that no one
knows how that's going to work.
(45:56):
Is OpenAI or Perplexity goingto do a deal with one of those
other third parties?
I mean Perplexity and Viatoralready announced some kind of
deal a few months ago.
I don't know about you guys.
I haven't seen the result ofthat yet.
But that's why third partieshave an advantage, because they
have money to do deals like that, and Bruce's Bicycle Tours is
(46:19):
never going to have money to doa deal like that, but maybe
Bruce's Bicycle Tours has otherways.
He can use AI to drive directbill bookings.
So we're just going to discussthat and debate that and
everyone needs to understand howto make sure their position for
that change, those changes thatare coming.
The thing is, no one knows forsure, but you've got to at least
(46:41):
be thinking about it andunderstand what questions to be
asking and what you can do today, because there's things you can
do today for sure.
So we want that.
I would say that's one of thekeys is understanding that.
That, along with the sessionthat's going to be talking about
search and discoverability,that is again right on that
topic.
You know it's not quitedistribution, but it's very
strongly related.
(47:03):
The other takeaways are going tobe toolkits right, the one I
just mentioned a few minutes agothat Tani is going to present.
But also we're going to have anhour and a half long session
where people are going to rotatebetween different tables.
Each table will be some kind oftoolkit that they will be
exploring with five 10 people ata time in a very intimate
(47:26):
setting, so that I can sit downand talk to an expert and say,
oh, that's the tool, and that'sjust not the name of it, but
that's how I can use it.
It's just a really quickunderstanding of it, but that's
all it takes.
It's kind of like snowboardingright, like you can learn new
stuff in a day or two.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I would just add on that piece that, while there's a
lot of the big trends,discussions which are certainly
important around the impact ofAI on experiences and jobs and
that will continue in the roleof distribution but I think,
especially for a lot ofoperators and marketing
(48:04):
directors and just practitionerswho are in the day-to-day of
running the business, I think areally key piece of the
roundtable kind of toolkitformat that Bruce was talking
about and it's something thatwe've been doing at our events
now for a couple of years ishaving truly hands-on sessions
where you're going to sit downat a roundtable with a handful
(48:26):
of people and an expert and youcan just work on prompt
engineering for social mediaposts and begin to put a plan
together.
Then you go to the next tableand you can just work on prompt
engineering for social mediaposts and begin to put a plan
together.
Then you go to the next tableand you can do a session just on
prompt engineering and designfor product descriptions.
Then you can go to anothertable and look at some tools for
data and analytics and how tobegin to really set that up.
(48:48):
Then you're going to go to thenext table if you want to and
work with some experts inchatbot deployment and training
GPTs for customer service.
So there's a lot of the sexyhigh-level debates and
discussions which are always apart of the event, but at the
same time, we want people tocome away with okay, I can bring
(49:11):
this back to my office the nextday, get to work, you know, on
this piece.
You know on this piece and thisapplies, you know to, to the
whole event.
I mean, we're there's so manychanges that are taking place
and new technologies around,like pricing is a huge issue in
dynamic pricing and productdesign and and so how do we
bring like my goal is attendee.
(49:33):
They're heading back to theiroffice the next week on Monday
and they've got a list of fiveto 10 things that they can
immediately action and acrosstheir organization to move
things forward.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, no, I'm thrilled.
I am particularly excited forthe fact that, for those people
who are listening to this, Ihear so many colleagues that
their roles are being impactedor part of the reasons they're
going to attend our event andwhy I encourage you to attend
your event as well, is the factthat you have a much stronger
competitive advantage in yourrole and your company by
(50:07):
understanding what's happeningwith AI.
And when you look at the costof this, if you're a non-member
it's $399, like $400 to come andattend this AI forum is great
value.
If you're attending the event,it's $239.
If you're at the executivecenter, it's included, which is
why I'm going to be there fromMonday to Friday and I always
immensely benefit from thecontent and I think Douglas
(50:29):
knows that because myrelationship with both of you
guys.
I always come to the event forthe content.
A lot of people go for thenetworking and there's benefits
to both.
And, bruce, I know you workwith a lot of different partners
and people come for all thesemassive networking opportunities
.
So there will be that as wellat the AI forum, given the
speakers that are there and theintentionality that other people
are coming to that event with.
(50:50):
They want to connect with otherpeople that are learning this
space, that are doing reallycool innovative things, that are
going to be kind of leading thecharge.
So I see many benefits toattending.
I'm really glad you guys arehosting it this year.
But just to finish off, I wantto and, douglas, you always do
such a great job with this, withyour interviews, and I'm not
going to live up to nearly yourcaliber, because you always do
this great thing that I find somuch fun where you kind of go
(51:12):
with like five rapid firequestions and you give people
either or answers and you pushpeople hard on them when they
don't answer or give you astraight answer, and I love it
and you can see the audienceresponse to it.
I'm not going to quite do that,but I'm going to.
I want to leave our audiencewith two things.
I want to leave the audiencewith what is one of the big
trends you're paying attentionto in 2025, going into 2026, one
(51:34):
major trend and then what youare looking forward to most
about the week in Washington.
So, bruce, why don't we go withyou?
What is one of the big trendsyou're focused on, even if it is
AI big trends you're focused onand one of the things you're
most excited about about thatweek in Washington.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Big trends you're focused on and one of the things
you're most excited about aboutthat week in Washington.
I think the trend is luxury,whether it's for one day, but
especially for a multi-day, andit's one of the reasons I'm
really excited about gettingmulti-day involved because
there's a lot of luxuryopportunities there.
I was sitting next to a guy atlunch yesterday who's involved
with Virtuoso, for example, andthat's all about luxury and it's
(52:14):
very much one of the hottestsegments in travel overall and I
hope there's a bunch ofdiscussion about luxury at
Arrival because it's a growingsegment.
We want to make sure we'regrowing and everything about the
sector is growing, so that'sthat answer.
What was the next question?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Was what you're most looking forward to about that
week in Washington.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
The multi-day segment because it's new, fresh.
I think there's hugeopportunity for the multi-day
companies to really get to knowdistribution and tech.
Yes, torradar is the leader indistribution, but they're
certainly not the only,especially if you look a little
bit outside of digital andthere's ways that digital and
(52:57):
analog are starting to cometogether more, but the tech is
catching up, so that reallybecomes a place that other
events just aren't talking a lotabout.
(53:17):
The tech for multi-day and also, like our partners that are our
current sponsors, have, youknow, new opportunities to talk
to the multi-day operators tosell their services to, and I
think that's a really importantpart of the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, no, I totally agree and I'm still looking
forward to it.
Now Douglas has had a chance tothink through these two answers
.
So, on the major trends,because you're across a lot of
trends, but what are one of thethings that you keep coming back
to?
What is a theme that is justhas kind of dominated your mind
this year and you think is goingto be that much more important
in 26?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
And so I think the things we're having to contend
with in the short term and themedium term are profoundly
different from what we werethinking a year ago, even six
months ago, and so a rethink onthe future, across economics,
(54:15):
across consumers, acrossgeopolitics and all the
implications for our industry.
So really that's about 350trends in one, and then, for me,
always the most exciting thingit's just connecting with the
people who make this businesswhat it is.
It's the folks like MidgeyMoore from Juno Food Tours and
(54:39):
others who, just they aredelivering experiences day in,
day out.
They're creating the memories,delivering and making this
industry what it is.
They're the best part of traveland the reason people do it,
and this is not a conference forrevenue managers and bankers
(55:02):
and insurance salespeople.
This is people that are justfilled with a passion for what
they do and it's all they careabout.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, no, it certainly has come up when I did
my arrival spotlight episodes.
The most common response isthat it's the connection that
they have in person.
Like laurie timoney, who's acolleague of both of yours and
obviously co-host to experiencethis podcast with bruce.
That's her thing is like shejust wants to spend the time
meeting with people and gettingthat in-person time and, um my
one of my big highlights that Ialways look forward to is
(55:32):
Douglas's opening keynote.
I'm always like front rowtaking pictures, posting
because-.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Oh man, you're making me nervous.
Making me nervous, Put a lot oftime and effort into that.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
We don't see you the night before because you're
buried in your room rehearsingand going through your notes,
and I just always look forwardto what you share, because that,
to me, is one of the reasonsI've always attended.
So I'm looking forward to thatand I'm I'm with bruce on two
things obviously, multi-day 100and the ai forum.
I mean, that's just like.
So this is going to be alandmark week.
(56:01):
I'm super excited about it andI thank you both for the
collaboration, the partnershipthat we have, and obviously I'm
looking forward to seeing youguys in washington in september.
As far as going for moreinformation, obviously I've
mentioned the website.
There's multiple landing pages.
You can get all the information.
Anything else, you would leaveeveryone else with Douglas.
Anything else as far as forgetting more information or
(56:23):
getting prepared for Arrival 360?
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Bruce, what's our website again?
A-r-i-i-c-a-can't-a-arrivalright, arrivaltravel, yeah, with
one R, yeah, and then you justfind DC and find from there,
like you said.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
Dan NAV to the other sub-elements, and we shouldn't
forget about the highlights.
The executive summit is goingto be awesome.
The people that we already haveregistered for that are kind of
a who's who of the industry,and then other people that
aren't part of the who's who ofthe industry.
They're operators that arereally successful in what they
do and they want to be there andbe part of part of that who's
(57:02):
who and make sure they're in thediscussion and with all the
peer to peer that's going to begoing on there at that level and
with the facilitators that wehave really looking forward to
that.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
That's awesome.
Thank you, guys, and thank youfor those people who are
watching video clips of this.
You can actually see a nicelittle Canadian flag in the
background Douglas waving a nicelittle Canadian flag in the
background, which I greatlyappreciate, and your highlight
about geopolitics.
And but one of the things I didwant to say on that whole topic
this is also to my fellowcanadians and uh is that this is
(57:35):
about supporting the industryand rising above some of the
political elements that are inplay, so there's reasons why you
might hesitate traveling, butone of the things I saw, uh,
when you mentioned about theadventure, travel and trade
association, bruce, and when Iwas there in denver a few months
ago, there was concern aboutattendees and, in fact, they
were completely sold out.
Half the the attendees cameinternationally.
Almost everyone I spoke to hadsome reservations about
(57:56):
traveling to the US, butultimately they wanted to be
there to support the communitythat is travel, and so I
definitely encourage everyone totake that approach.
Join us in Washington, be apart of this.
It's going to be great for yourcareer, for your business, and
I look forward to meeting manyof the new people that are
listening to this that want torecord with me, because that
certainly has been a call out.
So if you listen to thispodcast and you book a ticket, I
(58:20):
will guarantee you a recordingon the Travel Trends event
spotlight episode at Arrival.
So that's my commitment to allof our listeners.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
How do they take advantage of that?
Because you're going to be easyto spot in the Arrival
Networking Lounge with your ownspace.
So how do they say hey, dan, Iheard this, but how do they find
you?
How do they send you a messageand say I want in, I want to be
on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
All they need to do is use the promo code register
and send me an emaildanatraveltranspod code register
and send me an email, dan, attravel trends podcast, and let
me know you're going to be thereand I will guarantee we'll make
time to record together.
But, guys, thank you again forthis.
Have a great rest of yoursummer, douglas bruce, and I
look forward to seeing you guysa month from now.
Thanks, dan thanks dan pleasurethanks so much for joining us
for this special event spotlightof the arrival event in
(59:06):
washington dc this september29th to october 3rd.
I hope you enjoyed theconversation with Bruce and
Douglas and I look forward toseeing many of you there.
Don't forget to use the promocode on our website for the 10%
off.
Homepage traveltrendspodcastcom, and I will make sure, if you
send me an email, that we booktime together and get you
included in the event spotlight.
(59:28):
Thanks again for listening andsee you all in Washington.
You know, the most exciting thing about the event
and the incredible feedback thatwe always get is just simply
the assembly of the people whoare there.
This is the 1% of theexperiences sector.
Experiences sector this is themost innovative, creative,
(00:24):
influential creators, resellers,technologists, innovators in
everything around experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello everyone and welcome to a special event
spotlight of travel trends.
This is your host, DanChristian, and in today's
episode we're going to bespeaking to Bruce Rosard and
Douglas Quimby from Arrivalabout their upcoming event in
Washington DC from September29th to October 3rd.
We have a special promo codefor our listeners of 10% off.
You can find it onTravelTrendsPodcastcom homepage
(00:55):
and everything about Arrival youcan find out at Arrival Travel.
That's Arrival with one R, butthe event kicks off on the
Monday with an executive day.
Tuesday they're doing an AIforum Wednesday.
Thursday, friday we are doingthe Arrival 360 at the event,
and the reason I say we isbecause I am actually hosting
and emceeing the multi-day tourtrack with my friends, like
(01:15):
Travis from Tour Radar, and I'mso looking forward to it.
I did a keynote many years agoat Arrival Conference.
I've been a huge fan of Arrivalfor many years and I had the
privilege to do a keynote onMulti-Day Tour and I'm thrilled
that it's now finally a mainstage track with at least six
sessions that you can lookforward to and you can find out
(01:36):
more details on the websiteabout the event and to get
involved with us, because I hopethat many tour operators take
the chance to come to Arrivalthis year for the first time and
realize all the benefits thatI've had over the years in terms
of marketing and technology anddistribution.
There's so much here formulti-day and, of course,
there's so much that they alwayscurate for all the day tour and
(01:57):
experience operators as well.
It's going to be an amazingweek and for those of you who
take advantage of the 10% offer,you can again find it on the
homepage, but the code itself isF-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C.
That's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C.
Use that promo code to bookyour ticket and get 10% off.
And when you do, send me anemail to let me know that you've
(02:20):
booked your ticket and you'regoing to be there, because I
will schedule recordings withall of those people that booked
a ticket using that promo codeand come and join us at Arrival
when I am recording podcastsover the Wednesday, thursday and
Friday.
So send me a note and we willbe doing a special event
spotlight at the event itselfand I would love to include you.
So please drop me a line, letme know if you're going to be
(02:42):
there and we'll schedule time torecord.
Now let's get right on with theshow, because there's so much
to share.
Douglas and Bruce, welcome backto Travel Trends.
So great to have you with us.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Thanks for having us, Dan.
It's great to be here.
It's always a lot of fun.
Love your podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Dan, I listen to Travel Trends all the time when
I'm walking my dog late at nightor sunset, which is my favorite
, and it's it's great to be on.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I know, and then, and then, bruce starts texting me
or calling me like oh.
I've got this dog walk idea,that dog walk idea, you got to
listen to this podcast or that.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So at least one out of every 10 of those ideas is a
good idea.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
We can, we can.
We can discuss that in ourweekly.
Sorry for that, douglas.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But, yes, Bruce, both of you guys I appreciate you've
been on the podcast before.
I definitely encourage all ofour listeners to check out any
of your individual episodes tolearn more about why you guys
are icons in the travel industryand two people that I greatly
respect and admire.
But the one thing, obviouslywith the two of you guys here,
Bruce yes, for sure, You're oneof the biggest fans of the
podcast.
I greatly appreciate that.
(03:47):
You text me, you email me,You're very active and engaged.
And so, Douglas, yes, I hopesome of those things work out,
but obviously you guys inspireme in many ways as well and I'm
certainly looking forward tobeing together for this whole
week in Washington.
But before we get into that,give us a little bit of context
of where you guys are.
I know, Douglas, you'retypically based in Atlanta with
your family.
Is that where we find you today?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And how's your summer ?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
been, it's been really hot Dan Really really hot
.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Hot Lana lives up to its name, right.
Hot, hot and humid, hot andhumid.
Outside walking the dog atseven o'clock in the morning it
says it's only 70 degrees, but Icome back drenched like 87, 90%
humidity.
It's a steam bath outside, sohopefully it's a little bit
cooler where you are in Toronto,right?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, Well, actually we're feeling the heat a little
bit, given the summertime, but Ihad an amazing travel
experience to Europe this summerand I know you guys both travel
a lot.
Any other travel highlights foryou this summer, Douglas?
You take some time off with thefamily.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, we have a lot of family down in Florida, so
it's not nearly as exciting asprobably most of your listeners
this summer, but, yeah, justlazy time with the family in
Florida, which is actually quitenice For sure.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Exactly Time to pause and reflect and then get ready
for what's going to be anincredibly busy fall and
preparing for 2026.
And, bruce, obviously you'rebased in Colorado, but you're
not in Colorado today, you're inWashington.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I am in Washington DC , got here for a really cool
conference called Align AI andthe biggies were here.
I mean, we had OpenAI,microsoft, google plus, plus
plus speaking and it was justgreat to really get absorbed
into that, especially as wethink about and prepare for our
AI forum that's going to behappening at Arrival this year.
(05:35):
And yep, so I'm in DC, eventhough Arrival DC is not
actually in DC, it's in Maryland, but that's a whole other story
.
And it is hot and humid here.
I in Maryland, but that's awhole nother story.
And it is hot and humid here.
I left the East Coast.
One of the main reasons was toget away from the humidity.
In Colorado.
There's no such thing.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So looking forward to getting back there.
That's cool.
And then, one thing I alsowanted to highlight too, since
Bruce and I also, just likeDouglas and I, were great
friends and we obviously knoweach other's families and our
kids are both into baseball.
You and I are huge baseballfans, of course, bruce, and we
talked about that on our podcast.
You're from Philadelphia, and Iwent to Cooperstown with my son
about five years ago when hewas 12.
And we had that epic experienceof playing Cooperstown, going
(06:14):
to the Hall of Fame, and, as Iunderstand it, you're heading
there tomorrow with your son, isthat right?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
We are.
We're heading to the BaseballHall of Fame tomorrow.
That's going to be super fun.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Although no one that's listening.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
knows what day tomorrow is?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, people will be coming up and they'll be asking
you about it when they see youin Washington.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
So that's fantastic.
Looking forward to it, cool.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And a famous Philly just got inducted, Dick Allen,
who is one of the more you know,really misunderstood players in
Philadelphia Phillies history.
So I'll be looking forward toseeing his plaque and his story.
All right, but let's talk about.
Let's talk about travel.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let's specifically talk about the reason that you
guys are in Washington or not.
So, bruce, let me ask you thatquestion, since you're in
Washington at the moment.
This conference itself is notactually in Washington.
It's across the river, inMaryland.
So tell everyone why Washingtonslash Maryland this year for
the Arrival 360 conference.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know we get the question all the time like why
don't you go here, here or here?
And since we started Arrival itwas Vegas, orlando, vegas,
orlando, vegas, orlando.
And the reason is because thecheapest place to run a
conference is Vegas, unless yougo to some of the really
(07:32):
expensive hotels, but even stillyou get a lot more for your
money there and on the easternside of the country it's Orlando
and that's where we startedrunning our events.
But once we got moreestablished people said let's go
somewhere else and we wanted togo somewhere else.
And when you search around fora 1,000-person conference it's
(07:54):
not easy to find the right spots.
Like we're kind of in themiddle of we're not big enough
for a big conference center andwe're too big for most hotels.
In the Washington DC areathere's a hotel, the Gaylord
National Harbor.
That's a great hotel, greatvenue overall for arrival and it
happens to be across the riverfrom DC, so from the hotel
(08:17):
beautiful views of DC, but it'sin National Harbor, maryland.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, but, bruce, I do think a few people would
probably say would probably saythey also kind of like to go to
Vegas and Orlando.
It's not just because it'scheap.
I mean, there are some prettycool things to do there and
actually some pretty amazingoperators and attractions.
But, yeah, it's always great toget out to different
destinations.
(08:42):
I mean DC too.
I mean holy smokes.
But yeah, it's also it's alwaysgreat to get out to different
destinations.
I mean DC too.
I mean holy smokes.
There's so many incredibleoperators there and so much
history.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And yes, so great place and it's just hard, like
price-wise.
Why don't we go to New York?
Why don't we go to Chicago?
Because it just doesn't fit thebudget of most of our attendees
or what we'd be able to do, butanother, another common.
You know, if you can look at it, we used to always do our
European event in Berlin becausewe wanted to be timed closely
to ITB, and we made the decisionthis year to go to Valencia in
(09:15):
Spain instead, and that turnedout to be a phenomenal decision
and people loved it, and we'regoing back to Valencia next for
our next European event.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, you brought up an important point there.
That I do want to highlight toall of our listeners as well is
that since the beginning ofArrival and the opportunity I've
had to attend the conferences,speak and collaborate with you
guys, one of the things that'salways stood out to me is that
the people that come togetherfor an Arrival conference you
don't typically see at the otherbig conferences.
You guys have carved out areally incredible niche, not
(09:44):
only within the wholein-destination experiences and
what I truly agree that everytime Douglas says it he's heard
me mention it on stage that itreally is, as far as I'm
concerned, the best part oftravel and the reason why we
travel and the types of peoplethat come together for this a
lot of smaller operators, thatthis is affordable, it's
accessible to them and so it'svery important.
(10:05):
So actually it's accessible tothem and so it's very important.
So I actually it's worthhighlighting that and obviously
I've enjoyed the conferencesbeing in Orlando or Las Vegas or
San Diego, but I'm excitedabout Washington and being in a
new destination, becauseobviously it'll bring other
people together tour radarsholding an event there, so
there's new, fresh things thatcan happen when you're in a new
destination.
So lots of reasons.
I'm looking forward to it andobviously it's a little closer
(10:25):
for me being in Toronto.
But, douglas, one of the thingsI want to bring you back in the
conversation on and then we'llgo back to Bruce to talk about
the executive day and the AIforum because of this epic week
that you guys have planned.
But tell us a little bit aboutyour vision and overall view for
Arrival 360 this year.
A little bit about the speakers, some of the content.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
What excites you in preparing for this big event?
Well, so Arrival is it's allabout the well, you said it, I
mean the best part of travel,right?
So, creators of experiences, sotours, activities, attractions,
events, all of the things thattravelers do when they get there
and why they go.
I mean, we have a lot that wecan talk about.
(11:10):
On the content, I'd just sayhonestly for me, the most
exciting thing about the eventand the incredible feedback that
we always get is just simplythe assembly of the people who
are there.
(11:31):
This is the 1% of theexperiences sector.
This is the most innovative,creative, influential creators,
resellers, technologists,innovators in everything around
experiences.
And it's not just you know, toyour point too.
(11:52):
It's not just the largestcompanies Like, of course we've
got, you know, leadership fromlike Viator and Get your Guide
and Kluk, and you know Airbnb iscoming and a lot of these
bigger brands.
But Klook and Airbnb is comingand a lot of these bigger brands
.
But a lot of the reallyinteresting and, for me
(12:12):
personally, inspiring attendeesand work that's being done is by
people who are just creatingexperiences that are having an
enormous impact on our industryand on local communities.
We have Craig Dodge, who's amarketing director from the Far
Circus in Cambodia, which hasbeen a school that has.
(12:36):
It's a social enterprise.
It brings in underprivilegedyouth from across Cambodia,
privileged youth from acrossCambodia trains them to be
circus performers, and severalof their graduates have gone on
to university In fact, severalin the United States.
We're hoping to have a fewattend in DC, and so he's going
(12:57):
to go share the story.
Not just about this, and it'salso one of the top attractions
in Cambodia as well, right, soit's not just about kind of the
business, but it's also aboutthe local impact that a lot of
these businesses can have.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned Craig
Dodge because, by virtue of himspeaking at your conference in
Bangkok and Bruce telling meabout Craig, we actually had him
on the Travel Trends podcastand he was such a fascinating
guy to interview because he's'sAmerican, has lived in Southeast
Asia, for you know, for 10 or15 years and has worked at this.
You know this nonprofitorganization that has helped so
many kids out of poverty andalso really kind of help rebuild
(13:34):
a community after you know thethe tragic events that unfolded
in Cambodia, and so it's it'sit's a remarkable story.
I've been to that circus.
I didn't know him at the time,but I was able to cover that
when I chatted with him.
So these are the interestingpeople that you bring to an
Arrival Conference.
Tell us a little bit about someof the other big speakers.
Obviously, you've got Tao Taofrom Get your Guide.
You've got Papine from Viator.
(13:55):
You have obviously the bigheavy hitters.
But I know how much time andeffort, douglas, you put into
curating speakers and thecontent.
Having been on the other sideof multiple conversations with
you to figure out you knowshould I speak or what should I
speak about, how's the best fit.
You put so much care andattention into the content and
you bring together some reallyinteresting people, so who else
might you draw out that peoplewill benefit from hearing from
(14:16):
at the event?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
You know, I love, I always love and hate this
question because there's 60-plusspeakers and I think all of
them are.
There's a reason why we choseall of them right and invited
all of them to speak, but here'syour favorites.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I just want to know your favorites, oh great.
Well, Dan, you're always myfavorite, no so look I just,
maybe I can walk through a few,no.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So look, I just maybe I can walk through a few.
But so the mission of the event, fundamentally, is has never
changed and it's always abouthelping this industry grow.
And how do we do that?
We bring the industry together,we help them connect, we help
them understand what the heck isgoing on and, frankly, in 2025,
this has been, in some respects, you know, harder than than
(15:04):
ever.
The, you know, most of ourattendees for the US event will
be from North America.
Typically, it's about 65%, 70%,and about two-thirds are on the
supply side.
So, operators, of course, theUS travel industry has been, you
know, one of the most what'sthe right word?
Kind of uncertain, right orvolatile, and so we've heard
(15:28):
from a lot of operators thatit's been a very challenging
year, especially if you are,excuse me, very focused on and
dependent on that inboundinternational tourist,
especially if you're trying toserve Canadian inbound arrivals,
for example.
So, and there's been a lot ofuncertainty around the economy.
So a fundamental mission at ourevent is always okay what's
(15:53):
going on in the industry?
What are the big changes andchallenges that are underway
that our industry is facing, andhow do we assemble and navigate
through those and come out onthe other side, you know, with a
really strong you know positionfor our industry.
So it's really about engagingin a conversation.
(16:15):
That and this is the work thatwe do all year with our research
and content to try tounderstand what's going on, and
so it's like a.
It is like a live conversationresearch project, you know
consulting, you know interactivetown hall that takes place, you
know, over several days tofigure out.
(16:37):
You know what's going on.
So I'll highlight, you know,just a few things that I think
are really important.
You know, in addition to the AIforum which Bruce has taken the
lead in designing, which iskind of a pre-day on the 30th of
September, on the Tuesday,where it's just all things kind
of AI and applications forexperiences, businesses at a
(16:59):
very practical and verytechnical level, where you'll
get to sit down and actually dowork with experts on all sorts
of facets of applying AI intoyour business.
We'll also have some really keysessions on and some work we're
doing, for example, withBrendan Bliss at Propellic on.
You know, how are AI overviewsand AI mode and chat?
(17:22):
How is this transforming theway travelers are finding and
discovering experiences?
How do operators andexperienced providers need to
kind of rethink their productand marketing.
So we'll have a few sessions onthat.
There are some reallyextraordinary changes taking
place in just the travelerorientation, around the reason
(17:47):
to travel.
So you know, we've seen areally big shift.
I think of this as like aseismic kind of a generational
shift from beingdestination-driven to
experience-driven.
And we especially see this withyounger travelers, where it's
less about I want to go here,what do we do there To I want to
(18:07):
go do this thing, where's thebest place to go do this?
So increasingly, trip planningand the travel decision is being
experience led.
And how do we as an industrycapitalize on that?
We have a keynote speaker thateverybody should know, joe Pine,
(18:28):
who's considered the I mean,it's like the godfather or the
grandfather, I'm not sure whichof the experience economy and
the godfather.
But there's an overview articleon the Harvard Business Review
website which everyone can lookup, on the experience economy,
where he talks about theprogression of economic value
from commodity all the waythrough experience.
(18:48):
His next big piece of work ison the transformation economy
and transformational travel.
He'll be speaking about thatand what that means and what
travelers are looking for andwhy it's such a big deal,
especially with the youngergeneration in particular of more
affluent travelers who havealready kind of gone to Paris
(19:09):
and seen the Eiffel Tower withtheir parents when they were
kids and now they want kind ofthat next experience.
And then just a couple of otherthings that are really
important.
One is just navigating thechaos and we have a lot of
sessions that are going on.
I'd say it's a question that I,in every conversation I have
(19:30):
with an operator, anybody in theindustry today, the first thing
is what's going on?
Like what?
Are you seeing what's happeningin the market?
Are you, is everybody up?
Are they down?
Like what's going on?
And it's a really hard thing toreally capture because there is
not.
Most of the companies in thisindustry are private, data is
(19:50):
not readily available and shared, so it's a lot of this people
trying to figure out what'shappening, especially
challenging.
This year We'll be talking alot about that and discussing
some of the big themes that arethings that operators in the
industry should be doing to toadapt.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And that'll be coursing through a lot of our
conversations over the over thefull week.
Well, one of the things thereas far as what's happening, by
the event, you'll have at leastsome of the top line responses
from the global operatorlandscape survey that goes into
the field first week of August,right?
So we're serving thousands andthousands of operators from
around the world to find outwhat's happening from their
perspective.
(20:35):
So we'll have a much betteridea in a few months.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, for sure, bruce , and I'm just going to
highlight a few of my favorites.
I'm going to call them out sothat they actually know just how
much I love them.
Joe Pine is one of those.
He closed out season five ofour podcast.
It was extraordinary.
He just did a Substack postabout that experience and how
excited he is for Arrival.
So it was really nicely how hetied it together with his new
book coming out, because he wascertainly an inspiration to me
(20:59):
getting into this industry,because the timing of his book
and myself graduating university, you know it was a source of
inspiration to many of us.
So for sure he's the godfatherof this category, of
highlighting the whole idea ofexperiences.
I mean it was like theexperience economy.
He's the one that coined theterm, and so Joe Pine.
But you've introduced so manyfantastic speakers over the
years, like Vince Cadillac fromMeow Wolf, which is one of the
(21:22):
most extraordinary sessions thatI've had the privilege to see
at an arrival conference, and Iloved his and I came up to you.
I remember that session.
I was just like this wasamazing.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, it was almost like a meditation, I mean it was
.
I mean I felt like he had.
He had put the audience in atrance.
I mean it was quite and ifanyone, yeah, definitely go, go,
go, experience some Meow Wolfexperiences.
The space in Vegas is justunbelievable.
You can even see some videos ofyou know where he's Vince is
(21:51):
amazing.
Does a lot of this stuff onYouTube and TikTok to get a
sense of just howtransformational some of those
experiences can be?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
They recently announced their next location,
New York City.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Oh, is that right?
I hadn't heard that.
Yeah, because it's Omega Martfor all of our listeners in
Vegas.
Definitely make that part ofyour next trip to Vegas.
Have a trippy experience atOmega Mart.
But just highlighting thatthese are some of the people.
Now, when I was looking at theagenda, you've had people before
like Jeff Walker fromUndercover Donut Tours I was
also one I actually reallyenjoyed, and so I was just
trying to call out the fact thatit's not necessarily about the
(22:28):
most you know.
You've got Jeanette Roush,who's going to be amazing for
brand USA like their SVP andchief AI officer Like that'll be
awesome, but, um, but you'vegot people that are like chief
eating officers, like MidjiMoore Um, you've.
You've also got AkilahMcConnell, who does like I, also
a chief eating officer.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
And she, by the way she's, you know she's she's
going to do something that Ithink a lot, a lot of people in
our industry are have beenthinking about.
You know, there's been anextraordinary shift in case you
hadn't noticed in the politicaldiscourse in the United States
and what that means for thepublic conversation and what it
(23:08):
means for topics like diversityand inclusive history, and
there's never been well, Ishouldn't say never, but
certainly in my experienceobserving politics in the United
States, it certainly feels moredivided than ever in my
lifetime.
And she's going to tackle avery difficult topic on the main
(23:30):
stage of how do you bringpeople together on a tour, how
do you navigate really difficult, potentially controversial and
divisive topics, how do youdeliver authenticity and
navigate truth anddisinformation and
misinformation An essentialtopic.
(23:50):
And she's got, I think, in somerespects, one of the toughest
yeah, one of the one of thetallest orders for the main
stage at Arrival this year.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And Akilah might still be the position of best
speaker in history at an Arrivalevent.
Right, that first one she didthat was on a similar topic, her
tour that followed in MLK Jr'sfootsteps, and if she's going to
top that, it's going to besomething to see for sure, yeah.
(24:20):
But I think we should take astep back, dan.
This event that I was atyesterday in DC talked about
like airline ancillaries, mostlybeing how much they're making
on their ancillaries, whichbillions of dollars.
Now, what's their ancillary?
It's bags and seats.
Right, that's not ancillary, itjust means they push their
(24:42):
airfares to different pieces.
But airlines, hotels, kind ofthe standard OTAs, are all
really looking at experiencesnow, as and and what I think
they realized, not an ancillarybut another product that can
help build loyalty for theircustomers and that can make the
destination experience a betterexperience for their customer.
(25:07):
And the rest of the travelindustry is really kind of
coming along now where seven oreight years ago when we started
Arrival, it wasn't there.
So when you have airlines,hotels, dmos, travel agents or
travel advisors that are allreally saying what's going on
with experiences, how do we getinto that world, how do we
(25:28):
resell that and not just makesome money on it, some extra
money, but also really give thatloyalty to our customer and be
there for our customer, so we'rethere for the entire journey
with them, and that, I believe,is really kind of a big part of
the shift in what Arrival is allabout.
This community that cametogether for the first time in
(25:58):
2017 and is now the solid kindof community that the rest of
the travel industry is lookingto to learn about destination
experiences.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
For sure, and you're expanding beyond that.
I think that's one of the bigshifts for 2025 that you have
built this incredible communityof individuals around the day,
tours and experiences, and youbring a community together.
It's unique.
But you're now expanding intothe executive day, the ai forum
and and so I want and then alsowith the arrival 360, which I'm
(26:24):
particularly thrilled about ismulti-day.
Given the fact that's mybackground, douglas kindly had
brought me in to 2018 to speakin vegas about multi-day, and I
had many day tour operators cameout to me afterwards to 2018 to
speak in Vegas about multi-day,and I had many day tour
operators came out to meafterwards to figure out how
they could participate withinthe operation and product
development process to be builtinto these multi-day tour
itineraries.
So I do think it's exciting tohave both under one roof and to
(26:46):
connect them.
But let's talk a little bitabout to your point, bruce.
Take a step back, give anoverview of the week.
So, and given you played such abig part in the executive day
and this AI forum in particular,tell us how you see the week
playing out and tell us a bitabout the executive day and the
AI forum.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Yeah, great.
So, first of all, in 2018, if Irecall, your speech or talk was
about passion travel, right,which is what Douglas's research
talks about how Gen Z,especially Gen Y that's what
they're all about is passiontravel.
So you were six or seven yearsahead of your time, dan.
(27:24):
Congratulations, because that'swhat people want now.
They want to follow theirpassion when they travel, and
that's what you were talkingabout then and that's what we're
still talking about today.
So we're starting out the eventon Monday with our executive
summit.
It was an idea we had.
It was kind of born from whereDouglas and I both came from,
(27:45):
focusrite, which is where we metand where we first got involved
in running events, et cetera,and it's very much an executive
level conference.
And it's different when youhave C-suite people that are
together in a room and they knowthey're surrounded by the other
leaders of the industry and wedon't need a C-suite title.
(28:07):
It depends on what companyyou're at, what your title might
be, but it's really about theexecutives who want to push this
industry forward being together.
We're kicking that off with akeynote from Eric Blatchford and
for those and you had EricBlatchford on the podcast, just
a short stint with him when youwere at the ATTA Elevate from
(28:30):
Denver.
I listened to that just lastweek.
It was great because Eric'sgreat and he's going to do a
keynote to kind of really lookto the future.
You know he's very much afuturist.
Those that don't know who Ericis he was one of the founding
members of Expedia, second CEOof Expedia and he's had a long
career after that of investingin travel, et cetera, et cetera.
(28:50):
So we're really excited to havehim kick off.
And then he's going tocoordinate a panel discussion
including Joe Pine, which addsjust this whole other voice, the
godfather of experiences, tothat discussion, and a few other
investors who really look attravel every day Claude
Bernstein, kara Whitehill.
That panel discussion willreally kind of get things going
(29:14):
because those people are allgoing to be saying what's
happening next.
That's the whole point.
Then we're going to go into acouple roundtable discussions
where this is very muchpeer-to-peer.
Roundtable means everyone inthe room at a roundtable
facilitated discussions, sothere's no one on the stage at
that point.
It's all the discussionshappening at the table.
(29:35):
So the whole point is peer topeer, c-suite learning from each
other, talking to each other,exploring with each other,
surrounded by a couple offacilitators and people who are
really looking into the futureof the industry every day,
because they're putting theirmoney where their mouth is.
They're investing in it.
Douglas, you were very involved, of course, in the content of
(29:58):
Executive Forum and it's soimportant what we're doing with
that.
Do you have anything that youwant to add from that
perspective?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, I think you summarized it well.
I'd just add that the visionthere is to try to surface at an
industry level the kinds ofconversations that we know are
taking place boardrooms andexecutive among executive teams
across the industry, in theindustry and to have leadership
(30:32):
come together and really take astep back and think okay, what's
you know what's happening inour industry over the next five,
10 years, 15 years, like from astrategic, c-level perspective.
How is AI really going totransform our industry from, you
know, from the back office, toactually delivering experiences
(30:54):
and guides, the changes that aretaking place in weather and
climate, which is already havinga real, direct impact among
operators, especially inSouthern Europe but elsewhere.
What does that mean for productstrategy and the rise of
platforms and OTAs, which hasbeen such a huge and impactful
(31:18):
topic across the industry,especially because there's no
part of travel that is asfragmented and complex some of
the larger ones, and thatcreates an amazing kind of
breeding ground of opportunityfor platforms that can come in
(31:40):
and simplify things forconsumers.
But it adds a whole host ofcomplicating business factors
that I think that just aboutevery operator has to, you know,
has to contend with.
So it's.
And then there's the future ofexperiences and how people are
traveling and how that's howthat's shifting.
So it's, it's these, it's a,it's a day to spend thinking
(32:00):
about the industry 10, 15 yearsout and and connecting with uh
fellow, uh leaders to begin tocreate a, you know, a map.
And one of our intents is thatwe will generate from all of
those industry conversations,which will also look at a range
of things like just, for example, there's no industry
(32:23):
associations for professionalstandards or best practices.
You have local associations incertain cities, but there's lots
of challenges there.
So we'll generate an output ofsome of those challenges and
perhaps that can spur otherdevelopments in our industry to,
you know, raise the bar andcreate a better future for
(32:43):
experiences, known as experiencestrategists, which until I met
them, I didn't know that was athing, but it very much is, and
they're at the top of the heap.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Phil Pine's actually part of their group, which is
how we met them, and they'regoing to be facilitating the
whole day.
So the whole day is all aboutthe people in the room working
together, that whole.
You know, arrival in general ispeer to peer and this is peer
to peer of the executive suite.
Basically, let's move on toMulti-Day, which you're helping
us because you are the man forMulti-Day and you know everyone
(33:22):
for Multi-Day and you've beenhelping us.
You know, really try to buildthat program, along with getting
a lot of support from TourRadarand Travis Pittman, their CEO
in general, really reach out tothe industry.
They're doing their ownAdventure Together event the day
before Arrival, actually thesame day as the Executive Summit
that Monday and we are lookingto really bring multi-day into
(33:48):
the world of Arrival because,let's face it, our experiences
in a multi-day travel experienceis not that far off from a
one-day travel experience and wethink it makes a lot of sense
to bring them together.
We had a great multi-day eventin 2021.
It just happened to be onlinebecause it was 2021.
So we're really looking forwardto that and integrating that
(34:10):
into Arrival 360 in October.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
It's a monumental development.
From my point of view, it makesthis really a landmark event
for the wider travel industry toembrace the opportunity to go
to Arrival, because I've alwaysseen benefits as being a
multi-day tour operator in mybackground of attending Arrival
and now all of a sudden it'sgoing to unlock a lot more
(34:35):
multi-day tour brands that willsee the benefit that I was
seeing then.
But the more that actuallyattend the conference, the
better the content.
And also this is where theinteresting stat when Douglas
and I were together at ITBearlier this year, one of the
stats they had shared.
They do this daily newsbriefing and one of the things
that highlighted was that daytours that group travel has
(34:57):
overtaken independent travel asa percentage of.
And why is that happening?
Obviously, the rise in solotravelers, solo female travelers
, is one of the big trends, andsolo female travelers are often
looking to travel with a group.
There's been a huge rise infemale led tour operators and
female-specific travel, evencompanies like Intrepid that I
know will be there that runfemale-specific trips to places
(35:19):
like Morocco, and so there'smany reasons why group tours are
thriving, weroad being a greatexample that both of you guys
know and a number of differentcompanies that are going to be
there, from Globus to the TravelCorporation brands and all
these operators that areavailability booked on Tor Radar
, because Tor Radar iseffectively the only really
large scale OTA for multi-dayand it's amazing that we can
(35:40):
even say that in 2025.
But some of the other players,like Get your Guide and others,
are moving into this space.
So it's a really exciting timeto be in multi-day and exciting
time for Arrival to be expandinginto the multi-day category.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Well, let's face it, a lot of multi-day operators use
one-day operators to build outtheir longer itinerary.
But where do they connect?
Is it random?
Or where do they connect otherthan maybe finding those one-day
operators in the city thattheir manager is looking for?
What's the best food tour inBarcelona If they're doing a
(36:17):
multi-day tour through Spain, etcetera?
This gives them the opportunityto really meet with the one-day
operators and help put theiritineraries together.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
So just to give everyone a bit of an overview,
because I want to make sure wetouch on the AI forum as well,
Because, as far as sequence,we're like executive day on
Monday, as well as the tourradar organized adventure
gathering for those people thatare going to be in Washington
for that Tuesday, of course, AIforum that we'll come back to in
a moment.
Then Wednesday, obviously,everything really kicks off for
arrival 360, which then has theway you guys have structured it
(36:49):
is there's going to be threemain stage multi day tour
sessions where we focus on onand I will be moderating those,
which will be a real honor andthrill for me.
So we're going to have threegeneral sessions on the main
stage, at arrival, to talk aboutmulti-day.
We're going to focus ondistribution, so Travis is going
to be part of that session.
We're going to have anothersession on marketing, so
effectively marketing multi-day.
(37:11):
We'll talk about trade marketing, digital marketing and brand
all three of the stars that needto align to be successful with
marketing multi-day.
And we're going to talk abouttechnology challenges, which is
something that's absolutelyconsistent in the day tour
market as well.
But there's unique challengesto multi-day, given the size and
scale of these operators andthen there's going to be three
(37:31):
breakout sessions in addition tothat to talk about product
creating multi-day tour productthat people will actually buy.
The Connected Journey.
So having Ben San and the TourOptima guys there and then also
selling through travel agentsand travel advisors, with Shana
Zand joining us, as well as EvanFrank from Fora.
So there's a lot to lookforward to in the multi-day tour
track and I definitelyencourage you to join us for
(37:52):
Arrival for all of the content.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I love that.
We don't even have to talkabout that.
That's the multi-day.
I mean there's a little bitmore, but you just covered it.
And again, thank you forhelping us with that project and
coming on board.
And if anyone has any questionsabout what's going on, what the
hell is Arrival doing onmulti-day, just talk to Dan I
think it's dan attraveltrendspodcastcom.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah, feel free to reach out.
And Kimberly, who is obviouslyworking with you closely on this
as well, who's been inmulti-day for many years, she's
great to work with.
She's been doing a lot of thesponsorship, and so there's a
great team that's been comingtogether to make sure the
multi-day tour is wellrepresented.
We've got the right speakers,the right topics and I think
(38:39):
it'll become a core part ofarrival going forward, because I
think a lot of these operatorsthat listen to this podcast,
from Colette to Tauk, there's somany not only large-scale
multi-day tour operators, butthere's many emerging, smaller
multi-day tour operators as wellthat are getting started.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Well, yeah, the last research, Douglas said there was
, I think, 100,000, and otherresearch said 10,000.
It's somewhere between 10,000and 100,000 multi-day operators
and we're doing more research onwhat's going on with multi-day
specifically.
We won't have all the resultsby the event, but we'll be
publishing those results,probably Q1 in 26.
(39:11):
We were looking at what we needto do to have the best event in
DC and how can we not really godeep into AI?
We've had AI since.
If Gen AI started with ChatGPTin November of whatever year
that was, it was that March thatwe had our first AI session
that kind of blew everyone'sdoors.
(39:33):
A guy named Mark Mechie bleweveryone's doors with his
keynote, and so we've been doingAI since it came out.
Gen AI came out with ChatGPT andI'd say we were doing five or
six sessions at our last event.
But we really wanted to gofurther because the industry
(39:53):
needs to.
There are other AI events, butnone that focus on destination
experiences.
So we wanted to make sure wehad content for our typical
audience of tours, activities,attractions, experiences,
one-day experiences for DMOsbecause that's a very important
part of the overall segment, ofcourse, and they all need to
work together and for themulti-day operators.
(40:15):
So we went and got a group ofexperts in those segments.
You know yourself and Travisfor the multi-day, christian
Watts and Tony Karn who used tohead up Urban Adventures for
Intrepid for the experiencessector, ventures for Intrepid
(40:36):
for the experiences sector,joshua Ryan-Saha, and you
mentioned Jeanette Rausch thatis head of Brand USA's AI
efforts for the DMO sector, aswell as CA Clark from Miles
Partnerships.
We have this committee, thisgroup of people that are helping
to put on the best content wecan for the sector.
What's interesting is we mightknow today what we think we're
(40:59):
going to talk about, but Octoberis still a couple months away
and there's going to be some newdevelopments.
So we're going to make sure westay on top of all of it and
we're going to you know we'llhave.
We mentioned Brendan Blissbefore.
All of us know Brendan verywell and what Propella is doing
to make sure that search anddiscoverability as it moves from
just Google and Bing, forexample, to the LLMs and what's
(41:23):
going on with how the LLMs areinteracting with SEO etc.
And really make sure that theaudience understands what they
need to do to be discoverable,because it's not the same as it
was.
You know that's just one example.
We have another friend of ours,tani Perry, who's going to come
and talk about the key tools,because the tools are always
(41:45):
changing and not just here arethe tools, but how do you use
them, and you know, play, showand tell, and we want to make
sure it's very show and tellinteractive.
We're going to have somedebates, we're going to have
some teams that build touroperators pretty much on the fly
using these tools.
So really looking at how anyonethat comes to this event can
(42:06):
put AI into effect the next dayafter the event and go, because
if they don't they're going tobe left behind after the event
and go, because if they don't,they're going to be left behind.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, and just to add some context too, for both our
listeners and also the overallAI forum for destination
experiences, is that of course,we have our AI summit at the end
of October.
Most of our listeners are fullyaware of that.
Bruce and I and Douglas werechatting about how best to
collaborate on this becauseessentially, there's a key
difference between the two.
One, travel Trends.
Our AI summit is virtual and soyou can obviously attend
(42:39):
anywhere, and that's intentional, based on the success we had
last year, to keep it in thatformat so that we can have
speakers and presenters andattendees around the world,
across the entire travelindustry.
So the whole theme for us ishow AI is impacting the entire
travel industry.
So, from air theme for us ishow AI is impacting the entire
travel industry, so from air tocruise, to tour operators, to
travel agencies, and Bruce isactually going to be doing a
(43:01):
session at our conferencespecifically on tours and
activities.
So Tani and Christian Wattswill be part of his session and
what they're doing.
And Bruce had reached out to meand it's actually interesting
timing because I was togetherwith Douglas at ITB at the time
and I saw the sessions thatDouglas and I were doing in the
morning about product and theywere very well attended and
people were enjoying thesessions.
But the AI sessions in theafternoon, the room they had was
(43:23):
clearly far too small.
It was lined up like at least100 deep on either side with
people that couldn't get in andthe only people that could
eventually get in is whensomeone had to go.
A few people would quickly subin and these AI sessions some
were valuable.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I was one of those people.
I didn't bother waiting in line.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
You just pushed yourself in.
But I said to Bruce right afterI'm like there is an appetite
and an interest here.
People want to know how it'sgoing to affect their career,
they want to know how it's goingto affect their companies and
it absolutely justifies a fullday on its own to have these big
conversations on the Tuesday.
So you've obviously given quitea few highlights and a bit of
an overview there too, bruce, ofwhat to expect on the Tuesday.
(44:00):
But I also want to highlightthat, going back to the, you can
attend for one day or multipledays.
You can attend the AI forum onthe Tuesday and actually get a
ticket, a combo ticket that willtake you through Arrival 360.
You can actually get a 10% offdiscount.
I'll put the code in that wehave.
It's F-O-A-D-A-C-H-D-C, but Iwill post that because I don't
(44:20):
know if you want to rewind andget that.
But basically, I encourage youto attend both and be a part of
the AI day, because it's soimportant to understand what's
happening with those tools andtechnology and how it's.
So I think it makes sense tocall it out specifically.
You mentioned some of thespeakers.
What are some of the other?
Ultimately, bruce, what are youlooking for year one for the AI
(44:43):
forum?
What are you looking for theoutcome to be?
What are you the peoplelistening to this trying to
debate?
Should I attend?
What do you want them to beable to walk away from this
session with?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Sure, I talked about a couple of things, but I'll add
one is distribution right,which is one of the most
important topics in our industry.
It's what everyone always talksabout.
I want more direct business,right, like that's a very much a
theme for most operators, butthey have to work with OTAs if
(45:14):
they want enough business, right?
So there's that channel mix andit's always the yin and yang of
our industry.
It's why we have Viator, getyour Guide and Airbnb on the
main stage telling us about whatthey're up to, because all the
operators need those channels tohelp them fill their tours, et
cetera.
But at the same time, they wantmore direct business.
(45:36):
What's going to happen when AIcomes in?
There's going to be a debate ofwell, will that push more
business to direct or will thatpush more business to third
party?
No one knows right now, andthen there might be other
distributors that are coming outof the woodwork that no one
knows how that's going to work.
(45:56):
Is OpenAI or Perplexity goingto do a deal with one of those
other third parties?
I mean Perplexity and Viatoralready announced some kind of
deal a few months ago.
I don't know about you guys.
I haven't seen the result ofthat yet.
But that's why third partieshave an advantage, because they
have money to do deals like that, and Bruce's Bicycle Tours is
(46:19):
never going to have money to doa deal like that, but maybe
Bruce's Bicycle Tours has otherways.
He can use AI to drive directbill bookings.
So we're just going to discussthat and debate that and
everyone needs to understand howto make sure their position for
that change, those changes thatare coming.
The thing is, no one knows forsure, but you've got to at least
(46:41):
be thinking about it andunderstand what questions to be
asking and what you can do today, because there's things you can
do today for sure.
So we want that.
I would say that's one of thekeys is understanding that.
That, along with the sessionthat's going to be talking about
search and discoverability,that is again right on that
topic.
You know it's not quitedistribution, but it's very
strongly related.
(47:03):
The other takeaways are going tobe toolkits right, the one I
just mentioned a few minutes agothat Tani is going to present.
But also we're going to have anhour and a half long session
where people are going to rotatebetween different tables.
Each table will be some kind oftoolkit that they will be
exploring with five 10 people ata time in a very intimate
(47:26):
setting, so that I can sit downand talk to an expert and say,
oh, that's the tool, and that'sjust not the name of it, but
that's how I can use it.
It's just a really quickunderstanding of it, but that's
all it takes.
It's kind of like snowboardingright, like you can learn new
stuff in a day or two.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I would just add on that piece that, while there's a
lot of the big trends,discussions which are certainly
important around the impact ofAI on experiences and jobs and
that will continue in the roleof distribution but I think,
especially for a lot ofoperators and marketing
(48:04):
directors and just practitionerswho are in the day-to-day of
running the business, I think areally key piece of the
roundtable kind of toolkitformat that Bruce was talking
about and it's something thatwe've been doing at our events
now for a couple of years ishaving truly hands-on sessions
where you're going to sit downat a roundtable with a handful
(48:26):
of people and an expert and youcan just work on prompt
engineering for social mediaposts and begin to put a plan
together.
Then you go to the next tableand you can just work on prompt
engineering for social mediaposts and begin to put a plan
together.
Then you go to the next tableand you can do a session just on
prompt engineering and designfor product descriptions.
Then you can go to anothertable and look at some tools for
data and analytics and how tobegin to really set that up.
(48:48):
Then you're going to go to thenext table if you want to and
work with some experts inchatbot deployment and training
GPTs for customer service.
So there's a lot of the sexyhigh-level debates and
discussions which are always apart of the event, but at the
same time, we want people tocome away with okay, I can bring
(49:11):
this back to my office the nextday, get to work, you know, on
this piece.
You know on this piece and thisapplies, you know to, to the
whole event.
I mean, we're there's so manychanges that are taking place
and new technologies around,like pricing is a huge issue in
dynamic pricing and productdesign and and so how do we
bring like my goal is attendee.
(49:33):
They're heading back to theiroffice the next week on Monday
and they've got a list of fiveto 10 things that they can
immediately action and acrosstheir organization to move
things forward.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, no, I'm thrilled.
I am particularly excited forthe fact that, for those people
who are listening to this, Ihear so many colleagues that
their roles are being impactedor part of the reasons they're
going to attend our event andwhy I encourage you to attend
your event as well, is the factthat you have a much stronger
competitive advantage in yourrole and your company by
(50:07):
understanding what's happeningwith AI.
And when you look at the costof this, if you're a non-member
it's $399, like $400 to come andattend this AI forum is great
value.
If you're attending the event,it's $239.
If you're at the executivecenter, it's included, which is
why I'm going to be there fromMonday to Friday and I always
immensely benefit from thecontent and I think Douglas
(50:29):
knows that because myrelationship with both of you
guys.
I always come to the event forthe content.
A lot of people go for thenetworking and there's benefits
to both.
And, bruce, I know you workwith a lot of different partners
and people come for all thesemassive networking opportunities
.
So there will be that as wellat the AI forum, given the
speakers that are there and theintentionality that other people
are coming to that event with.
(50:50):
They want to connect with otherpeople that are learning this
space, that are doing reallycool innovative things, that are
going to be kind of leading thecharge.
So I see many benefits toattending.
I'm really glad you guys arehosting it this year.
But just to finish off, I wantto and, douglas, you always do
such a great job with this, withyour interviews, and I'm not
going to live up to nearly yourcaliber, because you always do
this great thing that I find somuch fun where you kind of go
(51:12):
with like five rapid firequestions and you give people
either or answers and you pushpeople hard on them when they
don't answer or give you astraight answer, and I love it
and you can see the audienceresponse to it.
I'm not going to quite do that,but I'm going to.
I want to leave our audiencewith two things.
I want to leave the audiencewith what is one of the big
trends you're paying attentionto in 2025, going into 2026, one
(51:34):
major trend and then what youare looking forward to most
about the week in Washington.
So, bruce, why don't we go withyou?
What is one of the big trendsyou're focused on, even if it is
AI big trends you're focused onand one of the things you're
most excited about about thatweek in Washington.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Big trends you're focused on and one of the things
you're most excited about aboutthat week in Washington.
I think the trend is luxury,whether it's for one day, but
especially for a multi-day, andit's one of the reasons I'm
really excited about gettingmulti-day involved because
there's a lot of luxuryopportunities there.
I was sitting next to a guy atlunch yesterday who's involved
with Virtuoso, for example, andthat's all about luxury and it's
(52:14):
very much one of the hottestsegments in travel overall and I
hope there's a bunch ofdiscussion about luxury at
Arrival because it's a growingsegment.
We want to make sure we'regrowing and everything about the
sector is growing, so that'sthat answer.
What was the next question?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
Was what you're most looking forward to about that
week in Washington.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
The multi-day segment because it's new, fresh.
I think there's hugeopportunity for the multi-day
companies to really get to knowdistribution and tech.
Yes, torradar is the leader indistribution, but they're
certainly not the only,especially if you look a little
bit outside of digital andthere's ways that digital and
(52:57):
analog are starting to cometogether more, but the tech is
catching up, so that reallybecomes a place that other
events just aren't talking a lotabout.
(53:17):
The tech for multi-day and also, like our partners that are our
current sponsors, have, youknow, new opportunities to talk
to the multi-day operators tosell their services to, and I
think that's a really importantpart of the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, no, I totally agree and I'm still looking
forward to it.
Now Douglas has had a chance tothink through these two answers
.
So, on the major trends,because you're across a lot of
trends, but what are one of thethings that you keep coming back
to?
What is a theme that is justhas kind of dominated your mind
this year and you think is goingto be that much more important
in 26?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
And so I think the things we're having to contend
with in the short term and themedium term are profoundly
different from what we werethinking a year ago, even six
months ago, and so a rethink onthe future, across economics,
(54:15):
across consumers, acrossgeopolitics and all the
implications for our industry.
So really that's about 350trends in one, and then, for me,
always the most exciting thingit's just connecting with the
people who make this businesswhat it is.
It's the folks like MidgeyMoore from Juno Food Tours and
(54:39):
others who, just they aredelivering experiences day in,
day out.
They're creating the memories,delivering and making this
industry what it is.
They're the best part of traveland the reason people do it,
and this is not a conference forrevenue managers and bankers
(55:02):
and insurance salespeople.
This is people that are justfilled with a passion for what
they do and it's all they careabout.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, no, it certainly has come up when I did
my arrival spotlight episodes.
The most common response isthat it's the connection that
they have in person.
Like laurie timoney, who's acolleague of both of yours and
obviously co-host to experiencethis podcast with bruce.
That's her thing is like shejust wants to spend the time
meeting with people and gettingthat in-person time and, um my
one of my big highlights that Ialways look forward to is
(55:32):
Douglas's opening keynote.
I'm always like front rowtaking pictures, posting
because-.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Oh man, you're making me nervous.
Making me nervous, Put a lot oftime and effort into that.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
We don't see you the night before because you're
buried in your room rehearsingand going through your notes,
and I just always look forwardto what you share, because that,
to me, is one of the reasonsI've always attended.
So I'm looking forward to thatand I'm I'm with bruce on two
things obviously, multi-day 100and the ai forum.
I mean, that's just like.
So this is going to be alandmark week.
(56:01):
I'm super excited about it andI thank you both for the
collaboration, the partnershipthat we have, and obviously I'm
looking forward to seeing youguys in washington in september.
As far as going for moreinformation, obviously I've
mentioned the website.
There's multiple landing pages.
You can get all the information.
Anything else, you would leaveeveryone else with Douglas.
Anything else as far as forgetting more information or
(56:23):
getting prepared for Arrival 360?
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Bruce, what's our website again?
A-r-i-i-c-a-can't-a-arrivalright, arrivaltravel, yeah, with
one R, yeah, and then you justfind DC and find from there,
like you said.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
Dan NAV to the other sub-elements, and we shouldn't
forget about the highlights.
The executive summit is goingto be awesome.
The people that we already haveregistered for that are kind of
a who's who of the industry,and then other people that
aren't part of the who's who ofthe industry.
They're operators that arereally successful in what they
do and they want to be there andbe part of part of that who's
(57:02):
who and make sure they're in thediscussion and with all the
peer to peer that's going to begoing on there at that level and
with the facilitators that wehave really looking forward to
that.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
That's awesome.
Thank you, guys, and thank youfor those people who are
watching video clips of this.
You can actually see a nicelittle Canadian flag in the
background Douglas waving a nicelittle Canadian flag in the
background, which I greatlyappreciate, and your highlight
about geopolitics.
And but one of the things I didwant to say on that whole topic
this is also to my fellowcanadians and uh is that this is
(57:35):
about supporting the industryand rising above some of the
political elements that are inplay, so there's reasons why you
might hesitate traveling, butone of the things I saw, uh,
when you mentioned about theadventure, travel and trade
association, bruce, and when Iwas there in denver a few months
ago, there was concern aboutattendees and, in fact, they
were completely sold out.
Half the the attendees cameinternationally.
Almost everyone I spoke to hadsome reservations about
(57:56):
traveling to the US, butultimately they wanted to be
there to support the communitythat is travel, and so I
definitely encourage everyone totake that approach.
Join us in Washington, be apart of this.
It's going to be great for yourcareer, for your business, and
I look forward to meeting manyof the new people that are
listening to this that want torecord with me, because that
certainly has been a call out.
So if you listen to thispodcast and you book a ticket, I
(58:20):
will guarantee you a recordingon the Travel Trends event
spotlight episode at Arrival.
So that's my commitment to allof our listeners.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
How do they take advantage of that?
Because you're going to be easyto spot in the Arrival
Networking Lounge with your ownspace.
So how do they say hey, dan, Iheard this, but how do they find
you?
How do they send you a messageand say I want in, I want to be
on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
All they need to do is use the promo code register
and send me an emaildanatraveltranspod code register
and send me an email, dan, attravel trends podcast, and let
me know you're going to be thereand I will guarantee we'll make
time to record together.
But, guys, thank you again forthis.
Have a great rest of yoursummer, douglas bruce, and I
look forward to seeing you guysa month from now.
Thanks, dan thanks dan pleasurethanks so much for joining us
for this special event spotlightof the arrival event in
(59:06):
washington dc this september29th to october 3rd.
I hope you enjoyed theconversation with Bruce and
Douglas and I look forward toseeing many of you there.
Don't forget to use the promocode on our website for the 10%
off.
Homepage traveltrendspodcastcom, and I will make sure, if you
send me an email, that we booktime together and get you
included in the event spotlight.
(59:28):
Thanks again for listening andsee you all in Washington.
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