August 6, 2026 • 53 mins
Hop-on hop-off buses are often a traveler's first introduction to a destination, yet the technology powering that experience hasn't changed much in years. Audio commentary can be expensive to produce, difficult to update, and nearly impossible to maintain across dozens of languages. In this Company Spotlight, Dan is joined by iWander CEO and Co-founder Marius Nigond and CTO and Co-founder Antoine Nigond to explore how AI is transforming sightseeing for operators around the world.
The conversation traces iWander's evolution from an AI travel companion to a B2B platform serving the sightseeing industry, including its work with City Sightseeing Worldwide. Marius and Antoine explain how operators can use AI to deliver more engaging visitor experiences while gaining valuable insights into traveler behaviour through the iWander platform.
We also take a closer look at Hoho Studio, iWander's AI powered content platform. Operators can upload existing scripts or audio, automatically validate and update content, translate it into multiple languages, and generate natural sounding narration in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional production. Beyond efficiency, we explore how AI opens the door to personalized commentary tailored to different interests, from history and architecture to family friendly storytelling, while ensuring content stays accurate and up to date.
Finally, we discuss the broader business opportunity. AI isn't just helping operators reduce production costs, it's creating new ways to engage travellers throughout their journey, drive in destination revenue, and deliver richer, more memorable sightseeing experiences.
Watch the full platform demonstration on the Travel Trends YouTube channel and learn more iwander.io.
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SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel
Trends Podcast.
This is your host, DanChristian, and today we have a
very special spotlight episodefor you.
It's actually a bit of a reunionof sorts for me, given the
guests that we have today,because we're speaking to the
team over at IWander, my goodfriend and colleague Marius
Nagan, the CEO, and his brother,the CTO of IWander, two
(00:28):
individuals I've known for thelast few years and have the
pleasure to be involved as anadvisor for their business.
And I really wanted to bringthis spotlight episode together
to showcase the success they'rehaving as they really build out
this platform and specificallywith their hop-on, hop off
studio.
And so before I bring them in, Ijust want to give a little bit
of context before we have thisbit of a reunion.
(00:50):
But back in 2024, so a couple ofyears ago, Marius and Antoine
launched iWander out of theirLondon flat with a very simple
idea, which was to give everyonea great guide with the freedom
to wander on their own, hencethe name IWander.
Now I knew Marius from his timebuilding VIDI guides, and so he
already had a great deal ofexpertise in self-guided audio
(01:13):
tours.
But in order to build this AInative platform, he brought in
his brother Antoine, who has anextensive background in
technology consulting, and hehas led the technical build,
which is why I wanted him to bea part of the conversation
today.
And at the end of this spotlightepisode, you can find a detailed
demo of the iWander platform onour YouTube channel.
(01:35):
So make sure that you check thatout right after you listen to
this.
But Marius, as many of ourlisteners know, joined us uh
before on an episode.
He was part of our Focus Rightepisode as well.
So he gave everyone a bit of anupdate of all the things that
are happening at iWander.
But even since then, a lot haschanged.
And one of the big developmentsis the success of taking the
(01:57):
iWander studio and building outwhat they refer to as the Ho Ho
Studio, hop on hop off, whichwill show you a great detail in
the demo itself.
But really, it's become a B2Bproduct that produces
multilingual AI audio commentaryfor hop-on and hop-off
sightseeing operators.
They've been powering citysightseeing since the beginning
of launching this platform, andthat is the largest sightseeing
(02:21):
operator in the world.
And as many of our listenersknow, iWander was actually named
a FocusWire Hot 25 travelstartup for 2025.
And that was largely on thestrength of the build and the
success they've had.
So today we're going to talkabout the iWander origin story.
We're going to go deep on howthe Hoho Studio actually works
and why operators are adoptingthis globally.
And then we'll get into thegrowth partnerships and where
(02:43):
Marius and Antoine see thiscompany heading.
So first of all, Marius, welcomeback to the Travel Trends
Podcast.
Thanks for having me back, Dan.
For sure.
I'm really looking forward tothis.
And Antoine, your very firstappearance on Travel Trends.
Welcome.
SPEAKER_02 (02:56):
Thank you, Dan.
I've been looking forward tothis invite for a long time.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
It was like longtime listener, first time caller.
I like it.
So yeah, great.
Great to have you both heretogether.
And obviously, it's really coolthat you guys are brothers, but
you each really have your ownstrengths.
And you know, when we've beendoing our calls and catching up
on the progress, I'm excitedthat I have both of you here.
And obviously, Marius alwaysspeaks so highly of Antoine, and
you guys are, you know, not onlyuh great friends, but also uh
(03:23):
really strong colleagues andwhat you've been building and
working with partners.
But let's let's give everyone abit of context uh for Marius,
for anyone who's just getting toknow you that doesn't hasn't
listened to a previous podcast,and also for anyone that might
be not familiar that you're alsosupporting on the Travel Trends
advisory side, tell us a littlebit about your role at iWonder,
a little background on thebusiness.
SPEAKER_01 (03:43):
Sure.
So I'm uh the co-founder and CEOof iWonder.
So I basically deal witheverything to do with kind of
product, um, go to market,partnerships.
And so i wonder, we can go intothe origin story a little bit
more, but it really started offas a vision of how we could
build an AI travel companion.
So a guide, almost like an AIguide that can travel with you,
(04:05):
that can give yourecommendations on what to see,
what to do, what to eat, andbuild audio tours on the fly as
you walk around.
So we actually started off withthat vision.
We built some really cool piecesof tech.
Uh, we've actually integratedthat AI travel companion within
other travel apps.
Uh, but what we've actuallyfound since then is that we can
(04:26):
actually use this technology ina number of different ways.
And so what we started doing isactually adapting that
technology to specificverticals.
So I think today we'll speakabout a bit about Herho Studio,
but we've also got differentoperators with whom we're gonna
start working with very soon andhow we can use that technology
to really answer questions uhand bring solutions to problems
(04:46):
which like specific verticalsand specific operators are
having.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
Fantastic.
That's great.
And fantastic to have you back.
I think most of our listenersknow that you have this
interesting combination, you andyour brother who I'm gonna bring
in now, with that there's aFrench and English connection.
You guys are based in London, ofcourse, um, but your family's
also from France, hence Nagong.
But Antoine, tell us a littlebit about your role and your
background in consulting.
SPEAKER_02 (05:11):
Um, yeah, so um I think kind of comes back to to
Maris's previous venture and andkind of what you mentioned
there, Dan, in the introduction.
I think Maris had this greatidea and needed someone who
could partner with to build upthe tech side of it.
Um, and so I was at that time intech consulting in London, kind
(05:31):
of working across a different uhkind of variety of different
projects.
Um, and we sat down and kind ofhatched out a plan and kind of
figured out how we could worktogether to to build I Wonder.
And um and so ever since thenI've just been looking off the
all the tech side at I Wonder,that's kind of back end, so
really looking at how we canimprove the quality of our AI
(05:54):
recommendations and and lendthat technology to other
verticals, to other operators,um, and also the front end as
well.
So everything, um, everythingthat you kind of see within the
City Sightseeing app or withinthe platform that we'll we'll
showcase later today, um, that'sall kind of under my remit.
SPEAKER_00 (06:11):
Yeah, that's great.
And that's why I wanted to makesure we do this demo because
when I have a chance to catch upwith you both and see the back
end of the platform, I'mcontinuously impressed with what
you've built.
And obviously, a lot ofoperators are responding
incredibly positively to thisbecause they see what you've
built and realize how long itwould take for them to build it
themselves.
I mean, you guys have been atthis for for more than two
years, and you've got the CitySightseeing Partnership live.
(06:34):
But since then, obviously,you've got a number of other
operators that are interested inusing the technology, but it
really comes to life when yousee it.
And so, Marius, we'll talk aboutit.
You obviously are very close tothe build.
And so we'll get into that in alittle bit.
But let's make sure for all ofour listeners, if they think of
IWander, obviously I've alwaysloved the branding.
I like the positioning aroundthe consumer app, but really
(06:54):
it's become a B2B platform.
And it's very interestingbecause so many successful tech
stories today have this incommon.
They had a consumer proposition,but they've become really
successful on the B2B side.
So I see the potential, andobviously, listeners to this can
download the iWander app andthey can check it out.
But I know it's more of a demofor you guys.
And interestingly, even Hopperis the same way.
(07:15):
Um, in speaking to Frederick andthe team at Hopper, they
essentially have the app outthere for testing purposes, but
their entire business is B2B.
And so tell us a little bit moreabout that.
Obviously, starting with thesightseeing relationship uh
Maryas and what you guys havebuilt.
Give us a great overview of theplatform itself.
SPEAKER_01 (07:33):
Sure.
So actually, it almost goes umeven before that to my previous
previous venture.
So you speak about B2C versusB2B.
So my previous venture wascalled Vidiguites and it was a
platform for self-guided audiotours, which we created as
podcasts.
However, I launched that as aB2C brand, and I think as a lot
of listeners will know, buildinga B2C business in travel is
(07:55):
extremely difficult.
The unit economics often don'tmake a lot of sense.
It's quite crowded, it's verykind of um search and
performance advertisement kindof focused, at least initially.
And so I never quite managed tomake those unit economics make
sense.
So uh stepped away from that, umdid a couple other little uh
(08:16):
projects and ventures.
But when AI came about, Antoineand I sat down and we just
realized that this technologycould actually solve a lot of
the issues which we'd facedbefore, uh, especially when it
comes to, for instance, umbuilding products, um creating
content, so quality content atscale uh for prices which aren't
exorbitant, then using all ofthat in a way uh with all the
(08:39):
learnings about how do youdistribute this?
And for me, the biggestdistribution point is B2B.
So, how can we basically likeplug this into other travel
apps, other travel companies?
Um, and I think one of the keyfindings which we had was that
travel apps, whilst they're oneof the biggest categories out
there, um they are very actuallyvery rarely used in destination.
(09:00):
So most travel apps are verygood at transactions, they'll
sell you a hotel or a flight,you might use it to check in.
Uh, but once you actually arrivein destination, you really don't
use or open travel apps verymuch.
And so what we wanted to do wasbasically use this technology to
plug into other travel apps umto make them a little bit more
sticky and provide value indestination.
(09:22):
So that's really like thestarting point of where iWonder
came about.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
You know, it's really interesting, and I want
to just highlight this to all ofour listeners, especially those
of you that are gettingintroduced to Marius, Antoine,
and iWonder at uh with thisepisode is that the background
that Marius mentioned aboutVIDID guides, I was still in the
corporate world at the time, andI was a strong advocate for the
platform that Marius had builtand was encouraging brands like
Kentiki and the TravelCorporation uh portfolio to
(09:49):
consider incorporating thistechnology, um, which was
definitely ahead of its time.
And and you obviously you wereahead of me on podcasts, so full
credit to you there as well.
But the idea of being able tobring a destination to life with
an audio guide is something Igenuinely love.
Marius knows that, and Antoineas well.
It's something that I actuallythink still has huge potential.
And oftentimes on stage, I'lluse the example of you know
(10:10):
someone arriving at a hostel, soobviously picturing someone in
their 20s only because that'syou know, an independent
traveler arriving at a hosteland dropping their backpack off
at the hostel, putting theirAirPods in and walking towards
the Coliseum and having a guidethat they can customize based on
their interest.
And I've been talking aboutthat, as you know, for the last
couple of years, and now it'sbecoming more and more real.
(10:32):
And so uh, however, the largertravel industry, one of the
things that Marius had pointedout to me very early was that
only 3% of people who go to adestination actually book a
tour.
And so you have this huge marketpotential of people that
actually, you know, there wasthis concern initially, and it's
still valid to an extent thatpeople are gonna use AI tools
over actual guides.
(10:52):
The reality, obviously, is thatpeople love the human connection
and actual human guides arestill gonna have a very uh
bright future.
But when you think about thevast majority of people that are
not even engaging a human guidethat have access to this
technology, but as you guys saw,the opportunity that was right
in front of you was all of theseestablished players like City
Sightseeing that had anestablished customer base.
(11:14):
They were people getting on andoff these buses in major cities
around Europe, and all of asudden you could extend the
experience.
And this was, I thought, one ofthe I guess the killer
advantages of the iWander appand the sightseeing partnership
was the fact that a company likeCity Sightseeing could offer
their customers something overand above the traditional
(11:36):
coached or bus tour experienceto be able to do walking tours
on their own and have thatintegrated into the app.
So I thought that was incrediblyclever.
I thought obviously it was smartfor them to partner with you
right from the beginning.
So maybe let's just talk alittle bit more about that
because it really relates towhat we're gonna get into, which
is the hop on hop off studio.
Like you've literally built outa platform that now is a turnkey
(11:57):
solution for other operatorsthat want to introduce something
similar.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe background with C
Sightseeing, what ultimately hasgone live with that, because
there's so many differentaspects to your platform, but I
think that was core to thedevelopment and build.
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
Yeah, sure.
So I th just to pick up on apoint there, I think that's
exactly, you know, when youmentioned the 3% of um tourists
who do walking tours, for us,what we identified actually is
that when you ask most peoplewhat the best way or the ideal
way to discover a destinationis, most people will say, Oh, to
take a private guided tour or totake a live tour guide.
(12:33):
But when you actually look atthe numbers, very few tourists
actually do that.
So really what we, you know, andwhen you dive into why that is,
money is one issue, but it's notreally the biggest one.
Most of most of the time it'sindependence, flexibility, uh,
you know, not having to kind ofconstrain your day around like
certain times or starting timesor ending times and having a bit
more flexibility.
(12:54):
So this is why I remain or weremain extremely bullish on the
potential for self-guided tours.
And, you know, I think peoplehave been at this for a while.
It's never quite exploded theway everyone has expected it to,
but I think it will at onepoint.
And I think a big reason of thatis distribution and getting that
in front of tourists andawareness.
So this net then uh leads to thenext point about the city
(13:17):
sightseeing.
So I think you know, I haveworked with um hop-on hop-off
operators in the past,especially the city sightseeing
team.
We actually had a project withthem uh when I was doing video
guys, where we actually saw thatthere was a huge uptake on
self-guided tours when it'soffered to customers because you
know it's in the name, it's hopon, you get onto the bus, and
(13:38):
then hop off.
You know, you need to kind ofoffer a tool to help them keep
discovering the city when youhop off.
And self-guided tours is justthe ultimate ideal scalable way
of doing this, provided you givethem high-quality experiences
and high quality content.
So um maybe I can actually likedrop off to Antoine here about
how how this partnership wasactually implemented.
SPEAKER_02 (14:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there was clearly anappetite on their side to uh to
use the IWanda technology tointegrate the IWanda technology
within their ecosystem.
Um, but what we kind of foundout quite quickly is they didn't
have a unified app or aworldwide app for all their
operators.
So what we actually ended upagreeing with them is not only
(14:21):
would we kind of provide themwith the IWanda technology, um,
but we also built them the newCitysight Seeing Worldwide app,
which is now on the app storesand was released um about a year
ago last September.
Um so actually the scope of theproject changed quite
drastically from just you knowintegrating our technology to
actually building an app andthen integrating our technology
(14:42):
in kind of as cohesive um a waybetween the two kind of the two
environments.
Um and yeah, since then we'vehad some really, really
promising numbers since um sinceSeptember.
Um I think we we worked veryclosely with the London team,
obviously, with our with ourbase in London, um and saw some
really interesting data as wellcoming out of that.
(15:04):
I think one thing um that reallydoes lend itself to the
operators is is is the datadashboard as well that we've
built in the background, whichum which really drives some
really interesting insights.
And and as Mary says, you know,all of these customers do get
off the bus, and how can theyhow can these operators know,
you know, where are my customersgoing?
(15:24):
What are they doing once theycome off the bus, et cetera?
So um so yeah, I think thatthat's kind of a quick overview
on the city sightseeing umpartnership and build um and
kind of how how they'veleveraged our technology to um
to help them.
SPEAKER_00 (15:37):
And this is one of the reasons I want to have
Antoine on this, since you'veactually been building this.
One of the most challengingaspects for many startups is
getting product market fit.
And you clearly have had theopportunity to do that now
working with City Sightseeing.
And I'm really keen, Antoine,since you're the one that has
been actually doing the buildand translating those features
uh and requirements into theactual platform.
(15:58):
I'm keen to know what stands outto you, either that was kind of
most fun or interesting to buildthat helped the team ultimately
solve real operator problems,and what you've seen as a result
of that, like the adoption ofsome of these features.
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think uh uh it it kind ofreminded me a little bit of of
my days in in consulting,working with all these these
different um stakeholders andand you know having all these
these different opinions and andand needs and trying to find
solutions that that cater to allof those.
I think one example that reallysticks out to us, having worked
(16:33):
with the Citizensing Londonteam, is how we actually
leverage our AI chatfunctionality actually to help
them with customer support, forexample.
Um, I think we spent a lot oftime with them understanding
kind of what are the biggestquestions that their customers
are asking them and how can weuse our technology to help them
um alleviate some of those someof those issues or pain points.
(16:57):
And so one of the big thingsthat we spent a lot of time
working on and and using our oneI wonder technology for was
essentially kind of integratingthe AI uh tech within kind of
their live database, which isyou know gives live bus arrival
times, the nearest bus stops,etc.
So really trying to kind ofcater to that to that end
(17:17):
customer and fulfill their theirneeds.
And I think uh in terms of kindof results, I think it's been
incredibly positive.
We've seen a about a 30% uptakerate on the use of RAI
technologies across alldownloads, not just users, um,
which is showing that actually,you know, that the way that
we've structured it and and thechat is actually really working
(17:38):
and resonating with their endcustomers.
And also um the walking tools aswell has has shown a real
significant increase time perdownload.
So again, really engaging thatcustomer beyond just their bus
experience, but once they getoff as well, I think that's kind
of the core of what we aretrying to build at IWonder is
that engagement.
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
Well, on that note, I think it's probably uh
worthwhile for us to dive rightinto the hop on, hop off studio
since this is the platform thatyou've built out and is what is
scaling really nicely across theindustry right now as more
operators become familiar withthe studio and what you guys
have built, and again, why I'mencouraging all of our listeners
to check out the demo at theend.
But for all of our listenersthat primarily listen to this on
(18:21):
audio, at least let's walkthrough the Ho-Ho studio itself
and start really, I guess, withthe problem that you guys saw
with the existing operators.
No, Marius, when you werespeaking about that, a lot of
these companies have been aroundfor many years, and I certainly
uh um probably speak for manyother travelers, not just
myself, when you're trying todecide which company to go with,
(18:44):
and sometimes the commentary ispretty stale.
I was in Edinburgh recently andactually I chose a company
because they actually had a livecommentary on one of their
routes, and it's this is againfrom a traveler point of view,
when you're trying to makedecisions around the experience
that you want.
That's one aspect that I'vecertainly seen.
So I I will say that from myexperience.
Um, but what I guess operatorsdon't always then realize is
(19:05):
just how many people are gettingturned away because they see
this as an outdated experience.
And I know this extensively frommy experience at the travel
corporation with all of theseguided tour brands that people
saw as outdated.
And we were always trying toremind people actually, if you
get on a group tour, and that'swhere a lot of these adventure
travel companies have been verysuccessful with that, you know,
people delight in being on agroup tour.
(19:26):
And many travelers also love thefirst thing they want to do when
they get to a new city is jumpon a hop-on-hop off bus.
It's easy to get around, you getenough context.
And so I still see it as aperfect way to experience a city
for the first time.
So I guess where I'm going withall of this is how do you make
it relevant in um an a the ageof AI?
So tell us a little bit about Iguess why you built Hoho Studio
(19:49):
um and what you were trying toaddress for the wider market
that you saw was important forcity sightseeing.
SPEAKER_01 (19:56):
Yeah, sure.
So I I think the the first pointI just want to double down on
there is just the size of thismarket.
I didn't realize just how manypassengers a year, how many
millions of passengers thisindustry like ferries.
And quite often it's actuallythe first point of contact with
which a tourist has with adestination, which actually
(20:16):
gives so much potential for whatyou can do, what you can deliver
to them, and also being a biggerpart of their whole journey, not
just kind of like you know, thatfirst bus tour, but what you can
do after.
So to speak about how a studio,so when we were building, uh
when we were working on, youknow, launching the app and
speaking to different operators,and we were showing them the
technology which we'd built togenerate walking tours with AI,
(20:40):
every operator kept asking usthe same thing, which was can we
use your technology to rebuildor redo our audio commentary,
our audio systems?
Because you know, every time youget onto one of these hop-on
hop-off buses, uh you'll plug inyour headphones and you'll be
able to listen to commentary ina month in a number of different
languages.
What I didn't realize is justhow expensive it is to create
(21:03):
and maintain these commentarysystems.
Like to generate a basic tour onaverage, it costs about 10,000
pounds.
Uh to translate every singleinto every single language, it
costs about£3,000 just for theone-off recording and
translation.
And quite often they do that in15, 20, 25 languages.
So the costs are incrediblyexpensive.
(21:23):
But the biggest thing here isthat once these commentaries are
created, they're never updatedbecause it's just so difficult
and so expensive to go, youknow, update if, for instance, a
building is shut down or a routehas changed, or, you know, for
instance, in Paris, Notre Dameis burnt down.
Um, it's very expensive to goand change that in all the
different languages.
(21:43):
So um what we've essentiallydone is taken our AI system and
created a platform where hop onhop off operators can create,
edit, manage, translate, andrecord their audio commentaries.
So instead of you know payingPer translation or pain per
edit, they can go do thatthemselves, translate with the
(22:04):
click of a button, and publishthat directly to their audio
systems without having to waitlike months and months for
recording artists andtranslators to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (22:14):
One other thing I'm and I want to bring Antoine in
on this is that you know Imentioned the commentary first,
and obviously this is one of thebig advantages.
And I know from an um the um theeconomics of what it costs to
build these and now what itcosts to use AI to be able to
generate these, there's uhconsiderable cost savings there
and efficiency and and moreprofitability, and I know that's
(22:36):
one of the reasons that this isworking really well for you.
But before we get into that, Iwant to actually understand from
a technical point of view,Antoine, beyond commentary,
because obviously this is likethe um what most of us are
thinking of as far as the bigimprovement.
But one of the things that I seeabout introducing this type of
platform is it services a lot ofnew data that you might not
(22:59):
otherwise have access to aboutwhere where riders want to go.
Um, because otherwise you'rejust, you know, you don't
actually know anything aboutthem.
Uh they're just getting on andoff.
You don't even have that fullunderstanding of the routes
they're taking and how thatshould then factor into the
route design or making importantproduct decisions.
So tell us, um because I'm surethat's sort of the thing as
(23:20):
you've built it, you Antoine,want to see people how how
people are using it.
So tell us a little bit about,you know, beyond creating the
commentary and making itavailable, what you're seeing
that would be available tooperators within the Ho Ho
Studio that could really changechange or transform their
business.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
Yeah, um absolutely.
I think the um there are so manykind of avenues that open up
with this sort of platform.
I think, first of all, on thecommentary piece, this is the
first kind of uh time thatpersonalization of AI audio has
become a possibility for theseuh these operators.
As you said, in Edinburgh, yougo on and there is a live guide,
(23:59):
and that live guide can you knowmaybe introduce some level of
personalization, but it it wouldprobably be quite generic.
And that's the same for theonboard commentary typically
that's coming out of the theseat in front of you when you
plug in your head threads.
Here, however, we're starting tothink about you know whether
customers can do a history touror an architecture tour, um, and
(24:20):
building up that kind of firstlevel of personalization which
really responds to to customersum customers' um needs.
Um in terms of the kind of powerof of the data as well, I think
this this lends itself maybemore to the the traditional
iWonder uh travel companionpiece.
(24:40):
Um but I think really what wesaw with with some of our our
operators and partners isthrough the use of the IWander
um chat, but also the app, theycan actually map user flow a lot
better and they can understandwhere customers are going once
they get off the bus.
And this not only kind of givesthem an opportunity to maybe
(25:01):
sell new products or look at youknow different walking tours
that they can build anddistribute, but also thinking
about you know their actuallytheir actual operation
day-to-day, whether they canmove a bus route to go uh on a
little detour because that'swhere most of their customers
are getting off after the busand really kind of leveraging
that that information, not justfor kind of ancillary revenue,
(25:24):
etc., but maybe actually to thelevel of changing their
day-to-day operations as well.
SPEAKER_01 (25:29):
And if I can jump in there as well, I think one of
the things which we've foundwhich is super exciting is how
you can actually startinfluencing that traveler
journey.
Because Dan, as you said, it'squite often the first thing
which a customer will do whenthey arrive in destination,
they'll do a hop-on-hop-offtour.
What we've been surprised by ishow many travelers actually act
on the recommendations we givethem through the AI.
(25:52):
So, what I mean, for me, themost rewarding thing is actually
seeing how a customer interactswith the tool not only
throughout the day, butthroughout the trip.
And when we recommend, you know,a specific area to discover or a
restaurant or a plan for theday, they'll actually go ahead
and act on that.
And I think that's superinteresting, A, in terms of
being able to provide, you know,value to that customer and
(26:15):
actually giving themrecommendations which which are
which are good and which makesthe best out of their trip.
But also the potential as wellfor you know, thinking about how
we can work with other partnersand how we can start working
with cities and tourism flowsand all that sort of stuff,
because it's really interestinghow we can how we can actually
see that our recommendations areactually starting to impact how
(26:35):
travelers are discovering acity.
SPEAKER_00 (26:37):
Well, let's talk about how it works, and then I
want to get into the economics.
So, I mean, given that we haveAntoine here, obviously the
perfect person to explain how itworks, then obviously, Marius,
you can jump in throughout too,because obviously you've been
very close to the build.
You have a great uh backgroundin uh operating these types of,
you know, from the Viddy guy'sexperience of what uh let me
hear, let me, let me, I was Istumbled there and I want to fix
(27:00):
that.
Um I think one of the thingsthat would be really helpful for
our listeners is we actuallylook at how it works, and then
we can come back to some of theeconomics, and then obviously
I'm keen to discuss where tofrom here, given the success
that I wander is having with hopon hop off studio and some of
the other developments like yourwalk studio.
But when we think about the hopon hop-off experience, and this
is obviously where havingAntoine here to talk us through
(27:23):
how it works, because from a uhfrom an operator point of view,
when I've looked at theplatform, I'm like, man, you can
create a custom tour in like 15or 20 minutes.
And I was like, one of thethings that stood out to me the
last time I was doing a demowith the two of you, as you
know, was that this is soperfect for hotels that would
like to be able to offer customwalking tours around like Red
Carnation hotels in London,Jonathan Ragged and his team and
(27:45):
the amazing concierge staff thathave these uh exceptional
recommendations for theirguests, it would be fantastic to
have Red Carnation recommendedroutes to be able to take around
the properties they have and togive those free to get to uh
people staying at their hotels.
So for me, that was like one ofthe most obvious things.
And I think that's where whenpeople look at your platform,
it's like, well, it's got somuch potential to go in
(28:06):
different different directions.
But if we look at specificallyhow it works for hop on hop off,
uh I'm really keen, Antoine,walk us through it.
Like it's you know, and howstraightforward it is uploading
a script, the AI enhancements,how the audio is generated, and
then how this can go live uh youknow within a couple of days.
Like just walk us through theexperience of creating uh a hop
(28:28):
on hop-off tour within thestudio.
SPEAKER_02 (28:31):
Yeah, so it all starts with um with uploading
your existing script.
What we found actually, speakingto operators, is is they like
the base of their script.
It's the the the biggest issuethat they face is they haven't
updated this commentary in inseven years on average.
So what you do is you uploadyour scripts, and you can either
upload you know a Word document,a PDF, or it can also be your
(28:55):
audio files, which we transcribeand put into text.
Once that's done, there's a fewsmall kind of validation phases
where, for example, an operatorcan upload their uh track
mapping files, and that kind ofcreates a bit more of a unified
CMS system where they can kindof manage everything from one
place.
(29:15):
Um, but what we'll do really inthat next phase is we almost
block their account whilst werun a basically a fact checker
and kind of validator over theircurrent scripts.
Because we've seen that onaverage, you know, these scripts
haven't been updated in sevenyears.
The first thing before theystart playing around with our
platform is we need to go andtell them, look, these are the
(29:37):
tracks that are outdated, thisis the content that is outdated,
here's our suggested fixed.
And what they can do is they canjust go through fix by fix and
basically accept or reject eachfix.
So Marius's you know, exampleearlier about Notre-Dame is the
perfect example.
It would flag that and give thema little fix for that.
So that's really just aboutbringing that script, first of
(30:00):
all, up to speed.
Once we have that script kind ofvalidated and up to speeds,
that's where the operators canstart actually playing around
with with the platform a bitmore.
So they can uh they can makemanual edits to the content
themselves.
They can also use a variety ofour different AI enhancement
tools.
So that would be um, you know,again, a kind of a fact checker,
(30:22):
an analysis tool, uh also aquick improvement tool to kind
of just sharpen up the qualityum of the of the content.
Um, and really kind of onceyou've validated that that
language, so let's say it's anEnglish script, then you can
translate that English scriptinto just about any language.
And that process, you know, itused to take days or or weeks
(30:48):
really, and now you can do thatin typically it's around an hour
on average.
So then after that, we then uhyou can also generate audio.
Um, so you can generate all theaudios at once or do it do it
kind of script by script.
But here we are working with uhwith Eleven Labs, who I think
(31:10):
many people sh will know, or orif you don't, you you should
because they're they're abrilliant, brilliant company um
for the Texas Speech.
And there we have a catalogue ofour prevered voices, but also we
give the operators the abilityto create their own um their own
voices as well for their brandsum that fits in with a regional
accent, for example.
(31:31):
Um and all of this, I mean, wewe actually just went through a
kind of onboarding process withsomeone recently.
All of this can be done in aboutfive days maximum, and that's
with a lot of kind of a lot ofcare and attention to go live.
Uh so yeah, really kind ofbringing that that whole process
(31:52):
down from a matter of months toto days.
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
Well, and one of the things I've found in practice
from traveling is that when thecommentary is stale or when it's
not really seen as the greatvalue add, unlike when you had a
um a professional guide thatwould really kind of bring the
destination to life.
And I think that's why we allstill like having that human
element.
But when you get on a uh hop onhop-off bus, a lot of people
(32:17):
that I know who are travelingare using it mainly as transport
and not even for the guideanymore because they know it's
stale.
And the the fact that it istranslated into multiple
languages has also created a bitmore of um uh the content's just
a bit boring because it justneeds to work for all different
cultures.
And I this is one of the thingsI wanted you guys to speak
about, given you've got thebackground.
(32:38):
So, Mary, this is like more aquestion for you.
Given you've got the backgroundwith VIDI guides and creating
really compelling storylines ina podcast format that people
want to listen to and getexcited about, I mean, that's
why we travel is we want to feelthat wonder and awe, and we want
someone to guide us in the sameway that fits our.
So one of the things that stoodout to me when I was looking at
(32:59):
the platform, Antoine, is thatyou know these scripts they
regenerate um in in multiplelanguages, but you actually
adapt them for culture, not justword for word.
And I think um the idea ofalways fresh content, which I
know is part of you know thepillars that you guys are
committed to with your partners,um, tell us a little bit more
about that because I'm I'm keento know how that translates into
(33:22):
results.
If you can have always freshcontent and then you can do
things like um uh you know, canimprove the content with AI
rewrites and seeing how theengagement and then ultimately
all of these companies arelooking to increase revenue,
whether it be upsells of doingyou know uh triggered promotions
for uh local businesses andother things that come from
(33:44):
having this technology andbetter understanding your
traveler.
Tell us a little bit, Marius,from from your perspective, what
you've seen has worked reallywell and how that's why
operators are signing up andwhat results they're seeing.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Yeah, I mean, for us when we when we describe this,
we basically say we're using AIto replace a process and make it
better, cheaper, and faster.
But for me, the thing whichexcites me is the better.
Like, this is why we are doingthis business.
It's basically like to providebetter in-destination content to
travelers, whether that's on ahop-on-hop-off bus, whether it's
(34:17):
through an app, whether throughit's a self-guided tour.
And really that's what gets getsus up in the morning, and it's
what you know we've been whatI've been doing since I met you
almost 10 years ago.
Um, so in terms of like, I thinkthe the biggest thing is almost
that fiduciary care for thetraveler, for the end customer.
That's really what we careabout.
And you know, sometimes when yousee a piece of content which is
(34:39):
outdated with a terrible voice,like it really grates me.
So I think you know, actuallybringing a solution to that is
uh and making sure that you knowa traveller at the end of the
day, they save up all year forthis amazing experience in
Paris, in London, in Rome.
You want to give them the bestpossible experience.
So that's the starting point.
Um, second point about like howwe make it better.
(35:00):
I mean, there's so manydifferent ways.
One is you know, onto mentionedpersonalization, but once you've
put your scripts into theplatform, you can then create
like loads of differentvariants.
You might be more interested inhistory, onto more interested in
pop culture, I might be moreinterested in sport.
All of a sudden, you canactually start creating tailored
content for those, or like kids'tour, for instance, you can
start creating tailored content.
(35:21):
And then to go back, um, whatwe've realized as well is like
what works best, what has alwaysworked best is that podcast
format with two voices.
So we can actually bake that in.
So we can turn a monotonousone-person script into content
which is actually superengaging, like surprisingly
funny, but also two voicesspeaking to each other.
And that's what works best.
So I think it's like, you know,it's just a process, like a
(35:42):
continuous process about how wecan keep using all these pieces
of technology which we'rebuilding, whether that's you
know, better, more engagingaudio, um, a platform or tools
to um geo-trigger deals or youknow, upsells for tickets, or if
there's a concert happening andsaying, like, oh, by the way,
you know, like, you know, umPussycat Dolls are playing at
(36:05):
the O2 this week.
Um, we've got a couple oftickets, why not, why not buy
that?
It's it's actually a use casewhich we had.
Um we um you know, it's it'sjust about bringing them all in
into one content platform uh tobetter serve the end tourist.
SPEAKER_00 (36:21):
Well, tell us the uh about the economics, because
that's something I'm very keento make sure we cover as well.
Because any of our listenersthat are going to be considering
whether they use this platform,obviously the first thing for
them is you know, ease of use,you know, building efficiency.
That's what we always talkabout, AI.
But where I get excited aboutwhat you guys have built is
actually the revenue potential.
So there's cost savings, butthere's also now all of a sudden
(36:43):
there's and one of the things Ialways talk about on our
podcast, as you guys know,having been friends and
colleagues for years now, is I'malways looking for what is that
unique selling proposition thata business has that people
aren't really paying attentionto, but it's just a key reason
why they're successful.
So, what is it that they havethat's special or unique about
their business, the whycustomers are choosing them?
And I see this as a perfectexample.
(37:04):
If more day tour operators andhop on, hop-off tours around the
world can be powered by thistechnology and they can save on
costs and they can scale theirbusiness and increase revenue.
This is like obviously part ofthe reason we're doing this
because so many uh operators aresigning up and are keen on this.
But uh tell us why.
Like, what does success looklike for an operator in
practical terms?
(37:24):
What are the economics and whatare the ultimately the big
benefits you're seeing that iscausing more operators to say to
their friends and colleagues,you need to, you need to start
using IWander?
SPEAKER_01 (37:36):
Well, I'll answer this question by splitting it up
into the two different productswhich we have.
So the pure Hoho Studio, so interms of um managing your
commentary, and the let's saythe I Wonder Travel Companion,
which is something which we alsooffer.
So the reason, the simple reasonwhy we're having so much success
(37:57):
with Hoho Studio is because weare literally replacing um an
existing costline and we'redoing it cheaper, we're doing it
better, and we're doing itfaster.
So I think you don't have tolike kind of we're not
reinventing the wheel here.
We're basically just you knowoffering them something which
they're already paying for andoffering a better product.
So I think that's the startingpoint.
(38:19):
The second part about like, youknow, the piece which excites
me, um, why you should actuallyinvest in this technology and
keep like building this down theline is that we're starting to
see real um revenue gains fromit as well.
So we're seeing that value perdownload really start to
increase based off like what welaunched in September and what
we've got now.
It's just every every monthwe're adding a couple of cents
(38:42):
in terms of that lifetime valueper download through the use of
our tools.
So whether that's buying moreself-guided audio tours or
geo-triggered deals or beingsmarter in terms of how you can
upsell products, but also repeatusage as well.
Because if you've got an appwhich people are using
throughout an entire trip, thenext time they travel, instead
of going to download a new appor looking on Google to
(39:04):
basically like decide whathop-on-hop-off operator to use,
you'll use that brand again andyou'll buy the ticket from the
app.
So I think there's there's twoparts.
There's one, the kind of a pureshort-term piece where you know
you speak about product marketfit, that's much easier to
describe because it's like it'sa no-brainer.
And then the longer, longer termvision, which is what uh you
know what we set out to do.
(39:24):
And that's going to take alittle bit more time, but we're
starting to see results.
SPEAKER_00 (39:28):
Now, the one thing I'm keen to cover too in our
conversation is where to fromhere beyond the hop on hop-off
studio, because that's the partthat gets me really excited when
I look at it and I see thepotential, but then I uh I start
to realize that when you look atthe application, it applies to
so many other ways you can servetravel companies.
I know you've recently signed aRiver Cruise partner as an
(39:50):
example.
You're also building out thewalks studio side of this as
well.
And when I saw that, I was like,oh my God.
Like it's like, you know, andjust to give our listeners an
overview, like you've got theCity Sightseeing app, you have
the AI travel companion SDK, soto work with other uh
developers, you've got theiWander app, which we've talked
about briefly, but that's notthe primary focus of the
(40:11):
consumer proposition, but it'savailable.
You've got Hoho Studio, whichwe're talking about now, Walk
Studio, which is what I want toask you about.
And then, you know, part of theHoho Studio is um white the
white labeling that you knowit's not uh and this is the part
that it um on the travel companyside of this, I was always
looking for partners that couldpower a white label because I
(40:32):
wanted to make sure that ourbrand experience was you know
the first thing, that they'renot trying to understand a
different company.
They just see, and the mostimportant thing then is to
deliver on that.
If you're offering a greattravel experience, you want to
make sure you're offer offeringa great um technology experience
as well to your guests.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhere to from here with Hoho
Studio and give us a bit of anoverview of Walks Studio and
(40:55):
what that means.
SPEAKER_01 (40:57):
Sure.
So I'm I'm happy to maybe givethe overview and you speak about
the Whoops Studio.
So what we find reallyinteresting is every piece of
tech is converging.
And so we actually made when westarted realizing, you know,
what we've set out to build isalmost a portfolio of modular AI
pieces of tech, which we canoffer to basically which work
(41:19):
together to improve thatin-destination experience for
that customer and improveretention of that customer in
destination.
So make them more sticky.
And I think that's kind ofvertical agnostic because every
traveler, whether they'relanding on an airline app, a
hotel app, a hop-on-hop-off app,they'll all want the same sort
of, you know, they'll all beengaged and be retained by the
(41:40):
same sort of technology.
So if you have a technologywhich actually engages you in
destination, provides you goodcontent in destination, good
recommendations, and which canactually increase the lifetime
value, that can be transferredto pretty much any vertical or
industry within travel.
So what we decided to do wasactually instead of you know
spreading to different verticalstoo quickly, what we want to do
(42:02):
is double down on the hop-on hopoff industry.
So an industry which we knowreally well, we know that it's
not uh there's lots of techwhich couldn't be built for it.
Um, and it's also a great anchorpoint to actually capture that
customer and like really kind ofnot use as a customer
playground, but we know we havewe have that captured audience
(42:22):
and we can really, you know, addvalue to them.
So that was this that's kind ofthe starting point about what we
can what we can do.
I'll let Antoine maybe completethat.
SPEAKER_02 (42:31):
Yeah, if I can actually add on that, I think I
was kind of laughing when whenDan was going through all the
all the products that we have,and it almost feels like we I I
didn't even realize we had thatmany, and it feels like there's
too much to maintain, to handle.
But I think what's reallyinteresting and what Maria's
touched on is is and also apoint that Dan made as well, is
(42:52):
like how can you go from youknow offering experiences to
offering a more kind of you knowholistic tech experience and
also like prioritizing tech?
And I think that's really whatwhat we see.
Everything kind of has to fitinto one, and that's where our
technology is going now.
It's not so much these differentproducts, it's how can these
products work together andincrease touch points and
(43:14):
increase engagement withcustomers at every step of their
in-destination experience.
So that's really what we'retrying to do.
In terms of, I think we've givena good overview of Hoho Studio.
So let me touch on Walk Studio.
I think Walk Studio is kind of abit more maybe fundamental to
kind of the vision that weoriginally had at IWonder, which
(43:34):
was really um, you know,customer-specific walking tours,
personalized walking tours.
But what we saw as well, therewas a huge demand from um from a
variety of kind of operators,whether it's kind of day tours,
we had you know walking holidaysin the cotzwalls in random UK
areas, asking whether they coulduse our technology to build more
(43:57):
brand specific walking tours.
It's not a About just givingtheir end customer the ability
to create a walking tour, butalso how can they use our tech
to um to create these kind ofengaging walking tools, either
you know, for their their daytrip or as you said, Dan, a good
example is around a hotel aswell.
So, really, we had all of thattechnology in place, and now
(44:21):
it's kind of just you know, howcan we build a very simple
platform that is easy to use foroperators where they can
actually just go in and buildthose walking tools themselves
using our AI technology.
So it's very, very similar tothe Hoho Studio in terms of how
it works, um, in terms of youknow creating a creating
(44:43):
content, uh using AI to improveit, translating, recording, um,
and distributing as well.
SPEAKER_00 (44:50):
Well, and part of the reason I wanted to ask that
is that you know, when you thinkabout the hop-on-hop-off
experiences and what people aredoing as they're getting on and
off the buses in these cities,they're visiting attractions,
museums, um, clearly they'restaying at a hotel.
And for a lot of tourism boardsor uh DMOs, there's an
opportunity for them to beinvolved in this as well because
they clearly want more people tovisit their cities.
(45:11):
But um when I look at what'slive today versus what's on your
the potential roadmap, that'salso what excites me as well,
because like you've got a greatuser base on the Hoho side,
which naturally extends towalks.
But for me, and this is, Iguess, a question um for Marius,
is that when you start goinginto river crews and you start
(45:31):
thinking about, and I Imentioned hotels, and I know
it's something you guys are alsokeen on in time.
Um, tell us a little bit aboutwhat is next and how this can be
used in other verticals.
What are some of the things thatyou know we've covered really
what's live today, and obviouslyyou can go into a fair amount of
detail if people listening tothis want to have a direct, you
know, they can watch the demo,but also reach out to you guys
to have a direct demo and walkthrough the platform so they
(45:54):
can, you know, they can seewhat's live today, um, which is
real and meaningful, but there'sobviously so much more potential
for where the platform could go.
Where do you see this going nextand what other verticals are
gonna excite you most, Marius?
SPEAKER_01 (46:08):
Yeah, um I think it goes back to what we said
before.
I think long term we're gonna bevertical agnostic.
I think we've identified maybethree uh different verticals
which we'd like to go into next.
Um hotels is definitely thebiggest one, then we've got day
tours, and then we've got OTAs,or basically like you know, the
kind of platforms that sell umsell either packaged holidays or
(46:32):
experiences online.
And who want to have a bit moreretention engagement post sale
of you know, either a holiday oran experience.
So I think what uh what we'regonna do next is basically just
you know learn from what we'vedone so far, which is really
focus on building for thatspecific vertical or industry or
(46:56):
use case.
I think you know, one size fitsall doesn't really work, but
what we've seen, what works bestis when we actually tailor this
technology to a specific client,to a specific vertical, to a
specific industry, um, and makesure that you know, like we
actually maximize the amount ofengagement which a customer gets
through this platform.
Um so yeah, I I think you knowshort answer is we're pretty
(47:19):
much um virtuous agnostic.
We've got a couple of partnersin the pipeline, and I think
we'll just build towards them.
SPEAKER_00 (47:25):
Well, and part of the reason I asked that, because
one thing I'm still amazed isthat no major tech or travel
company has come in yet and justacquired IWander.
And you know, when I look at thestage you guys are, I feel that
there's like very something,something very similar to uh
Legends and what Stephanie andShayna were building uh just
before they were acquired byFora, because the technology was
very much ahead of its time interms of using AI for better
(47:46):
personalization.
And now that's been built intothe core of Fora platform,
they're now a unicorn, and I'mthrilled for Shayna and
Stephanie that they've been, youknow, that they're part of Fora.
And obviously I adore that teamthere as well.
And I'm good friends with Jake.
So for me, when I look at traveltechnology, and the only reason
we ever do these spotlights isif I feel like there's a really
compelling opportunity toshowcase what's been built and
(48:08):
the potential for it.
And so I guess I need to ask youthat question.
I'm keen to know what successlooks like for you guys.
And you know, you know, you'vehad some funding, you've got
some very strategic partners,Microsoft for startups, 11 Labs
is obviously partner IBM, thecity sightseeing relationship.
You guys are very well respectedin the industry.
And um, what's next for you guysin terms of funding scaling or
(48:32):
potentially being acquired?
Not that you can say everythingbecause maybe there's something
else that's already in theworks, but um, yeah, tell us uh
I'm just genuinely curious toknow what's next for you guys
because you're a smart, talentedteam that's built great tech.
And um what what what would youlike to see as the next uh next
phase and outcome?
SPEAKER_01 (48:49):
Well, I think the the first point is we've worked
really hard to try and make thisinto self-sustaining business.
And this is also part of thereason why we doubled down on
host studios of vertical ratherthan going too broad and going
where the money is.
So uh the starting point is toget towards profitability, and
we're very, very close now.
After that, it's about justidentifying where the biggest
(49:10):
opportunity is.
Um, I think what we want to dois, you know, we want to have a
real impact, we want to hit asmany customers as possible,
travelers as possible, make thattraveler journey as good as
possible.
Whether that's working with youknow a thousand companies and
integrating, you know, ourtechnology into that, or maybe
working with one bigger one andactually like completely
(49:31):
changing with the way which theyinteract with their customers.
I don't know.
Who knows?
It depends what's up, what whatsort of what offers on the
table.
Uh, but I think we're stillpretty bullish about what we can
what we can go, what we canachieve, and it's just a start
for us.
SPEAKER_00 (49:44):
That's great.
Now I want to make sure all ofour listeners are gonna be able
to join us for the demo, whichwill be about 15 or 20 minutes
on our YouTube channel,youtube.com slash travel trends
podcast.
We'll make sure there's a linkin this episode so you can
easily get access to that.
But I wanted to do a spotlightepisode to really bring together
the backstory on iWander and thefull update of where they're
(50:07):
having huge success and wherethe business is headed.
And the best way to experienceit is to actually look at the
product and their platformitself.
Now, many of our listeners canreach out to you guys directly
if they want to get a demo, butI definitely encourage everyone
to check out the live demobecause you'll see a lot of what
we've just been talking about.
And just when you wrap your headaround the potential for it,
(50:27):
like I have, you'll see all thedifferent verticals this could
apply to.
But um, tell everyone, Mariusand Antoine, if they want to
reach out, where can they getmore information about Hoho
Studio and IWander?
And what would be the best wayto connect with you guys?
SPEAKER_01 (50:42):
Sure.
So I think the best place if youwant more information to go to
our website, IWonder, soi-w-a-n-d-e-r.io.
Uh and if you want to reach out,connect with us directly, we'd
love to hear from you atLinkedIn.
So just find myself or Antoine,so Marius or Antoine Nigons, um,
on LinkedIn, and yeah, lookforward to chatting to you
(51:04):
there.
SPEAKER_00 (51:05):
I just like the fact you didn't go www.
Thinking about it.
You guys It's funny, we havethese conversations about AI in
the future, and then when itcomes to domain names, we go
right back to like 1995.
So um no, that's that's uh Well,I'm obviously excited to cut
over to the demo, but before wedo, for the listeners that are
(51:27):
signing off now, Antoine, whatwould you like to leave them
with?
SPEAKER_02 (51:30):
Um just a just a thank you for you, Dan.
Uh thanks so much for having us.
Uh it's been great to to finallyget on and and and share the
spotlight with Marius as wellfor once.
Um and yeah, if there's anyonebuilding some kind of cool tech
products out there in the travelindustry, I'd love to connect um
and kind of you know broaden mytech network as well within the
(51:51):
travel industry.
SPEAKER_00 (51:52):
Yeah, you're not in Marius' shadow anymore.
You can stand on your own.
Uh and obviously people canreach out to you on LinkedIn,
and I'm sure they will.
But we'll segue over to thedemos.
You can hear more from Antoineand Marius.
And Marius, of course, thanks asalways.
Obviously, congratulations onthe continued success.
Thanks for your support on theadvisory side of travel trends.
Obviously, I think very highlyof you guys, what you've built
(52:13):
today wander, and really enjoyour collaborations.
So congrats to you, andobviously wish you every success
in the rest of the year.
We'll be keeping in regularcontact.
But thanks for joining us.
And anything else you want toleave our listeners with?
SPEAKER_01 (52:25):
No, just thank you, Dan.
Uh, thanks for all the help,support, the spotlight you put
startups um in for the travelindustry.
And yeah, been a pleasureworking with you.
SPEAKER_00 (52:35):
Long may it continue.
Yeah, you went around the worldon your Spotlight startup tour
when you guys went to Singaporeand then to Focus Right.
You guys had a pretty epic yearin 2025, and here we are midway
through 2026.
So, you know, the uh the creditis all yours, and obviously I'm
looking forward to you guys'continued success.
But yeah, thanks for joining usfor this and to all of our
(52:56):
listeners.
Thanks for being a part of theSpotlight episode.
You can find out moreinformation, travel
trendspodcast.com slashspotlights.
And as you know, we do postclips and highlights on our
social channels, which you canfind on LinkedIn, Instagram, and
YouTube.
So we'll post a few clips andhighlights from today's
conversation and specificallyfrom the demo that you can now
go and check out on our YouTubechannel, youtube.com slash
(53:16):
travel trends podcast, and lookfor the IWander demo.
Thanks again for joining us forthis spotlight episode.
And until next time, safetravels.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel
Trends Podcast.
This is your host, DanChristian, and today we have a
very special spotlight episodefor you.
It's actually a bit of a reunionof sorts for me, given the
guests that we have today,because we're speaking to the
team over at IWander, my goodfriend and colleague Marius
Nagan, the CEO, and his brother,the CTO of IWander, two
(00:28):
individuals I've known for thelast few years and have the
pleasure to be involved as anadvisor for their business.
And I really wanted to bringthis spotlight episode together
to showcase the success they'rehaving as they really build out
this platform and specificallywith their hop-on, hop off
studio.
And so before I bring them in, Ijust want to give a little bit
of context before we have thisbit of a reunion.
(00:50):
But back in 2024, so a couple ofyears ago, Marius and Antoine
launched iWander out of theirLondon flat with a very simple
idea, which was to give everyonea great guide with the freedom
to wander on their own, hencethe name IWander.
Now I knew Marius from his timebuilding VIDI guides, and so he
already had a great deal ofexpertise in self-guided audio
(01:13):
tours.
But in order to build this AInative platform, he brought in
his brother Antoine, who has anextensive background in
technology consulting, and hehas led the technical build,
which is why I wanted him to bea part of the conversation
today.
And at the end of this spotlightepisode, you can find a detailed
demo of the iWander platform onour YouTube channel.
(01:35):
So make sure that you check thatout right after you listen to
this.
But Marius, as many of ourlisteners know, joined us uh
before on an episode.
He was part of our Focus Rightepisode as well.
So he gave everyone a bit of anupdate of all the things that
are happening at iWander.
But even since then, a lot haschanged.
And one of the big developmentsis the success of taking the
(01:57):
iWander studio and building outwhat they refer to as the Ho Ho
Studio, hop on hop off, whichwill show you a great detail in
the demo itself.
But really, it's become a B2Bproduct that produces
multilingual AI audio commentaryfor hop-on and hop-off
sightseeing operators.
They've been powering citysightseeing since the beginning
of launching this platform, andthat is the largest sightseeing
(02:21):
operator in the world.
And as many of our listenersknow, iWander was actually named
a FocusWire Hot 25 travelstartup for 2025.
And that was largely on thestrength of the build and the
success they've had.
So today we're going to talkabout the iWander origin story.
We're going to go deep on howthe Hoho Studio actually works
and why operators are adoptingthis globally.
And then we'll get into thegrowth partnerships and where
(02:43):
Marius and Antoine see thiscompany heading.
So first of all, Marius, welcomeback to the Travel Trends
Podcast.
Thanks for having me back, Dan.
For sure.
I'm really looking forward tothis.
And Antoine, your very firstappearance on Travel Trends.
Welcome.
SPEAKER_02 (02:56):
Thank you, Dan.
I've been looking forward tothis invite for a long time.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
It was like longtime listener, first time caller.
I like it.
So yeah, great.
Great to have you both heretogether.
And obviously, it's really coolthat you guys are brothers, but
you each really have your ownstrengths.
And you know, when we've beendoing our calls and catching up
on the progress, I'm excitedthat I have both of you here.
And obviously, Marius alwaysspeaks so highly of Antoine, and
you guys are, you know, not onlyuh great friends, but also uh
(03:23):
really strong colleagues andwhat you've been building and
working with partners.
But let's let's give everyone abit of context uh for Marius,
for anyone who's just getting toknow you that doesn't hasn't
listened to a previous podcast,and also for anyone that might
be not familiar that you're alsosupporting on the Travel Trends
advisory side, tell us a littlebit about your role at iWonder,
a little background on thebusiness.
SPEAKER_01 (03:43):
Sure.
So I'm uh the co-founder and CEOof iWonder.
So I basically deal witheverything to do with kind of
product, um, go to market,partnerships.
And so i wonder, we can go intothe origin story a little bit
more, but it really started offas a vision of how we could
build an AI travel companion.
So a guide, almost like an AIguide that can travel with you,
(04:05):
that can give yourecommendations on what to see,
what to do, what to eat, andbuild audio tours on the fly as
you walk around.
So we actually started off withthat vision.
We built some really cool piecesof tech.
Uh, we've actually integratedthat AI travel companion within
other travel apps.
Uh, but what we've actuallyfound since then is that we can
(04:26):
actually use this technology ina number of different ways.
And so what we started doing isactually adapting that
technology to specificverticals.
So I think today we'll speakabout a bit about Herho Studio,
but we've also got differentoperators with whom we're gonna
start working with very soon andhow we can use that technology
to really answer questions uhand bring solutions to problems
(04:46):
which like specific verticalsand specific operators are
having.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
Fantastic.
That's great.
And fantastic to have you back.
I think most of our listenersknow that you have this
interesting combination, you andyour brother who I'm gonna bring
in now, with that there's aFrench and English connection.
You guys are based in London, ofcourse, um, but your family's
also from France, hence Nagong.
But Antoine, tell us a littlebit about your role and your
background in consulting.
SPEAKER_02 (05:11):
Um, yeah, so um I think kind of comes back to to
Maris's previous venture and andkind of what you mentioned
there, Dan, in the introduction.
I think Maris had this greatidea and needed someone who
could partner with to build upthe tech side of it.
Um, and so I was at that time intech consulting in London, kind
(05:31):
of working across a different uhkind of variety of different
projects.
Um, and we sat down and kind ofhatched out a plan and kind of
figured out how we could worktogether to to build I Wonder.
And um and so ever since thenI've just been looking off the
all the tech side at I Wonder,that's kind of back end, so
really looking at how we canimprove the quality of our AI
(05:54):
recommendations and and lendthat technology to other
verticals, to other operators,um, and also the front end as
well.
So everything, um, everythingthat you kind of see within the
City Sightseeing app or withinthe platform that we'll we'll
showcase later today, um, that'sall kind of under my remit.
SPEAKER_00 (06:11):
Yeah, that's great.
And that's why I wanted to makesure we do this demo because
when I have a chance to catch upwith you both and see the back
end of the platform, I'mcontinuously impressed with what
you've built.
And obviously, a lot ofoperators are responding
incredibly positively to thisbecause they see what you've
built and realize how long itwould take for them to build it
themselves.
I mean, you guys have been atthis for for more than two
years, and you've got the CitySightseeing Partnership live.
(06:34):
But since then, obviously,you've got a number of other
operators that are interested inusing the technology, but it
really comes to life when yousee it.
And so, Marius, we'll talk aboutit.
You obviously are very close tothe build.
And so we'll get into that in alittle bit.
But let's make sure for all ofour listeners, if they think of
IWander, obviously I've alwaysloved the branding.
I like the positioning aroundthe consumer app, but really
(06:54):
it's become a B2B platform.
And it's very interestingbecause so many successful tech
stories today have this incommon.
They had a consumer proposition,but they've become really
successful on the B2B side.
So I see the potential, andobviously, listeners to this can
download the iWander app andthey can check it out.
But I know it's more of a demofor you guys.
And interestingly, even Hopperis the same way.
(07:15):
Um, in speaking to Frederick andthe team at Hopper, they
essentially have the app outthere for testing purposes, but
their entire business is B2B.
And so tell us a little bit moreabout that.
Obviously, starting with thesightseeing relationship uh
Maryas and what you guys havebuilt.
Give us a great overview of theplatform itself.
SPEAKER_01 (07:33):
Sure.
So actually, it almost goes umeven before that to my previous
previous venture.
So you speak about B2C versusB2B.
So my previous venture wascalled Vidiguites and it was a
platform for self-guided audiotours, which we created as
podcasts.
However, I launched that as aB2C brand, and I think as a lot
of listeners will know, buildinga B2C business in travel is
(07:55):
extremely difficult.
The unit economics often don'tmake a lot of sense.
It's quite crowded, it's verykind of um search and
performance advertisement kindof focused, at least initially.
And so I never quite managed tomake those unit economics make
sense.
So uh stepped away from that, umdid a couple other little uh
(08:16):
projects and ventures.
But when AI came about, Antoineand I sat down and we just
realized that this technologycould actually solve a lot of
the issues which we'd facedbefore, uh, especially when it
comes to, for instance, umbuilding products, um creating
content, so quality content atscale uh for prices which aren't
exorbitant, then using all ofthat in a way uh with all the
(08:39):
learnings about how do youdistribute this?
And for me, the biggestdistribution point is B2B.
So, how can we basically likeplug this into other travel
apps, other travel companies?
Um, and I think one of the keyfindings which we had was that
travel apps, whilst they're oneof the biggest categories out
there, um they are very actuallyvery rarely used in destination.
(09:00):
So most travel apps are verygood at transactions, they'll
sell you a hotel or a flight,you might use it to check in.
Uh, but once you actually arrivein destination, you really don't
use or open travel apps verymuch.
And so what we wanted to do wasbasically use this technology to
plug into other travel apps umto make them a little bit more
sticky and provide value indestination.
(09:22):
So that's really like thestarting point of where iWonder
came about.
SPEAKER_00 (09:27):
You know, it's really interesting, and I want
to just highlight this to all ofour listeners, especially those
of you that are gettingintroduced to Marius, Antoine,
and iWonder at uh with thisepisode is that the background
that Marius mentioned aboutVIDID guides, I was still in the
corporate world at the time, andI was a strong advocate for the
platform that Marius had builtand was encouraging brands like
Kentiki and the TravelCorporation uh portfolio to
(09:49):
consider incorporating thistechnology, um, which was
definitely ahead of its time.
And and you obviously you wereahead of me on podcasts, so full
credit to you there as well.
But the idea of being able tobring a destination to life with
an audio guide is something Igenuinely love.
Marius knows that, and Antoineas well.
It's something that I actuallythink still has huge potential.
And oftentimes on stage, I'lluse the example of you know
(10:10):
someone arriving at a hostel, soobviously picturing someone in
their 20s only because that'syou know, an independent
traveler arriving at a hosteland dropping their backpack off
at the hostel, putting theirAirPods in and walking towards
the Coliseum and having a guidethat they can customize based on
their interest.
And I've been talking aboutthat, as you know, for the last
couple of years, and now it'sbecoming more and more real.
(10:32):
And so uh, however, the largertravel industry, one of the
things that Marius had pointedout to me very early was that
only 3% of people who go to adestination actually book a
tour.
And so you have this huge marketpotential of people that
actually, you know, there wasthis concern initially, and it's
still valid to an extent thatpeople are gonna use AI tools
over actual guides.
(10:52):
The reality, obviously, is thatpeople love the human connection
and actual human guides arestill gonna have a very uh
bright future.
But when you think about thevast majority of people that are
not even engaging a human guidethat have access to this
technology, but as you guys saw,the opportunity that was right
in front of you was all of theseestablished players like City
Sightseeing that had anestablished customer base.
(11:14):
They were people getting on andoff these buses in major cities
around Europe, and all of asudden you could extend the
experience.
And this was, I thought, one ofthe I guess the killer
advantages of the iWander appand the sightseeing partnership
was the fact that a company likeCity Sightseeing could offer
their customers something overand above the traditional
(11:36):
coached or bus tour experienceto be able to do walking tours
on their own and have thatintegrated into the app.
So I thought that was incrediblyclever.
I thought obviously it was smartfor them to partner with you
right from the beginning.
So maybe let's just talk alittle bit more about that
because it really relates towhat we're gonna get into, which
is the hop on hop off studio.
Like you've literally built outa platform that now is a turnkey
(11:57):
solution for other operatorsthat want to introduce something
similar.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe background with C
Sightseeing, what ultimately hasgone live with that, because
there's so many differentaspects to your platform, but I
think that was core to thedevelopment and build.
SPEAKER_01 (12:11):
Yeah, sure.
So I th just to pick up on apoint there, I think that's
exactly, you know, when youmentioned the 3% of um tourists
who do walking tours, for us,what we identified actually is
that when you ask most peoplewhat the best way or the ideal
way to discover a destinationis, most people will say, Oh, to
take a private guided tour or totake a live tour guide.
(12:33):
But when you actually look atthe numbers, very few tourists
actually do that.
So really what we, you know, andwhen you dive into why that is,
money is one issue, but it's notreally the biggest one.
Most of most of the time it'sindependence, flexibility, uh,
you know, not having to kind ofconstrain your day around like
certain times or starting timesor ending times and having a bit
more flexibility.
(12:54):
So this is why I remain or weremain extremely bullish on the
potential for self-guided tours.
And, you know, I think peoplehave been at this for a while.
It's never quite exploded theway everyone has expected it to,
but I think it will at onepoint.
And I think a big reason of thatis distribution and getting that
in front of tourists andawareness.
So this net then uh leads to thenext point about the city
(13:17):
sightseeing.
So I think you know, I haveworked with um hop-on hop-off
operators in the past,especially the city sightseeing
team.
We actually had a project withthem uh when I was doing video
guys, where we actually saw thatthere was a huge uptake on
self-guided tours when it'soffered to customers because you
know it's in the name, it's hopon, you get onto the bus, and
(13:38):
then hop off.
You know, you need to kind ofoffer a tool to help them keep
discovering the city when youhop off.
And self-guided tours is justthe ultimate ideal scalable way
of doing this, provided you givethem high-quality experiences
and high quality content.
So um maybe I can actually likedrop off to Antoine here about
how how this partnership wasactually implemented.
SPEAKER_02 (14:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there was clearly anappetite on their side to uh to
use the IWanda technology tointegrate the IWanda technology
within their ecosystem.
Um, but what we kind of foundout quite quickly is they didn't
have a unified app or aworldwide app for all their
operators.
So what we actually ended upagreeing with them is not only
(14:21):
would we kind of provide themwith the IWanda technology, um,
but we also built them the newCitysight Seeing Worldwide app,
which is now on the app storesand was released um about a year
ago last September.
Um so actually the scope of theproject changed quite
drastically from just you knowintegrating our technology to
actually building an app andthen integrating our technology
(14:42):
in kind of as cohesive um a waybetween the two kind of the two
environments.
Um and yeah, since then we'vehad some really, really
promising numbers since um sinceSeptember.
Um I think we we worked veryclosely with the London team,
obviously, with our with ourbase in London, um and saw some
really interesting data as wellcoming out of that.
(15:04):
I think one thing um that reallydoes lend itself to the
operators is is is the datadashboard as well that we've
built in the background, whichum which really drives some
really interesting insights.
And and as Mary says, you know,all of these customers do get
off the bus, and how can theyhow can these operators know,
you know, where are my customersgoing?
(15:24):
What are they doing once theycome off the bus, et cetera?
So um so yeah, I think thatthat's kind of a quick overview
on the city sightseeing umpartnership and build um and
kind of how how they'veleveraged our technology to um
to help them.
SPEAKER_00 (15:37):
And this is one of the reasons I want to have
Antoine on this, since you'veactually been building this.
One of the most challengingaspects for many startups is
getting product market fit.
And you clearly have had theopportunity to do that now
working with City Sightseeing.
And I'm really keen, Antoine,since you're the one that has
been actually doing the buildand translating those features
uh and requirements into theactual platform.
(15:58):
I'm keen to know what stands outto you, either that was kind of
most fun or interesting to buildthat helped the team ultimately
solve real operator problems,and what you've seen as a result
of that, like the adoption ofsome of these features.
SPEAKER_02 (16:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think uh uh it it kind ofreminded me a little bit of of
my days in in consulting,working with all these these
different um stakeholders andand you know having all these
these different opinions and andand needs and trying to find
solutions that that cater to allof those.
I think one example that reallysticks out to us, having worked
(16:33):
with the Citizensing Londonteam, is how we actually
leverage our AI chatfunctionality actually to help
them with customer support, forexample.
Um, I think we spent a lot oftime with them understanding
kind of what are the biggestquestions that their customers
are asking them and how can weuse our technology to help them
um alleviate some of those someof those issues or pain points.
(16:57):
And so one of the big thingsthat we spent a lot of time
working on and and using our oneI wonder technology for was
essentially kind of integratingthe AI uh tech within kind of
their live database, which isyou know gives live bus arrival
times, the nearest bus stops,etc.
So really trying to kind ofcater to that to that end
(17:17):
customer and fulfill their theirneeds.
And I think uh in terms of kindof results, I think it's been
incredibly positive.
We've seen a about a 30% uptakerate on the use of RAI
technologies across alldownloads, not just users, um,
which is showing that actually,you know, that the way that
we've structured it and and thechat is actually really working
(17:38):
and resonating with their endcustomers.
And also um the walking tools aswell has has shown a real
significant increase time perdownload.
So again, really engaging thatcustomer beyond just their bus
experience, but once they getoff as well, I think that's kind
of the core of what we aretrying to build at IWonder is
that engagement.
SPEAKER_00 (18:00):
Well, on that note, I think it's probably uh
worthwhile for us to dive rightinto the hop on, hop off studio
since this is the platform thatyou've built out and is what is
scaling really nicely across theindustry right now as more
operators become familiar withthe studio and what you guys
have built, and again, why I'mencouraging all of our listeners
to check out the demo at theend.
But for all of our listenersthat primarily listen to this on
(18:21):
audio, at least let's walkthrough the Ho-Ho studio itself
and start really, I guess, withthe problem that you guys saw
with the existing operators.
No, Marius, when you werespeaking about that, a lot of
these companies have been aroundfor many years, and I certainly
uh um probably speak for manyother travelers, not just
myself, when you're trying todecide which company to go with,
(18:44):
and sometimes the commentary ispretty stale.
I was in Edinburgh recently andactually I chose a company
because they actually had a livecommentary on one of their
routes, and it's this is againfrom a traveler point of view,
when you're trying to makedecisions around the experience
that you want.
That's one aspect that I'vecertainly seen.
So I I will say that from myexperience.
Um, but what I guess operatorsdon't always then realize is
(19:05):
just how many people are gettingturned away because they see
this as an outdated experience.
And I know this extensively frommy experience at the travel
corporation with all of theseguided tour brands that people
saw as outdated.
And we were always trying toremind people actually, if you
get on a group tour, and that'swhere a lot of these adventure
travel companies have been verysuccessful with that, you know,
people delight in being on agroup tour.
(19:26):
And many travelers also love thefirst thing they want to do when
they get to a new city is jumpon a hop-on-hop off bus.
It's easy to get around, you getenough context.
And so I still see it as aperfect way to experience a city
for the first time.
So I guess where I'm going withall of this is how do you make
it relevant in um an a the ageof AI?
So tell us a little bit about Iguess why you built Hoho Studio
(19:49):
um and what you were trying toaddress for the wider market
that you saw was important forcity sightseeing.
SPEAKER_01 (19:56):
Yeah, sure.
So I I think the the first pointI just want to double down on
there is just the size of thismarket.
I didn't realize just how manypassengers a year, how many
millions of passengers thisindustry like ferries.
And quite often it's actuallythe first point of contact with
which a tourist has with adestination, which actually
(20:16):
gives so much potential for whatyou can do, what you can deliver
to them, and also being a biggerpart of their whole journey, not
just kind of like you know, thatfirst bus tour, but what you can
do after.
So to speak about how a studio,so when we were building, uh
when we were working on, youknow, launching the app and
speaking to different operators,and we were showing them the
technology which we'd built togenerate walking tours with AI,
(20:40):
every operator kept asking usthe same thing, which was can we
use your technology to rebuildor redo our audio commentary,
our audio systems?
Because you know, every time youget onto one of these hop-on
hop-off buses, uh you'll plug inyour headphones and you'll be
able to listen to commentary ina month in a number of different
languages.
What I didn't realize is justhow expensive it is to create
(21:03):
and maintain these commentarysystems.
Like to generate a basic tour onaverage, it costs about 10,000
pounds.
Uh to translate every singleinto every single language, it
costs about£3,000 just for theone-off recording and
translation.
And quite often they do that in15, 20, 25 languages.
So the costs are incrediblyexpensive.
(21:23):
But the biggest thing here isthat once these commentaries are
created, they're never updatedbecause it's just so difficult
and so expensive to go, youknow, update if, for instance, a
building is shut down or a routehas changed, or, you know, for
instance, in Paris, Notre Dameis burnt down.
Um, it's very expensive to goand change that in all the
different languages.
(21:43):
So um what we've essentiallydone is taken our AI system and
created a platform where hop onhop off operators can create,
edit, manage, translate, andrecord their audio commentaries.
So instead of you know payingPer translation or pain per
edit, they can go do thatthemselves, translate with the
(22:04):
click of a button, and publishthat directly to their audio
systems without having to waitlike months and months for
recording artists andtranslators to do that.
SPEAKER_00 (22:14):
One other thing I'm and I want to bring Antoine in
on this is that you know Imentioned the commentary first,
and obviously this is one of thebig advantages.
And I know from an um the um theeconomics of what it costs to
build these and now what itcosts to use AI to be able to
generate these, there's uhconsiderable cost savings there
and efficiency and and moreprofitability, and I know that's
(22:36):
one of the reasons that this isworking really well for you.
But before we get into that, Iwant to actually understand from
a technical point of view,Antoine, beyond commentary,
because obviously this is likethe um what most of us are
thinking of as far as the bigimprovement.
But one of the things that I seeabout introducing this type of
platform is it services a lot ofnew data that you might not
(22:59):
otherwise have access to aboutwhere where riders want to go.
Um, because otherwise you'rejust, you know, you don't
actually know anything aboutthem.
Uh they're just getting on andoff.
You don't even have that fullunderstanding of the routes
they're taking and how thatshould then factor into the
route design or making importantproduct decisions.
So tell us, um because I'm surethat's sort of the thing as
(23:20):
you've built it, you Antoine,want to see people how how
people are using it.
So tell us a little bit about,you know, beyond creating the
commentary and making itavailable, what you're seeing
that would be available tooperators within the Ho Ho
Studio that could really changechange or transform their
business.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
Yeah, um absolutely.
I think the um there are so manykind of avenues that open up
with this sort of platform.
I think, first of all, on thecommentary piece, this is the
first kind of uh time thatpersonalization of AI audio has
become a possibility for theseuh these operators.
As you said, in Edinburgh, yougo on and there is a live guide,
(23:59):
and that live guide can you knowmaybe introduce some level of
personalization, but it it wouldprobably be quite generic.
And that's the same for theonboard commentary typically
that's coming out of the theseat in front of you when you
plug in your head threads.
Here, however, we're starting tothink about you know whether
customers can do a history touror an architecture tour, um, and
(24:20):
building up that kind of firstlevel of personalization which
really responds to to customersum customers' um needs.
Um in terms of the kind of powerof of the data as well, I think
this this lends itself maybemore to the the traditional
iWonder uh travel companionpiece.
(24:40):
Um but I think really what wesaw with with some of our our
operators and partners isthrough the use of the IWander
um chat, but also the app, theycan actually map user flow a lot
better and they can understandwhere customers are going once
they get off the bus.
And this not only kind of givesthem an opportunity to maybe
(25:01):
sell new products or look at youknow different walking tours
that they can build anddistribute, but also thinking
about you know their actuallytheir actual operation
day-to-day, whether they canmove a bus route to go uh on a
little detour because that'swhere most of their customers
are getting off after the busand really kind of leveraging
that that information, not justfor kind of ancillary revenue,
(25:24):
etc., but maybe actually to thelevel of changing their
day-to-day operations as well.
SPEAKER_01 (25:29):
And if I can jump in there as well, I think one of
the things which we've foundwhich is super exciting is how
you can actually startinfluencing that traveler
journey.
Because Dan, as you said, it'squite often the first thing
which a customer will do whenthey arrive in destination,
they'll do a hop-on-hop-offtour.
What we've been surprised by ishow many travelers actually act
on the recommendations we givethem through the AI.
(25:52):
So, what I mean, for me, themost rewarding thing is actually
seeing how a customer interactswith the tool not only
throughout the day, butthroughout the trip.
And when we recommend, you know,a specific area to discover or a
restaurant or a plan for theday, they'll actually go ahead
and act on that.
And I think that's superinteresting, A, in terms of
being able to provide, you know,value to that customer and
(26:15):
actually giving themrecommendations which which are
which are good and which makesthe best out of their trip.
But also the potential as wellfor you know, thinking about how
we can work with other partnersand how we can start working
with cities and tourism flowsand all that sort of stuff,
because it's really interestinghow we can how we can actually
see that our recommendations areactually starting to impact how
(26:35):
travelers are discovering acity.
SPEAKER_00 (26:37):
Well, let's talk about how it works, and then I
want to get into the economics.
So, I mean, given that we haveAntoine here, obviously the
perfect person to explain how itworks, then obviously, Marius,
you can jump in throughout too,because obviously you've been
very close to the build.
You have a great uh backgroundin uh operating these types of,
you know, from the Viddy guy'sexperience of what uh let me
hear, let me, let me, I was Istumbled there and I want to fix
(27:00):
that.
Um I think one of the thingsthat would be really helpful for
our listeners is we actuallylook at how it works, and then
we can come back to some of theeconomics, and then obviously
I'm keen to discuss where tofrom here, given the success
that I wander is having with hopon hop off studio and some of
the other developments like yourwalk studio.
But when we think about the hopon hop-off experience, and this
is obviously where havingAntoine here to talk us through
(27:23):
how it works, because from a uhfrom an operator point of view,
when I've looked at theplatform, I'm like, man, you can
create a custom tour in like 15or 20 minutes.
And I was like, one of thethings that stood out to me the
last time I was doing a demowith the two of you, as you
know, was that this is soperfect for hotels that would
like to be able to offer customwalking tours around like Red
Carnation hotels in London,Jonathan Ragged and his team and
(27:45):
the amazing concierge staff thathave these uh exceptional
recommendations for theirguests, it would be fantastic to
have Red Carnation recommendedroutes to be able to take around
the properties they have and togive those free to get to uh
people staying at their hotels.
So for me, that was like one ofthe most obvious things.
And I think that's where whenpeople look at your platform,
it's like, well, it's got somuch potential to go in
(28:06):
different different directions.
But if we look at specificallyhow it works for hop on hop off,
uh I'm really keen, Antoine,walk us through it.
Like it's you know, and howstraightforward it is uploading
a script, the AI enhancements,how the audio is generated, and
then how this can go live uh youknow within a couple of days.
Like just walk us through theexperience of creating uh a hop
(28:28):
on hop-off tour within thestudio.
SPEAKER_02 (28:31):
Yeah, so it all starts with um with uploading
your existing script.
What we found actually, speakingto operators, is is they like
the base of their script.
It's the the the biggest issuethat they face is they haven't
updated this commentary in inseven years on average.
So what you do is you uploadyour scripts, and you can either
upload you know a Word document,a PDF, or it can also be your
(28:55):
audio files, which we transcribeand put into text.
Once that's done, there's a fewsmall kind of validation phases
where, for example, an operatorcan upload their uh track
mapping files, and that kind ofcreates a bit more of a unified
CMS system where they can kindof manage everything from one
place.
(29:15):
Um, but what we'll do really inthat next phase is we almost
block their account whilst werun a basically a fact checker
and kind of validator over theircurrent scripts.
Because we've seen that onaverage, you know, these scripts
haven't been updated in sevenyears.
The first thing before theystart playing around with our
platform is we need to go andtell them, look, these are the
(29:37):
tracks that are outdated, thisis the content that is outdated,
here's our suggested fixed.
And what they can do is they canjust go through fix by fix and
basically accept or reject eachfix.
So Marius's you know, exampleearlier about Notre-Dame is the
perfect example.
It would flag that and give thema little fix for that.
So that's really just aboutbringing that script, first of
(30:00):
all, up to speed.
Once we have that script kind ofvalidated and up to speeds,
that's where the operators canstart actually playing around
with with the platform a bitmore.
So they can uh they can makemanual edits to the content
themselves.
They can also use a variety ofour different AI enhancement
tools.
So that would be um, you know,again, a kind of a fact checker,
(30:22):
an analysis tool, uh also aquick improvement tool to kind
of just sharpen up the qualityum of the of the content.
Um, and really kind of onceyou've validated that that
language, so let's say it's anEnglish script, then you can
translate that English scriptinto just about any language.
And that process, you know, itused to take days or or weeks
(30:48):
really, and now you can do thatin typically it's around an hour
on average.
So then after that, we then uhyou can also generate audio.
Um, so you can generate all theaudios at once or do it do it
kind of script by script.
But here we are working with uhwith Eleven Labs, who I think
(31:10):
many people sh will know, or orif you don't, you you should
because they're they're abrilliant, brilliant company um
for the Texas Speech.
And there we have a catalogue ofour prevered voices, but also we
give the operators the abilityto create their own um their own
voices as well for their brandsum that fits in with a regional
accent, for example.
(31:31):
Um and all of this, I mean, wewe actually just went through a
kind of onboarding process withsomeone recently.
All of this can be done in aboutfive days maximum, and that's
with a lot of kind of a lot ofcare and attention to go live.
Uh so yeah, really kind ofbringing that that whole process
(31:52):
down from a matter of months toto days.
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
Well, and one of the things I've found in practice
from traveling is that when thecommentary is stale or when it's
not really seen as the greatvalue add, unlike when you had a
um a professional guide thatwould really kind of bring the
destination to life.
And I think that's why we allstill like having that human
element.
But when you get on a uh hop onhop-off bus, a lot of people
(32:17):
that I know who are travelingare using it mainly as transport
and not even for the guideanymore because they know it's
stale.
And the the fact that it istranslated into multiple
languages has also created a bitmore of um uh the content's just
a bit boring because it justneeds to work for all different
cultures.
And I this is one of the thingsI wanted you guys to speak
about, given you've got thebackground.
(32:38):
So, Mary, this is like more aquestion for you.
Given you've got the backgroundwith VIDI guides and creating
really compelling storylines ina podcast format that people
want to listen to and getexcited about, I mean, that's
why we travel is we want to feelthat wonder and awe, and we want
someone to guide us in the sameway that fits our.
So one of the things that stoodout to me when I was looking at
(32:59):
the platform, Antoine, is thatyou know these scripts they
regenerate um in in multiplelanguages, but you actually
adapt them for culture, not justword for word.
And I think um the idea ofalways fresh content, which I
know is part of you know thepillars that you guys are
committed to with your partners,um, tell us a little bit more
about that because I'm I'm keento know how that translates into
(33:22):
results.
If you can have always freshcontent and then you can do
things like um uh you know, canimprove the content with AI
rewrites and seeing how theengagement and then ultimately
all of these companies arelooking to increase revenue,
whether it be upsells of doingyou know uh triggered promotions
for uh local businesses andother things that come from
(33:44):
having this technology andbetter understanding your
traveler.
Tell us a little bit, Marius,from from your perspective, what
you've seen has worked reallywell and how that's why
operators are signing up andwhat results they're seeing.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Yeah, I mean, for us when we when we describe this,
we basically say we're using AIto replace a process and make it
better, cheaper, and faster.
But for me, the thing whichexcites me is the better.
Like, this is why we are doingthis business.
It's basically like to providebetter in-destination content to
travelers, whether that's on ahop-on-hop-off bus, whether it's
(34:17):
through an app, whether throughit's a self-guided tour.
And really that's what gets getsus up in the morning, and it's
what you know we've been whatI've been doing since I met you
almost 10 years ago.
Um, so in terms of like, I thinkthe the biggest thing is almost
that fiduciary care for thetraveler, for the end customer.
That's really what we careabout.
And you know, sometimes when yousee a piece of content which is
(34:39):
outdated with a terrible voice,like it really grates me.
So I think you know, actuallybringing a solution to that is
uh and making sure that you knowa traveller at the end of the
day, they save up all year forthis amazing experience in
Paris, in London, in Rome.
You want to give them the bestpossible experience.
So that's the starting point.
Um, second point about like howwe make it better.
(35:00):
I mean, there's so manydifferent ways.
One is you know, onto mentionedpersonalization, but once you've
put your scripts into theplatform, you can then create
like loads of differentvariants.
You might be more interested inhistory, onto more interested in
pop culture, I might be moreinterested in sport.
All of a sudden, you canactually start creating tailored
content for those, or like kids'tour, for instance, you can
start creating tailored content.
(35:21):
And then to go back, um, whatwe've realized as well is like
what works best, what has alwaysworked best is that podcast
format with two voices.
So we can actually bake that in.
So we can turn a monotonousone-person script into content
which is actually superengaging, like surprisingly
funny, but also two voicesspeaking to each other.
And that's what works best.
So I think it's like, you know,it's just a process, like a
(35:42):
continuous process about how wecan keep using all these pieces
of technology which we'rebuilding, whether that's you
know, better, more engagingaudio, um, a platform or tools
to um geo-trigger deals or youknow, upsells for tickets, or if
there's a concert happening andsaying, like, oh, by the way,
you know, like, you know, umPussycat Dolls are playing at
(36:05):
the O2 this week.
Um, we've got a couple oftickets, why not, why not buy
that?
It's it's actually a use casewhich we had.
Um we um you know, it's it'sjust about bringing them all in
into one content platform uh tobetter serve the end tourist.
SPEAKER_00 (36:21):
Well, tell us the uh about the economics, because
that's something I'm very keento make sure we cover as well.
Because any of our listenersthat are going to be considering
whether they use this platform,obviously the first thing for
them is you know, ease of use,you know, building efficiency.
That's what we always talkabout, AI.
But where I get excited aboutwhat you guys have built is
actually the revenue potential.
So there's cost savings, butthere's also now all of a sudden
(36:43):
there's and one of the things Ialways talk about on our
podcast, as you guys know,having been friends and
colleagues for years now, is I'malways looking for what is that
unique selling proposition thata business has that people
aren't really paying attentionto, but it's just a key reason
why they're successful.
So, what is it that they havethat's special or unique about
their business, the whycustomers are choosing them?
And I see this as a perfectexample.
(37:04):
If more day tour operators andhop on, hop-off tours around the
world can be powered by thistechnology and they can save on
costs and they can scale theirbusiness and increase revenue.
This is like obviously part ofthe reason we're doing this
because so many uh operators aresigning up and are keen on this.
But uh tell us why.
Like, what does success looklike for an operator in
practical terms?
(37:24):
What are the economics and whatare the ultimately the big
benefits you're seeing that iscausing more operators to say to
their friends and colleagues,you need to, you need to start
using IWander?
SPEAKER_01 (37:36):
Well, I'll answer this question by splitting it up
into the two different productswhich we have.
So the pure Hoho Studio, so interms of um managing your
commentary, and the let's saythe I Wonder Travel Companion,
which is something which we alsooffer.
So the reason, the simple reasonwhy we're having so much success
(37:57):
with Hoho Studio is because weare literally replacing um an
existing costline and we'redoing it cheaper, we're doing it
better, and we're doing itfaster.
So I think you don't have tolike kind of we're not
reinventing the wheel here.
We're basically just you knowoffering them something which
they're already paying for andoffering a better product.
So I think that's the startingpoint.
(38:19):
The second part about like, youknow, the piece which excites
me, um, why you should actuallyinvest in this technology and
keep like building this down theline is that we're starting to
see real um revenue gains fromit as well.
So we're seeing that value perdownload really start to
increase based off like what welaunched in September and what
we've got now.
It's just every every monthwe're adding a couple of cents
(38:42):
in terms of that lifetime valueper download through the use of
our tools.
So whether that's buying moreself-guided audio tours or
geo-triggered deals or beingsmarter in terms of how you can
upsell products, but also repeatusage as well.
Because if you've got an appwhich people are using
throughout an entire trip, thenext time they travel, instead
of going to download a new appor looking on Google to
(39:04):
basically like decide whathop-on-hop-off operator to use,
you'll use that brand again andyou'll buy the ticket from the
app.
So I think there's there's twoparts.
There's one, the kind of a pureshort-term piece where you know
you speak about product marketfit, that's much easier to
describe because it's like it'sa no-brainer.
And then the longer, longer termvision, which is what uh you
know what we set out to do.
(39:24):
And that's going to take alittle bit more time, but we're
starting to see results.
SPEAKER_00 (39:28):
Now, the one thing I'm keen to cover too in our
conversation is where to fromhere beyond the hop on hop-off
studio, because that's the partthat gets me really excited when
I look at it and I see thepotential, but then I uh I start
to realize that when you look atthe application, it applies to
so many other ways you can servetravel companies.
I know you've recently signed aRiver Cruise partner as an
(39:50):
example.
You're also building out thewalks studio side of this as
well.
And when I saw that, I was like,oh my God.
Like it's like, you know, andjust to give our listeners an
overview, like you've got theCity Sightseeing app, you have
the AI travel companion SDK, soto work with other uh
developers, you've got theiWander app, which we've talked
about briefly, but that's notthe primary focus of the
(40:11):
consumer proposition, but it'savailable.
You've got Hoho Studio, whichwe're talking about now, Walk
Studio, which is what I want toask you about.
And then, you know, part of theHoho Studio is um white the
white labeling that you knowit's not uh and this is the part
that it um on the travel companyside of this, I was always
looking for partners that couldpower a white label because I
(40:32):
wanted to make sure that ourbrand experience was you know
the first thing, that they'renot trying to understand a
different company.
They just see, and the mostimportant thing then is to
deliver on that.
If you're offering a greattravel experience, you want to
make sure you're offer offeringa great um technology experience
as well to your guests.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhere to from here with Hoho
Studio and give us a bit of anoverview of Walks Studio and
(40:55):
what that means.
SPEAKER_01 (40:57):
Sure.
So I'm I'm happy to maybe givethe overview and you speak about
the Whoops Studio.
So what we find reallyinteresting is every piece of
tech is converging.
And so we actually made when westarted realizing, you know,
what we've set out to build isalmost a portfolio of modular AI
pieces of tech, which we canoffer to basically which work
(41:19):
together to improve thatin-destination experience for
that customer and improveretention of that customer in
destination.
So make them more sticky.
And I think that's kind ofvertical agnostic because every
traveler, whether they'relanding on an airline app, a
hotel app, a hop-on-hop-off app,they'll all want the same sort
of, you know, they'll all beengaged and be retained by the
(41:40):
same sort of technology.
So if you have a technologywhich actually engages you in
destination, provides you goodcontent in destination, good
recommendations, and which canactually increase the lifetime
value, that can be transferredto pretty much any vertical or
industry within travel.
So what we decided to do wasactually instead of you know
spreading to different verticalstoo quickly, what we want to do
(42:02):
is double down on the hop-on hopoff industry.
So an industry which we knowreally well, we know that it's
not uh there's lots of techwhich couldn't be built for it.
Um, and it's also a great anchorpoint to actually capture that
customer and like really kind ofnot use as a customer
playground, but we know we havewe have that captured audience
(42:22):
and we can really, you know, addvalue to them.
So that was this that's kind ofthe starting point about what we
can what we can do.
I'll let Antoine maybe completethat.
SPEAKER_02 (42:31):
Yeah, if I can actually add on that, I think I
was kind of laughing when whenDan was going through all the
all the products that we have,and it almost feels like we I I
didn't even realize we had thatmany, and it feels like there's
too much to maintain, to handle.
But I think what's reallyinteresting and what Maria's
touched on is is and also apoint that Dan made as well, is
(42:52):
like how can you go from youknow offering experiences to
offering a more kind of you knowholistic tech experience and
also like prioritizing tech?
And I think that's really whatwhat we see.
Everything kind of has to fitinto one, and that's where our
technology is going now.
It's not so much these differentproducts, it's how can these
products work together andincrease touch points and
(43:14):
increase engagement withcustomers at every step of their
in-destination experience.
So that's really what we'retrying to do.
In terms of, I think we've givena good overview of Hoho Studio.
So let me touch on Walk Studio.
I think Walk Studio is kind of abit more maybe fundamental to
kind of the vision that weoriginally had at IWonder, which
(43:34):
was really um, you know,customer-specific walking tours,
personalized walking tours.
But what we saw as well, therewas a huge demand from um from a
variety of kind of operators,whether it's kind of day tours,
we had you know walking holidaysin the cotzwalls in random UK
areas, asking whether they coulduse our technology to build more
(43:57):
brand specific walking tours.
It's not a About just givingtheir end customer the ability
to create a walking tour, butalso how can they use our tech
to um to create these kind ofengaging walking tools, either
you know, for their their daytrip or as you said, Dan, a good
example is around a hotel aswell.
So, really, we had all of thattechnology in place, and now
(44:21):
it's kind of just you know, howcan we build a very simple
platform that is easy to use foroperators where they can
actually just go in and buildthose walking tools themselves
using our AI technology.
So it's very, very similar tothe Hoho Studio in terms of how
it works, um, in terms of youknow creating a creating
(44:43):
content, uh using AI to improveit, translating, recording, um,
and distributing as well.
SPEAKER_00 (44:50):
Well, and part of the reason I wanted to ask that
is that you know, when you thinkabout the hop-on-hop-off
experiences and what people aredoing as they're getting on and
off the buses in these cities,they're visiting attractions,
museums, um, clearly they'restaying at a hotel.
And for a lot of tourism boardsor uh DMOs, there's an
opportunity for them to beinvolved in this as well because
they clearly want more people tovisit their cities.
(45:11):
But um when I look at what'slive today versus what's on your
the potential roadmap, that'salso what excites me as well,
because like you've got a greatuser base on the Hoho side,
which naturally extends towalks.
But for me, and this is, Iguess, a question um for Marius,
is that when you start goinginto river crews and you start
(45:31):
thinking about, and I Imentioned hotels, and I know
it's something you guys are alsokeen on in time.
Um, tell us a little bit aboutwhat is next and how this can be
used in other verticals.
What are some of the things thatyou know we've covered really
what's live today, and obviouslyyou can go into a fair amount of
detail if people listening tothis want to have a direct, you
know, they can watch the demo,but also reach out to you guys
to have a direct demo and walkthrough the platform so they
(45:54):
can, you know, they can seewhat's live today, um, which is
real and meaningful, but there'sobviously so much more potential
for where the platform could go.
Where do you see this going nextand what other verticals are
gonna excite you most, Marius?
SPEAKER_01 (46:08):
Yeah, um I think it goes back to what we said
before.
I think long term we're gonna bevertical agnostic.
I think we've identified maybethree uh different verticals
which we'd like to go into next.
Um hotels is definitely thebiggest one, then we've got day
tours, and then we've got OTAs,or basically like you know, the
kind of platforms that sell umsell either packaged holidays or
(46:32):
experiences online.
And who want to have a bit moreretention engagement post sale
of you know, either a holiday oran experience.
So I think what uh what we'regonna do next is basically just
you know learn from what we'vedone so far, which is really
focus on building for thatspecific vertical or industry or
(46:56):
use case.
I think you know, one size fitsall doesn't really work, but
what we've seen, what works bestis when we actually tailor this
technology to a specific client,to a specific vertical, to a
specific industry, um, and makesure that you know, like we
actually maximize the amount ofengagement which a customer gets
through this platform.
Um so yeah, I I think you knowshort answer is we're pretty
(47:19):
much um virtuous agnostic.
We've got a couple of partnersin the pipeline, and I think
we'll just build towards them.
SPEAKER_00 (47:25):
Well, and part of the reason I asked that, because
one thing I'm still amazed isthat no major tech or travel
company has come in yet and justacquired IWander.
And you know, when I look at thestage you guys are, I feel that
there's like very something,something very similar to uh
Legends and what Stephanie andShayna were building uh just
before they were acquired byFora, because the technology was
very much ahead of its time interms of using AI for better
(47:46):
personalization.
And now that's been built intothe core of Fora platform,
they're now a unicorn, and I'mthrilled for Shayna and
Stephanie that they've been, youknow, that they're part of Fora.
And obviously I adore that teamthere as well.
And I'm good friends with Jake.
So for me, when I look at traveltechnology, and the only reason
we ever do these spotlights isif I feel like there's a really
compelling opportunity toshowcase what's been built and
(48:08):
the potential for it.
And so I guess I need to ask youthat question.
I'm keen to know what successlooks like for you guys.
And you know, you know, you'vehad some funding, you've got
some very strategic partners,Microsoft for startups, 11 Labs
is obviously partner IBM, thecity sightseeing relationship.
You guys are very well respectedin the industry.
And um, what's next for you guysin terms of funding scaling or
(48:32):
potentially being acquired?
Not that you can say everythingbecause maybe there's something
else that's already in theworks, but um, yeah, tell us uh
I'm just genuinely curious toknow what's next for you guys
because you're a smart, talentedteam that's built great tech.
And um what what what would youlike to see as the next uh next
phase and outcome?
SPEAKER_01 (48:49):
Well, I think the the first point is we've worked
really hard to try and make thisinto self-sustaining business.
And this is also part of thereason why we doubled down on
host studios of vertical ratherthan going too broad and going
where the money is.
So uh the starting point is toget towards profitability, and
we're very, very close now.
After that, it's about justidentifying where the biggest
(49:10):
opportunity is.
Um, I think what we want to dois, you know, we want to have a
real impact, we want to hit asmany customers as possible,
travelers as possible, make thattraveler journey as good as
possible.
Whether that's working with youknow a thousand companies and
integrating, you know, ourtechnology into that, or maybe
working with one bigger one andactually like completely
(49:31):
changing with the way which theyinteract with their customers.
I don't know.
Who knows?
It depends what's up, what whatsort of what offers on the
table.
Uh, but I think we're stillpretty bullish about what we can
what we can go, what we canachieve, and it's just a start
for us.
SPEAKER_00 (49:44):
That's great.
Now I want to make sure all ofour listeners are gonna be able
to join us for the demo, whichwill be about 15 or 20 minutes
on our YouTube channel,youtube.com slash travel trends
podcast.
We'll make sure there's a linkin this episode so you can
easily get access to that.
But I wanted to do a spotlightepisode to really bring together
the backstory on iWander and thefull update of where they're
(50:07):
having huge success and wherethe business is headed.
And the best way to experienceit is to actually look at the
product and their platformitself.
Now, many of our listeners canreach out to you guys directly
if they want to get a demo, butI definitely encourage everyone
to check out the live demobecause you'll see a lot of what
we've just been talking about.
And just when you wrap your headaround the potential for it,
(50:27):
like I have, you'll see all thedifferent verticals this could
apply to.
But um, tell everyone, Mariusand Antoine, if they want to
reach out, where can they getmore information about Hoho
Studio and IWander?
And what would be the best wayto connect with you guys?
SPEAKER_01 (50:42):
Sure.
So I think the best place if youwant more information to go to
our website, IWonder, soi-w-a-n-d-e-r.io.
Uh and if you want to reach out,connect with us directly, we'd
love to hear from you atLinkedIn.
So just find myself or Antoine,so Marius or Antoine Nigons, um,
on LinkedIn, and yeah, lookforward to chatting to you
(51:04):
there.
SPEAKER_00 (51:05):
I just like the fact you didn't go www.
Thinking about it.
You guys It's funny, we havethese conversations about AI in
the future, and then when itcomes to domain names, we go
right back to like 1995.
So um no, that's that's uh Well,I'm obviously excited to cut
over to the demo, but before wedo, for the listeners that are
(51:27):
signing off now, Antoine, whatwould you like to leave them
with?
SPEAKER_02 (51:30):
Um just a just a thank you for you, Dan.
Uh thanks so much for having us.
Uh it's been great to to finallyget on and and and share the
spotlight with Marius as wellfor once.
Um and yeah, if there's anyonebuilding some kind of cool tech
products out there in the travelindustry, I'd love to connect um
and kind of you know broaden mytech network as well within the
(51:51):
travel industry.
SPEAKER_00 (51:52):
Yeah, you're not in Marius' shadow anymore.
You can stand on your own.
Uh and obviously people canreach out to you on LinkedIn,
and I'm sure they will.
But we'll segue over to thedemos.
You can hear more from Antoineand Marius.
And Marius, of course, thanks asalways.
Obviously, congratulations onthe continued success.
Thanks for your support on theadvisory side of travel trends.
Obviously, I think very highlyof you guys, what you've built
(52:13):
today wander, and really enjoyour collaborations.
So congrats to you, andobviously wish you every success
in the rest of the year.
We'll be keeping in regularcontact.
But thanks for joining us.
And anything else you want toleave our listeners with?
SPEAKER_01 (52:25):
No, just thank you, Dan.
Uh, thanks for all the help,support, the spotlight you put
startups um in for the travelindustry.
And yeah, been a pleasureworking with you.
SPEAKER_00 (52:35):
Long may it continue.
Yeah, you went around the worldon your Spotlight startup tour
when you guys went to Singaporeand then to Focus Right.
You guys had a pretty epic yearin 2025, and here we are midway
through 2026.
So, you know, the uh the creditis all yours, and obviously I'm
looking forward to you guys'continued success.
But yeah, thanks for joining usfor this and to all of our
(52:56):
listeners.
Thanks for being a part of theSpotlight episode.
You can find out moreinformation, travel
trendspodcast.com slashspotlights.
And as you know, we do postclips and highlights on our
social channels, which you canfind on LinkedIn, Instagram, and
YouTube.
So we'll post a few clips andhighlights from today's
conversation and specificallyfrom the demo that you can now
go and check out on our YouTubechannel, youtube.com slash
(53:16):
travel trends podcast, and lookfor the IWander demo.
Thanks again for joining us forthis spotlight episode.
And until next time, safetravels.
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