Introducing River Cruise Travel with Kaptio

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The river cruise industry is poised for remarkable growth, with the market expected to double from $5 billion to $10 billion in the next five years. But what’s fueling this surge—and how is technology transforming one of travel’s most immersive and intimate experiences?

In the kickoff episode of our River Cruise Series, we’re joined by Ragnar Fjölnisson, Founder and CIO of travel tech platform Kaptio, for a behind-the-scenes look at a sector that millions have fallen in love with, yet few truly understand.

From humble beginnings with repurposed barges in the 1960s to Viking’s breakthrough launch in 1997—now a publicly traded company worth nearly $20 billion—river cruising has evolved into a refined blend of luxury, accessibility, and cultural depth.

Ragnar explains what makes river cruising unique: smaller ships with just 100–120 passengers, docking directly in historic town centers, and offering a boutique hotel experience on water. This format is attracting a new wave of travelers—from affluent explorers to multi-generational families, where grandparents often fund the trip for the entire group.

But with opportunity comes challenge. While many operators excel in fleet management, fragmented distribution channels and inflexible tech stacks continue to hold the industry back. That’s where Kaptio steps in - bringing modern, agile technology built for cruise operations, dynamic packaging, and future-forward innovation. Still, Ragnar emphasizes one constant:

“AI plays a supporting, augmenting role. But it can’t replace the human connection.”

With thought leaders like Kaptio and pivotal players such as Tauck, Avalon, and Scenic, the future of river travel promises to be as inspiring as the journeys themselves. Join us as we continue to uncover the stories redefining the river cruise experience in this exclusive series.

👉 Listen to Introducing River Cruise Travel Now

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm actually not, as I'm not going to be all in on AI
as a, as a, as a waste ofdiscovery.
Just yet, right, just yet,because my view is that the okay

(00:25):
.
So the travel advisors havegrown through some form of
scaling, hyper personalizedagent.
Now, it's not.
It's not digital scale, it'snot, you know, because you know
they've just found a very niceniche in finding their clientele
, getting to know them, gettingto learn and understand their
insights, their preference andtheir their points of view, and

(00:45):
so that they can make a rational, gut feel decision about what
they're going to like and howyou're going to position
something in front of them, Justlike how any services industry
works, like whether it'sfinancial services or whether
it's your insurance broker.
You know you build up thesedata points as one of these
experts and you use them andyou're you know sort of you know
, like the human level relationsof building expertise, to make

(01:09):
sure that you're puttingsomething together that fits,
that makes sense, and AI plays asupporting, augmenting role
there.
It will.
I don't think it's going to bethe same as the human connection
.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hello everyone and welcome back to Travel Trends.
This is your host, danChristian, and we are about to
begin our deep dive into rivercruising, brought to you in
partnership with our friends atCaptio.
But before we do, I just wantedto give some important context
to this series, since we justwrapped up our guided touring
series.
Now, many of the companies thatoperate in multi-day also

(01:45):
operate in river, and we heard alittle bit about that as we
were speaking about multi-day,and you're going to hear even
more about that as we get intoriver cruise.
And the reason we wanted tobring these two series back to
back is partly for that reason,but also because that's exactly
what traveler behavior is in2025 and beyond.
Travelers are seeking bothexperiences and often from the

(02:08):
same organization.
And now, speaking of companieswanting both experiences and
working with one organization,captio now that's Captio, with a
K K-A-P-T-I-O operates atechnology platform specifically
designed for multi-day and havebeen expanding into River.

(02:28):
Tauk is actually one of theirpartners.
But take one step further backand the founder of Captio,
ragnar, is a big fan of traveltrends and him and I have become
terrific friends over the lastcouple of years.
He was on our podcast muchearlier and he was part of a
travel technology episode and itwas one of the most popular

(02:50):
episodes we've ever had and,very interestingly, it was
actually the reason that wedecided to start doing deep
dives in the first place.
What we discovered with TravelTrends is that when we had a
topic that really interested ourglobal audience audience and we
had the right people to speakto that topic, those were by far
our most downloaded episodes.

(03:11):
We continue to do that withsustainability and a number of
specific focused topics.
That ultimately led us inseason four to do a three or
four episode deep dive into aspecific focus area, like
adventure travel, ocean cruises,the role of travel advisors.
And season five has followedthat exact approach and we have

(03:34):
had five deep dives in seasonfour and we're doing five deep
dives here in season five.
And the reason that it'sparticularly relevant to Ragnar
and Captio is because I had theprivilege to be invited to their
conference in Iceland at theend of 2024 on my way to World
Travel Market, and Ragnar, jesse, tracy and Vidar kindly invited

(03:58):
me to speak at their conferenceand I've known Ragnar now for a
couple of years and I've beenso impressed with his team and
his technology, but this was myfirst chance to actually see the
team in person and actuallymeet a number of their clients,
because they were there for thisconference and when I got a
chance to see just how muchpeople love working with Captio

(04:19):
and the platform and the teamand developed a much deeper
understanding of theirtechnology offering and the fact
that it's expanding into RiverCruise, it seemed to me that it
was an ideal partnership as webrought this series together.
So Captio and the team kindlyoffered to sponsor our River
Cruise series and they've alsocome on as a title sponsor for

(04:40):
season six.
So, on that note, I just wantedto strongly encourage anyone
working in the multi-day tour orriver cruise space to check out
kaptiocom to learn more aboutCaptio's team and technology,
because they are conquering thecomplexity of multi-day travel
and, believe me, from mybackground and experience, it is
complex, which is why so manycompanies struggle with

(05:01):
technology when they get intothis space and that is their
exclusive focus, which istransforming how tour operators
design, sell and manage thesecomplex multi-day tour travel
experiences, and their platformhas been specifically designed
to help companies streamlinetheir operations, help with your
bookings and improve thecustomer experience so you can

(05:22):
focus on meeting the demands oftoday's travelers.
For more information, check outCaptiocom.
We'll be right back.
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(06:50):
That's protectgroup.
And now back to the show.
Now let's get into this seriesand River Cruise and bring in
the star of this first episode,the founder of Captio, ragnar.
Welcome, ragnar, so great tohave you back on Travel Trends.
Thanks again for your supportand for joining us.
Thanks, dan, good to see you.

(07:10):
You too, man.
Last time we saw each other wasin Iceland, which is obviously
home for you.
I know you live in Germany nowwith your family, but the Captio
company is based in Reykjavikand I had a chance to come
across and meet the whole teamthanks to you.
You brought me across to speakat your conference, which I so
thoroughly enjoyed, andobviously you and I have gotten
to know each other really wellover the last year.

(07:31):
I know you enjoy listening tothe show and are a big fan of
Travel Trends, and I greatlyappreciate that.
We've become good friends andalso partners.
Captio has kindly stepped up tosponsor this series and even
season six of travel trends aswell, so I'm I'm thrilled with
how our relationship has hasdeveloped, but I I think what it
comes down to and our listenerswill hear today, is the fact
that you and I genuinely getalong and have become really

(07:53):
good friends, and I think thatthat so many people had said to
me before we recorded thatepisode together how do you not
know, ragnar, like you guys haveso much in common and you guys
would get along, he's's likeyou're younger than me.
But he people had said, like youknow, he's young, he's smart,
he's like he's got so much goingfor him.
And anyway, when we got to sitdown in Reykjavik that first

(08:15):
evening, you and I went fordinner together and and one of
the things you showed me was DanGPT and I'd heard about this.
So yeah, so R damn GPT and I'dheard about this.
So yeah, so, ragnar, tell mefrom your vantage point how that
came about, because I thoughtit was pretty a pretty cool
thing, a little creepy but alsovery cool.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
But, yeah, tell our listeners how that came about.
Well, the thing is that, no,I've been, you know, I've known
about you for a while as well,and it was always a sort of hey,
I really need to, you know, getto know Dan a bit more.
So when you invited me on thefirst podcast, that was a great
opportunity, and when wefinished doing that, episode.

(09:03):
I got really into listening toall of the prior episodes and
then every episode since, andwhat I did was because I think
the way you articulate theindustry, you are such a great
spokesperson for Multiday and Ithink we've lacked that.
We've lacked the consistentfigure to sort of spearhead the
view of the industry and thepotential of it and and the

(09:24):
research that that that is andshould continue to be happening.
So when, when I sort of I sortof saw that hey, this, this is
the guy, he, he's the face ofthe industry, I really thought,
well, what this industry needsis a bit of normalization of
language terminology, um, andand and and a bit of sort of a
category definition and, um, youdid a couple of episodes, um,
both were as a guest, and andthen of sort of a category

(09:45):
definition.
And you did a couple ofepisodes both as a guest, and
then, of course, you hosted manygreat people from the multi-day
industry.
And every time I feel likethere's a great multi-day
episode, I add it to a customChatGPT AI assistant, I take the
transcripts from the show and Iupload it into Dan GPT and me

(10:07):
and Jess use Dan GPT.
Who Jess is on our marketingteam.
We use Dan GPT to figure outnormalization of language,
normalization of how we talkabout the industry, and we feel
that the way you articulate thefuture and the past of multi-day
is spot on.

(10:27):
So you're doing more work thanyou realize behind the scenes in
some of these cases.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's awesome, ragnar.
I really appreciate thosegenerous comments and certainly
I was delighted to hear that youwere able to utilize the
information that way and it wasuseful.
I was actually quite impressedwhen I was listening to it that
I was like, yeah, that's what Iwould have said.
I think that's pretty close towhat I think on that matter.
And when I asked Jesse, I'mlike how is he doing this?
And and she said I think he'sactually taken all of your

(10:55):
previous interviews and the beable to create this kind of
marketing persona that then youcan ask questions of to, as you
said, normalize the language orunderstand how to connect with
customers or travel advisors.
So you know, that's a big focusfor me for sure is communicating

(11:17):
our industry and extolling thebenefits and the virtues.
And what are the things I getinto in a lot of these calls
that you know is like theirunique selling proposition,
understanding how you sell thedifference.
And what are the things I getinto in a lot of these calls
that you know is like theirunique selling proposition,
understanding how you sell thedifference and what the
positioning is, because that'swhat I've learned, certainly
over my time in this industryand marketing specifically.
That really can help a branddifferentiate itself, grow and
scale.

(11:37):
So thank you, first of all, fortaking such a keen interest and
developing that.
Hopefully we can advance thatfurther going into season six in
our AI summit.
I know we're going to have youback for our AI summit in
October 28th and 29th.
We just announced those datesso you can look forward to
Ragnar joining us there, andmaybe Ragnar, if you wanted to.
That's actually one of thethings you can demo.

(11:57):
You can demo creating a customGPT to use as your assistant,
absolutely.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
GPT to use as your assistant.
Absolutely Well, let's at leastmake it a goal to publish it so
that anyone who is working inthe industry and wanting to help
define the future of thecategory they get access to it
as well.
So yeah, let's make that a goalthen.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Publish.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Dan GPT for the world .

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Awesome.
Thanks, ben.
I'm looking forward to it.
Now let's make sure that webring in our listeners that may
not be familiar with Captio andare even coming to get to know
you, ragnar, for the first time,so that we bring everyone on
this journey.
As we begin to talk about rivercruises because you alluded to
multi-day and of course, that isa big part of my background and
we just finished our multi-daytour series, which got a ton of
interest and attention.

(12:41):
But very interestingly, giventhat's both of our backgrounds,
we're about to talk about rivercruising and our audience will
quickly understand why and I'vebeen alluding to that over the
course of the multi-day tourseries because a number of those
companies and one good exampleis Globus that owns Avalon
You're going to hear from Avalonon this series as well.
Another company, tauch, whichis a great partner of yours,

(13:02):
exists both on the multi-daytour guided side as well.
Another company, tauk, which isa great partner of yours,
exists both on the multi-daytour guided side as well as the
river cruise side, and there issuch a synergy between these two
sectors in travel.
But before we dive into that,give everyone a little bit of
overview of Captio and your roleas well, too, ragnar.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, so we stumbled into the multi-day space before
it was a category we startedbuilding on top of the
Salesforce platform in 2014, meand my co-founder Artnar, and we
had this vision of a blue oceanopportunity to combine

(13:41):
reservation technology with CRMon the same underlying platform
and that really resonated with alot of different leaders in
tour operation and then laterdown the line in cruise, and
then it sort of evolved intobecoming this sort of multi-day
category with river and oceanand small ship cruising sort of

(14:03):
often being bundled togetheronto that category.
So we were part of thatdefinition or that category
being born.
We were part of that sort oftrend and when we started
dealing with technology formulti-day know, there were no

(14:24):
online bookings.
2014 they were getting anonline booking for multi-day
booking or multi-day travel was,uh, pretty much unheard of and
um, even things like sending atailored uh proposal or a
tailored um quote uh to to yourcustomer for what is obviously a

(14:45):
very intimate and highlyspecial occasion, going on a
trip like this, getting it onyour mobile or getting it in
sort of a website tailored toyou that was unheard of at the
time.
So we brought a lot of thatsort of first technological

(15:06):
steps to making buying amulti-day holiday a bit more
closer to how consumers werebuying other products across
different industries, and wewere very inspired by what
Salesforce was doing and theyare a perfect partner for us to
bring that technology forward.
So, combining CRM, customerexperience and just kind of

(15:29):
making more of the bookingprocess digitally native and
less reliant on traditional andlegacy methods of getting your
product out there and supportingthe booking process, whether
that's online or offline.
So, yeah, that's sort of ourorigin story in a nutshell, and
we were fortunate enough in 2016to or 2015, actually, to start

(15:51):
working with a very ambitiouscompany.
That gave us about nine weeksto launch a booking platform for
their new venture in China andthat was Viking Cruises and that
was a.
You know, I never went thetraditional academic route.
You know I'm very much aself-learned entrepreneur,

(16:14):
developer, architect and so onbut that was my MBA, working
with a Viking team to launch inChina.
That was an absolutely, yeah,absolutely life-changing
opportunity and that sort of setsail for what came afterwards,
which was this interest in rivercruise and in cruising in

(16:34):
general and what makes meexcited about the future really
in cruising.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Well, I think people certainly got a good idea from
that introduction about yourbackground certainly being the
founder of Captio but then overthe years being the CTO, chief
product officer, chiefinnovation officer, as you are
now, and the company growing andgetting additional investment
and moving into this category.
So just to add a little bit ofcontext to our listeners too,
why Captio is involved in theRiver Cruise series versus the

(17:05):
multi-day tour series, becausethis is where you guys have a
number of high profile clientsin the multi-day tour space and
are continuing to grow in thatcategory and based on that
success, you have now charted acourse to expand into River
Cruise, tauk being one of thosepartners.
Of course, that has kind of ledthe way with you developing
this technology which is nowavailable to a lot of other

(17:27):
river cruise companies.
So tell us a little bit aboutthat journey, just so it kind of
sets the stage for ourconversation because very
quickly I want to bring ouraudience along the journey with
understanding the background onriver cruise, the size of this
industry, all these things thatalso led you into this space.
But yeah, tell us a little bit,just from a technology point of
view, why it was socomplimentary for you to move
from multi-day into river cruise.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
I don't think we saw it that simply to begin with,
but the team over at Vikingreally convinced us that you
know the power of running a CRMand a cruise reservation system
on the same underlying platform.
They were just that had been adream reservation system on the
same underlying platform.
That had been a dream of one ofthe main executives there, a

(18:14):
great mentor of mine, Jeff Dasch, who really saw that vision and
we were sort of at the moment,yeah, we can probably do cruise.
But we were kind of born in thetour space and after several
demos and discussion he saw howthe pieces fit together and
that's really where we startedto look at ourselves not as a
tour operation, uh solution, butmore of a multi-day across the

(18:34):
category kind of solution andand and a platform really.
And that's taken us then, youknow, several years to to then,
uh, I say, harden each sector ofthat.
We've always been recognized andknown in the FIT space.
We've had some really greatcustomers early on who adopted

(18:55):
the platform for FIT packaging,so different components being
put together.
You've had many of ourcustomers on your show support
that use case, namely customerslike Railbookers.
And then we also workedextensively with Autly Travel
and Rocky Mountaineer, who doquite a lot of sort of, I would

(19:17):
say, flexible packaging, andthen some of the brands over at
the Travel Corp as well, andthat's where we really got known
.
But then through some really,really strong kind of demand,
after COVID we started havingthese very good discussions with
companies like Calc andIntrepid, who really shaped our

(19:38):
roadmap over the last two years,and now we're launching sort of
a very focused tour productthat allows tour operators to
both operate and sell anend-to-end tour land tour, group
tour, custom tour or customgroup tour on the platform.
As well.

(20:00):
As a very strong partner of ours, Aurora Expeditions down in
Sydney, we see a hugeopportunity in launching this
sort of dedicated cruiseoffering and each offering.
So cruise tours and flexibletravel it's all underlying the
same platform.
But what's happening is that inorder for the product or these

(20:24):
different solutions to becomeviable to adopt and implement
efficiently, there are differentpartners and different
integrations that our customersneed for each of these use cases
.
So what we're really trying todo is identify the best partners
for each one of these solutions, create these accelerators
where it's been bundled uptogether as one transformational

(20:45):
offering, and then we canprovide this as a kind of
unlocking growth package of howyou get off your legacy
technology and you move on tosomething foundationally
different, which is thisSalesforce Capdeo foundation and
then all the differentcomponents that supplement that.

(21:07):
So that's going to.
Yeah, we're very excited aboutthat.
I think that strategy will bebig for us and, hopefully, our
customers.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, no, certainly that.
All indications are, and Ithink this is where you know,
just looking at the size of theindustry and how it's going to
grow, it's really importantcontext for you getting involved
in this space, not only withthe existing market share that's
available for river cruisecompanies to compete in, but
just how rapidly that isintended to expand over the next
five years.
So let me share some of thesestats with our listeners just to

(21:39):
give some great context to whywe wanted to do this river
cruise series.
I mean, I certainly have mybackground working with River
Cruise companies like Uniworldand within the Travel
Corporation group of brands thatyou referred to.
So I certainly came tounderstand very well over the
last decade how important RiverCruise was to the multi-day tour
collection and how yousuccessfully cross-sell those

(22:00):
brands as well.
Someone takes an InsightVacations trip, a multi-day
guided tour, and then they takea River Cruise for a week and
it's been fascinating to seeconsumer behavior, how they have
basically chosen both of thoseoptions.
And then, when you look at thecompanies and you'll hear from a
number of these on this series,globus being that one example
that stands out simply becauseof the fact that they have River

(22:20):
Cruise built in theircollection and they established
River Cruise as that industrywas really starting to take off,
because they had a history ofoperating multi-day and there's
a lot of synergies between thosetwo and from an operations
point of view, and so, but interms of the opportunity, I
guess this is one thing I wantedto highlight because when we
did the multi-day tour series wewere talking, steve Zahn, the

(22:41):
CMO of Globus, was highlightingthis is a $300 billion industry
that very few people know aboutand we've always kind of used
these stats and you're familiarwith this, of course, as well
that you know.
Pre COVID, we saw the multi daytour spaces, but 100 million,
100 billion sorry globally, andnow, post COVID, you know it's
more like a $300 billionindustry, given inflation and

(23:02):
other factors and just how it'sgrowing.
Companies like Intrepid youmentioned, that are on the cusp
to do a billion dollars a year,and there's quite a few
multi-day tour companies thatare in that range that are doing
a billion dollars in business.
And so then, when we turn ourattention to river cruise,
what's interesting is that,although you've heard about
river cruising for the last,let's say, 20 years, the last 10
or 15 years, it's been on anincredibly hot streak that
everyone has found out aboutriver cruising, like the secret

(23:24):
got out that river cruising isan amazing way to travel and
more and more people have beenexperiencing it.
It's almost similar and youremember this too, and the Rocky
Mountaineer, which is still agreat experience and company,
but all of a sudden therebecomes a type of trip that
people all want to do.
Everyone wanted to do the RockyMountaineer in Canada, from
Calgary to Vancouver, and thenthey wanted to do an Alaskan
cruise and this was like theultimate trip that everyone

(23:47):
needed to do.
This.
They needed to do the RockyMountaineer and the Alaskan
River Cruise and really aboutthe same time, the river cruise
was sort of entering thezeitgeist of travelers thinking
of new ways to travel and peoplecoming off river cruises and
raving about the experiencebecause it's so different than
ocean cruising.
And not only the small shipwhich, focusing on Europe.

(24:11):
Most of those ships only fitabout 100, 120 people as opposed
to 1,000 plus.
They navigate through thewaterways many ways that
historically as a civilizationhas evolved.
They actually park in theplaces that you can get off the
ship, walk into a village andit's a very different experience
.
It's almost like the way thatyou can get off the ship, walk
into a village, and it's a verydifferent experience.
It's almost like the way thatpeople used to love.
Um, you're just getting off atrain, right in the heart of a

(24:31):
city.
Now you have an opportunity toget off on a boat and be able to
instantly be immersed in theculture and the community of
small towns all across europe,and you can see them, uh, from
the ship, as you are eitherlounging in your room or
lounging on the top floor andyou get to see castles.
So you know, the Danube, theRhine, some of these rivers that
were just so perfectlypositioned for river cruising,

(24:53):
you know, just took off.
We'll be right back.
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And now back to the show.
Just to give everyone thecontext on the numbers and the
history, and I'll keep it brief.
But if you look at the one ofthe largest and well-established
, if you will and I'll talk alittle bit more about that in a

(28:20):
moment, but essentially you'vegot around 25 different
companies.
Most of them have ships thatare, you know their fleet can
vary from four to 10 to, youknow, 20 ships, and so they are
very much boutique collectionand the way it was always
described to me, especiallyworking with Uniworld, was that
these were essentially five-starfloating hotels, and so you

(28:40):
operated them much the same waythat you did luxury hotels, and
there was always this desire forRiver Cruise to be a premium
offering, and you'll hear thatwhen we're speaking to Pam from
Avalon just how Globusintroduced River Cruising, but
just to give a bit of the marketshare and a timeline.
So when you look at theindustry today, as we're having
this conversation in 2025, thereality is this industry is set

(29:03):
to double in the next five years.
So we're talking about goingfrom $5 to $10 billion.
And how is it going to do that?
Clearly, each of thesecompanies are expanding, they're
adding new ships and we're alsogoing to see new entrance into
the river cruise space.
So we all have to be mindful ofall the things that happen when
travel continues to expand,with overcrowding, and so that's

(29:24):
sort of the, I guess, thecautionary note.
But nevertheless, people aregoing to want to continue taking
river cruises and there's goingto be more options for them.
So obviously that lends itselfwell to developing the
technology for these platforms.
But the other thing just tomention and then I'm keen to get
your take on this too, ragnar,is that when you look at the

(29:46):
history of this space, it reallystarted in the 60s and 70s with
barges.
There was lots of entrepreneursthat were kind of retrofitting
barges to go down differentwaterways, and then it really
wasn't until the 90s that all ofa sudden you started to see
ships emerge that were designedand purpose-built for river
cruising, and the first majorone was Viking, which was 1997.

(30:06):
And there's an interestingconnection there between what
happened then and what'shappening now, which is that
when Viking was first createdand the founder had a background
in ocean cruise and createdthis river cruise line, which
started in Russia, interestinglyenough, and then expanded
through Europe, viking also justwent public last year, for

(30:28):
those people who've beenfollowing this, because Viking
went from strength to strength.
A lot of people who came toknow river cruising came to know
Viking one because they wereone of the first, if not the
first, in this space, dependingon how you look at it.
They weren't an overnightsuccess, so it actually took
them more than a decade toreally kind of build out this
business, although it wasgrowing from the beginning.
But it wasn't until the early2000s that you actually started

(30:49):
to see other river cruisecompanies be introduced by
either through acquisition oractually forming these brands
themselves, like Avalon wasformed as part of the Globus
Group in 2003.
They got into river cruising.
Some people were charteringother ships, they started buying
their own.
So it really wasn't until thelast 20 years, in the early
2000s, that all of a sudden, youhad some of the companies that

(31:11):
we're going to be speaking to inthis series being founded and
setting sail.
And this is where, over the last, say, 10 or 15 years, this
category has just gone fromstrength to strength and we're
now in a place and this is whereI always find it fascinating
how long it takes to get to aplace.
So, if you think about theindustry growing from $5 billion

(31:31):
to $10 billion, if you actuallyjust look at the market cap
today of Viking now, of course,viking does ocean and they've
expanded their business, butwhen they went public last year
for those of you who got inearly on the IPO the IPO had the
company valued at $10 billion.
Today, if you're looking to buyone of those stocks, it's
doubled.

(31:52):
The company is worth nearly $20billion.
It's about 18 based on tradingtoday, and that gives you an
idea of how bullish investorsare on this category and this
space, given the growthpotential.
So, for all those reasons, Iguess what I want to finish by
saying, ragnar, is I always findit fascinating how long it
takes to get to a place Likehere we are in 2025.
It's literally taken 25 yearsto get to the capacity that we

(32:15):
have today, and in the next fiveyears that's going to double,
and it's only going to be ableto double by virtue of what it
took to get to where we are.
So, for all those reasons, I'mthrilled to bring this
conversation together.
So, ragnar, please jump in onthat note and share some of your
views on this industry.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Well, it was a really big day for the industry when
they went public.
I remember because I know theViking team well throughout the
years and Thorstein is anabsolute legend because he gets
the timing right From a growthpoint of view.
There's always these cyclicalpatterns of it's growing year on

(32:56):
year quite nicely, but you alsohave to plan for capacity and a
lot of I think their successhas been about timing and the
right relationships to expandtheir fleet, and that can't be.
You know, that's such a bigfactor in this terms and the
right point in the economy togrow and to do it in a way that

(33:18):
they've done it in this period.
It's actually like a playbook.
It's a great playbook.
The cherry on top is really theway they went to market and
some of that team that haveworked really hard and he's kept
some of these players with himfor a long time, really reaping
a huge reward there.
So I think I think it's like aa they they give, give others a

(33:41):
playbook on how to scale.
But then if you look at some ofthe boutique offers, the
boutique players that are comingand offering alongside them,
they are looking at as anopportunity to um to really
diversify their offering.
So you'll see existing touroperators that have done really
well in long tours or inhigh-end travel launch into

(34:04):
river cruise as a kind of acompelling offering and then
offering a combined to longtours and river cruises as one
back-to-back bundle.
And then, of course, we'restarting to see the mainstream
ocean cruise guys enter themarket, which brings another
element of capital of expertiseinto this, which just supports

(34:25):
the overall growth.
So I think we can be verybullish.
I think, like you said, themarket, different market numbers
and how you measure andforecast the future they are all
sort of around the 10% to 12%year-on-year growth rate to get
to that 10 billion in the nextfive years.
I think we can be bullish.
I think we can expect a lot ofM&A, a lot of companies that

(34:50):
want to speed up getting into itor see an opportunity to sell
to somebody who can take thingsand move things faster.
And, uh, you know thefamily-run businesses, you know
they.
They always go through cyclesof generational change.
Uh, that's that's beenfascinating working with some of
these uh families in in, inmulti-day in general, and

(35:11):
looking at the, the handing ofthe baton to the next generation
and that shift right and thatalways, uh, offers opportunities
, the baton to the nextgeneration and that shift right,
and that always offersopportunities for new players to
come in and for private equityto get involved, as we're seeing
right now in many cases.
So, no, I think Captio'soffering to be here we're in the

(35:31):
right place at the right timewith the right technology.
That's exciting for us and Ithink we'll see some great
innovation in the space, both onthe offering side and on how
they get consumers to be moredigital, to be more excited
about bringing youngergenerations to the fold.
And yeah, so it's a rosyoutlook, I would say, at least

(35:55):
from our perspectives, right.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
With the Viking going public, one of the fascinating
things that certainly woke up alot of investors to the growth
potential within the travelspace, given the demographic
changes.
And I know this is some of thestuff that you and I are across,
and I spoke about it at yourconference, which is why I'm
bullish on travel over the next10 years or even 20 years.
I mean, if we look at 2025 to2050, the global travel market

(36:20):
is set to double.
So there's and obviouslythere's challenge with that for
sure, but the investors arelooking at this space again and,
as you mentioned, privateequity, all of a sudden, the
signals have brought more peopleinto the consideration set
where private equity is nowlooking at acquiring different
travel businesses, whetherthey're multi-day or river
cruise, but getting moreinvested in this space, given

(36:41):
the growth potential over thelong term and that compound
annual growth that you referredto, that is a key measure for PE
firms to decide to get into acategory and when you see
numbers that are double-digitgrowth year-on-year for a decade
, that's an industry thatthey're interested in, and so
you're going to have not onlymore investment but you're
clearly going to have moreofferings for the consumer, so

(37:02):
that's a great benefit for them,and one of those I just wanted
to highlight is CelebrityCruises, to exactly your point,
Ragnar, where you've gotCelebrity Cruises, which is
owned by Royal Caribbean.
There's kind of two big,massive global cruise lines and
Royal Caribbean owns Celebrity.
They are going to roll out atleast 10 ships for 2027, focused

(37:23):
on Europe, and obviously that'sgoing to be a major shakeup of
our industry because that's alot of capacity coming online at
one time.
I mean, that's the size of someof these other fleets, or half
of the largest.
So 10 ships and it could belarger.
So to your point about thegrowth it is certainly really
exciting.
But one other thing also tohighlight and this is what I

(37:43):
find fascinating about the rivercruise industry is that
although there was kind of thebirthplace in Europe of some of
these big players and that maybe, around 70% of the global
capacity for river cruisesfocused on Europe.
70% of the global capacity forriver cruise is focused on
Europe.
It's really interesting to seehow it's expanded globally,
certainly in the US.
I mean, viking has startedoperating in the US, even Canada
, we jumped into it.

(38:04):
But when you look more broadlyyou can see South America,
southeast Asia.
So, like the opportunities togo along the Mekong and Vietnam,
you have Africa, at least withEgypt coming online as well, and
then you've got places not onlyin South America but off the
coast, like the Galapagos.
That is a perfect place for acruise destination.

(38:25):
It's not a river cruise, butnevertheless it's this idea of
small ship cruising which isanother big trend right.
So there's so many differentsignals.
That is like wait, there'sgrowth in new markets, but
obviously it all comes back towhere are you getting travelers
from?
Where are these people actuallybooking them?
And the reality is it still isthe major English language

(38:46):
source markets.
As you know, it's the US, it'sEurope, it's Australia.
Australians love river cruising, for example.
They massively over index forcruising in general.
I guess it makes sense whenyou're on an island and you want
to set sail on a ship and Iknow that's how many of them got
there in the first place.
And I can say that because I'mEnglish and we had two options
Canada or Australia and we choseCanada.

(39:06):
I love Canada, but my heart isin Australia in many ways, so I
could have gladly been a fivepound palm if that's the way
life had worked out, butnevertheless there's so much
opportunity for growth in thesedifferent markets.
So I'm very keen to get yourtake on what this all means from
a technology point of view,like when we think about these

(39:28):
companies introducing all ofthese offerings.
I'm sure one of the things thatwent through your mind is wait
a second.
Something needs to power them,reservations and the on-trip
experience.
So tell us how you look at that, ragnar, given your background
in technology and thinking aboutwait a second.
There has to be more to thisfor these companies to advance

(39:48):
their technology, to be able tohandle this scale or introduce
these new travel experiences.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Yeah, absolutely, and I look at it, my worldview on
this, is through the consumerlens, first and foremost, and
then through the operationallens of these operators and what
they need.
So we look at the consumer side.
I still think that there's alot of, you know, just general
education needed to well, theopportunity to increase the

(40:18):
education to travelers, and Ithink part of and you've spoken
a lot about this the traveladvisor research and, I think,
river cruise and cruising morein general, but river cruising
specifically, you can attributea lot of it to travel advisors
being great at educating theconsumer market about this

(40:40):
option, this travel market, andthat, uh, that, if that scales
and really takes off throughonline channels, like, uh, if we
look at it from a social mediapoint of view, we look at it
from an ota point of view, downdown the line, where I don't
think we're going to have aleader in in or a clear leader
in the OTA space selling RiverCruising anytime soon.
There are players out there, ofcourse, and you've had some of

(41:01):
them on, but the opportunitiesto get the product out there
more efficiently through bettereducation and then, at the same
time, the offerings are changing.
Historically, river cruise hasbeen what I would call a
recession-proof sector, becausethese are, you know, quite

(41:21):
high-end products.
They they get booked byaffluent and and and upper
middle class, upper class uhconsumers, um, and and and
that's participated in to thegrowth of it is that there's
always a healthy amount of richpeople who want to have this
experience, and it is a greatexperience, and as we then see

(41:43):
more people at different pricepoints being offered in
different regions, that's justkind of an obvious one from a
consumer point of view, it'sgoing to become more accessible.
And then, um, then, how peoplethen make those bookings, uh,
and and engage with thesedifferent uh operators, that has
to be through online channelsfirst and foremost, moving

(42:05):
forward, um, not to say thatthat the, that the call center
experience or the travel adviceexperience is still not going to
be really, really important,but they will also go through
digitization in their own way,where they're still providing
great service and great insightsand education, but they'll be
doing it at a higher productiverate through technology, ai and

(42:27):
so on, and that's going to alsohappen for just what the
consumer will expect.
So I think that, from aconsumer, lens, access,
education, understanding thatthis offering even exists like
that's sort of the initialhurdle.
And then when they are in thebooking process, you know,
making it stick, making surethey book, making sure they get

(42:49):
the deposit down, and then startexploring other things to buy,
depending on the offering in andaround it.
That's the second thing,because you know, I don't know
about you I there isn't a singletime where I've booked, uh, a
seven day or 10 day or 40 dayholiday with my family and I
haven't explore hey, how can Imake this into a 20 day or or a
10 day, like how can I expand oneither side?

(43:10):
And it's not just about addinga hotel, it needs to be
something more than that.
And I've always seen rail andriver be really complementary
products to each other, whereyou can maybe fly into Europe
into different destinationswhere there's great rail
connections, and then get overto Amsterdam or Basel through
that rail connection and you'vethen experienced far more of

(43:31):
Europe through differenttransportation as well and
making it easier for theconsumer to put those types of
packages together.
I mean, I think Railbookers isdoing a fantastic job of that.
I have to shout them out herespecifically.
I think that's one of theiradvantages to serving the travel
advisors is that they make itso easy to complement these
products together.
But if we then think of that atthe meta level, how do we get

(43:53):
the operators to do that, how dowe get the O to do that, how do
we get the OTS to do that?
And and that's going to have abig impact?
So yeah, education andeducation, and how you expand
your trip easily without thatwhole headache of puzzling it
all together yourself.
I think that those are the twoconsumer lens opportunities, and
then on the operations side,you know where to start.

(44:15):
You know right, there's.
Yeah, I'll leave it at that whento start, because there's these
companies.
They are great at investing infleets and timing their
investments in when to buy andbuild more ships Absolute,

(44:36):
absolute masters of thatInvesting in technology.
I think there's a lack.
I think there's a lack therethat, understandably, their
business is to create amazingexperiences and some of them
have depth, right Technologicaldepth that will make it easy for
some of the new players tocapture that consumer demand

(44:59):
through that consumer lens wetalked about earlier.
So I'll leave it at that fornow.
Just the mindset of some ofthese players that have grown
tremendously in the last 20years.
There's so much technologicalupside that they have on the
operational side.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, you mentioned a number of really important
trends there that are shapingthe river cruise industry and
the reason that the stars arealigning for this category, but
you said something I just wantedto underline that I found
really interesting as well,which was that from a technology
point of view, you start withthe consumer, and obviously
that's something that may seemobvious when someone like you

(45:33):
says that.
However, it's certainly not theway.
I've seen a lot oforganizations work.
You know they make decisions onhow the back office team wants
to use a platform and sometimesrun into challenges based on,
you know, the way they hadprevious reservation systems.
So I've certainly seen this inthe past and I think one of the
things that and this is thereason I wanted to underline
that is that when you look atwhere you should be developing

(45:55):
the technology, it certainlyneeds to be to meet consumers
where they are, and I'll justshare a couple of examples,
because I think this is whereyou hit on some of the trends
that I think that are worth alsohighlighting in a little bit
more detail and, bauman, you canadd to that as well.
But you mentioned luxury.
Obviously, that's a big driver,the one thing along the same
lines with these demographicchanges.
I found fascinating about rivercruise is multi-generational

(46:17):
travel.
So multi-generational travelwe've never done an episode on
it.
I think it's come up in a fewdifferent conversations and
people might say but I've,really I've seen that firsthand.
Like I love traveling, but Ilove traveling partially because
I love the experience oftraveling, but also because I
love this industry and I alwaysget valuable insights from being
in a destination to understandother customers.

(46:38):
I'd always ask people on theship or on the coaches you know,
how did you come to book thistrip?
And, like you know, to kind offollow it back to its origin, of
how they were inspired and howthey ended up here on this river
cruise.
And one of the things thatcontinually came up was
multi-generational cruising thatI was meeting the grandparents
and the kids and the grandkids,because we actually took our
kids on two different familytrips and there's specific

(47:01):
programs that these river cruiselines offer to have family
departures and thesemulti-generational trips, which
are driven by these demographicchanges of the baby boomer
generation retiring and havinglike 70% of the wealth, and so
they're the ones that can alsoafford to be able to buy a trip.
They want to get everyonetogether so they pay for their
kids and their grandkids andthey have an extraordinary time.

(47:22):
But there's something that'swider happening there, and I
think this is where I genuinelyfind that fascinating to see
these trends and how they relateto, because I always see trends
more as signals signals as aninvestor, signals as someone
who's marketing and trying tohelp grow a business, and trying
to figure out what are thesignals you should be paying
attention to, and I liked howyou mentioned a number of those,
so luxury being one of them.

(47:42):
This idea of smaller grouptravel, the fact that these are
a more boutique offering,certainly that post-COVID
experience where people actuallydo want to be with a smaller
group and have space.
And the river cruising is alsofascinating to me because it
appeals to people that don'twant to go on an ocean cruise
and so for the reasons that theydon't choose an ocean cruise,

(48:04):
when we did that series inseason four on ocean cruise, I
found it fascinating that thebiggest challenge that they have
is trying to convert people totheir category, because so many
people are just a hard stop atthe idea that ocean cruising
isn't for them and thatsometimes that's exactly where
river cruise comes in is that itis a great option for people
who might be hesitant to oceancruise, and it's a great gateway

(48:26):
into it, and so there's anumber of reasons why the stars
are aligning for river cruise.
What are some of the otherthings that have stood out to
you, ragnar, from why you thinkwe're seeing this growth and why
consumers are choosing thisstyle of travel?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Well, it's just, it's kind of very accessible once
people know about it, right,I've gone both on ocean cruising
, small ship cruises and donerivers, and you know, there's
just something so nice and easyabout landing in, let's say,
amsterdam and then just beingtoward or coached down or
private transfer to like intothe middle of the city, right,

(49:04):
we're used and sort ofexperience the city and then
it's so it's such a nice elegantway to just sort of go on on
the ship and then look over the,the.
You know, like you were sayingearlier, like like the be in
within the city confines andsort of experience it like his,
from from a historical point ofview of how uh, they would be

(49:26):
moving uh goods and uh and andequipment on these same same
rivers.
And these rivers are historical, right, so it's, it's, it's
great, like I'm a history buff,so it's great for the history
nerds.
I used I lived in heidelbergand you know the local community
uh was really um, impacted byriver cruise.

(49:46):
They, they couldn't get, theybust people in from the, the
closest uh sort of small port,but they all came into
heidelberg and it was, it had abig economic impact on these
communities where you know I'mnot sure so many people would go
and visit like Copeland orBasel or these great, historical
, beautiful locations if theyweren't for river cruising.

(50:08):
So I think it's just a veryaccessible product, particularly
for the older generation.
And I think the upside on thefamily and the multigenerational
stuff I see this as myself LikeI'm going on a trip next week
with my in-laws and that entirefamily and then the end of the
year with my Icelandic familyand all my brothers and their
kids.

(50:28):
This is just going to becomemore and more happening all over
and I think river cruising is agreat way to experience
multigenerational travel and theaccessibility of getting in and
getting out.
And it's not as overwhelming ashaving to go to the port in
Mallorca or go to the port inthe Bahamas and sort of see this
gigantic ship that you'reboarding with 10,000 other

(50:51):
people or sorry, 1,000 otherpeople, so, or sorry, 1,000
other people.
So it's a very it's much moreintimate.
It's much more it feels likeyou're going into a nice
boutique hotel rather than thisgigantic resort, if that makes
sense.
So that's very appealing for meas a traveler as well.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
And the one other thing you pointed out, too, was
the rise in travel advisorspost-pandemic, which we have
focused on.
For sure, and the industryknows that this has been a
renaissance for travel advisorspost pandemic, and there's a
number of reasons for this thedemographic factors, but, more
importantly, I think, some ofthe challenges with around
technology.
To your point about ease ofconsumer use, one of the things

(51:27):
that certainly happened is thatit's it's more complex than ever
to book a trip despiteeverything that we have access
to now, and so people arerelying on humans again, even in
the face of AI at the moment,and things will continue to
shift and evolve there.
But certainly there's been agreater reliance on travel
advisors as being the experts tobe able to cut through the
clutter, find the trip, knowtheir client and almost all the

(51:49):
cruise lines we're going to bespeaking to in this series the
majority of their business comesfrom B2B or the trade, and
you'll hear that even when we'respeaking to a few of these
leaders of industry that arehighlighting that they've had
more growth through tradechannels than they've had from
Consumer Direct, and so thatplays to their advantage, We'll
be right back.

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(55:14):
take, Ragnar, given our globalB2B audience and many people who
listen to this that are lookingfor recommendations for how
they should be thinking aboutthis industry or starting to
capitalize on it.
So, from a business point ofview, before I ask you about
Captio's plans, what would beyour general recommendations for
other people in this space torealize part of the opportunity
here?
How would you recommend othertravel businesses?

(55:36):
Think about river cruising,whether it's partnerships or
customer engagement strategies.
What are some of the thingsthat would be recommendations
from you on what you've learnedso far?

Speaker 1 (55:46):
I've thought a lot about this from the AI's
perspective, because I'mactually not as I'm not going to
be all in on AI as a waste ofdiscovery just yet, right, just

(56:07):
yet, because my view is that theway.
Okay, so the travel advisorshave grown through some form of
scaling, hyper personalizedagent.
Now, it's not, it's not digitalscale, it's not, you know,
because you know they've justfound a very nice niche in

(56:27):
finding their clientele, gettingto know them, getting to learn
and understand their insights,their preference and their,
their points of view, and sothat they can make a rational,
gut feel decision about whatthey're going to like and how
you're going to positionsomething in front of them, just
like how any services industryworks, like whether it's
financial services or whetherit's your insurance broker.
You know you build up thesedata points as one of these

(56:49):
experts and you use them andyou're sort of like human level
relations, of building expertiseto make sure that you're
putting something together thatfits, that makes sense, and AI
plays a supporting, augmentingrole there.
It will.
I don't think it's going to bethe same as the human connection
.
So I look at it from aoperational point of view.

(57:14):
You know how, how, how they canscale.
Uh, deepening of guestconnection right.
So how does anyone selling thistype of travel, whether it's an
ota, a travel advisor, or theoperators themselves how do you
figure out ways, meaningful ways, to scale the guest connection?
And technology plays a role,but you have to have empathy for

(57:37):
who is buying to begin with,and then you take those insights
and you put it into yourproduct development process,
right?
I think Talc does a fantasticjob of this by offering
family-specific departures andoffering departures that are
specific for specific interests,and those interests can be very

(57:59):
niche, but they sell out really, really quickly because people
get excited about joiningtogether a small community of
experts or people interested ina particular field, whether it's
photography or whether that'sart or whether that's wine,
right and enjoying themselves incompany of others.
Um, and we have to find ways toreach those people efficiently

(58:26):
across this, the, these peopleinvolved in the distribution
chain.
But AI is not going to come inand figure that out for you.
It's going to be augmentedthrough technology, not replaced
.
So I would say stick to thefundamentals, right.
Just know your customers, learnyour customers and have a good

(58:47):
way of capturing their data andtheir insights so that you can
scale things up from apersonalization point of view
down the line and then feed itback into product development,
feed it back into your itineraryplanning.
You know, those are the basicsright and you get that right.
You can then start augmentingthings around it with great use
of technology.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
Yeah, you've clearly given us a lot of thought and I
know that you are that wayinclined getting to meet you and
getting to know you, ragnar,over the last year.
And that stood out to me isthat you are very inquisitive,
you know you're veryintellectually curious and
you're, you know you are, yousit back and watch, and I've
seen that and I find thatfascinating because then you
kind of analyze the situationand you take it away and figure

(59:28):
out, from a product andtechnology point of view, you
know how can you solve for this,so that, from a product and
technology point of view, youknow how can you solve for this.
So I that's why I was so keento have you part of this opening
episode to kind of share your,your insights and views.
And but one of the things Iwanted to get your take on too,
I just had two more questionsfor you and then we'll we'll
kick off this series for all ofour, our listeners, because I'm

(59:48):
sure they're eager to starthearing from these river cruise
lines and understand you, howthey differentiate themselves
and uh.
But the one thing I wanted toask you while we're still
together is what your, your viewis on the future of this
category.
I certainly shared some numbersabout the growth potential and
I would.
I would love to hear what yourviews are on the river cruise
sector and specifically captio'sinvolvement.
How do you see captio's role inriver cruise over the next

(01:00:10):
three to five years?

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
So we've thought a lot about the challenges in the
market and how do we provide,particularly on sort of the
operational side, from thecruise point of view, looking at
it through the consumer lens,like I said earlier.
So there's three key challengesthat I think that if we can
help companies overcome that,they will be unlocking growth

(01:00:33):
right.
So I think a lot about.
I think everyone in theindustry sees the growth
opportunity.
So how do you unlock it?
How do you move faster?
How do you keep a pace?
You know speed, focus onexecution and agility in your in
not just having ideas butactually executing them.
So that's foundational.
So my innovation mindset andyou know, positive and

(01:00:57):
open-minded and making sureyou're surrounding yourself with
those types of people I cannotthat's industry agnostic, but
that's a big value of mine Makesure you're keep kind, smart,
creative people close to you atall times, because then magic
happens.
So, with that in mind, I thinkthat Capdeo can really help be

(01:01:19):
one of those advisors to ourcustomers and we promise to
bring some amazing colleaguesand an amazing mindset to the
table to help unlock some ofthat growth.
To help unlock some of thatgrowth and those three areas of
growth that I would say aregoing to be foundational is
fixing the fragmenteddistribution channels.
So there's a differentmechanism to get the same

(01:01:43):
information out to differentchannels today, so if you're
selling through agents, you'reselling through direct, you're
selling through OTAs, or you'retrying to get into meta search
or affiliates, or sellingthrough ota, so you're trying to
get into meta search or oraffiliates, or um, selling
through influencers, like it'sall puzzled pieced together with
um.
You know, not even scott's tape, right, that that you know it's
very hockey how these thingshave been put together today and

(01:02:08):
um and that that that's that'snot gonna fly.
Uh, as we evolve these channelsand we want to keep inventory
and rates and content andpromotions aligned and
consistent across thesedifferent distribution chains.
So that's a number onechallenge that I think Capdeo,

(01:02:28):
as a technology company, we canhelp streamline the distribution
side of it so that we can lookat it more from a channel
management point of view.
Like how, if we look at how thehotel industry evolved, right,
like you know, the growth ofthat industry is correlated
heavily with the introduction ofchannel managers and all the
different channels that came andthen made that distribution

(01:02:48):
feasible across the fold.
So I'm very bullish on solvingthe fragmented distribution
challenge and hopefully helpingthe industry find the standard
of distribution throughtechnology.
The second thing is rigidoperations the companies seeing
them, how they update a rateplan or launch a new promotion

(01:03:11):
or launch a new product.
Momentum really stalls when ittakes weeks or months to get
these kind of things wrapped up,and I think that some of the
legacy depth we talked aboutearlier is a big part of that.
You need to move with agilityand you need your operations
team to have really access tothe best tooling and the best

(01:03:33):
user experience to to do theirbest work.
Um, and then the, the last oneI would say you know, if you're
not, if you don't have a techstack or processes built for
agility, then every new market,every new segment, every new
upton you want to bring to thefold, like that opportunity, you
just you can't move fast enoughlike, and by the time you're

(01:03:55):
live, the market has shifted tosome other new trend and you're
back to square one.
So you have to set yourself upfor experimentation and fast
execution.
So, with those three challenges, uh, with a new tech stack in
place to help you address those,I that's what I think is is
foundational for for capturingsome of these opportunities and
unlocking that growth potentialthat we've spent so much time

(01:04:17):
not talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Well, it's really interesting you point that out,
because one of the things thatin my 20 years in the travel
industry, I've always been onthe technology and the marketing
side going from CarlsonWagonley to Lonely Planet, to G
Adventures and the TravelCorporation and the thing that's
consistent across all of thoseis that they're travel companies
, not technology companies.
And most companies you come upagainst in this industry are

(01:04:38):
great at operations, they'regreat at sales and distribution,
but they're not technologycompanies.
There's very few exceptions tothat rule, and I think one of
the keys for my success in thecorporate world was finding the
right partners, and that's partof the reason that I wanted to
have this conversation with youis because you know, unless you
have the resources and thecapacity and the skill set and
all the capabilities to be ableto really become a technology

(01:04:58):
company and I think some of ourlisteners have heard me talk to
some of the big OTAs and theonline travel agencies they
pride themselves on beingtechnology companies because
that's how they have to compete.
They're not a travel company,they're a technology platform
and in order for you to be ableto successfully distribute your
product, you need to find a wayto partner with them and have
the right technology to be ableto distribute your product, let

(01:05:19):
alone have a reservation system,distribution opportunities.
And then the on-ship experience, which I think is something
that is in its total infancy,like how does someone use
technology on a ship to be ableto enhance the guest experience?
I think that's an area we'regoing to see a lot more
opportunity in.
But, ragnar, given all of yourplans with Captio, I'm sure a

(01:05:40):
lot of people are interested toknow how they could get in touch
with you or the team.
And just before we set off onthis journey to introduce Tauk,
who I was genuinely just keen tohave on this episode, we're
always very selective.
I mean, we're thankfully in aposition with Travel Trends
where we get a lot of requeststo be on the show.
And when we were actuallyputting this series together, I
was asking Jessica and your teamand getting a sense of how you

(01:06:04):
view this space, and we werelooking at different partners in
this space and I think we'vebrought together a great
collection of brands Tauch,avalon and Scenic for this very
first pass at River Cruising,and likely this will come up
again in season six, because Ithink this is such an important
topic and there's a number ofother players, but I think those
are the three that I was reallykeen to start with, tauk,
because of getting the chance toknow the team.

(01:06:26):
I was incredibly impressedmeeting them in person and just
I think they'll add a lot tothese conversations.
But before we segue on to all ofthese interviews, ragnar, would
you mind letting all of ourlisteners know how they can find
out more information aboutCaptio?
If there is B2B partnerslistening to this that can
leverage your technology orpartner with you, and then also,

(01:06:46):
if you want anyone to reach outdirectly, because you're such a
smart, knowledgeable guy thatI'm sure people will just start
hitting you up on LinkedIn afterthis and asking you questions
about technology in the future,which I know you're a busy guy,
but I know you try and make timefor that as well.
But yeah, tell people wherethey can find out more
information and connect with youguys.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Yeah, thanks, dan.
So kaptiocom K-A-P-T-I-Ocom isthe website, and then we've got
a great team that you knowreally know the travel industry
and actually experts in cruising.
So Rebecca Asterhausen, who'sactually been on the show as
well you kind of played a rolein that so she joined the team

(01:07:25):
and she leads up our efforts inAustralia.
Tracy Sharp, who's also a VP ofCommercial and Capital from
TravelTech.
So there's a good foundation ofpeople that really know the
industry.
Who's also a VPO commercial atCapgeo from TravelTech.
So there's a good foundation ofpeople that really know the
industry and we'd love to get intouch With me.
Personally.
I try and make time forLinkedIn and I really think that

(01:07:46):
there's a small tribe overthere that is talking about the
industry and moving it forward.
So, yeah, you can hit me up onLinkedIn under my name that
nobody can spell, but you canjust try the first one.
I'm sure I'm up there somewhere, ragnar, yeah.
Just put FJ and then it willappear.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Ragnar FJ and then no .
But thank you, ragnar, andobviously to the team as well
Jesse, tracy, vidar and the teamover at Captio that I've got a
chance to know.
I've still got my cool hat frommy trip over across and I still
wear it.
You guys put some goodmerchandise together for that
trip.
That is actually useful.
But, yeah, I wanted to thankyou for the partnership, for our

(01:08:29):
friendship and our continuedcollaboration.
I'm certainly looking forwardto having you in the AI summit
and also just continuing ourpartnership.
I know you guys have kindlysponsored season six, which we
greatly appreciate as well,because essentially that enables
us to bring this content tolife for all of our listeners
and that really kind of fundsthe team and us being able to
have these conversations.
So, you know, sincere thank youfor me to the whole team and

(01:08:51):
yourself specifically Ragnar.
So thank you for me to thewhole team and yourself
specifically, ragnar.
So thank you so much for makingthe time for this.
I'm looking forward to bringingthis series to life and uh, and
touching base again with yousoon.
But, yeah, thanks again so much.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Thanks, dan, and thanks for being a great voice
for the category.
You're uh, you're doing a greatjob, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Thanks so much for joining us on this latest
episode of travel trends.
I hope you've enjoyed our veryfirst deep dive episode in the
world of river cruises.
I certainly enjoyed catching upwith Ragnar again and I'm
convinced that he needs toco-host some future episodes.
I also just wanted to saythanks to the Captio team Jesse,
vidar, tracy and, of course,ragnar for being such a great

(01:09:26):
partner of travel trends, notonly for this series, but coming
on as a title sponsor forseason six.
And this series, of course, isjust getting started, because
next week we're going to speakto Steve Spivak from Tauk and
then Pam Hoffey from Avalon andthen Lisa McCaskill from Scenic.
So there's three extraordinaryepisodes to follow in our River

(01:09:47):
Cruise series.
But don't forget, we do postclips and highlights on our
social channels, at TravelTrends Podcast, on Instagram,
linkedin and YouTube, and thenwe send out a monthly newsletter
that recaps all of the latestepisodes and highlights our
travel plans for the upcomingmonth, which you can register
for TravelTrendsPodcastcom.
Thanks again for joining us forthis first episode.

(01:10:08):
Until next week, safe travels.