The Second Life of Sonder: Reimagining an Iconic Travel Brand

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Sonder was once one of the most recognizable names in modern hospitality. Then, almost overnight, it disappeared. Now, it's back in a very different form. In this breaking news episode, Dan sits down with John Lyotier, Co-founder and CEO of TravelAI, to discuss the company's acquisition of the Sonder trademarks and domain portfolio, including Sonder.com, and why it's relaunching the brand as an AI powered, curated guide to the world's best urban stays. The acquisition includes the brand and intellectual property only. It does not include Sonder's former operating business, properties, leases, or staff.

John shares the inside story behind the acquisition, what it was like navigating a trustee led bankruptcy process, and why his team believed the Sonder name was worth bringing back. The conversation also explores the realities of building and scaling travel companies, the lessons entrepreneurs can take from bankruptcy and capital markets, and why TravelAI has focused on acquiring trusted travel brands while remaining founder owned and profitable.

The discussion then turns to the future of AI in travel. John explains TravelAI's vision for a traveler owned memory layer, how AI can deliver more meaningful personalization without starting from scratch on every trip, and why the new Sonder is designed to combine machine intelligence with thoughtful human curation. It's a fascinating look at how an iconic travel brand can be reimagined for a new era and what that could mean for the future of travel discovery, personalization, and trust.

Learn more at sonder.com.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel
Trends Podcast and a veryspecial spotlight episode.
This is a breaking newsspotlight episode.
Last week we had our focus rightevent spotlight.
And one of the guests on thatpodcast was our good friend John
Liotier, the founder,co-founder, and CEO of Travel

(00:27):
AI, a company that we haveworked with for a number of
years, and I think so highly ofJohn, Chris, and that team.
And they he referenced a veryexciting development, which he
can now share.
And I've brought him back on thepodcast to be able to share this
very significant news.
And to put this in context,November of last year, one of
the most recognized names inurban accommodation announced it

(00:50):
was winding down.
Saunder had gone from a Montrealapartment rental startup to a
NASDAQ listing at over$2.2billion in valuation.
And then after Marriottterminated their partnership, it
was over.
Or so we thought, because thismonth, July 2026, the Saunder
brand name comes back.

(01:12):
And the company that has broughtthe brand back is one that some
people may not have heard of,but many people who listen to
our podcast are.
And they already operate morethan 530 travel brands, and they
serve more than 50 milliontravelers a year.
Travel AI is an incrediblesuccess story and a Canadian
one.
They've never raised a dollar ofoutside investment, but they

(01:35):
have acquired the Sonder name,the trademarks, or I should say
the trademark registrations, andSonder.com out of the bankruptcy
process and have relaunched itas something entirely different.
Not a hotel operator, but anAI-powered curated guide to the
world's best urban stays.
So my guest today for thisbreaking conversation is the

(01:56):
co-founder and CEO of Travel AI,John Liotier.
This story is about brands,bankruptcy, and what happens
when technology moves from thelock on the door to the layer
that's going to remember who youare.
So, John, welcome back to TravelTrends.
Great to have you back with us.

SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
It's great to be back.
And I so wanted to share thestory, our guest a few weeks ago
now when we we met out inBarcelona because we had just
had uh heard the news then thatwe were uh victorious in our
bids.
So uh yeah, great to be back andshare it with the audience.
Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
No, huge congratulations to you and the
team.
I know you guys had a fantasticoffsite.
You've been growing the team atthe same time, and you kindly
took me aside and gave me a bitof a heads up when we were in
Barcelona together.
And then once it was official,we both decided this was going
to be the best place to be ableto share the news.
I know a press release is goingout on the same day as we're
sharing this podcast.
So tell everybody about the dealitself, because that's

(02:50):
ultimately what people want toknow about first.
So tell us about when youdecided to go after the Saunder
brand.
Was it you know more or lesssomething that was top of mind
for you as you saw the demise ofa great Canadian brand that had
gone international?
When did this get on your radar?
And you know, as now that youcan officially talk about it,
um, tell us a bit of thebackground that brought you to

(03:11):
uh to to be in this position.

SPEAKER_00 (03:13):
Well, uh uh Josh, who you know on my my team, he
says when you when you putsomething forth to the universe
and you try to manifest it, itoften happens.
Uh the day that uh Sonder,unfortunately, I say very
unfortunate, it was it I I lovedthe brand before.
I still do, of course, but uhwhen they announced that they
were having to shut their doorslast November, I said to Josh
then is that we are going toacquire that.

(03:34):
Josh B and Josh, he kind ofscoffed at me and laughed a
little bit, uh, but put outthere to the universe that no,
that's that's something of valuethat that I want.
Um and then it kind of in a wayit's been a bit of an accidental
process ever since.
So I I think the most noteworthything is I do feel that we, in a
way, even though we put out tothe universe, we acquired it a
little bit by accident.

(03:55):
Uh I had submitted letters outto the trustees in in all
proceedings, uh, SonderHoldings, Sonder Technology,
Sonder Canada, SonderHospitalite, um, wrote to all
the different groups and almostas customary to my kind of
signatures, but everybody says,P.S.
I'd love domain names.
If you have any domain namesthat are available, please
please let me know.
Um, but when I wrote out toSonder Canada and Sonder

(04:17):
Hospitalite, it wasn'tnecessarily thinking that they
had some of the core assets.
Uh it was that um we are aCanadian travel company as well
uh as them.
Uh they may have some thingsthat were looked at, might have
been favorable tax losses orsome other interesting things
that could have been of interestto us.
We were looking at runningthings in the same or relatively

(04:38):
similar space.
Um didn't hear anything back formonths.
Uh, and then um earlier thisspring, I heard word back from
the Canadian trustees that uhthey were selling uh trademark
registrations, they were sellingsome domain names.
Um, if you want access, pleasegive us your information and get
access to the data room.
Got access to the data room, andlo and behold, saunder.com was

(05:00):
included with them within theassets.
Um became a bit of a sh a shockand surprise to myself, but I'm
definitely happy today.

SPEAKER_01 (05:07):
Yeah, it's a very exciting development.
And obviously, the one thing I'muh particularly thrilled about
is the fact that I, like you,have a great affinity for the
Saunder brand.
And I stayed at a number ofSaunders over the years,
including in Montreal.
And that concept I thought wasreally cleverly pioneered with
the idea of being not an Airbnband not a hotel and somewhere in
between the two with these newcondo buildings that you can

(05:29):
check in, check out with an appand be able to have, you know,
especially for business days.
I've stayed in Saunders in Miamiand and many cities.
So I loved the Saunderexperience, and it was obviously
a shame for the travelers andcertainly all the team members
that were personally affected bythis.
So my heart went out to them inthis announcement because it
felt like Saunder was such agreat business concept.

(05:49):
Um, but ultimately I'm thrilledthat the brand is going to come
back, and obviously, I think theworld of you, John, and the
team, and so I couldn't think itcouldn't be uh going into better
hands to um to resurrect thebrand because that's ultimately
what you guys do so well.
And but just to clarify what youguys have acquired, because it
is important.
You mentioned about the domainand the trademark registrations.

(06:10):
I know there were two othercomponents.
There's the holding company, um,which is the uh physical assets,
the actual propertiesthemselves, and then there's
also the technology company, um,which is all their technology
assets, which is anothercompany.
So those those two are outsideof the deal.
The focus for you and the teamis the IP.

SPEAKER_00 (06:29):
Is that right?
It is 100% IP focused on domainnames, of which is over 70, most
of which are uh would have uhprobably limited value, more
brand protection type domainnames.
Um the uh trademarks, onceagain, the global trademarks for
the Sonder assets.
The there was an interestingstructure that uh appeared to

(06:49):
exist between the differentSonder organizations, but we
didn't acquire any buildings,any keys, uh, any of the
technology, any of the content.
Uh we just acquired the domainnames, the IP, including the
trademark registrations of that.
Uh, but it does allow us tooperate the brand um free and
clear.
And that's what we're doingright now.
We're we're off to the races.

SPEAKER_01 (07:10):
Tell us that you have obviously had this
experience, and one of thethings I'm uh keen to ask you
about, given that you guys uhhad gone through a bankruptcy
process during COVID.
I mean, many of our listenersare familiar with your story,
how yourself and yourco-founder, Chris, joining us
for a standalone episode of theTravel Trends Podcast.
And many people are familiarwith Travel AI from the event
spotlights and you being a keypart of our community.

(07:32):
Um, but having gone through thatprocess yourself, and then
obviously now when it comes toacquiring assets through a
bankruptcy process, would youmind just sharing a few more
details about that with ourlisteners that are unfamiliar
with that?
I know you worked with Ernst andYoung as the trustee.
Um, and I worked for the TravelCorporation for many years, as
many of our listeners know, andsome of the most valuable assets

(07:52):
were acquired throughbankruptcies.
And so um, whether it beentrepreneurs struggling with
credit or funding or propertiesthat can no longer be
maintained, and one of the mostexciting things I've seen is the
transformation of businessesthat get acquired through that
difficult process, but then comeback uh roaring afterwards.
And so tell everyone, if youwouldn't mind, just a little bit
about how that you know courtsupervised bankruptcy process

(08:14):
works in a place like Quebec andwhat surprised you about the
process or what what um youknow, obviously you were
surprised to find out what wasincluded and delighted, and then
obviously now it's all cometogether.

SPEAKER_00 (08:24):
Yeah, yeah, it it's I guess my first comment there
is having gone through theprocess personally, um, it's not
a fun process for theentrepreneur.
Um I feel for the Enterrasandrateam, uh they had built
something that was special andit came crashing down in a
moment.
Uh in our instance, when wedidn't survive the pandemic as
as left technologies, um, itfelt like uh we had let the team

(08:47):
down, we let our customers down,we let everybody down, even
though there was a globalpandemic that was causing it.
So I really feel for the the thethe team.
Uh in part, it's it doesn't meanthat they did anything wrong.
Um it's just sort of one ofthose often things that
happened.
And they say a lot ofentrepreneurship journey comes
down to luck and timing.
And uh I would have liked tohave thought that they would

(09:09):
have been able to make a go ofit on the other side.
Um unfortunately, uh thingshappen what they were and
reality kicks in.
Um from the process itself, uhand I don't know uh what
actually went into the um uhsome of the decisions of the
various groups, but uh for youlisteners, uh the Sonder
Holdings and SonderTechnologies, really the US

(09:32):
entities, uh they went under,and then a few days later, it
was a trickle down across all ofthe other organizations around
the world that were really, ifnot subsidiary corporations, but
independently operating uhcompanies.
Sonder had two groups in Canadabefore they went down to the
States way back in, I think itwas 2016 when they first went to
the States.
But those operated companies inCanada were ongoing entities.

(09:54):
Uh, they uh those entities haveto look after their creditors,
um, their debtors, uh, to thebest of their abilities.
Um there are some elements in incommunication that I know had
occurred.
Uh I know when they marketed thethe sale, they went out and and
had some conversations with withthe US groups.
But what really happens on ourside is that uh we got invited

(10:16):
to bid um in part because we putour name forward at the very,
very start, saying we would beinterested in these assets, and
we have to submit a bid um forthose assets.
Um what we had learned goingthrough our process is the role
of the bankruptcy trustee, inthis instance, Ernst Young,
who's acting on behalf of thedebtors for Sondra Canada and
Sondra Hospitality, they reallyhave to work in the best

(10:38):
interest and return the bestlikelihood of a sale and
success.
So our number one job is to workwith our council and uh put
forward a bid that was deadsimple for somebody to say yes
and we accept.
Uh some of those dead simplethings is we transferred cash
into escrow account with ourlawyers before a bid was even
submitted.
It was making no reps, nowarranties, not trying to review

(10:59):
things, say, yep, we'll take itoff your hands, we'll make it
easy.
And that making it easy umsolves many of the problems with
uh with the bank of state courtsand the process.
Um I think the other part thatuh uh we sort of recognized is
that it often is not a fastprocess.
Um this time it went really,really quickly going through um

(11:19):
it was sort of from uh notice toconfirmation and uh through the
courts, two and a half monthprocess, a month and a half
process.
So it was a super, super fast uhthing.
But although uh there's alwaysthe legal side that goes through
it, and and thankfully we hadreally good counsel on our side
to act on our behalf.

SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
Well, one of the things I'm uh very keen to ask
you, given you had thisexperience yourself.
So and the timing is reallyinteresting when we look at the
journey uh that Saunder had beenon and then travel AI, because
in terms of timing, it was inFebruary of 21 that you bought
the assets back uh to establishTravel AI, which was literally

(11:56):
two months uh from the time thatSaunder had done their SPAC at a
2.2 valuation.
So you guys were in two verydifferent positions.
You know, you were just comingback and they were you know just
now launching and going publicat a huge valuation.
So I just I want to talk alittle bit about the rise and
fall of old Sonder first, justso for our listeners to

(12:16):
understand, because I I don'tthink we can do it justice if we
don't, at least for thelisteners who are not familiar
with Sonder, don't understandwhat a great success story it
was and why.
But as you mentioned, you know,your heart goes out for the
entrepreneurs and and the teamthat was involved in this
business that you know had this,but clearly whether it's the
market, the timing, the theoperating infrastructure, the

(12:36):
capital is required.
Um tell us, in your view, sinceyou followed their journey over
this time, uh, what old Sondergot right and maybe where the
model actually broke.
Was it the leases, the capitalmarkets, that dependency on
Marriott that ultimately led tothe business's uh demise?
What or something morefundamental?
Because, like you, I loved theconcept and was very excited for

(12:59):
Saunder and thought it was sucha cool brand and still do.
Um and I love this urban modernlike way of traveling.
This is what's supposed to bewhat we were all doing.
Is that you know forget homeownership, just focus on being
able to live where you need tolive, work where you need to
work.
Um so yeah, tell us why youthink what what were the
contributing factors to the fallof Sawder?

SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
Yeah, I don't want to say be a too much of a pundit
there because there's peoplewho've reported it in Wall
Street Journal or other press uharound the world, and I'm sure
there's business case studieswritten about it.
Um, but let's go back to 2021,what was happening in the
short-term rental and really theaccommodation base.
Um we were all experiencing thismassive boon and the rebound of

(13:40):
travel.
We had just come out of uhCOVID, uh well, first wave of
COVID, and we thought, oh wow,this this is this is good.
And the I remember saying whenwe were buying our own business
back, if it wasn't for bad lucktiming, uh we would have been
fine because the amount ofrebound in 2021 was an overall
surge in travel demand.
Uh I like to think that Sonderwas riding that that wave up.

(14:04):
And yeah, as they grew, theyprobably had some very big shoes
to fill because people, rightlyor wrongly, probably would
assume that that rebound thatthey were seeing was going to
continue on forever.
Probably what we saw was a bitof a a flattening and recovery
to what was normal, which istravel we know grows at anywhere
from six and a half to eight anda half percent annually on a

(14:25):
collective basis.
Um but I think where where wedifferentiate versus across all
of our brands versus what um noteven just Sonder, but really uh
most of the travel ecosystem, Ithink most travel assumes you
have to do it all.
You have to have the inventory,you have to have the supply, you
have to be the merchant ofrecord, you have to do all those

(14:46):
different parts.
We've always focused our brandon the part that we do really,
really well with distribution.
And we outsource things likefulfillment to our partners,
whether it's booking.com,Expedia Group, and Verbo and
groups like that.
We don't worry about securingthe master keys, we don't worry
about securing the masterleases.
We focus on what we do really,really well, which is driving
demand across all mediums,whether it's organic, uh paid

(15:08):
search, uh, social, and now LLMoptimization.
Uh so for ourselves versus them,I I think one could look at
their model and say, did theyget into trouble with master
leases?
Yeah, there's some definitelysome things there.
Did the market turn on them?
Yes, they absolutely did.
Um I'd love to have been in thebackrooms and some of the
merrier conversations, ofcourse.

(15:28):
I'm sure we all would.
Uh, I don't know truly whathappened there, but uh where
we've sort of set ourselves upfor this time around, is making
sure we've been profitable sinceday one.
And when we go out and um launchany new brand, including Sonder,
it will be profitable from dayone.
I think that's the bigdifference between ourselves and
others in the market, is thatothers say, well, we'll buy the

(15:49):
customer first, we'll worryabout profitability second.
That's not us.

SPEAKER_01 (15:52):
Well, what's interesting is that window that
you just described, which reallystarted around 2014 with Sonder
and then, you know, through that2021, is that there was a whole
generation of asset-heavy,venture-funded travel brands.
And there was a lot ofexcitement and enthusiasm
around, and there was, you know,pre-pandemic, interest rates
were so low, and a lot of thesecompanies that were doing
direct-to-consumer were gettingfunded.

(16:12):
And you even think about some ofthese luggage companies that
were having incrediblevaluations.
You can even maybe even look atum um Alberts as the shoe brand,
is another good example of whatthe valuation of these consumer
products were, and now you knowthat those businesses have
completely trans transformed andchanged.
So Alberts is now in a company.
Yeah, exactly.

(16:32):
Yeah.
So it's a you know, they're theydon't do shoes anymore, and all
of a sudden they're now in thecompute business.
And so, yeah, that's a uh uh aninteresting parallel.
But I think the uh the moreinteresting counter narrative to
what Saunder went through is thebootstrapped reality that you
know so well after taking thecompany back, which you know,

(16:53):
your previous company was LeftTechnologies, you go through
bankruptcy, and then youre-establish this business on
the other side, you know, you'vecleaned the slate, you're no
debt anymore, and then justfocused on profitability.
And I think so manyentrepreneurs are looking for
funding and trying to figure outif they have a venture-backed
business.
And it's such a fascinating umto see so many entrepreneurs

(17:14):
focused on raising funds.
And really, yourself and yourpartner Chris, this is like it's
almost a cautionary tale of whathappens when you know the rapid
growth and scale and more peoplecoming into the business, and
then all of a sudden, you know,being a shooting star
effectively.
And now, you know, how do you uhturn that opportunity into
something new?
Sonders often described as atech-enabled hospitality

(17:36):
platform.
Um, and that's something that isyou know uh very core to your
business is you guys really knowtechnology.
So what's the difference fromyour vantage point when
something like Sonder comes upthat really was a technology
company that offered hotel staysas opposed to a hotel that was
trying to layer in sometechnology?

SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
Great question.
I and I think the I I go back tomy conversation with with Josh
that I had at the verybeginning.
One of the reasons why I was sopassionate about the brand
wasn't because of theproperties, but because it was a
tech-enabled or tech forwardhospitality brand.
And if I was to look at anythingwe try to do across any of our
assets or any of ourcorporation, uh, we are a

(18:15):
tech-enabled organization.
We we put tech in everything wedo.
We say we're an applied AIcompany.
How do we apply AI up and downum the travel journey to improve
um all starts of the ecosystem?
So I think when we launch uhSaunder now, it is still as a
tech-enabled brand.
It's uh something that uh we'reobviously passionate about, but
I think sort of one level deeperthan that is that we've been on

(18:37):
the lookout for brands that giveus a chance to showcase our tech
forwardness, if that's a word.
How do we actually showcase someof these really cool techs that
we've been building?
We we build a lot of thingsbehind the scenes, some of which
never sees the light of day.
Um, but Sonder gave us a chanceto put forward a tech forward
brand that allows us to showcasea lot of our personalization
technologies, a lot of ourvectorization initiatives, a lot

(19:00):
of what makes travel AI travelAI, we can showcase on the
Sonder brand.
And what we're showing on dayone is is not a complete
journey.
The story is just being writtenor rewritten as as we speak.
Um we've only had control of theassets for a very, very brief
time.
So what we can put out there inthat short time is is is
minimal.
Um, but it will evolve.

(19:22):
And I think um if you look atwhat made Sonder Sonder, it was
what people wanted from theirhospitality brands.
How do I, how do I have a brandthat knows me, that understands
me, that that sees me for who Iam and what I'm looking for?
I think all of those things weremade, what made Sonder Sonder.
And now we can sort of almostcapitalize uh on that and raise

(19:43):
it up.
Um going back into the economicspart of the question as well on
the in the financial side, Ithink uh for any aspiring uh
travel tech startup that's outthere, you have to know your
numbers.
In inside of night, you have toknow your numbers.
You have to know what the valueof a visitor would be, what the
value of a customer would be.
And as soon as you have some ofthat understanding, um, a lot of

(20:05):
these deals that are out there,they look very, very simple and
very, very easy to consummatewhen you know that or when you
suspect a certain amount oftraffic, a certain amount of um
data that you'll get from it.
It's just math from that pointon, makes the transaction easy.

SPEAKER_01 (20:19):
Well, and this is where, to use a tired
expression, this isn't yourfirst rodeo, and it's it's not
your first rodeo when it comesto understanding the bankruptcy,
that process, but it's also notyour first rodeo when it comes
to acquiring brands that can addreal value to your portfolio and
manage them them successfully,which is exactly what I've seen
you and the team do, which iswhy I reference that because I
can say that genuinely andsincerely having uh the

(20:41):
opportunity to get to know youand your team as well as I have
over the last couple of years.
And so when I look at yourcollection, your portfolio now
with Kasai, SmartTores, OwnerDirect, and now Sonder, there's
a clear pattern of acquiring uhdistressed assets or dormant
travel brands.
And so tell us a little bit moreabout that strategy, if you
wouldn't mind.
Because in in in many ways, I'vehad a few of my colleagues say

(21:03):
that Travel AI is the you know,it's the biggest travel company
that you've you know never heardof, and what they're doing is so
successful.
Like, don't tell anybody aboutit.
So um, but you on the same time,you know, you are a thought
leader in this space, you're outthere speaking, you're invited
into like the booking.comconference to actually tell them
how the consumer journey ischanging because you guys are
driving so much traffic to theiruh brand website.

(21:27):
So tell us a little bit moreabout the strategy here.
Sure.

SPEAKER_00 (21:30):
So looking at a few of those acquisitions, we
acquired Kasai in spring of2024.
Kasai was um backed by about$50million from Andreasen Horowitz
and others.
Um it unfortunately did not lastmore than a few years.
Once again, it it startedcollecting a lot of that money
in the the glory days of 2021,2022.
Um, and within two and a halfyears, it too had had gone

(21:53):
under.
We had acquired owner directlast fall.
In both of those instances, thethe domains became Profitable
from day one and the ROI wasreturned in less than three
months.
Some of it once said it's notwhen you sell your asses, when
you buy your assets, and whattype of deal you can get on the
on the upside.
We got great deals.

(22:13):
I think we got a great deal herewith Sonder.
Um terms not disclosed, but Ifeel like we got a a great deal.
Um but it goes back into thewhy.
And if you start to think aboutwhat is coming in the age of AI,
there are a few uh so we wetalked about the age of AI.
Um I think we had thisconversation in in a past
episode uh with the idea of anagentic network.

(22:35):
And what really what we've beentrying to build is this idea of
an agentic network.
Agentic network consists ofsupply.
Uh, in this instance, is all ofthe units that exist out there
in the world or activities oraccommodation, short-term
rentals, hotels.
That's all supply.
And on the demand side, you havethe travelers who have the want.
Uh, but in an agentic network,you can introduce that third
part of that third actor.

(22:55):
Uh, we call it the third voice.
The third voice really consistsof a series of AI agents who are
acting to the same common goalas the ethic market
participants.
So, how do you help people bookbetter travel?
And those AI agents sit andoperate in the agentic network
to make sure everything goessmoothly.
But when you start to break downwhat is needed in an agenc

(23:15):
network, you come up acrossreally sort of four pillars that
we like to say.
You have to have uh memory,which we'll probably talk about
in a bit, you have to havedistribution, you have to have
trust, and you have to havegovernance.
Those four things are essentialelements to that agentic
network.
And if you look at our strategy,we've been buying all four of
those, uh, or built buying orbuilding all four of those.
How do we go out and buy trust?

(23:36):
How do we go out and buydistribution?
How do we buy memory?
How do we buy governance?
When we look at the assets thatwe acquired, we really acquired
in owner direct's case 40 yearsof brand development and trust.
In Sonda, there's been 14 yearsof brand development and trust.
Uh, we get to basically absorb alot of that trust so that when

(23:56):
people are interacting with thegentic network, there's already
trust in the brands thatinteroperating with.
And now we have to introduceother levels of trust into that
ecosystem to make sure that youhave confidence dealing with
that network.
Um if you think about a brand,whether it's Kasai or Sonder or
uh Owner Direct, the the legacythat the LLM sees is basically

(24:21):
predict the next token or thenext character in any kind of
this online thing.
Uh in Saunders' case, it was 14years of brand development that
helped populate the web withwhat the next character would
be.
Sonder, in your words, was atech forward or tech enabled
hospitality brand operating inurban centers.
Cool.
If you ask ChatGPT today, whatis Sonder, they'll say it's a
tech forward hospitality brandoperating in urban centers.

(24:43):
What did we launch?
We launched a tech forwardhospitality brand operating in
urban centers.
So for us, we get to piggybackon that many, many years, and in
Saunder's case,$600,$700 millionin development costs in building
that brand up, which we get topiggyback off of.
But for us, we have to live upto the brand.
And that's the biggest challengethat we have is making sure that
whatever we put on there livesup to or surpasses what was

(25:06):
there before.
And that's sort of the nextchapter.

SPEAKER_01 (25:08):
Well, and so there's a couple things here that I
wanted to dive into.
And certainly one of them is thenew saunder.
And I want to come to that in amoment because I'm sure many of
our listeners, especially anyonethat tuned into this that is not
even necessarily familiar withthe travel trends podcast, and
they're seeing this headline,they're seeing the press
release, and they're trying tofigure out what's happening
here.
So I do want to address that forall of our new listeners.

(25:29):
Welcome in to the Travel TrendsPodcast and getting to know
John.
Yeah, thank you.
But also, before I do, I want touh speak about the ecosystem
that you've been building,because this is where it gets
really interesting.
And on last week's episode, whenyou joined us at the Focus Right
conference in Europe, we weretalking about the launch of
Traveler MD.

(25:50):
And as you call Travel AI thetravel memory company, and your
mission now is about bettermemories for all.
So for those of listeners thatare coming into this
conversation for the first timeand haven't heard the event
spotlight, you know, they'rewrapping their head around
Travel AI and this company thatyou've successfully built and
are scaling, and now Sonder isgoing to be a part of.

(26:11):
Tell us a little bit more aboutthat memory infrastructure for
travel and what it means inpractice, because you're
building something much moreprofound as you're bolting these
different pieces in that isactually the concept of uh
having that traveler data andutilizing it to for better
personalization and getting thattraffic.
Like there's there's all sortsof upside here.

(26:32):
So give everyone a little bitmore about and and tell everyone
too, John, a little bit aboutTraveler MD with that big launch
that's only a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
It's it's it's there's layers upon layers upon
layer.
It's um as Christy used to say,it's turtles all the way down.
Um I I I think when you start tothink about, let's let's go back
to the very, very, very top inthe first principle.
Um, I think most of yourlisteners would agree that
traveler makes travel makes theworld a better place.
The more people travel, the morepeople experience other
cultures, they break bread withother families, they see new

(27:01):
things, they open their eyes,and the world becomes a much
more closer, um, better place.
Yeah, there's some challenges ofover tourism you have to always
address, um, but you can startto spread the love around and
you um boost up entire economieson travel.
So travel makes the world abetter place.
If travel makes the world abetter place, how do you get
more people to travel?
Well, number one, travel has tobe more efficient.
If travel is more efficient, thecosts come down, the value gets

(27:23):
increased, doesn't necessarilybe lower cost, you can get more
value for the dollar.
Um, but as travel becomes moreefficient, um, you get better
travel on the other side.
How does travel become moreefficient?
And uh if you break down thefoundations of really any
technological revolution, fromthe printing press to the cotton
ginning to the assembly line,technology is all about
introducing efficiencies into aprocess.

(27:45):
Travel right now is veryinefficient.
You have a massive, disparategroup of supply and demand and
this type of accommodation andthis type of um activities and
this type of transport.
It's a very fragmented industry,even though we are seeing some
consolidation, is still veryfragmented by its very nature.
Um, if travel is inefficient andAI is uh one of the greatest

(28:08):
technological revolutions of ourtime, what is AI doing about
bringing efficiencies into aprocess?
So all those things are buildingblocks into that journey.
From our side, uh, we basicallyhave had different flywheels
that drive the business.
Um we started with a businessmodel that we classify as the
content traveler data loop.
The more content supply that wehave, the more travelers we can

(28:31):
attract, the more travelers weget, the more data we have, the
more data we have, the more datacan create the content.
Um but we get that flywheelgoing and we start adding in new
brands and then the AI agentsthat we built, build brands and
optimize brands and marketbrands and grow and do all those
different things attached to it.
And that really feeds theflywheel to go out and get more
content, more travelers, andmore data.

(28:52):
Um feeding into that, however,is our belief that what's coming
next after the last two waves,wave one being the information
superhighway or the web one ofthe world, uh, wave two being
the mobile social revolution,now wave through three being the
Gentec network, um, we do lookat all the different components
attached to it.
And you you alluded toTravelerMD.

(29:15):
Um, that we believe is the mostimportant element in any kind of
a Gentec network is do you havea trusted vertical memory that
is unique to the travelindustry?
And that's what we've beentrying to build.
What TravelerMD is, uh, for anyof the audience who's familiar
with uh skills.md and Cloud orother markdown files you have, a
individual traveler, Dan, you'llhave your own, I'll have my own.

(29:37):
We'll all have our own travelerMD files that sit with my
personal traveler context.
As I'm interacting with anybrand, hopefully in the future,
but as a starting point, anytraveler, uh, any travel AI
brand, you'll start to have youbring your travel context with
you.
And as soon as you bring yourtravel context with you, our AI
models or other AI models canground the understanding of

(29:59):
delivering travel services toyou based on your vertical
memory.
What we try to do is make surethat your existing um chat
applications, whether you'reusing Gemini, whether you're
using Claude or OpenAI's chatGPT, all those can be grounded
in the exact same travelermemory.
So if you're having aconversation with Claude, it can

(30:19):
reference your Traveler MD file.
If you're having a conversationwith ChatGPT, it can have a
conversation with and have thegrounding in your Traveler MD
file.
Our hope is that all travelcompanies would embrace this,
what we want it to become astandard, because it really is a
standard that belongs to thetraveler, that we're just
borrowing to make sure our ourprocess and our personalization
gets enhanced from there.
I'm not sure that answers lotsof questions.

SPEAKER_01 (30:40):
There's a lot of context and background there,
but uh Well, one Yeah, one quickcomment on Traveler MD, and this
is why I wanted to bring it upas part of this conversation.
I'm sure our listeners, as theyheard you describe that, have a
much better picture now of howuh this entire strategy is
coming together with differenttravel verticals, because
obviously being in the toursspace and you know, obviously

(31:01):
you guys have done a lot of workin um uh accommodation in
particular.
And but when you look at acompany like Legends that was
acquired by Forra as an example,Shane and Stephanie have been
part of our AI summits the lasttwo years, and you guys have
always been a big part of thatas well.
The Legends concept of taking awhat they refer to as a traveler
DNA, like taking your, you know,scraping data off of your photos

(31:24):
and building a profile that thentravel companies can better
serve you.
And now Fora's building it intotheir stack.
And I think this is somethingthat, and this was you know, as
Legends was launching and someof the venture funding was
drying up, one of the thingsthat I I want to underline for
all of our listeners that isreally unique about this
conversation that we're havingtoday, uh, John and I, is that

(31:44):
you know, John is a founder andhe is you know in full control
of running his business becauseit's not venture-backed.
And so, you know, the industryhas celebrated fundraises.
Um, and what you really presentis kind of makes the case for
the other path, um, staying youknow, founder-owned rather than
competing against fundedcompetitors and some of the

(32:05):
decisions you can make versuswhat they have to do by virtue
of their valuations.
And we've seen such a shift inthis direction.
If you and you've obviously seenit too, companies like Get Your
Guide, which have been soft bankfunded, you know, the whole
focus for them is onprofitability and announcing
profitability.
Companies like Exotica that areventure back announced they've
now got 400 million in the salesand they're now profitable.

(32:25):
Everyone is focusing onprofitability as a real true
valuation of a business.

SPEAKER_00 (32:31):
They should be.
That's how business is done.
It's just for whatever reason wekind of forgot that along the
journey.

SPEAKER_01 (32:35):
Exactly.
But what you present withTraveler MD, like tying it all
together, and that's why Iwanted to mention that now
before we get into the future ofSonder, because it'll make that
much more sense to our listenersfrom the way I've started to
understand the launch of thatand how you're going to tie
these traveler profiles togetherso that you know ultimately I
know the idea is it's atraveler-owned memory file that

(32:59):
any platform can then read withtheir permission.
And so tell us a little bit moreabout that concept because it
didn't, I think it is a profoundshift from the way that most
people utilize their toolstoday.
They use LLMs that are gettingbetter and better because it's
learning more about them.
And what you're proposing is,well, actually, take that
information and make it usableto other travel businesses as

(33:19):
well.

SPEAKER_00 (33:19):
Yeah, it it's a let's let's go back and look at
the economics again.
Uh so within our business, theyou have to look at what is the
value of a traveler when theyinteract with one of our brands.
Um, roughly speaking, that everytraveler who interacts with,
whether it's arentbackowner.com, uh
vacationcottage.com, or Kasai ornow Saunder, is probably worth

(33:41):
about a dollar on a valuestandpoint.
If you can attract an organicvisitor, it's the same dollar.
If you bring somebody in from umother parts of the world, it's
the same dollar.
And uh that's just based oncurrent economics and current
business model.
Um, but you start to overlaywhat would personalization do to
the cold start equation?
What and therefore what is thevalue of somebody who comes into

(34:02):
a partner who um can convert atthis little bit higher, can
interact on our side just alittle bit more.
Um we're looking at as we startto personalize uh that traveler
experience using this travelerND file across our own
operations, even that um smallpercentage uplift that we get,
2.5% to 5% uplift, generatesmillions of dollars of revenue

(34:25):
for our company every singleyear.
Uh so why wouldn't wepersonalize if we had access to
those things?
But the value that one gets wheninteracting with that uh across
the entire travel ecosystem,it's the same 2.5% to 5% lift on
a on a on a bad day,opportunities to be
substantially higher on a goodday.
If you have a 5% conversionlift, what changes in that

(34:45):
economics of that$1 customervalue?
And as soon as you start to lookat those economic changes, you
realize that havingpersonalization makes a lot of
economic sense.
And why wouldn't somebody wantto do it?
Um from our perspective, it'salways been important that we're
not the ones in control of thattravel profile.
Uh we want the traveler to be incontrol of the travel profile.
It it allows them to go acrosstravel, the entire travel

(35:08):
ecosystem.
Um there's different uh so muchof the existing incumbents have
have lived on um the idea thattravel is um built in silos and
built in these sort of um thesenecessarily walls, and that's
sort of the their core coreability is is the delivery of um
personalization using siloedinformation.

(35:31):
But the moment you can sort ofbridge that gap and and build
bridges rather than walls, itbecomes a much better user-based
travel experience.
At least that's our philosophy.
That's really where we've beenfocusing on.

SPEAKER_01 (35:42):
Well, and one of the parts that can is trip.
So you have this multimodal AIagent.
I want to just clarify wherethat fit fits into this because
if travelers can interact withany agent and carry their memory
file across every brand in yournetwork and then likely beyond,
where does TRIP fit in?
Just help explain that as well.
Because again, this is wheresome of the things you're
building is like you'repreparing for a future that

(36:04):
we're not there yet, but we'reit is moving in that direction.
And many companies are not awareof that shift.

SPEAKER_00 (36:09):
Yeah.
So let's let's go back into thenames a little bit.
We we talk about the the conceptof the third voice, the third
voice of the series of AI agentsthat operate on your behalf or
behalf of those marketparticipants uh to build a
better travel outcomes.
People understand an AI agent asa one-off.
Yeah, I have one agent doing onetask for me uh that generates
actions on my behalf.

(36:31):
Really, what we've been tryingto look at with TRIP, and that's
T-R-I-D-P, as the nickname TRIP,which is short for Triple, which
is short for third voice, and itall kind of ties together from a
branding perspective.
But really, what we want TRIP tobe is that third voice that acts
as that digital concierge toyour travel planning experience.
It's not meant to be anitinerary builder or they could
have itinerary agents as part ofit.

(36:51):
It's not meant to be the bookingagent, or they could have
booking as part of it.
Think of a really good hotelconcierge.
If you think about really goodhotel concierge, they have one
job, and that one job is to makea better travel experience.
That's really what we want tripto be.
Um, we've been building it for awhile, we've had different
experimentations, and we've hadto wait for the market to catch

(37:11):
up with us because we do reallywant voice to become a big core
part of that trip chattingexperience.
So if you were to go and createa traveler MD today, you get
onboarded through voice and orchat.
Chat still works, of course, butwe we needed the voice to come
down in cost to allow us to havea good customer experience at a

(37:32):
price that makes sense.
So we had to wait for all theseconverging factories to come out
before Trip can be operating asthat, as that concierge in the
marketplace.

SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
The key thing I want to ask you about, and I'm sure
many of our listeners are alsouh frustrated with about the
industry is personalization.
It's been one of the biggestkind of talked-about items for
the last 10 or 15 years.
And even with AI, we did aseries on loyalty, and we had
the team from Loyalty Status Quosaying, you know, by far the
biggest overhype and overpromiseis personalization, and they're
obviously in the loyalty space,and the loyalty space takes its

(38:03):
inspiration from even thecasinos and and and gaming
organizations about how you getsomeone you know into points and
miles and and um and that's onlypart of it, then there's the
status side of these loyaltyprograms as well.
But my point in saying all ofthis is the fact that
personalization is uh it's beenkind of the holy grail.
And even when I was at the uh uhaviation festival, the Americas

(38:26):
Conference, one of the thingsthat all the airlines uh
executives had said to me is thekey for them that they're trying
to unlock is always remember me.
And it was the greatestfrustration of most of their
customers is that whether you gothrough their contact center or
their website, the reality is,even as a super elite traveler
with Air Canada, sometimes youknow, when I call a number,
it'll recognize me.
And there's but the reality is Ican go on the website and not

(38:49):
get the same uh perks andawareness because it doesn't
really know my full profile.
And so I'll speak to someone andthey'll say, well, it's not
available on the platform yet,but make sure that you ask for
this or call in for thisparticular need.
And it's like it's it's so farfrom perfect.
And so I really liked thatexpression of like always
remember me.
That's what everyone's asking.
Just always remember we startwith I know who you are, as

(39:09):
opposed to every traveler havingto start every search and
booking process with, you know,hello, nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 (39:15):
Yeah, we we call the whole concept digital amnesia.
And and right now the the worldis is exactly that.
It's that you go onto a new siteand you say, but I just like if
you if you look at one of oursites and somebody goes on to
Sonder and they're doing someresearch and planning and
looking at some collections, oruh we one of my product team
that when we were out at aretreat had had caught up a

(39:36):
Sonder After Dark.
I have no idea if it willlaunch, but I'll tell the world
gear.
But it was basically uh acollection of adult-oriented
properties that we would haveavailable across our network of
distribution partners.
We'll we'll leave it at that andlet the audience's mind wander
from that.
But that collection, as soon asthat somebody expresses some
information and desire forthings that we have on our side,

(39:56):
what we do today without thatpersonalization is pass it over
to booking, pass it over toExpedia or Virgo, whoever the
partner happens to be, and thenthey promptly forget who the
customer was that we passed tothem.
They may have their own loyaltyprograms.
They admit uh booking has agenius program.
Um there's the one key programacross the Expedia Group, but uh
information that the person isinterested in this
adult-oriented experiencewouldn't get passed over to

(40:18):
booking.com.
That has to stop.
We have to figure out a way todo that.
Um so maybe in going once againback up a layer into the overall
strategy, uh, we have 530,although it's probably
increasing on a daily basis, uh,although with the team's kind of
distracted by Sonder launch inthe last two weeks, so maybe not
daily these days.
But uh when the reason we'relaunching so many sites is each

(40:40):
site speaks to certain brandpersona and tells us something
about the traveler the momentthey interact and want land on a
site.
Somebody who goes to pickle tripis interested in
pickleball-centered vacations.
Somebody who goes to certainAbaco Bahama rentals or whatever
the brand would be, uh Sun Peaksrentals for a place.
We know that they're interestedin a certain location, a certain
concept, a certain vibe, if youwill.

(41:03):
Within our strategy, we'vetalked about, and I think we
described it on one of theprevious episodes, is the going
from the web of five milliondown to the web of one.
The web of one is what happenswhen I land on a website or
interact with um a brandedexperience.
It doesn't have to be a website,it could be a chat, chat
experience, it could be a callcenter.
Um, but they have to know me,they have to remember me.
And that is the web of one, uh,which is cool.

(41:26):
We all want we all want the webof one.
But a large part of what we'vebeen thinking about is what
comes next?
What comes after the web of onewhen that website truly knows me
and we call it the web of none.
When there's a dan to agent oragent-to-agent communications,
and how do those agents interactwith still the same grounding of
information on your behalf?
I don't know if you created yourown traveler MD file, but your
agent would have access to yourtraveler MD file.

(41:48):
So when it's interacting with ahotelier elsewhere, a hotelier's
agent, it can be grounded inyour profile that you control
and you've authenticated.
Um that's part of the that weknow is coming.
This question is going to behere in one year, two years, ten
years.
It's coming.
And that's what we're trying toprepare for.

SPEAKER_01 (42:03):
Well, and one last question on this topic, because
I have created uh my profile.
One of the things that I want uhalso keen to understand, and
this is for many travelers outthere listening to this that are
concerned about uh privacy andwho owns the uh data, because
that's what this keeps comingback to.
The flip side of personalizationis the worry and the concern
that people have about who hasaccess to it, what they're gonna

(42:25):
use it for.
And uh so to convince the restof the industry to read from to
read from a memory layer thatthey don't control, um, what
does that how does that work inpractice and how do travelers
like myself who have a profileuh revoke access if there's
someone I don't want to provideit to?

SPEAKER_00 (42:43):
It's all done through the traveler's profile
for through their traveler MDfile.
We don't control it.
We provide a gateway that allowsfor that traveler to administer
it.
That includes toggling on oroff.
I want ChatGPG to access it, Idon't want them to access it, I
want this memory to be shared, Idon't want this memory to be
shared.
And you can add and removememories just as you can add and
remove connections into otherparts of the ecosystem.

(43:05):
We don't control it, we don'thave access to it, the traveler
controls it and has access toit, and that's been been been
clear.
Um I think on the the other sideof that um of that memory part,
we talk about trust being a bigpart of it.
But the other part that we don'ttalk nearly enough of as an
industry is the whole idea ofgovernance and the idea that if
you are a company and you aretrying to personalize and use

(43:27):
these AI models to providebetter experiences for your
travelers, uh, what are youdoing with my information?
Do I have access to thatinformation?
Can I turn it on or off?
I've almost noticed.
Uh we've been hard at work on awhole governance platform that
uh we want to bring to theindustry and let them to start
to use the the full audibility,traceability, replayability, uh,

(43:50):
governance and control that doesneed to exist hand in glove with
all these personalizationtechnologies.
It's not the sexy part oftravel, it's not the part that
people look at with the Uhcompliance and legal uh
frameworks, but I think that isnecessary before we truly see
that personalization that we alldesire.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (44:08):
Well, and this is where I mean both of us uh are
uh similar vintage, and we wentthrough that dot-com era, and I
think both of us are equallyexcited about the new
technological age that we're in,all the opportunities it's
creating.
And uh and so let's talk aboutwhere to from here, especially
with the new Saunder.
So hopefully all of ourlisteners now have a much better
understanding of Travel AI, andI definitely encourage you to

(44:30):
check out the standalone episodewith both John and Chris, and
obviously, uh by all means diveright into the event spotlight
episode from last week at FocusRight, where the John announced
the Traveler MD, the markdown,which obviously is my first
question from MD, not Doctor,right?
MD is in so uh uh traveler andand just so everyone knows too,

(44:51):
it's Traveler with one L,traveler.md.
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Not a Canadian spelling.

SPEAKER_01 (44:57):
Yeah.
Um uh and I want to finish onthe Canadian side of it too.
So but in terms of the newSonder, I know I mentioned at
the beginning a curated guide,not an operator, and you
obviously have incredibleinventory from all of your
distribution partners, but thenewsonder.com is now live.
Tell us about that experience,what you and the team have been

(45:19):
working on to relaunch thatbrand, and then you know what
makes the cut that meets the newuh editorial standard as you
scale this globally.

SPEAKER_00 (45:27):
Um it's so and I'm gonna go once again, I'm gonna
go back to part and ask thequestion I want to answer
instead.
Talk, let's let's talk about the1L traveler versus 2L traveler.
Because I'm sitting here wearinga traveler with 2L traveler
shirt.
Um earlier this year, we had anexercise um to define our why

(45:48):
and why are we doing what we'redoing, what's the business that
we're in.
And we define that we're doingwhat we're doing and trying to
make travel better experience onbehalf of the traveler.
And that's traveler with one L.
Traveler with two L's is what wecall our team, because we are
travelers too.
And what gives us the right towin in the space, what gives us
the right to help to determinethe travelers?

(46:09):
Basically, my entire team, Ihave a super talented team, it's
a team of travelers.
They travel the world, they manyof them are working remotely.
Uh, they they live to travel andhave the travel experience.
I've uh one of my productmanagers managers, he's out in
Bangladesh right now workingwith our engineering group out
there, but he's been to 120 pluscountries, is out there.
We're we are travelers too, withtwo L's, the users, and that's

(46:32):
how we refer to ourselves astravelers.
Travelers with one L is the userin that.
We have an exercise to say whatdoes the second L mean?
And it's everything from loyaltyto love to uh the former left
travel.
Well, we basically kept indefining that that second L.
So it's a bit of an internaljoke that we have.
Got it.
Okay.
We want to go back to thatfirst.

(46:53):
Uh but to the new Sonder.
Um on the new Sonder, we want togo back and ensure that we are a
tech-enabled, tech forward brandfocusing on urban
accommodations.
Those urban accommodationsinclude boutique hotels, they
include uh most importantly,those really unique
neighborhoods that really madethe old Sonder famous.
Uh we looked at the walkabilityscores and integrating with walk

(47:16):
score to get the data out ofthose information.
Um trying, we we talk about umuh AI curated, hand managed.
Not every property is um managedand read through greatly by
humans.
You can really rely on themachine to do a lot of the dirty
work to help you identifycertain properties.

(47:37):
But um part of the challengewe're trying to face is that
there are so many hotels, thereare so many vacation rentals
that are out there.
How do you know what is theright property for you?
How does Dan pick his place tostay next time he goes to New
York?
Um, that's what we're trying tofigure out.
The more we can understand you,the more we can understand
what's in your Traveler MD, whatmakes what makes uh a certain

(47:58):
place worthwhile to you, thebetter we can customize that
experience, not just on Sonder,but really across all of our
brands.
But Sonder is the first point wereally have a chance to
demonstrate the power ofTraveler MD in Else Glory, which
is can we um vectorize yourselfand figure out what makes you
tick and therefore match you tothe right property that's good
for you in the rightneighborhoods you want to stay
at?

SPEAKER_01 (48:18):
Well, one interesting element about that
is the branding and Sonder,which the name Sonder, which
I've always just genuinelyliked, but this idea that every
stranger has a vivid inner life,this kind of cool idea of what a
Sonder is.
And you know, the name itselfconnects to the strategy that
you know that this memorythesis.
So tell us about those connectthose two.

(48:39):
I think that's I found thatreally fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 (48:41):
Yeah, and for for the listeners here, uh Sonder is
also uh sometimes best todescribe as what it's not, and
people often understand the ideaof main character syndrome.
Yeah, oh, you're the maincharacter in your own story.
Well, of course, everybody's themain character in their own
story.
Um but it's that um recognitionthat everybody has certain
wants, dreams, hopes, desiresthat drive their life, and how

(49:04):
do we then map our experience totheir brand?
So when we uh were trying tofigure out what our next play
would be in urbanaccommodations, and frankly, we
were quite weak in urbanaccommodations across the
network of brands that we had.
Um we wanted something thatrepresented um that
individuality that everybodywould have.
And Sonder was definitely that.

(49:24):
I I think the other thing we wereally latched on to uh in in
some of our earliest brandingdocuments, we talked about that
feeling you get when.
And what is Sonder?
It's that feeling you get when.
And then wealth here, what comesnext?
That feeling you get when youwake up um and you basically
have just sunk into those,those, the bedding of that
amazing hospitality experience.
It's that feeling you get whenyou're sitting there uh in a

(49:47):
neighborhood and you can hearthe distant jazz music in New
Orleans.
It's all those, those, thoseweird, weird feelings.
That to me is really what Sonderis about is those those
emotional aspects of travel.
And that's why we travel.
We travel for emotions.
We don't travel for thetech-enable lock on the door.
We don't travel for thepersonalization technology we're
building.
We're traveling for thoseemotions.
Uh, and that's what we're reallytrying to tap into.

SPEAKER_01 (50:08):
Well, and Sonder for Canadians, but also from now for
many Americans or internationaltravelers.
I know it's like the trademarkitself is in like 50 different
markets.
Like you, it's really became aglobal brand over the last few
years.
The um, but one of the thingsthat it also draws a strong
emotional response when peopleloved their Sonder experience,
myself included, you havecertain expectations of what you
know a Sonder to be, the design,you know, the apartment style

(50:30):
stays, being in certainneighborhoods.
I'm keen to know for all ofthose, you know, those fans out
there that are keen to know whatthe future looks like with
Travel AI.
Tell us about what you're gonnacarry over from the experience
they know, especially when youknow you no longer have control
of the actual product, um, butyou obviously control who the
partners are, and you've alreadybeen successful in other areas
as it relates to accommodationand Kasai being a great example

(50:52):
of that.
But tell us for those, you know,the Sondra fans out there, what
of the experience is gonna carryover?

SPEAKER_00 (50:58):
Yeah, I maybe a fun way to look at it is how are we
able to identify um what isSondra like?
And that that was basically uhone of the criteria that the
product team had had to workthrough.
Um first off, we've gone throughand have tried to identify all
of the buildings that are stilloperating that were previously
Sonder, we call formerly Sonder.
And and we've been done a prettygood job of trying to map many

(51:20):
of the old buildings, which arenow still operational, just not
as Sonder, although you canwander around many urban centers
and still see the Sonder sign onbuildings, which I did when I
was out in Barcelona, seeing thenice little Sonder there.
And apparently we've heard fromothers that they stayed into
other places that here inVancouver that Sonder is still
on the towels internally, justnot on the front of the
building.
So you think that's kind offunny.

(51:41):
Um but once you can define whatis Sonder or what we want Sonder
to be, you can vectorize all theinventory that we have and say,
what is the walkability of theneighborhood?
Is it within a certain distanceof a cafe, one of our little uh
bar elements that we've we'veestablished?
If it's walkability, and it'swithin this much of a cafe, and
it has this private propertyscore, and and and

(52:03):
professionally managed, if it'sapartment rental or not, we
create this Sonder bar.
And I think out of the millionsupon millions of pieces of
inventory that we have availablefrom our distribution partners,
and um if you sort of total upin totality, although there's
lots of duplicates, it's 15 to20 million pieces of inventory
we have.
We have about 150,000 propertieswe've identified as Sonder-like.

(52:25):
Uh so it's a much morehand-curated or machine-curated
collection that we've beentrying to identify as this is
Sonder.
And it's not 100% by any means,um, but we're we're off to the
races and trying to identifythat which creates a good user
experience.
Uh, and we want to amplify thoseproperties.

SPEAKER_01 (52:44):
Well, and I would be someone that would still wear a
Sonder shirt or I'd put in aSonder towel, like I still have
that affinity for the brand.
You stole the Sonder towel?
No.
Maybe that I'm the reason.
I'm clearly looking at theSpeaker.
Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 (52:57):
Now we understand what happened last November.

SPEAKER_01 (52:59):
Yeah.
But in terms of 2027 and whereto from here with Sonder.
I mean, today and this week isthe launch, and you know, over
the course of the rest of 2026,you're gonna continue to build
up this platform.
You obviously shared the examplebefore of you know a payback in
three months and how you'regonna scale these uh businesses.

(53:20):
Tell us a little bit about whatsuccess looks like uh for Sonder
and what the industry shouldwatch for as this new AI
platform develops through thetravel AI ecosystem as you take
Sonder forward.

SPEAKER_00 (53:33):
I I think it goes back to our our foundational
ethos is operate with speed andscale always profitably.
Sonder will operate profitablyfrom day one and then we'll
scale it, we'll grow it.
Um I I but we recognize that ina way, many of the brands that
are out there, and I thinkprobably the same case with
owner direct being its 40-yearbrand or or Cassai that you know

(53:55):
didn't have as long of alifecycle.
Um, we have to do service to thebrand.
We have to make sure that whenusers go to the sites, they get
a good experience, they findwhat they're looking for, and
they leave satisfied at the endof the day.
Um but we want Sonda to be morethan that.
We want Sonda to be a referencesite of all of the really great
technologies that my team iscreating.

(54:17):
And those technologies will helpin personalization, they'll have
it be features for various AIagents to operate.
Um, but it really should be ashowcase of all the technologies
that we've created.
So in a year from now, uh a lotcan change in this industry in a
in a year.
I'd like to think that uh Sonderhas uh kept its place in the

(54:37):
conscience of the searchers.
Um there's there's a uh we havesome guesses.
I don't want to share, share thenumbers here, but we have some
guesses as far as when we'llhave the uh ROI payback.
It will be probably be prettysoon if the traffic materializes
as as we expect it to.
Um but we'll sit there operatingprofitably.
Um we've been very fortunatethat we've been able to acquire

(54:58):
all of the assets we acquire outof cash flow.
So we've never taken out anycapital to do it, but we've been
able to acquire it out of cashflow.
Um and hopefully once it is theshowcase that we want it to be,
we can use the cash from thisfund to go out and acquire
another one.

SPEAKER_01 (55:10):
Which I'm sure is going to be our next episode.
So like uh there's a coupleclosing questions I had, because
I know this one's particularlyspecial for you given the
Canadian connection.
Yeah.
And so, you know, tell us alittle bit now, just in closing,
given that you are a Canadianthat not only brought your own
business back uh post-pandemic,but now you're actually
rebuilding what is you know uhone of the greatest Canadian

(55:33):
success tech hospitality travelsuccess stories.
Uh what does it mean for youpersonally and for the team?
Because and again, I've thereason I ask this is because I
could see the enthusiasm on yourface when we saw each other in
person a few weeks ago, and Icould even get a read on the
team.
I spoke to Josh recently when Iwas out in uh BC.
We've always you know make aneffort to get together for

(55:54):
lunch.
And I think this is where like Ithink so highly of your team
because they're very bought intothe mission, they're very much
on board, and they're veryexcited about this.
Like that this is this is youknow, this is a great
development for you, but this isa fantastic development for the
team as well.
So tell me, especially given youjust have this offsite, yeah
what does it mean to to you andthe team?

SPEAKER_00 (56:10):
I I I think what well, what it means to me
personally, and I'll then I'llspeak on behalf of the team, um
coming out of the pandemic andcoming out of bankruptcy
ourselves, it was a um, I don'tknow, it it was an emotional
time, obviously, uh where in thepandemic, when you first go
under, you say, wow, uh I'vefailed, I've let people down,

(56:32):
let my team down, or let myfamily down.
Um, and then to come back, andthen come back, not just come
back, but come back strongly.
Um that was a a challenge, butit felt really, really good.
We are way healthier now than wewere before the pandemic.
Um on the Sonder case, it wasvery surreal.
Uh, as you alluded to, uh, weacquired the assets back of our

(56:54):
own company in February of 2021.
Uh Sonder announced their theirSPAC and their public listing at
a$2.2 billion valuation withintwo months of that.
Um to if you had told me back inspring of 21 that small little
company that's already bankruptand just recovering is gonna go
out and acquire Sonder, I wouldhave laughed at you.
I said it's not possible.

(57:14):
So so for me personally, it isdefinitely a um a feel-good
moment.
Um, I like Sonder because fromthe before times, because it was
that Canadian company who wentdown to the States and took on
the world.
I thought that was pretty good.
Um, but if you sort of look atit in that Canadian context now,
Canada's getting quite um quitethe baseline of having all these

(57:38):
travel tech success stories.
Stay 22, Andrew and the teamthere have done a great job, and
they have uh just did their bigraise attached to it.
But once again, they've raisedvery little amount of money
until this this raise that'sjust occurred.
Hopper and their success, um, itwas Sonder and their success.
So I think in a way we've we'restarting to build out of a
national brand.

(57:59):
Uh, tourism and hospitality isnot just in the mountains and
the lakes and the rivers of thecountry, but tourism and
hospitality is in the technologythat we're trying to create
altogether.
So that's a bit of the theCanadian side.
From the team perspective, Ieverybody is a traveler.
And it goes back to thatquestion of what gives us the
right to win.

(58:20):
And part of it is is a bit of awhy not, um, but it's more of a
if we can do this, if that smallcompany that was bankrupt in
spring of 201 can acquire acompany that was at once had an
enterprise value of$2.2 billion,what is it that we can't do?
Why can't we create that AIinfrastructure layer that the
entire travel industry thriveson right here from home in

(58:43):
Canada?
Because we can.
My CFO Simon uh he mentioned uhon a call the other day, is like
just wait until we're 1% of theglobal travel ecosystem.
Um and it and it's the classicthing we should never say in a
business model.
If we if we only get 1% of theentire travel market, it will be
really, really big.
But that's kind of where we'reat.
We're what we're trying to dowith Traveler MD or governed

(59:04):
memory or any of these differentum parts of the ecosystem is to
be that one small littleunderlying slice of the entire
AI in travel market, and that'sa really, really big market.
And now this kind of givesconfidence to the team of we can
acquire Sonder.
What can't we acquire?
What can't we do?
And that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 (59:20):
Well, I know one of your stated goals is to uh
better travel for more than onebillion travelers by 2030.
And as I mentioned earlier, youknow, you guys are already
serving 50 million travelers ayear as it stands today.
And so, you know, that's fivepercent of where you want to be
in the next four years.
So that obviously gives ourlisteners a sense of the
ambition and the opportunity.
So to finish off, tell us whathas to happen between now and

(59:44):
then to reach that point.

SPEAKER_00 (59:47):
Looking at on the other side, there's eight
billion people in the world, andwe just need 15% of them to have
a Traveler MD file.
We're not gonna be the only oneswho bring that file to market.
And we'll be partnering with theentire industry to say, how can
we bring Traveler MD into youruh into your TMC or into your
hotelier uh group or into yourexisting OTA?
We want the entire industry toembrace the standard.

(01:00:08):
So it's not just about ourgrowth in that standard, it's
about the entire industryadopting it.
And if they adopt it and startto provide traveler MDs and
these profiles up to theircustomers, they'll provide
better customer experiences andthat basically helped them.
We will have helped it, even ifit's not helping on our existing
network of sites.
Um But as all of our sites grow,uh I that will be a nice, at

(01:00:32):
least a part of that journey,but it won't be the entire
journey.
And of course, this is just thestart of the technology we're
creating.
As I said, we have a super smartteam of engineers building and
experimenting all the time.
Um, and I can't wait to see whatthey create next.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:45):
When last time we spoke, you were going from
managing 700 sites to 7,000sites in the course of a year.
So the um the future continuesto be incredibly bright and is a
lot brighter now, not only fortravel AI, but uh Canadian tech
and the travel industry,everyone listening to this, that
um that life goes on in adifferent form and that these
businesses can uh find a newhome and new success and still

(01:01:08):
be very competitive in themarketplace.
So I'm really excited to seewhat the next steps are for
Sonder and Sonder.com.
Obviously, we all of ourlisteners should be tuning into
TravelEI.com as well asTravelerMD, which is in beta.
Uh but John, as we close, firstof all, obviously thank you for
being here and thank you fortaking the opportunity to share
this message first with all ofour listeners.

(01:01:29):
And um, but tell everyone alittle bit more about how they
can connect with you and theteam and to uh to follow these
exciting developments.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:35):
Well, I would definitely encourage everybody
to get their Traveler MD set upuh for their own travel uh
experiences.
But as you said, uh, visitSonder.com.
Tell us what you think.
It's an evolving site.
Um, what was built up there wasbuilt over basically three weeks
or three and a half weeks sincewe learned we had acquired the
assets.
So it's a super fast build usinga lot of AI technology we'd

(01:01:55):
already created.
Um but pay attention to thatjourney.
Uh and of course, reach out onLinkedIn.
Um yeah, you'll either findmyself or my dad, who's now
retired, under the same name.
So uh the name John Leotier isnot very common.
If you find it online, it'sprobably me.
Uh reach out on LinkedIn.
I'd be happy to chat at anytime.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:12):
Great, John and both.
John and I have sons that aresimilar age, both in university
at the moment, both interestedin being pilots.
Somehow we've inspired the nextgeneration.
And uh, you know, I love thework that you and your team are
continuing to do.
I look forward to seeing youagain in the near future at many
conferences.
You guys are going to be part ofour uh summit in October, so
you'll have a chance to see uhJohn and Brianna and some of the
team members uh joining us forthat.

(01:02:34):
But thanks again for ourcontinued collaborations, John,
and congrats on this success andlook forward to speaking to you
and seeing you again soon.
Thanks for having me today.
Greatly enjoyed it.
Thanks to all of our listenersfor joining us for this special
spotlight episode and our firstreal breaking news episode that
coincides with the launch of theexciting press release of Travel
AI acquiring Saunders assets asit relates to IP and domain

(01:02:57):
names.
And if you have any otherquestions, by all means you can
reach out to John and the team.
So check definitely check outtravelai.com and for sure follow
them on LinkedIn.
And certainly John postsregularly from the conferences
he's at, and he'll be continueto be featured in our event uh
spotlights.
And I just want to say if youare interested in more spotlight

(01:03:17):
episodes, definitely check outtraveltrendspodcast.com slash
spotlights.
And as you know, we do postclips and highlights on our
social channels, so you'll beable to find clips and
highlights from our conversationconversation today with John on
Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTubeat Travel Trends Podcast.
Thanks again for joining us, anduntil our next episode, safe
travels.