Category Archives: TTakeaways

Rollin’ with the new in ‘22

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With every new year, there’s often a sense of “where did the last one go?”

The march of technology enables us to time-shift in many ways, and the pandemic has only increased a distorted feeling of time as it accelerates many long-term trends.

2021 saw a return to travel – if not “normalcy” – in many respects.  But the recent omicron variant and related restrictions remind us that any return to pre-pandemic state of affairs is elusive.

We started off the “Roaring 20s” with a belief that three paradigms would resonate in this decade: embracing customer empathy, viewing the conversion funnel as a sphere and activating inspiration everywhere.

Looking back, empathy in marketing is now an imperative for obvious reasons.  Fluid border restrictions and coronavirus surges disintegrated the linear booking funnel, further morphing it into a sphere.  Inspiration is indeed everywhere, but prior to 2020 few of us would have thought the Johns Hopkins University global coronavirus tracking map would be used to figure out where to go.

We were directionally accurate with those paradigm shifts.  But we didn’t foresee a now obvious shift that echoed throughout 2020: the need to stay flexible and fluid.  Despite human nature’s eternal search for stability, the old adage “the only constant is change” is particularly true and relevant for the new year.

With the fog of 2020 and a brighter 2021 behind us, another maxim will serve us well into 2022 and beyond: in uncertain times, we should focus on what we can control and prepare as best we can for whatever new challenge will come our way.  For travel marketers, that means doing everything we can to make travel easier for today’s hesitant-yet-eager, flexibility-seeking consumers.  Here’s to rollin’ with the new – challenges and opportunities – in ‘22!   

#FlexIn: Why Flexible Inspiration is the Future of Travel

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The global coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed travel.  Just exactly how is debatable.  Fortunately, as the world starts to open up again we now have preliminary data to see what’s changed, and what will.

Flexibility now reigns supreme, and travelers want to know their options.  Not just any options – what’s right for them, right now.  

Relevance remains important, but many travel marketers are still stuck in a merchandising Medieval Age – pushing available offers, arranged neatly on the digital shelf.  Top sellers get prominent placement, with a few nods to personalization: places you’ve clicked on, been to or are within driving distance.  

That should be enough to capture a share of this unprecedented wave of demand, right?  

Not exactly.  There’s a revolution in travel happening right now, a tectonic change deeply rooted in a very personal, cultural and psychological shift.  The world was pulled like a rug from beneath our feet, leaving us unsettled, unsure.

Uncertainty breeds indecision.  Indecision halts action.  In e-commerce terms, it kills conversion – and drives a ton of call center interaction, as many travel sellers are reporting.

How do we remove uncertainty and get travelers to book in an ever-changing environment?  By implementing a strategy of what I call “FlexIn” – a combination of flexibility and inspiration defined as “the spontaneous generation of desirable, relevant and changeable options.”  

photo by Alexander Schimmeck

Destination Roulette

Flexibility has been one of the best changes to come to travel recently.  The ability to change or cancel a reservation without penalty is the top factor in purchase decisions, according to a recent Expedia presentation at the eTourism Summit 2021.  A recent Phocuswright research report says 7 in 10 travelers prioritize flexible booking more than ever.  It’s one change many of us hope will remain permanent.  For marketers, it’s no longer optional.

Beyond the refundable fares and eased cancellation policies, post-pandemic flexibility now applies to the very core of travel: destinations.  Specifically, destination selection.

As border restrictions, vaccine availability and adoption change, so do the list of available destinations.  Expedia also reported that on average, travelers are searching for 2 or 3 destinations in a single session.

The typical linear customer journey of selecting a destination, searching for the best price and then booking was already antiquated pre-COVID.  The funnel is morphing into a sphere – an irreversible trend accelerated by the pandemic – where travelers will consider (and even book) a number of destinations before settling on one.

The Inspiration Script, Flipped

We humans have an innate desire to explore.  Travel brands have tapped into this desire by employing attractive imagery for over 150 years.  Ethereal print ads from early U.S. railroad companies lured travelers with images of the western frontier.  At the start of the jet age, nostalgic posters of exotic destinations beckoned travelers, in the same way as Instagrammable spots drive today’s wanderlust.

Early travel ad – courtesy of University of Virginia American Studies
Rings true after all these years…

Yet somehow, the notion of inspiring travelers in the digital space has more recently been considered a frivolous pursuit.

Many industry journalists have cited the demise of travel inspiration and planning startups and projects over the years as proof.  A Skift study found that 4 out of 5 trip planning or inspiration startups failed over the 4 year period prior to 2016.

Those failures were more about execution and timing, I would argue.  Naturally, I’m also happy to say we’ve persevered against the odds: TripTuner has been converting inspiration into bookings for 10 years. Let me channel Matt Damon for a minute…

Still, there’s a lingering resistance among online travel veterans to embrace inspiration. It’s often considered to be too far from the booking.  Marketing efforts should focus further down the funnel. 

Another perception is that there’s “not enough traffic to make it worthwhile,” as the CEO of a major metasearch company once told me.  This is an inherent chicken/egg problem, where big companies may be reluctant to promote inspiration in a meaningful way because they believe there’s not enough demand for it.

Not according to Google.  They estimate that 1 in 3 travelers do not have a destination in mind when first thinking about a trip.  Ironically, the ever-increasing cost of lower-funnel keywords has also pushed brands to engage travelers earlier in the purchase process.  Inspiration is the way.

Brands Flexing Inspiration  

Savvy sellers are responding to the flexible destination demands of travelers.  CheapTickets was among the first OTAs to implement their Vacation Value Finder (powered by TripTuner, natch).  

Brands like United Airlines are getting in on the action, too with more flexible search and exploration tools (though a map crowded with labels doesn’t exactly inspire).

Regardless of who’s doing what – the best way to identify unmet demand is to test for it yourself.  In our experience with partners, every inspiration A/B test has proven its merit.  Apparently, the world’s largest travel company by market capitalization agrees.

FlexIn Your Way Forward

At the recent Skift Global Forum, airbnb CEO Brian Chesky revealed that 40% of people come to airbnb with no destination or date in mind, saying “going forward, we’re going to be in the business of inspiration.”  As a result, they’ve put a big “I’m Flexible” button as the main focal point of their home page.

Why is a separate inspiration function or Call To Action required?  It could be added to the typical flight or hotel search (enter destination, dates and travelers).  But all too often current search functions lack the spontaneity and curiosity that triggers the imagination.  The results themselves need to be inspirational (e.g with alluring images) as well as relevant.

Properly deployed, FlexIn piques a traveler’s curiosity and creates a sense of ownership, of being the author of one’s journey.  This is MY trip.  While many ideas come from within, they’re often prompted by an external stimulus (like a conversation, social media post, or email).  Without a way of channeling that inspiration, your brand simply won’t get its fair share of the rolling wave of post-pandemic pent-up demand.

The ability to spontaneously generate desirable, relevant and changeable options – which you now know as FlexIn – can future-proof your business in an ever-changing world of increasing choice and complexity.

To learn how you can convert flexible inspiration, get in touch and…stayTTuned.

Catch The Rolling Wave of Demand

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Summer months often have us thinking of beach time, but the unprecedented level of pent-up demand wrought by the coronavirus has many of us wanting to getaway, anywhere. Now.

Travel restrictions, entry requirements and vaccination rates continue to change, with demand surging in particular regions. Priceline reports that 92% of Americans will travel in 2021. U.S. airports are indeed filled once again with summer crowds, as TSA Checkpoint throughput is consistently at or above the 2 million travelers mark – about 3x what it was last year, and about 75% of what it was in 2019.

According to CNBC, 56% of Europeans intend to travel this summer. Flight bookings soared in the UK when returning quarantine requirements were eased recently (Okay they’re not part of Europe anymore – but you get the point).

The start-and-stop nature of travel these days has changed typical booking seasons. Many colleagues and partners are reporting that typical seasonality has been eroded by a rolling wave of demand, as more and more travelers are able to move more freely within their own countries and around the world – depending on the region, of course. Asia for example, has seen new restrictions on travel as the more contagious, less-deadly delta coronavirus variant spreads.

We’ve also heard about booking windows morphing into a barbell shape, where most travel is concentrated in both close-in and further out due to the uncertainty around changing travel restrictions, requirements and the safety situation in a given destination. This (and the steadily increasing wave of bookings) can be seen in the wide gap between short and longer term bookings in the US data from Adara’s traveler trends tracker.

tasty wave 📷 by Matt Paul Catalano

In this new, more fluid and dynamic context, travel marketers are wise to adapt to these demand patterns by keeping an eye on the restrictions from both an origin and destination perspective. Just as a wave splits into smaller waves when hitting rocks along the shore, so too will demand continue to flow where restrictions have been eased. Campaigns and messaging needs to be ready for immediate deployment, tailored for how travelers are feeling now.

We’ve helped our partners catch this rolling wave of demand through the merchandising of relevant destinations and experiences that are resonating with travelers now – like vigorous trail hikes or languid nights soaking up the fresh air of a state park. TripTuner was built from start to respond to changing preferences. Our custom versions enable partners to stay in tune with those tastes in real-time – and leverage that data for better personalization.

Wanna make some waves and rise with the tide of growing travel demand? Hit us up! 🏄‍♂️

3 Key Marketing Paradigms for 2020 and Beyond

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2020.  It’s how we describe perfect vision.  A clean, round number that comes around every 10 years.  It calls out for change. But vague descriptions of wanting to do more or less of something won’t do it justice.  2020 needs a clear vision as a springboard into the new decade. Here’s ours:

Customer Empathy

I wrote about this before, but it’s a concept worth repeating, clarifying and discussing.  Over the past 30 years, we’ve seen a shift from approaching customers as “prospects” to “followers” and even better, “advocates.”  The modern industrial age stipulated that product quality will help one’s business stand out from the rest while driving repeat business.  As manufacturing gave way to services, customer satisfaction grew as a way to cement loyalty.  

But as the information economy evolved, the critical element of human interaction disappeared.  We went from personal service to FAQs, Knowledge Bases and Contact forms. Companies seemed to be keeping customers at arm’s length as they strove to gain scale efficiently.  Try finding the help section on Amazon. It’s the last option, at the very bottom of the page.

Amazon’s help menu, with our notes on how customers may read it.

Amazon’s help menu, with our notes on what customers may read into it.

In some respects, that’s OK.  The mostly mobile, always-on world changed how we communicate.  We may not want to talk to an agent when we can get what we need via live chat or text.  For those who are always “crazy busy,” the perceived quickening of life’s pace may not allow time for exchanging pleasantries and small talk.  Just get me what I need, now. 

Resolving a customer’s issue quickly and on their terms does not necessarily win you loyalty, however.  It’s a minimum requirement. A ticket to play in today’s marketplace.

Marketing success in 2020 and beyond requires establishing an emotional connection with consumers – something that’s very hard to do digitally.  It requires customer empathy: “listening” to an individual’s needs or desires in the moment, based on their terms and mindset. This can be dramatically different from the targeting signals, persona or profile your company may have derived from their past behavior.

One successful e-commerce venture – Zappos – did this, ironically via the old-fashioned method of a toll-free customer service phone line.  It’s their way of establishing a “personal emotional connection” as founder Tony Hsieh put it. When Amazon bought them for $1.2 Billion, Hsieh resisted the pressure to abandon this approach.  Whereas most companies think of customer service as a generic operating expense, he saw it as marketing and has kept it to this day.

How can we engender customer empathy digitally?  It’s a complex effort that requires a clear, unified overall approach across the many interactions and micro-moments that consumers have with our brand – whether online or offline.  These interactions are opportunities to convey customer empathy by demonstrating what one’s brand stands for and believes. At TripTuner, we do that by putting the consumer in control of their preferences to discover content that is relevant to them, in the moment. 

Sphere Is The New Funnel

This was covered in great detail in a previous blog post and on stage at the Phocuswright conference.  So I won’t go much further into it other than to say that the “consumer journey” (as Ad Age Digital pointed out) isn’t a journey at all.  There is no “path to purchase” anymore because you don’t need more than a mobile phone to make a purchase, anywhere at any time.  

The ramifications of this for marketers – particularly in a world where increased privacy regulations will make traditional targeting more difficult – are significant.  It will require abandoning and un-learning years of “pushing customers down the funnel” to a purchase. Pushing! That’s not too customer empathetic, right?

Graphic showing the digital marketing funnel as a sphere.

This new paradigm will require frameworks to understand, account for and respond to the myriad interactions and combinations thereof that inspire a consumer to make a purchase.  It’s non-linear and messy, but so is life.  So there’s an added incentive for you to get it right 🙂

Inspiration is Everywhere

IF we agree that e-commerce will be increasingly frictionless – that consumers can purchase anything, anywhere at any time – THEN don’t we also have to accept the fact that the inspiration for doing so can also happen at any time, anywhere?  Instagram has become a key part of travel inspiration, to the point where someone scrolling through their feed can see a photo of a place and then switch over to book a flight on their phone while sitting through a boring meeting.

The challenge for marketers in this environment is to create ways to insert contextually-relevant brand messages into consumers’ thousands of daily digital (or physical) interactions – while providing a path to purchase, without being too commercial.  That’s quite a task, but one that is worth pursuing and one I believe will be solved this decade, if not sooner. It’s time to raise up into the Soaring 20s – let’s get to work!

Stay tuned,

Tedd

4 Happiness Hacks For That Post-Travel Let Down

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Tips on handling those returning-to-the-office blues.  by Tedd Evers

Conferences, vacations – any time out of the office, away from it all – are great times to reflect and learn ways you can be a better person, at home and at work.  But returning to the office can quickly sap that post-travel glow. If you’re like me, planning the next holiday break to a new destination is a great antidote – and for that, we’ve got you covered.  Unfortunately though, we still have to get back on track until we can getaway again.

Here’s to heel-clicking happiness, maybe just not in the middle of the street. photo: Andre Hunter

Putting Happiness Into Practice

All too often, the demands of our work quickly erase that kumbaya feeling you get after a vacation or listening to inspiring speakers at a conference.  As a result, important changes don’t happen because they require a ton of time or effort – like reading a book or completing some time-intensive soul-searching exercises.

Meaningful change though, is often the result of the cumulative effect of consistent, daily effort.  Like my high school Coach Stroker liked to say “get a little bit better, every day.” (It’s also a core team value here at TripTuner).

In the end it’s up to us to “be the change we want to see in the world” as Mohandas Gandhi once famously said.  Fortunately, there are a few quick hacks you can do today – right now – that are scientifically proven to improve your happiness.

Allow me to follow speaker Erik Qualman’s lead and “post it forward” by sharing a few happiness hacks for home and work from U.S. Travel’s recent ESTO conference in Austin.

  1. Work in 20 minute sprints.

Erik shared how focusing on a single task is critical in our always-on connected world of endless feeds.  He suggested a 20-20-20 rule: breaking the work day into 20 minute segments, taking 20 second breaks after each one to stand up and focus on an object 20 feet away.

The American Optometric Association recommends it as a proven way to reduce eye strain from peering into monitors all day.  As you can imagine, this can get repetitive over a full day, so for a more nuanced approach check out the Pomodoro Technique developed by Frances Cirillo, another easy to implement productivity method.

  1. Walk in nature, unplugged. 

This was part of a number of suggestions shared by Neil Pasricha, author of The Book of Awesome.  To be more precise, his R/X was for 20 minutes of brisk walking in nature – without your phone (that may be the hardest part for some).  Like many of these suggestions there’s science behind “forest bathing” – namely the phytoncides that trees give off lower the level of cortisol, a stress hormone.

  1. Write thank you notes.  To Yourself.

Another one from Pasricha – he talked about the power of gratitude and empathy in helping us get out of emotional ruts.  Thanking others should be frequent and routine (yes, I’m assuming the best of you, that you were raised properly). But we tend to be our own worst critics, so spending time each day to reflect and simply write down your thoughts and what you’re thankful for will go a long way.  Got writer’s block? According to Neil, even reviewing your past notes has proven to be beneficial.

  1. Read for Fun.

OK so citing a Lifehacker article within this happiness hack is sooo meta, but it does show how reading before bed has been proven to lower stress levels and get better sleep.  As Pasricha points out, literary fiction is best and even better if it’s an actual physical book – the glare from screens can interfere with sleep patterns. 

Bring on the phytoncides! photo: Aslan Can

Workplace Happiness, Delivered

Happiness is not just about your well-being — it’s also the right way to do business.  When we’re happier as individuals, we do better work and are more likely to succeed.

Just ask Tony Hseih, Founder & CEO of Zappos.  I read his book, Delivering Happiness after hearing him speak at a DC Tech Week conference 9 years ago when I was in the planning phase of TripTuner.

Happiness is a core value at Zappos.  It’s earned them a well-deserved reputation for amazing customer service – a direct result of their focus on building personal emotional connections with customers.

Creating customer empathy and establishing an emotional connection with your customers is a critical task for today’s digital marketers, as we’ve discussed before.  Developing a strategy for that at work may take some time, but it can start with you. Today.

Clap Along Now

Now that you’ve got 4 quick ways to do it, you can clap along and sing, “I’m Happy” all day!

Just don’t do it a) on your unplugged nature walk b) while you’re reading or writing or c) without headphones on – your colleague may be deep into a 20 minute work session!

Stay Tuned.

Tedd

Customer Empathy and Other Less-Obvious Travel Trends

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Recently, in the hallowed conference halls of Twickenham Stadium – the world’s largest rugby venue – I had the privilege of moderating a panel at the Digital Travel Summit discussing what trends will transform the travel industry over the next 5 years, and how companies may capitalize on them (spoiler alert: check the title).  I was joined by Finnbar Cornwall, Travel Industry Head at Google and Kamil Jagodzinski, the Chief Customer Officer of Kiwi.com.  The $125M richer Kiwi.com.  

DTS London 19Crystal Ball panel

Tedd, Finnbar and Kamil choppin’ it up at DTS London (IRL we’re less pixelated). Cheers Hollie Jeffries for the photo!

Nearly every conference in any industry has such sessions – so much so that they’ve become cliché.  But as some wise person told me years ago “clichés get that way for a reason,” and given what seems like the ever-quickening pace of transformational technological and societal change, it’s easy to see why “future-proofing” one’s business or indeed one’s self is so popular.

Human over Machine (for now)

Rather than move down a familiar checklist of the latest technical terms du jour (blockchain, AI, voice, AR/VR, etc) we took a different approach with this panel.  Technology is still a tool, a means to an end – and leading a discussion with technology tends to be a referendum on its merits. We wanted to focus on the broader trends that impact traveler behavior, whether they be the result of or a reaction to, new innovations.

Since one of the main themes of this conference was “Creating a Customer-Centric Journey,” we shared our thoughts on how each stage of the traditional travel booking process might change in the next 5 years.  It was done first from a traveler’s perspective, with plenty of insights for how we as travel marketers may adapt to this changing landscape.

Now, on to the main points.  Sorry, no numeric list here. It’s all about the context (and hopefully as a result for you, the Benjamins).

No Plan, No Problem

We began at the inspiration and planning phase of travel, and Kamil got us started by stating that “travel planning as we know it will disappear,” if it hasn’t already.  It’s already possible for someone to show up in a destination with little forethought and no hotel for the night – a niche that Hotel Tonight cleverly carved out for itself years ago.

Finnbar added that the increasing availability of Augmented Reality will eliminate the need to read up on an attraction, when apps like Google Lens let you point your camera and read about the story of an historic building for example.

If there’s no planning phase, “will this mean the disappearance of the booking window?” I asked, since it’s a key part of timing campaigns, offers and default search dates.

Yes and no.  As distribution, real-time pricing and merchandising capabilities continue to evolve, Kamil saw an opportunity to drive more last-minute group bookings – and perhaps the return of a last-minute distressed inventory model.

We’ve seen that model years ago with the likes of Priceline and Site59 (shameless shout out to my former squad).  But as Kamil pointed out, “Low Cost Carriers have trained travelers to book as early as possible to get the lowest airfare.”  So in that sense, booking windows will still be there if only driven by price.

So while planning the details of one’s trip may be easily put off till when you’re already there (perhaps that’s why so many trip planning startups have failed?) the actual booking – particularly for price-sensitive travelers – will likely require some forethought in order to obtain the lowest airfares.

Inspiration is Everywhere

What about the spark that starts the travel planning process?  Traditionally, the inspiration phase of the booking process has received little if only skeptical, attention (apart from a few startups who’ve tried) – mainly because it was not seen as a big enough problem (doesn’t everyone have places they want to visit?) and that it didn’t make sense to invest in since it was so many steps away from the actual booking.   This latter point makes a lot of sense given how much shopping around is done before making a purchase – Expedia states that some travelers visit up to 160 sites before booking!

But the sheer amount of choice confronting today’s travelers continues to grow (which is why I started TripTuner, to help travelers narrow down the options).  So as a brand or destination you can’t simply sit back and expect travelers to think of you, no matter how popular you are – just see how much Las Vegas advertises, for example.

Sphere is the New Funnel

It’s time to think outside the funnel, y’all!

As booking technology advances (e.g. reserve tables natively in Instagram, or book travel via chat on Facebook) the gap between inspiration and booking has shrunk tremendously.  Our panelists agreed that all you need is a few seconds on Instagram before you’re searching for flights.   What this means for brands is that you now have to think more holistically about where you are targeting travelers and remove whatever friction there is to booking along that path.  The traditional funnel has morphed into what I call the “Booking Sphere” – where it’s radius is the booking path and its surface are the various touchpoints – what I call “moments of inspiration” – leading to that booking.  Inspiration is everywhere, and savvy marketers would be wise to think of those use cases rather than over-investing in crafting clever personas.

R.I.P. Trip Planning 

Much of the inspiration happening on Instagram and other channels revolves around unique or authentic experiences.  The panel largely agreed that a sea change in travel planning behavior was facilitated by the ever-expanding amount of experiential content indexed by search engines, created by bloggers, influencers and other content marketers.  But trying to aggregate it or shoehorn the planning experience into an externally imposed, proprietary process can be considered a fool’s gold.   

The online travel landscape is littered with the carcasses of many trip planning startups over the past 10 years (the latest of which being Utrip), yet still some seek to solve the problem that everybody purports to have…with a solution they’ll never adopt.  I’ve personally felt that only Google would be able to construct a “one-stop shop” travel planning app, but even their Trips product will be sunset in August.

As more tours and activities product becomes bookable online, it will be interesting to see if a more commercially-driven “planning” product – less an itinerary builder, more of a customized, collection of bookable elements – will emerge.  As I stated in the panel, however, my vote is for the scientific principle of entropy – of things tending towards disorder.  

While there’s been some consolidation in online travel on a macro level, the larger trend will continue to be towards disorder and more specifically fragmentation – of the “types” of trips, booking sources, inventory providers and information sources.  In such a state, with technical barriers removed by the growth of the app/API economy, the only viable one-stop shop will be those brands that are: 

  1. used on a daily basis
  2. for which you already have a profile or login and most importantly, 
  3. whom you trust with your data.  

Which is why all of us on the panel felt that the main disruptive force in travel would be global players that meet those three critical criteria. 

Privacy Killed the Personalization Star

Personalization is a perennial conference topic because it’s an evolving, elusive goal.  For the online travel industry, it’s particularly difficult because the average person will only travel once or twice a year (for leisure at least).  So you can have all the machine learning and AI you want, but for true 1-1 personalization it will take a while to build up a truly complete picture of an individual’s behavior, let alone preferences.  In the absence of the frequent, nuanced conversations that a traditional travel advisor would have, it’s just damn difficult to really get a sense for traveler preferences.  

Personalization is also hard because there’s a myopia within the travel industry that results from some institutional navel-gazing.  We tend to divide each booking or trip into a given segment – corporate, leisure, family, romance – in a very rigid, binary fashion. We don’t look at travel more broadly as some of the disruptive players like Uber do: it’s whenever you leave your home.  I mean, when is the last time you saw an ad at your gas/petrol station from a destination that’s just a full tank away?

Asia’s “SuperApps” don’t seem to suffer from that problem.  They allow consumers to purchase travel along with many other goods.  With daily use, they’re able to get a much fuller picture of consumer behavior.  In addition, they are not bound by many privacy constraints such as those imposed by the GDPR.  All of us on the panel thought that this gave them a distinct advantage over western companies when it comes to personalization, brand awareness and ability to impact the entire customer booking journey.

It remains to be seen how much privacy consumers will be willing to give up in order to have companies “know us better.”  Starting with the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook debacle and other data breaches of privacy, there is a very real consumer backlash taking place.  Paradoxically however, there are also studies saying how willing consumers are to give up some privacy in order to obtain some benefit.

The way forward will require transparency though, and user control.  Companies can’t necessarily assume they have permission to use particular data on a customer.  It needs to be obvious and permission-based. 

empathy

Empathy is the path to future success. Thanks Annie Sprat for the beautiful photo.

Tell Me If You Still Care

Building empathy with consumers was a recurring theme throughout the conference, and echoed by our panelists.  Connecting with today’s consumers – and those of the future – is not just a technical solution, but rather more about one’s brand and company values.   Recent studies cited by Wunderman show that 89% of consumers are loyal to brands that share their values, and 56% are more loyal to brands that “get me” and show a deep understanding of their priorities and preferences.

Finnbar also mentioned how Google creates empathy by creating tools that assist today’s curious but impatient travelers.  As he put it, “we’re in an age of assistance.” For Kiwi.com, it’s by showing travelers a wider range of flight options so they can more easily find the best deal.  Regardless of what type of business you run, both cases provide a clear direction on how to establish empathy: through an intentional, externally focused examination of consumer behavior.  As Steve Jobs said “you’ve got to start with the customer experience, and work your way back to the technology.” I can’t think of a better way to future-proof any business.

Stay tuned.

What Country Has the Most Romantic Travelers? A Taste Lab Top 10 Infographic

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Chances are when you put “romance”, “Russia” and “travel” in the same sentence, it’s likely to conjure visions of cold war intrigue and clandestine encounters.  In today’s politically charged environment these words can evoke stronger reactions, even flat-out controversy. But as much as we’d like to craft a clever click-baity title, amplify a viral meme or shill for a few predictable yucks, we’re not going there.  We keep it real at TripTuner, so let’s let the data tell it.

Our Taste Lab provides unique first-party data on nuanced traveler preferences collected across millions of inputs across our platform.  Last year, we shocked some by showing how South Koreans are the most relaxation-seeking travelers (not exactly what we’d associate with Gangnam style, but hey).  Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day we’re curious about which country is the most amorous when it comes to travel.  Care to guess?

TT Taste Lab Vday 2019

Well, surprise!  Our data shows that of the 10 largest outbound tourism markets, Russians are searching for more romance than family travel options.  Wait…Russia?

DA! It makes TOTAL sense. Who can forget the adorable Boris and Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle?  The ended-too-early “next Hamilton” Broadway play Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, or the longing croons of the Red Army Choir singing Daft Punk’s Get Lucky?  Not to mention the dramatic aspirational travel words of a dying Captain Vasili Borodin in the Hunt for Red October?

OK I may have violated the previous pledge about the yucks.

Rounding out the top 10 in second place is…

#2 South Korea: we’ve seen how they’re relaxation-seeking.  If you’re going to chill, might as well be with your bae, right?

#3 is France, naturellement.

#4 Germany and  

#5 Italy.  That’s amore, no surprise there.

China, the UK and Canada come in #6, #7 and #8 respectively.  And then you have the US and Australia picking up the rear, focusing more on family trips.

Overall, it’s an interesting set of results and just another taste of what our partners get with TripTuner.  What type of traveler preference data would you like to see? Leave us a comment and we’ll consider it for our next report.

Until next time, stay tuned – and as much as like data, we don’t recommend mixing metrics with romance.  It’s like a martini without a good Russian vodka. Do svidaniya, darling!

couple on sand dallin-hassard-1259896-unsplash

image: dallin hassard

3 Timing Hacks for Travel & Work

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Camelback sunrise IMG_8092 copy copy

Understanding natural rhythms can make for a smoother journey, but it can also make us more productive and happier at home or the office.  As New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink points out in his latest book “When,” there’s an ideal time for everything.  Here are 3 takeaways from his recent talk at the Startup Grind event in Washington, DC.

Savvy travelers like you understand the importance of timing.  If it’s evening rush hour in London, don’t try to take a leisurely stroll down Oxford Street: it’ll be packed elbow-to-elbow with fast walkers.  If you’re planning a summer getaway in Europe, June is a little less frenetic since schools are not out yet.  If you get up to watch the sunrise, you’ll have the hotel pool to yourself (but please don’t hoard the lounge chairs).

What if you’re cajoling the almighty gate agent for an upgrade? Or asking your boss for a raise? Knowing the optimal time to do so can help your chances. Continue reading →