InPhocus - Archived Episodes

It's not all doom and gloom across the travel industry, that's for sure.

And, perhaps as a surprise to many, some travel startups are using the opportunity to shore up their strategy and take advantage of the support that a few governments have offered in order to prop up young businesses.

One such company is FindHotel, a Netherlands-based hotel booking platform, which has survived the coronavirus outbreak from an operational perspective, is actually hiring and seeing a fairly bright path forward in the months ahead.

The company's CEO, Oz Har Adir, speaks to us on the latest episode of InPhocus about the situation in the Netherlands for startups and how he has managed to keep the brand's team in place, monitor the market and look at new opportunities.

There are additional details in a post that he wrote here on Medium.

Hosting this week's episode are Charuta Fadnis of Phocuswright and PhocusWire's Kevin May.

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IATA's New Distribution Capability project had a rocky start in its bid to redefine airline distribution.

But recent years have seen a cooling of the anger from many sides that surrounded its early days - with almost some sense of peace in the valley between airlines, global distribution systems, intermediaries and other technology players.

But will its gradual  adoption by relevant parties in the ecosystem have been hindered or helped by the outbreak of the coronavirus?

Norm Rose, a Phocuswright analyst and veteran travel technology consultant, thinks the reset phase that airlines currently find themselves in will accelerate NDC as a standard (and more) in aviation.

He described his theory in a post on his website last week and we followed up with him on InPhocus to find about more.

PhocusWire's Linda Fox and Kevin May host this week's episode, book-ending the interview with Rose.

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It was the deal that would supposedly help Sabre shape its quest to modernize airline distribution.

The November 2018 acquisition of Farelogix (coming in at $360 million) was touted as Sabre's way to "offer the innovative and comprehensive solutions that airlines require."

But it didn't turn out that way, as we now know. Regulators had other ideas.

In August last year the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to block the acquisition, claiming it would eliminate competition that had "substantially benefited airlines and consumers."

Sabre dug in and went to court.

On April 7, a U.S. court decided in favor of the deal but then, just a few days later, a decision by the U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority effectively killed the planned acquisition.

Sabre formally pulled the deal on May 1.

In this latest episode of InPhocus, PhocusWire's Kevin May talks to Jim Davidson, CEO of Farelogix, to get his take on the entire story, including the background to the deal, the court case, the decision to nix the acquisition two weeks ago and what's next for the business.

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Being an intermediary during the coronavirus crisis has not been an easy ride.

This isn't to say that a tough time has not been experienced by every other segment in the travel industry but those that sit between consumers and suppliers have been dealt with a number of issues relating to cash flow and appeasing their commercial partners.

In this latest episode of InPhocus, we hear from David Litwak, CEO of Mozio Group (who also co-hosts the How I Got Here podcast), about his experiences as a platform for ground transportation and its difficulties with some online travel agencies.

We then dig into the wider problems that OTAs and others that sit in the middle of the digital travel ecosystem have faced over the course of the last few months.

Litwak is this week's special guest on InPhocus, hosted by Phocuswright's Charuta Fadnis and Kevin May of PhocusWire.

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For every type of travel brand the first few weeks of the coronavirus crisis was taken up with figuring out what to do from an operational perspective.

Reliable and effective customer service was the most important consideration, alongside ensuring partners were in a similar position to assist with difficulties when needed.

In many parts of the industry, brands are in a state of semi-paralysis - not able to restart the business until demand returns as health considerations and government agencies allow it to do so.

Travel startups, perhaps more nimble than their larger peers in the industry, should use this opportunity to take a deep breath, ensure the finances will keep the lights on and think differently.

That's the opinion of Gerry Samuels, a former-founder and CEO of two successful business (Gradient and Mobile Travel Technologies) that sold in 2000 and 2015 to Sabre and Travelport respectively.

He's now in the mentoring world for startups, so is well-positioned to offer some guidance to new businesses that have survived the initial slump in their usual activities but have some time to consider how their businesses will look in the future.

Samuels joins us as our special guest in the latest episode of InPhocus - brought to you this week by PhocusWire's Kevin May and Jill Menze.

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The coronavirus is going to change travel, perhaps not forever but certainly for a considerable amount of time. 

History shows us that the travel industry has a track record of seeing huge changes to the fabric of how it works whenever something hits it in such a major way.

Post-9/11 saw a rapid maturing of the online players - quickly giving them a sizeable control of the market.

The financial crash of 2008-2009 paved the way for Airbnb and its spearheading of the sharing economy model, which has since changed hospitality irrevocably.

The current crisis will undoubtedly alter the traveler's experience of airports, accommodation, airlines and activities - but will it inspire any change in the models that underpin the industry and its relationships?

Perhaps not this time, as we discuss in the latest episode of InPhocus with Phocuswright Research creator Lorraine Sileo, who has heaps of experience of seeing how the industry navigated itself through many a rough time over the last 25 years. 

Sileo joins our regular hosts, Charuta Fadnis of Phocuswright and PhocusWire's Kevin May.

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Forecasting with smart data, a future role for hotels and intermediaries, loyalty programs and what lies next for Airbnb - hefty subjects during any time period but especially so during the coronavirus outbreak.

For the latest episode of InPhocus, we bring in Phocuswright analyst and hotel expert Robert Cole for a discussion on all of the above.

He is the author of the first two Hotel Forecast reports being issued by Phocuswright, beginning with New York City and this week's look at Singapore.

In the interview, he discusses the modelling that went into producing the reports and lots more.

The show is hosted PhocusWire's Kevin May, who also carried out the interview Cole earlier this week.

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Business travel might be one of the sectors that eventually gets hit the hardest from the impact of the coronavirus - but the sector came into its own when the outbreak began.

Travel managers and travel management companies did what they do best: looking after employees, getting them home as soon a possible and adhering to the duty of care policies that underpin the sector.

It was an effort that had been years in the planning, having learned from the Iceland volcano in 2010 and other major events that had an impact on the business travel community.

But now that hardened road warriors and semi-regular employees who travel for their businesses are cocooned in their homes, corporate travel brands are beginning to look at what comes next for their customers.

In a wide-ranging interview for the latest episode of InPhocus with Miriam Moscovici of BCD Travel (a regular PhocusWire PundIT Show guest), we learn what's at stake for business travel, how sustainability will remain an important issue and how videoconferencing will eventually give way once more to face-to-face meetings.

The interview was conducted by Phocuswright's Charuta Fadnis, who is then joined by PhocusWire's Kevin May to discuss Moscovici's points of view.

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Yeoh Siew Hoon, founder of PhocusWire sister brand WebInTravel, has been in the perhaps rather unfortunate position of seeing the coronavirus have an impact on her country twice.

Singapore took steps to mitigate the problem quickly after the initial outbreak started reaching out from China in January and now, two months on, the city-state is experiencing a second wave of social and travel restrictions.

She also knows a lot about the travel industry, especially as it relates to Asia Pacific and the myriad of brands and startups that reside there.

In this episode of InPhocus, she discusses the impact of COVID-19 on both her country and the industry but also how its arrival as mass global event is giving brands and the industry's millions of workers the opportunity to consider how it might emerge in better shape.

This is a chance "to make it happen," she says.

The full interview is included in the latest episode of InPhocus, this week hosted by PhocusWire's Kevin May.

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Many in the industry are now at the stage where more of them are directly being hit by the physical effects of the coronavirus, either personally or their family members and friends.

The global death rate remains, thankfully, extremely low but the anxiety and physical impact of the virus is clear to anyone that has lived - or is living - through it.

PhocusWire spoke to Doug Lansky, a Sweden-based destination management expert, last September during our theme month on that subject.

After learning that he'd contracted the coronavirus and subsequently got through the symptoms, we asked if he would be happy to give us an account of his own experience with it and, secondly, share his perspective on the current climate for destinations and what could (or should) happen next. 

Tellingly, he believes destinations have an opportunity at the moment to massively rethink how they use technology and tourism modelling to understand how to manage their cities and attractions in a better way, once the pandemic is over and some semblance of order resumes.

The full interview is included in the latest episode of InPhocus, hosted by PhocusWire's Kevin May and Charuta Fadnis, Phocuswright's head of research.

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