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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #47- The Transcontinental Executive and How Travel Tech Works | with Chris Tomseth
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Game Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in Hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. Today we have a special episode. I am joined by two fellow GAIN advisors. Number one, Chris Tomseth. How are you?
Chris Tomseth: I'm great.
Adam Mogelonsky: Great to have you. And Michael Goldrich. How are you?
Michael Goldrich: Always great, always pleased to be here with you guys.
Adam Mogelonsky: So today's episode is the transcontinental. And we're going to unpack some travel trends and how they apply to travel, travel technology, hotel, hotel technology. And first is a definition. So we define a transcontinental executive as a senior officer in a global company who has to frequently fly [00:01:00] between continents.
To direct operations in different offices or participate in sales efforts, whether those are meeting in person with a senior potential lead, uh, for something that will be a big deal or attending conferences, uh, conventions or going in and being a keynote speaker of some regard. So, this is a mega trend and we emphasize the flying component because as much as videoconferencing can lessen the need for travel, recent statistics have shown that nothing beats the personal touch, especially in sales and managing people. With the growth of international companies and remote work, we will see an increasing demand for international flights and executives who can brave the long hauls across the oceans in order to effectively scale their businesses. So this is growth. [00:02:00] It's a trend. It's something that we should all be cognizant of.
And right now we have the expert on travel technology with us, who is Chris Tomseth. So Chris, we're going to pass it over to you for a little bit of background to get started, just to lay the framework for the latter half of this discussion. So Chris, to date, this podcast is focused mostly on the hotel technology world.
Can you give us the Coles notes on. How the travel tech world actually works.
Chris Tomseth: Sure. And I'll start with a story. So when I joined this industry, uh, 30 years ago, my very first job was in a travel agency and in that travel agency, I was literally writing tickets by hand. Um, so if you needed to go, you know, from New York to London, I mean, literally scribbling it out by hand.
I mean, you know, when we got a ticket printer, I mean, that was a big deal. Yeah. But, [00:03:00] I had a boss who was a retired United Airlines executive at the time, so he was already retired 30 years ago, which meant that he grew up in, at kind of, not quite the dawn of the, airline industry, but, but kind of 50s, 60s when mass travel was, uh, really starting to happen, and he used to work in reservations, and he told me this story, uh, that when he first joined in reservations, they were in a big room, with I think chalkboards at the front of the room.
And so when calls would come in and people would say, I need two tickets on July 15th from Denver to Chicago. What they would do is they would mark on the chalkboard. or if there was a number there of seats remaining. So if there's 58 seats remaining, they would cross it out and take it down to 56.
That's literally how they booked by using chalkboard technology. If you will. so sometime later, uh, computers kind of were invented and came on the scene. And so airlines created their own [00:04:00] systems, which they called airline reservation systems. So you didn't have to use the chalkboard method. and then eventually, um, one of the first major ones was, uh, American Airlines and IBM joined together to create something called Sabre.
Which I might have the acronym wrong here, but I think it stood for something ridiculous like semi automated business resource environment. and that allowed, uh, the airline not only to book seats via computer, but eventually they farmed these out to travel agents. Cause in those days, travel agents were the main distribution means to booking tickets.
So airlines wanted, Other people, meaning travel agents, to be able to book tickets on their planes, and so they created these GDS systems, GLOBE, GDS instead of CRS, meaning global, and different airlines had different competing systems, and they would pay agents to kind of, uh, a commission or a fee to incentivize them to use these, and that's how it all kind of [00:05:00] originated and keyed up.
And then by the nineties, the internet was born, the consumer internet, that is. And so then you have started to have things like, uh, internet booking and then eventually electronic tickets where you didn't have to show up at the airport with your paper ticket anymore. And then, uh, eventually people could print their own.
own boarding passes at home. And that was like a wild thing that you didn't actually have to check in. But if you had access to the internet and a printer at home, you could print off your own boarding pass. And then in the past 15 years or so, um, you know, came, uh, mobile, technology to the point where now people can get their, uh, boarding pass on their mobile phone, don't even have to print anything off.
And now we're advancing even a step further. Beyond that, to, and I've used it personally, uh, at some airports and with some airlines. It's essentially camera recognition. So you don't pull out your passport ID boarding pass, nothing. You look at the camera, the camera recognizes who you are. [00:06:00] They know what your itinerary is.
They know you're supposed to be on X flight. So that's, uh, kind of a quick overview of, how things have progressed since I started in the industry and even kind of a preview of before because my boss was literally, when he first started, literally on a chalkboard saying, okay, now we have 56 seats left.
Michael Goldrich: all right, so here, here's my question, so I think that's great, and I really love that survey from Chalkboard to facial recognition. So if facial recognition is being rolled out now, what comes next after that? What do you kind of imagine they're thinking about? Because it makes sense, facial recognition, you can open up your phone with that, so it makes sense, you know, during the systems, but what do you think is going to come after Next.
Have you heard
Chris Tomseth: I think what might come next is, I mean, maybe just a little bit beyond that, where you don't even have to, like, look into the camera per se. They just kind of know that you're there, so you get dropped off at the airport, you walk in, this is Mr. Goldrich, kind of [00:07:00] coming in, and you don't have to do anything.
You can kind of just go through security, go to pick up a cup of coffee and a snack on your way to the gate, uh, walk into the lounge, they already know you're lounge eligible in your case. and then, you know, when it's time to board, then you, you, you just go. I mean, so I think that at some point, I don't know, you know, how many years away.
What I just described is, but, um, whether that is like two years or 15 years, but I think that's where we'll get to at some point, you know, we'll be able to, do it completely automated.
Adam Mogelonsky: So just for a little bit more context and background, we're looking at how travel tech intersects with hotel tech, potentially, but I'm wondering, could you touch on how GDS actually works? That, glue in travel?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not a really technical person, but kind of from a macro level, essentially these GDS systems are tying [00:08:00] in with the airline inventory system, and then they're tying in with travel agent systems, which, you know, I mean, by the way, these days, I mean, so when that started, travel agent meant literally a travel agent sitting in an office somewhere, whereas now those can be home based agents and they can even be in completely different countries.
So you could have, you know, an agent, an actual human agent assisting you who's sitting in. Canada and booking travel for someone going from France to Tokyo, um, and that company that the person works for is based in Brazil. Um, so it just kind of all ties together. Uh, and they of course can book hotels too and rental cars and a few other things.
And, and these days kind of where it's going is they're trying to, Modernize the system so that they can take into account kind of traveler preferences and more personalization because in the past, that was something that was really lacking because this is very old technology, actually. I mean, they even didn't go to like the windows type of interfaces [00:09:00] until.
I mean, really like the 2000 teens. In some cases it was still kind of this old green screen stuff that you would see and, and, and go to an airport and take a peek behind, um, you know, an, an airline worker's desk and you'll still see a lot of that, and dot matrix printers and all kinds of stuff. But the, uh, so they're trying to modernize it, but easier said than done because of course.
It would be one thing if you're gonna build a whole new system from scratch. But I mean, this is kind of a case where you're kind of trying to add on new features to your car while you're driving it, or maybe to the plane while you're flying it, if I could use that analogy.
Michael Goldrich: so if I may, I have a question, because I think they always talk about the demise of the travel agent. When the internet came out, oh, we're not going to need travel agents anymore. As the mobile technology got better, this is the end of the travel agent. But now, with these, like, these AI agents, where you can actually simulate an experienced travel agent [00:10:00] and help you kind of go through the whole booking.
Do you think that the travel agent of the future, it's just going to be very niche and really relationship focused? Because I think the transactional piece will all be automated.
Chris Tomseth: Yeah.
So I think a couple things. So I think?
you know, they've been saying the death of the travel agent for a long time, and while that's true, that there's a lot less travel agents than there used to be, for the ones that can demonstrate value. they're still around. So
you know, in, in.
2024, as we sit here in July, you certainly don't need a travel agent, to book a ticket from Chicago to New York and to find a hotel. but, uh, let me give two examples, one on the leisure side, one on the business side. So on the leisure side, if you are doing a honeymoon or you're Or if you are doing a trip with like a group of friends, that's a complex trip, like a, you're going to go on an adventure trip to, uh, South America or something like that.
And someplace you've never been, [00:11:00] that's where the help of a professional agent. Who's kind of been there, does that, done that really comes into play and people will pay for that. and then on the business side, travel agents are still very much in vogue, in the large corporate world because these travel agents are, and they're, they're fulfilling a different function than they did in years past, but they're still adding value in terms of tracking the data, helping with the supplier negotiations, getting the best deals.
Figuring out what those corporations should steer their business to getting the best kind of value for their money, tracking those travelers and being able to report on it so that management of the company can kind of identify, you know, efficiency improvements, savings, things that make employees happier, etc.
I mean, American Express is a travel agent and they're, you know, as big as they've ever been. And, uh, you know, Expedia, which didn't exist 25 years ago, you know, that's a huge travel agent, but much more on the leisure [00:12:00] side.
Adam Mogelonsky: so we talked about the past and a little bit of the future with AI. Right now, let's focus on the present with the word executive here.
And right now, corporate travel is on an upward trajectory. From what you've read and witnessed, why is that happening?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah. So a couple of comments there. I mean, so one is if we were having this conversation in July of 2019, so five years ago, pre COVID, and then we're able to kind of, teleport into the future, the Picture of business travel in July of 2024, back in 2019, we would have anticipated it to be very different.
And business travel has changed very, very dramatically because of COVID. And so what you're seeing is Yes, business travel is growing, but it's not anywhere near what it would have been, if things had [00:13:00] continued normally from 2019. And it's a very different mix now. So if you go back to the pre COVID days, there was a ton of business travel that just doesn't happen anymore.
So, so salespeople flying off or a meeting with one or two, customers or potential clients, uh, these days, those things are done, By video, unless there is a significant, significant revenue opportunity, attached. So, you know, it, it, there is some percentage reduction. Um, the other thing is that people are not in the office five days a week anymore.
And because people are not in the office five days a week, that makes it harder. to go schedule meetings with people at that office. And so in the old days, you know, uh, the consultants of the world would fly in on Monday morning, fly out on Thursday evening, and they would work at the client site, Monday through Thursday.
And that was a normal thing. And while that still happens a lot, There is a [00:14:00] significant percentage reduction in that over what it used to be. And so, that's a reality. Now airlines in particular have replaced some of that revenue with premium leisure demand. Uh, so in the old days, you know, the business class cabins, the first class cabins were full of all these, uh, people who were.
predominantly not paying for their tickets, it was paid by an employer. Uh, whereas now there's a much higher percentage of those cabins filled by people who are paying for their tickets and they're using it to kind of splurge on themselves and hotels, you see the same thing. So while leisure travel, uh, leisure hotels have really recovered nicely.
if you look at the pure business hotels. In downtown, cities that are focused only on those business travelers, only on conventions, for the most part, those, those have struggled. And, and if you compare that, you know, 2024 figures to 2019, it's not where they were in [00:15:00] 2019 to say nothing of where they would be in 2024 if things had continued along a quote.
So, you know, business travel is recovering and growing, but it's very different to be clear than what was anticipated.
Michael Goldrich: And yet prices for airlines are like through the roof now too. And does that have to do with airlines reducing overall capacity? So the price, you know, supply and demand, just like what the hotels do. Is there less roots since, you know, the 2020 issue?
Chris Tomseth: The short answer is yes, it is supply and demand, and in a lot of cases, there are less as the airline industry calls it, capacity between cities than there used to be. So. You know,
I'll just
give like one specific example, but you know, I'm headed to Chicago this evening, and five years ago, there were more flights from DC to Chicago, uh, [00:16:00] than there are today.
so there's just less seats available, and a lot of that is COVID related. Airlines got rid of planes. Retired staff cut some staff and so kind of as things recovered they haven't been able to add the capacity back as quickly as the demand has grown which drives up the uh the price. Hotels of course are more a fixed asset you can't suddenly say well we had 200 rooms but now we only have 160.
I
Michael Goldrich: hotel side is we blocked off a certain number of rooms because we would have housekeeping, you know, so it's like, okay, so we're only going to have a certain number of rooms in circulation, because there was a cost to just having some of them
Chris Tomseth: guess my point is it's easier to open up those rooms the hotel doesn't move the plane can you. Move, but if you get rid of the plane, you just don't have it anymore.
Michael Goldrich: That's true.
Chris Tomseth: And now there's other things I remember like, like Airbnb, right? and VRB, these things have [00:17:00] become huge, compared to 10 years ago. I remember giving an interview.
I hope no one can find it. But 10 years ago, when I was a hotel executive, I was asked about Airbnb and I gave an answer, which I felt was very honest at the time. I said, no, I didn't see that competing with hotels. And, uh, I think that's what people believed. Hotel executives believed in 2014 that not really a serious threat, especially on the business front.
But
Michael Goldrich: All the way I do think it's come full circle, I think the Millennials were the true drivers of the Airbnb experience, but then when you had all those reports come out of hidden cameras and safety and other issues, people are like, you know what, we want the consistency, known experience of a hotel versus the uncertainty and lack of safety of an Airbnb.
So it's very, I think it sort of caters to a certain audience.
Chris Tomseth: technological evolution like that. Think of Uber. 15 years ago, nobody would have dreamed of getting in [00:18:00] a stranger's car to take you from the airport to your hotel, especially for a business trip.
Michael Goldrich: that is true. Or when I was in Austin, when I was in Austin getting picked up by a driver or this car, I mean they didn't have a driver, and just taking you around. That is crazy. Once you've done that, it's like the scariest thing when it makes a left turn. You know, you just like, you close your eyes and hope that it doesn't, things don't go bad.
Chris Tomseth: Change is constant.
Michael Goldrich: Guess.
Adam Mogelonsky: well, yeah, the, the one other trend to touch upon here, you know, you, great remarks about corporate travel and where it is right now and some of the shifting demand, but the other big thing that's sort of come out of COVID. Is this whole idea of remote work and digital nomadism and people can work from anywhere, you have companies that are global, they have offices on multiple continents.
Are you seeing any uptick in business travel across continents or international business [00:19:00] travel?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah, I mean, for sure that is happening and a couple things are driving that. One is the kind of digital nomadism, you know, digital executive, whatever, that's a relatively small part. The bigger thing is just growth in what I'll call developing, regions. So, you know, 10 years ago, you know, I'll just.
Come up with a, just one country. I mean, the number of business travelers going out of like Zimbabwe to anywhere was, you know, for all practical purposes, zero. Um, but now as countries mature, uh, and their economies grow, they start to have needs to travel internationally. So you, you just get more of that.
I mean, you know, and there's big countries too, like China and India, where, uh, as the economies grow and. These are places with a billion plus people each. You know, if there's a, you know, if all of a sudden 2 percent of the population travels for business instead of 1%, that's a gigantic [00:20:00] number. So you, you start to see things like that.
but absolutely this, this notion of being able to work from anywhere contributes to that. and you have, uh, more and more people, not just young people. I mean, like our colleagues who do that. And work from different continents for clients on another continent, just so they can, you know, feel like a change of scenery or it's practical for them or whatever.
And that was just not a thing 10 years ago.
Adam Mogelonsky: And how is the travel technology world pivoting to meet this new demand and new segments?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah. I mean, I think there's always things, right? So, you know, certainly from the airline side, I mean, I think, you know, one of the biggest things is the apps, right? So the mobile app can do more than it ever used to. There didn't even used to be a mobile app. You had to. Call the call center to do anything.
Whereas now, you can do a lot of things on your phone or certainly on your computer from wherever you happen to be. Uh, [00:21:00] from the hotel side, you see hotels adjusting to kind of support. Having these type of people on premises, and even just more broadly, the technology in hotel rooms. So, you know, TVs, I mean, in room movies used to be a key feature for full service hotels.
And now no one's doing that, but of course you can pair your phone to a newer TV and Watch your own Netflix account or your own streaming accounts on that hotel TV. you know, multiple charging ports. I mean, 20 years ago, how many plugs did you need in a hotel room? A lot less than today. that's for sure.
but things like, you know, being able to control the temperature in your room or control the lights from your phone. keyless. entry, that kind of thing, not to mention, uh, food. So, you know, because room service delivery is kind of something that's going away, especially in cities that have a lot of different food, delivery options to order from, or even these things like Uber Eats and [00:22:00] Grubhub that We'll pick up your food from restaurants that don't even deliver.
And so these all become options. Whereas in the old days, if you were in a hotel and it's late at night and you're hungry, your option was room service or be hungry. Or the vending machine, maybe. and now there's just a lot more options in general. And cars, I mean, not to leave cars out, but like, uh, you get kind of like, Turo, you know, the Airbnb of, uh, of rental cars, so people are, have a spare car or a car they're not using, they rent that out.
I mean, I've done that in, uh, Montana. I've rented somebody's, you know, four wheel drive vehicle to go skiing. You know, not from Hertz, not from Avis, but just from a private person. It was wild.
Adam Mogelonsky: So a little bit more granular here is latest trends, travel tech. Let's look at the corporate travel planner and mentioned earlier, the, death of the travel agent or whatever, whenever that happens, what [00:23:00] specifically is happening in the corporate travel planning world to adjust and meet this crazy new post pandemic world that we live in?
Chris Tomseth: I think one of the key things is, and this was already a trend before, but it's, it's getting more important now, kind of data and especially for the use of, uh, kind of security tracking, things like that. So, um, yeah.
Companies and organizations, they're better able to harness the data and make use of it.
And so for big global corporations, they want to know where their people are in the event of, uh, you know, whether it's something catastrophic like a, like a terrorist attack or, you know, a disease outbreak or whatever. but just being able to kind of track your travelers, uh, physically communicate with them.
But then also this. Compliance perspective of having, being able to kind of optimize travel policies and spends for the return on investment so that [00:24:00] the company knows what they're getting. So they're seeing like what airlines they're booking with, what hotels they're choosing, what hotels they're booking.
Where they're staying, where people are going, and then marrying that data back with their non travel data, in big organizations anyway, to say, okay, you know, we're sending X number of employees spending this much to this city, which is presumably for this Client relationship. Are we, is that a good use of our money and then making decisions that way, to say, okay, you know, uh, like, like let's use Apple as an example.
So I know that pre pandemic, Apple sent 50. Approximately 5. 0 employees per day from San Francisco to Shanghai. and like literally every day, if you got on, one of the two United flights, uh, there was going to be a couple dozen Apple employees on each one. And, I guarantee you that is not the case right now. But, um, but just being able to use that [00:25:00] data, to make decisions.
Michael Goldrich: and then I think from the other perspective, from myself, when I'm using the tool, you can see how they're controlling you in terms of your spend. They say this is in policy, you can book these, but you can't book that, so they're trying to cap you. And it's always the trips you don't want to take, because it's like, has like two or three stops, and then you have to kind of get, you know, a waiver for approval.
What's usually in policy is never the trips you want to take. So you're always trying to say, always get waivers. At least when I've been traveling, it's always sort of like, okay, this doesn't seem realistic. Maybe it's because as the prices go up and it's a very inconvenient.
So you have, you have a balance. There's gotta be something like this, the balance between the cost of the trip and the cost of your time as a person, you know, like you, okay, I have to add an extra stop, that's going to add an extra four hours. But four hours I could have spent doing something else versus being inconvenienced, which isn't [00:26:00] factored into anything.
Chris Tomseth: Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that, you know, in theory, is the kind of data that can be used to kind of make decisions. Say, well, you know, employees are spending four extra hours and we're saving 80 bucks a trip. Is it really worth it? Probably not. What I was going to add is on the back side of that as well, so post travel, the expense reports, let's not forget that because I'm old enough to remember expense reports back when they were paper.
So I filled out a piece of paper itemizing what I had spent on this company business trip. and stapling the paper receipts to it, and then handing that to my boss, uh, and my boss would, when he had time, go through the paper and the receipts to make sure that everything added up, and that everything kind of looked good, and then sign it, and then somebody would issue a check, and then that check would get deposited, and we migrated from that, right, to, kind of more automated things.
I mean, so after the handwritten one was the Excel [00:27:00] document where you could type stuff in and then print it off, huge improvement, you still stapled all the receipts, but then we got to the computerized stuff in the early 2000s. So now you're filling it out on a computer and things like Concur and other expense tracking things.
And then it got even more advanced. So you've got the credit card feeds. Automatically tied in from the corporate credit cards to those companies so the stuff pre populated and even your hotel rate tax and stuff is automatically broken down. I didn't have to enter that in. No chance of making a mathematical error and then to kind of where we are now with mobile apps that you can snap a photo of the receipt so you don't have to Do anything.
And then that receipt information is captured on the scan and uploaded into the program, which in turn helps with, compliance part, so they can just kind of flag it as you're filling something else as by like, if you're the boss, for example, reviewing this, you can see that your employee, uh, spent.[00:28:00]
You know, more than usual on the daily meal on Tuesday. And then you can say, Oh, is there a reason for that? And maybe there is, maybe there isn't.
Adam Mogelonsky: So one other trend here to go through, Michael touched on this is the whole idea of, okay, well, you're being routed through here and it's a four hour wait or a layover, et cetera. I want to touch on jet lag because we're talking about remote work. People got to take flights across continents, changing time zones.
This is a real thing. It has been for a while. Now we sort of have some tools that can help, but I'm wondering, me, myself, I'm active in the wellness space. I know about the emergence of wellness rooms, uh, with that have specific features to help you get good sleep and get your circadian rhythm aligned.
What are travel companies doing to resolve this strain, either, you know, improved in flight experiences or through specific technology [00:29:00] improvements?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are trying different things, but I think, look, I mean, from my perspective at the end of the day, jet lag is fundamentally about a time zone change. So if you are flying eight hours from Europe to the East coast of the U. S. and, um, know, the time zone has changed six hours, it doesn't matter how comfortable you are at the end of the day.
You know, now it's, four in the morning. East Coast U. S. time, but it's 10 a. m. where you came from, so you're wide awake. Now, there's things that some people have worked on. I mean, so I'll give an example in the airline space. Boeing, uh, the Dreamliner is made out of plastic composite. The Modern Hotelier, David Millili, Steve Carran, Stayflexi, SOPs, Clingendael Institute, friend shoring, Revinate, Jon Bumhoffer, Revinate, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr.
Elizabeth Haas, Pierre The Modern Hotelier, David Millili, Steve Carran, Revinate, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, Pierre Gervois, Revinate, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, friend shoring, Revinate. [00:30:00] More pressure. And so it ends up being about 6, 000 feet instead of 8, 000 feet. And studies show that that makes a material difference in terms of how people feel when they arrive.
They feel more refreshed and awake and things like that. And, you know, but I've read tons of stuff about people trying different eating routines or, you know. Set your watch back in the days when people had watches, not phones. Set your watch to your destination time. As soon as you get on the plane, you know, do, do what works for you.
But the single biggest factor is try not to change time zones a lot. I mean, uh, my dad who was, uh, is a retired diplomat. He spent a lot of time, traveling between Asia and the U S and he said in his next life, he's going to be a Latin American expert, because there's less time zone change.
Adam Mogelonsky: Oh, I love that. That's great. so I'm just wondering, uh, before we get into a little bit more of how this affects [00:31:00] hotels, can you say any other ways that travel technology is helping to enable specifically this transcontinental travel that is, part of enabling, uh, the mega trends of remote work and global companies?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah, I mean, there's lots of things, right? We touched on like kind of the mobile apps and the, you know, some of the things that hotels are doing, just to kind of make people more comfortable in their rooms and more comfortable with their stays, you know, I think it's kind of a host, we've kind of touched on several of these things and other questions, so, you know, everything from kind of the companies being able to track their people and being able to contact them.
them. Individual people being able to handle their own travel with their mobile apps, order food from their favorite Thai restaurant to their hotel room, even though that hotel might not even have room service. You know, there's a lot of different things that are, just going, kind of going on. AI, of course, the chatbots, [00:32:00] uh, and I think you're going to see more, it's the big buzzword, AI, but you're going to see more and more of that, just non human help, so to speak.
And probably moving from, Being reactive to being more proactive. So, uh, you know, seeing that tomorrow it's going to rain, for example, in wherever you happen to be. So kind of giving you a notification saying, Oh, by the way, it's going to rain tomorrow, you know, so bring an umbrella when you go out.
Adam Mogelonsky: Cool. well, you mentioned the buzzword AI and we might as well dive right into that because it is huge and we have two experts on it with me right here. so I'm wondering, artificial intelligence is already making inroads in hospitality. How is it specifically affecting travel technology? Yeah. And the corporate bookings therein.
Are you seeing any places where it's speeding up expense management reporting or do corporate travel planners have access to new tools that can help automate the [00:33:00] approval processes, et cetera? What, what are you seeing specifically within travel technology?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah,
I mean, I think, um, you know, we, we also kind of touched on the issue when, with regards to expense reports. I think you're going to see AI come into much more play there, so that essentially artificial intelligence can be used to kind of scan the expense reports and identify anomalies and reach out to the affected employee.
in a chat and say, Hey, Bob, uh, notice that you expensed, you know, 30 percent more than you are allowed on Tuesday. Can you provide an explanation, please? I think you'll see more of that kind of thing, where it's more proactive and helping. I don't know that it's a labor cost savings necessarily, although that.
Probably will happen in time, but it's just helping people be more efficient with the time they have. So instead of you, the boss, having to follow up with an employee, it's done for you, and then the [00:34:00] answer gets, you know, populated into the thing that you have to approve by clicking it on your computer screen.
Michael Goldrich: and I think it's going to be a little bit more than that. So one of the things, uh, with the company that I work with, the voice phone agents. So I've been working with their sort of a voice phone agent that can help the front desk. So the front desk, when they're kind of overloaded, they kind of just direct it to this.
And I have to imagine for like these corporate travel agents, where there are questions that are coming in, you can now, because it's so much faster to speak than to type. That people, you know, I think it's a generational thing. So, baby boomers are used to the phone, Gen Xers, a little bit, not so much.
Then Millennials, no. Digital, you know, Gen Z, no. But, it's different if they know they're not talking to a human being. And I think you're going to see an uptick in phone use. When people are feeling uncomfortable talking to these, like, these things. And so I think you're going to see and [00:35:00] there I've seen them when it's tied into like a strong knowledge base and it answers the questions very succinctly, even when you try to trick them, it knows.
So, um, I have to imagine that in addition to a kind of filling out the expense report for the questions I have, well, how do I code this? Because that's always a question. How do I code this line? You can call up and you can kind of talk it through and it'll actually be able to even see your screen and say, okay, well, let's go through this.
Okay, row three, let's look at this one and how you can adjust that accordingly. That's where I think it's going to go.
Chris Tomseth: Yeah.
No, I, I buy that. I mean, it's interesting you mentioned the generational differences, because I, I recently took a quiz to see which style of worker I was, and I was like, majority Gen X, which I am, but the next biggest chunk was Boomer, which was Cause when I started working, I was working for Boomers, then Millennial, but I did, I was proud to tell my kids I did have 7 [00:36:00] percent Gen Z.
one of the types of questions they asked Michael was to your point. They said, if you need to update your coworker on a project, what do you do? A, pick up the phone and call, B, send an email, C, send a text message. Uh, D, shoot them a message on Slack. And like, that was an example of, you know, what's your style.
Michael Goldrich: Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Or just E, none of the above, just sit there and just expect them to read your mind, you know, like that's a Neuralink generation. But Michael, no, I think that's a really interesting observation and I wholly agree because uh, what we're seeing in younger employees is, is the big problem with them having looking at the screen all the time is the, they're less pro social than previous generations.
So it's not just the fact that picking up a phone and speaking with an AI that has a strong knowledge base, as you said, is. is going to be helpful. It's the fact that they know they're not interacting with a [00:37:00] human, therefore they don't have any social anxiety around that interaction.
Michael Goldrich: Yeah.
Chris Tomseth: I think you're right on that,
Michael Goldrich: No, as 100 percent it's going to happen.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I know that's very observant and it just it makes sense psychologically. maybe the light at the end of the tunnel is that Them picking up the phone and speaking to with an AI agent of some sort is then going to be an on ramp to picking up the phone and calling their parents or other people around them.
And So, uh, you mentioned anomalies and sort of things going wrong. And you mentioned it from the expense side, you know, Tuesday night, somebody spends 30 percent more or maybe 200 percent more because they decided to buy the client an expensive bottle of wine, something like that.
From the perspective of a transcontinental executive, suppose there's a major flight delay or cancellation that sets off a chain of reactions,
uh, and disruptions. Potentially causing the executive to miss a meeting or a keynote speech or [00:38:00] a handshake to sign a big deal. How do you both see Foresee AI helping.
Chris Tomseth: hmm. I think you'll see more integration between, like, we didn't talk about it before, but these systems don't talk for the most part. These airline systems, hotel systems, car rental systems, dining reservation systems. So I think you're going to see more of that. So something could be, I'm just imagining a situation where.
Michael's flying to someplace tomorrow, for a client dinner, and then the inbound plane that's going to make up Michael's outbound departure plane is delayed. So that means he's going to miss his connection in the connecting city, and you could get a message saying, hey, uh, you know, here's the rebooking options that are going to still get you to the city you need to be in for your 7 p. m. dinner reservation tomorrow.
Whereas right now, that's a very disconnected
Michael Goldrich: right, and I [00:39:00] see it a little bit differently. So say my flight is cancelled. I think, um, once Surrey gets smart in like Q1, you're gonna start to see the, iPhone get smarter. What you're gonna see is people saying, my phone just got cancelled, I have this meeting, send out the communications to all people that need to know right away.
So I think you're going to actually see. More just in time communication to let people know so they can then adjust and pivot. And then, you know, to your point, maybe get on another flight, hopefully, and say, get, find another flight for me right away. So you will talk to this thing, this AI agent, and it'll, it'll send out the communications, it'll sign to your flight, and they'll tell you where to go, and you just kind of follow what your phone tells you to help you go through this thing.
But I think it's going to be, I think it's all about communication. And I think communication is one of the big challenges that we have right now, and when things are going wrong, and so I think just, letting people know what's going on so they can [00:40:00] then plan, have more time to plan accordingly, whether to get another executive in there to do that handshake, or find someone else to do the keynote.
Because I think, you know, with these sort of conferences, it's like time is of the essence. So any way you can, collapse that and make it more efficient and effective, I think that's a win. And I think the technology can help everyone win in that way.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. I, think the, um, alacrity of reactivity is the way to describe that in a fancy, buzzy way. And again, that makes total sense, right? we've all been through this. A flight is delayed or canceled and it's immediately you're on your phone. You got to text everyone and see what you can do.
And then, you know, what if there was just something that could, uh, woof everyone, you know, across their preferred thing and then send message cascades to make sure they get it. As quickly as possible. And then from there you figure out the flight. And that's a later one. As we start to get more better integrations amongst
Chris Tomseth: Yeah. Or events that you don't know about. This is an [00:41:00] example from this week. I had a cousin visiting with his family in Washington, D. C., planned months ago, and we planned this dinner reservation on Tuesday. But I mean, we didn't know it was the NATO summit in Washington, D. C., which has also been planned for months, but that's the kind of thing AI could pick up on in advance and say, by the way, you're booking this restaurant next to the White House.
During the NATO summit might not be the best idea. Um, so instead, you know, I kind of scrambled around 48 hours before to find an alternate place.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, or the other way around, you know, NATO should have been informed that you had that prior reservation, right.
Chris Tomseth: and then traffic as well, right? You know, that's still kind of travel related, just the traffic patterns and the roads that get shut and how that affects you making it to the airport, for example.
Like if you know that it normally takes 20 minutes to the airport, but because the NATO summit's in town, it's going to take an hour.
You know, [00:42:00] right now that's on you to figure out, but in theory, you could be proactively notified by an AI assistant. And
by proactively, I don't mean an hour before, I mean like a day before.
Michael Goldrich: I think according to what Apple said in the Apple intelligence. That it'll know your calendar and know the schedule. And I think if you just kind of say, just tell it, like pull anything that I should know about that's happening here. I mean, I think it's going to take some proactivity, but I think you'll be able to, cause it's going to, Apple will know your calendar and you just say, okay.
Uh, anything, any events that are coming that could impact this, I'll look out on the news and report back to me every day until
there you go,
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, sort of like, yeah, a little bit like a weather watcher sort of thing, but a traffic watcher and report back and I'm just, my mind's boggling with some of the integrations you'd have there because you have these compression events and I'm almost thinking [00:43:00] like you plan a route and then the route is going by a stadium and it can tell you saying, hey, the game is just about to get out.
Therefore, there's going to be some
rush getting out there and then it will divert you. Uh, on a, on a route that's maybe goes a little bit further out, but that way you don't need to deal with any immediate gridlock as 20, 000 or 50, 000 people are exiting in one direction at a very specific moment in time.
Chris Tomseth: Right.
Adam Mogelonsky: So to finish up, it's been a lovely conversation and really enlightening to show the future of travel and talk about the various issues of how things are going to change and it all makes sense. I'm just wondering, what are both of your visions for the future of corporate travel How will tech continue to change the status quo aside from everything else that's already been mentioned?
Chris Tomseth: Yeah.
I think I'll elevate it up a bit and say, you know, I think you're going to continue to see improvement is the word I'll use [00:44:00] for, for all stakeholders. So what I mean by that is you're going to see organizations continue to innovate and develop new technologies. That help whoever they're helping, whether that is helping the corporations, um, make more efficient use of their travel, helping the actual traveler have a more seamless, pleasant trip, um, helping the travel provider like the airline or the hotel or the car rental company, uh, more readily kind of serve the customer and, you know, helping the investor community, cause it's going to take investors to.
You know, invest in some of these new ideas. They won't all be successful. They won't all catch on, obviously. But there, there's definitely money to be made, by continuing to innovate. And, you know, we talked about several things during this show of, things that didn't exist in, in sometimes in the relatively recent past.
And now we just take them as a way of life. Mm
Michael Goldrich: Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: Michael, any closing
Michael Goldrich: Oh, sure. I always got thoughts. So, [00:45:00] what I think is, so, if my corporation is telling me I'm going to be traveling in the future, I think right now it's incumbent upon me to go ahead and book. And if I'm a procrastinator, I'm going to wait longer and that means it's going to end up being more costly if I end up booking later.
So, I imagine what's going to happen is once I have confirmed travel, the system will go ahead and book me. Okay. Here's your airline. Here's your hotel. This is what you're doing. And then it'll be incumbent on me to validate it and say, no, it'll just be kind of, uh, be, I'll be in terms of a workflow, I'll be booked unless I say I have an issue with this based on a certain date, or else it'll just kind of go seamlessly.
So I think it's gonna, where right now I have to go and I have to look and see if it's in the policy or not. I think things are, once I'm booked for a trip, the system will just book me, book my hotel, book my. My airline book, maybe your dinner reservation, whatever it is, everything within policy. That's what I say.
Chris Tomseth: I [00:46:00] can see that. So, essentially, you're given, instead of the task of booking, you're given veto authority to say, no, I don't want that. I want
Michael Goldrich: Yeah. And then you have to justify your
Adam Mogelonsky: Oversight, Oversight, I guess, or judgment. Whichever buzz term you want to use there.
Well, Chris, Michael, this has been a fantastic conversation. Really enlightening on my end to really look at the future of technology. of travel, including hotels, airlines, cars, the whole works. And really it's, it's very important for everyone to consider this in terms of how they fit into this very vast ecosystem. Thank you both.
Chris Tomseth: Thank you