The stars align at the Phocuswright Young Leaders Summit 2022
Young tech leaders fear funds are drying up
A poll taken at the Phocuswright Young Leaders Summit, held in Phoenix, Arizona, found only 8% of respondents felt that 2023 was a better year for raising funds than 2022 had been so far, due to the current economic outlook.
One third of the audience (29%) said that they were currently focusing their business strategy towards becoming profitable and away from growth – whilst only half of those (16%) said that this had been their strategy only a year ago.
Henry Chen Weinstein, from venture capital firm One Travel Ventures, said with rising interest rates, inflation raging, and general uncertainty in the economy, “it is becoming harder to raise funds and young entrepreneurs are much more aware of this than most.
“Pivoting from a ‘grow, grow, grow’ strategy to one of profitability makes sense clearly, survival might soon be the name of the game,” Weiunstein added.
The summit was attended by around 40 future stars of the travel tech space under the age of 35 years old.
Polled on the topic of ‘work from home’ and ‘work from anywhere’ almost half the audience (45%) said that such policies would heavily influence their choice of whether to accept a new job offer – with around one third of the audience also saying they’d employ people on a similar basis.
Almost all participants saw such changes as a game changer for the travel tech space.
NFTs are popping all over Bangkok
The latest organisation to test the water with non-fungible tokens is the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), which says the NFTs will offer new experiences in line with the ‘Visit Thailand Year 2022-2023: Amazing New Chapters’ campaign.
The ‘Amazing Thailand Digital Art NFTs, via the YAKS application, come with privileges for travel and exploration, until 14 December.
Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor, said, “Amazing Thailand NFTs brings our NFT products – Nature to keep, Food to explore, and Thainess to discover – into actual trips.
Tourists can participate in the project by downloading the YAKS application available for Android and iOS. They can scan the QR code at the kiosks available at five major tourist attractions – China Town, Wat Arun, Giant Swing, and Siam Square, all in Bangkok, and the Ancient City in Samut Prakan – to get a random Amazing Thailand NFT item.
There are 3,999 Amazing Thailand NFT items at each location. Tourists can collect one Amazing Thailand NFT item per person per location, each comes with different offers.
After collecting at least three items from visiting three locations, they can unlock all privileges for air fare discounts, hotel discounts, food and beverage discounts, and other travel offers.
Air NZ customers take a biometric journey
Air New Zealand customers can expect a smooth experience when flying to Los Angeles Airport thanks to technology that makes use of biometric information and does away with boarding passes.
Air NZ customers entering the US are provided with the opportunity to register with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) using their biometric information.
Using the automated airport kiosks, this same data is then used to verify their identity at the time of boarding. Biometric information is secured by CBP and not directly accessible to Air New Zealand or any other airline using this service
Air NZ will roll out the technology across other US ports, with San Francisco next in line.
John Boris, TripAdvisor’s new chief marketing officer
On the move: Appointments at TripAdvisor and Intrepid
There’s movement around the travel tech space this week.
TripAdvisor has appointed of tech, travel and hospitality veteran, John Boris, as its chief marketing officer. In the role, will have direct responsibility for the platform’s B2C and B2B marketing strategy and execution.
As executive vice president and managing director of the US business for Lonely Planet Americas, Boris oversaw the launch of Lonely Planet’s global mobile products and ran their global Clients Solutions (B2B) teams.
More recently, he was the CEO of IfOnly, a bespoke experience marketplace which was acquired by Mastercard in 2019.
Meanwhile, Intrepid Travel has named Anu Karunatilaka as chief technology officer (CTO) to lead digital transformation across the company’s global operations.
Having been with Intrepid for 15 years, Karunatilaka’s new role has been created to implement Intrepid’s 2025 Digital Transformation Strategy across all functions of the business.
He will continue to be based in Colombo but will travel frequently to Melbourne and other regional centres.
