Travel Tech Essentialist #132: Microculture
“A single individual living in Greenville, North Carolina, defeats enormous global businesses with tens of thousands of employees and decades of experience—and does it repeatedly every month. This seems impossible. But that’s exactly what’s happening.” — Ted Gioia (#9).
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0. The most clicked link in the previous newsletter
The most clicked link in Travel Tech Essentialist #131 was the Travel & Hospitality Sci-Fi Idea Bank.
1. The most popular articles of 2023
In the 33 newsletters sent in 2023, I've shared around 500 links on various topics, from innovation and entrepreneurship to science, art, and humor. While not all were exclusively travel-centric, each was selected for its relevance and potential value to travel builders and professionals. Here are the top 10 stories with the highest click-through rates this year (in reverse order):
#10: The new Travel Tech Essentialist Job Board - Travel Tech Essentialist
#9: Boarding Group 1 - Key & Peele
#8: Flight Subscriptions - a win for airlines and travelers - Travel Tech Essentialist
#7: Locals and Tourists - Erica Fischer, Artist
#6: Europe's travel and accommodation sector in 44 charts - Statista and Booking.com
#5: Travel featured in the new AI-powered Bing - Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate VP of Search at Microsoft
#3: Expedia plugin in ChatGPT and OpenAI’s network effects - Rathi Murthy, CTO /President Expedia Product and Technology
#2: OTA loyalty strategies - Mario Gavira, VP of growth at Kiwi.com
🥇: The greatest sales deck and what makes it great - Andy Raskin, Strategic Narrative
What I like about this is that these 10 stories accurately reflect the drivers behind my Travel Tech Essentialist newsletter:
2. Love reports? Here's 92. AI to the rescue!
John Duffield compiled 92 trend-forecasting reports from firms like EY, Gartner, McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Mercer, offering insights across various sectors. Included are 6 travel-focused reports from Expedia, Lastminute, Skyscanner, Hilton, Booking and Visa, which I grouped in this folder for easy access.
John suggests reading the reports that most interest you and then using AI to analyze the rest. His process for doing so is to use an AI tool (like ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Perplexity, or Humata), upload the PDFs (no limit on Humata), instruct the AI in clear language, and get concise summaries of trends and their implications for your industry, audience, or business. Read +.
3. Seeking founders in Aging Tech
In the last newsletter, I wrote about travel's upcoming silver wave. In this post, Cowboy Ventures writes about how they are exploring opportunities in the aging tech space. They highlight how the 65+ age demographic is incredibly underserved, with innovation efforts focused on millennials and Gen Z instead. Cowboy Ventures is looking to support founders in building B2B or B2C solutions that cater to the unique and dynamic needs of seniors. If you are one of those founders, reach out to Jillian@cowboy.vc
4. What a year for travel tech stocks
In the year-to-date stock price performance as of Dec 22, 2023, several travel companies have exhibited impressive growth, outperforming market indices. A few of them have more than doubled their value this year. In contrast, Trivago and three SPAC-listed companies - Inspirato, Vacasa, and Sonder- show declines of more than 65%.
5. Travel brands are missing from the top App Store keywords of 2023
This analysis examined the top App Store searches across six major markets: the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, and India. The findings reveal a dominance of brand names in the top search keywords, with 'vpn' being the notable exception as the only generic term making it to the top 20 in the US, France, and India. The UK, Germany, and Spain showed an exclusive preference for brand names in their top searches.
Despite the important role travel plays in our lives, this analysis points to a notable gap: the lack of a dominant travel super app. This could indicate a dispersed market with multiple players or a potential opportunity for a player to emerge as the dominant travel app.
6. Flighty recognized in Apple app awards
Apple announced its 2023 App Store Awards Winners, picked by its editorial team. The iPhone App of the Year award went to AllTrails, an app that connects people with trails for running, hiking, biking, or walking. Flighty—a flight tracker, travel planner, and airport navigator— was a finalist in this category. Additionally, in the Apple Design Awards, Flighty was awarded the best app in the Interaction category, which honors apps for their intuitive interfaces and seamless controls. No other travel app was recognized as either a finalist or winner in either of these awards.
7. Fundraising tips for 2024
John Li, founder of Vimcal (YC S18), shared a great summary of what it was like to raise a seed round at the bottom of the market and 5 crucial things to know and focus on if you're raising in 2024.
Prioritize boosting growth numbers before and during fundraising.
Articulate a clear path to $10 billion. VCs have become more diligent about only investing in venture-sized outcomes
Develop a unique and educational stance on AI for investors.
Expect angel fundraising to be time-consuming.
Place high importance on investor references.
8. Turning angry customers into brand advocates
Customer service can be a powerful customer acquisition and retention channel. Ahmad Fares, CEO of connectivity platform CELITECH, wrote about his chat with Kayak's co-founder, Paul English. Paul told him that during Kayak’s early days, he asked that every customer who said the word “f&$k” to Kayak support was transferred to him because “an angry customer is a passionate customer with a problem, if you solve the problem you turn the customer into a passionate advocate.” The lesson is clear: excellent customer support has the potential not just to address problems but to transform dissatisfied customers into enthusiastic supporters. Ahmad is also adopting this proactive approach as he builds his company. Read +.
9. Microculture vs Macroculture
Ted Gioia (jazz critic and music historian) discusses the increasing tension between “macroculture” and “microculture.” The declining influence, widespread layoffs and challenges of traditional media stand in contrast to the dynamic growth and increasing influence of alternative, creator-driven platforms. He describes how legacy media is collapsing at the very moment that alternative platforms are booming. And in the meantime, the macroculture is frozen. It has forgotten how to maneuver and how to learn. It operates in an echo chamber that shuts out the growing influence of alternative media. Their hiring practices make this clear, as Gioia points out:
- CNN needs a new boss so it hires someone from The New York Times.
- The Wall Street Journal needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from The Sunday Times.
- Gannett needs a new editor-in-chief, so it hires somebody from NPR.
- Disney needs a new CEO, so it just hires the old CEO for another stint.This is sheer idiocy. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Gioia suggests that the microculture is set to win. It's the source of all the growth, all the revenues, building strong communities and has an impact that the big media guys just can't keep up with. Every time a big media company cuts jobs, they're actually helping their smaller, nimbler rivals grow. The quote in the intro of this newsletter refers to MrBeast, btw. Read + The Honest Broker.
10. Shift in New York City’s accommodation landscape
In this holiday season, hotel rates and occupancy are climbing in New York City compared to last year. This change is primarily because of the city's new, strict regulations on short-term rentals, which have significantly reduced Airbnb options. Searches for hotels in New York City during the last two weeks of December are up 25% year over year, according to Expedia. CoStar reports that hotel occupancy in November 2023 reached 84%, up from 79% in 2022, with the average cost per night increasing from $307 to $333. Early December saw a further jump, with occupancy reaching 90.3% and the average nightly cost rising to $477. The new rules have particularly impacted families and groups who previously relied on Airbnb for larger, more affordable spaces. The new regulations are benefiting hotels but may limit accommodation choices and increase costs for visitors, potentially changing New York City's tourism dynamics. Read + Wired.
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Mauricio Prieto