S2E3: The Arival Story - From Stadium Hot Dogs to Global Travel Tech
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In this episode our host Dan Christian welcomes Bruce Rosard, the esteemed Co-Founder & CCO of Arival, for an engaging discussion on his remarkable life and career journey within the travel industry. Prepare to explore the core of Bruce's incredible path from a hot dog vendor at Veteran Stadium to a key leader in the tours, activities, and attractions sector, understand the nuances of his entrepreneurial ventures, including the birth and growth of his ski business, Moguls, and his pivotal roles at Phocuswright and the formation of Arival, and gain valuable perspectives on recent travel trends and the crucial role of reservation technology platforms for operators in the global travel industry.
Discover Bruce's inspiring story, beginning with his early days at Veteran Stadium in Philadelphia and the evolution of his passion for business, leading to the creation of his ski business, Moguls. Learn about his first experiences with the internet and his subsequent rise to leadership positions in Sales and Marketing at Phocuswright. Bruce then shares the compelling story behind the formation and remarkable success of Arival, even amidst the challenges of the pandemic, highlighting his tenacity and creative approach. He also provides valuable insights into current travel trends and participates in a fun-filled travel trivia session centered around his beloved Philadelphia Phillies. Finally, the episode concludes with a thought-provoking discussion on the impact of over-tourism in Thailand and the vital role of reservation technology platforms for operators across the global travel industry.
Curious to explore the dynamic world of tours, activities, and attractions through the experiences of a seasoned industry leader?
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Connect with Our Guest: https://arival.travel/
Speaker 1: 0:13
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Travel Trends. I'm Dan Christian and today I am joined by a veteran of this industry, a 40 year veteran. Although he certainly doesn't look like he's anywhere that far into his career, it looks like he just started last week. He is the co-founder of Arrival and the chief commercial officer. Ladies and gentlemen, bruce Rosard, welcome, bruce.
Speaker 2: 0:33
Oh, thanks, dan. Really a pleasure to be here. You know we go quite a ways back and really looking forward to having this chat with you.
Speaker 1: 0:40
Likewise, let's go back in that journey, because I want to start by talking about you. We're going to talk about Arrival. We're going to talk about the fact you've just come back from Bangkok. We're going to talk about the events this fall, the team, douglas Quinnby so much we have to cover. But I want to start by talking about your career and how you got into travel, because that's one of the themes of this podcast, as you know, is trying to inspire people to get into this great industry, and everyone who's come into travel has their own unique entry point. And so, if we rewind back to a young Bruce that has graduated the University of Connecticut Ahusky and he is now about to embark on his career from Philadelphia and both of these are going to come up in the quiz questions, just you know. But you actually started out working, as we both love baseball, but you started working out working with the Philadelphia Phillies. Tell us about your first, your first career.
Speaker 2: 1:32
Actually my first career was making cheese steaks in Philly. So there is that. But the first sales job was selling ice cream, coke, beer, hot dogs, peanuts at Veteran Stadium where the Phillies and Eagles played. This was a high school and a college job. I was probably going to 50, 60, 70 games a summer. It was a great job, you know. As a high school kid I was making 20, 30 bucks an hour and we had to shut down sales in the seventh inning. So any game that was close I walked down to the first or second row and watched the end of the game. So I got to combine my love of baseball and learn how to sell and learn to lose all hustle, because that's what you have to do if you're trying to sell hot dogs.
Speaker 1: 2:20
Definitely, and you were there for seven years. So not only did you have the opportunity to learn the art of sales, you also saw some pretty amazing concerts, because this is the late 70s. This was a pretty epic era for music, and you saw some pretty big shows.
Speaker 2: 2:32
Yeah Well, right next door, a vet stadium at the time which no longer exists, was a stadium called JFK Stadium, which also no longer exists, and they had some concerts there that the vendors from the vet would come and sell. I don't think they let us sell beer. The Rolling Stones was probably the highlight. I remember seeing Mick Jagger and this is going back to the late 70s when he was still Mick right, I mean, he still is, but you know what I mean and that was an amazing concert. Fleetwood Mac in their prime was an amazing concert. That those were probably the two highlights. There weren't a lot of concerts that happened at JFK Stadium.
Speaker 1: 3:14
But one more thing about this before we. Leonard Skinner was another one, though right.
Speaker 2: 3:17
Oh you know what? Yes, I thought I saw Leonard Skinner, but no, I worked that show. And being with 100,000 people during Free Bird for real like not like oh, free Bird, but really Free Bird with 100,000 people was unreal. It was definitely a highlight of many, many concerts that I got to go to for sure. I was going to kick back to one other thing before we move on from this stage, which is pre-travel. The Phillies won the World Series in 1980, which was when I was still working there, so I was able I cut out of Yukon for a long weekend to come see the last three games of the World Series, and I was there when they won the World Series. So certainly a sports highlight for me.
Speaker 1: 4:03
Very cool, Very cool. We're actually literally almost getting to all the quiz questions I've got for you, because that is one of them as well. So I'm glad that we actually Because we've actually thought about putting the quiz up front I'm glad we continue to leave it at the end. We thought it might change up and be a nice icebreaker. Clearly we don't need that, so we can save that for the end. But let's talk about your segue into travel. You were passionate about music, but you were also clearly very passionate about travel and I want to understand more about moguls and moving to Colorado and getting into that the ski side of the business. So how did that all come about?
Speaker 2: 4:34
Yeah, actually, before I was passionate about travel or the travel industry, I was passionate about skiing. Being in Connecticut we were pretty close to Vermont and my freshman year I went on a Yukon ski club ski trip with about 150 people and I talked to the president of the ski club. I'm like, how do I get involved in this and what's the deal? And he told me go talk to this guy, paul Tate Trote. May he rest in peace, he will set you up. And what did that mean? It meant that if I booked trips through Paul Tate Trote's company, the Sugar Boost Travel Club, for every 20 people that I brought on a trip I got a free trip. Or not just me, but our ski club committee. We got season passes to ski. Sugar Boost, he had a hotel up there. We got to stay for free.
Speaker 2: 5:23
So I learned at my freshman year that if you sell ski vacations, you ski free. And that's what I did through Yukon. I built that club up to about 1000 people and I studied marketing and when I got out of college I was like, well, I'm at Yukon, I got 1000 members. No one's coming after my business. What are only other school ski clubs doing? So I decided to start Moguls at that time we called it Moguls Unlimited and my first sales road trip. I went and visited about 22, 23 schools all up and down the East Coast and sold a ski trip to 21 of them yes, I remember that number pretty well and those were trips to Vermont and also some to Colorado. So that's how I really originally got into the ski business, was right out of college, started a company and started selling ski trips to college kids.
Speaker 1: 6:18
It's remarkable I have to mention this, even though obviously the focus is on you but the connections. I didn't realize that until we're having this conversation right now, because my start was I started a snowboard club at the university that was only had a ski club and the head of the ski club didn't want snowboarders and I was allowed to then create my own snowboard club that first year that we created it, which was 1999. You can still find these articles with like the Western Gazette. There was a quote that I said he handed me a loaded gun to give me the opportunity to create my own snowboard club and the first year we were bigger than the ski club. We had 138 people.
Speaker 1: 6:51
Funny how numbers like that remain. They barely broke 100. We had 138 people and now it's the largest in Canada. They have 1000 people and the whole objective was to go snowboarding for free, because if I had a group of people, we could go to Trombone, which is in Quebec, we would go to Smuggler's Notch in Vermont and I'd organize the trip and we would get a free accommodation and free snowboarding.
Speaker 2: 7:14
Absolutely. I mean, that's how a lot of people originally got into travel. If they got into college, they realized bring 20 friends, you go for free. And I spent almost 25 years selling that to college kids, right Just break or adult clubs also. Once we got into that, just sell trips, you go for free. And that's a huge opportunity for a lot of college kids.
Speaker 1: 7:39
And you stayed with it a lot longer. I had a snowboard startup and we connected the different snowboard clubs across Canada and gave them membership cards and they got discounts at stores and at resorts. So there's certainly some similarities, but you took it much farther and obviously ran it for much longer. And so tell us a bit about that journey, because your business was acquired, then you acquired the company again. I obviously want to get into your journey after that, but it was a remarkable story with how you navigated that business.
Speaker 2: 8:09
Let's go a little bit first. Before that story which you could call remarkable, I could call Hartburn, we could spend this whole show on that part of the story. I could tell you that Basically so, 1982, so we're dating ourselves here, dan, where you started a snowboard club. I don't even know when snowboarding started, like early nineties maybe but basically we sold ski trips to college kids for about five years and then we realized, well, spring break college kids aren't going skiing, they want to go south and they mostly want to go to Florida or South Padre Island in Texas. So we wanted to sell spring break but we didn't want to do the full Florida Fort Lauderdale thing or South Padre Island or Daytona Beach. So our first year we sold the Bahamas and I'll never forget, because we had a Bahama 500 party when we hit 500 people that were going. So we sold the Bahamas. Then we expanded to Barbados. We were the first company ever to bring spring break to the Barbados. We sold Jamaica and Cancun and that's when the business really started to grow, because there were a lot more people going to spring break than there were skiing during spring break. So we sell mostly ski in January over Christmas break and then the islands during spring break. So that's where the company got to grow.
Speaker 2: 9:28
And then in 1991 was the first Iraq war and the president at the time I'm pretty sure was Clinton said you should not travel international because of this war going on. And we had all these bookings headed down to the islands and of course all the parents who were paying for it like, well, our kids aren't traveling out of the country because we're not supposed to travel international. So we lost our shirts for the first time and scaled back down to just my partner at the time and myself and moved to Colorado. So we moved to Boulder in 1991 and started fresh. And one interesting thing that I don't know if you do know, maybe you do, but I think we do know, maybe you do.
Speaker 2: 10:12
But when we moved to Boulder we based ourselves in an office with a company called All Adventure Travel. All Adventure Travel was a wholesaler of Adventure Travel, so a precursor to all the dot com adventure travel companies. It's basically a brochure we sent out to 100,000 people, sold a lot to travel agents, sold all a lot of the you know back roads and back country and chacrismo classical and companies that are still in business today. And I eventually bought out part of that business and figured I need something to do in the summer, because ski was obviously all winter and we needed to figure something out to do in the summer. So I was also doing all adventure travel.
Speaker 1: 10:51
That's fascinating Because I do remember you coming up to me with one of the arrival conferences and asking me about speaking at one of the. We're with the. We'll get into this right. You're running events, the mountain events, and you were having one at Whistler that year.
Speaker 2: 11:05
Yeah mountain travel symposium.
Speaker 1: 11:07
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because that's this is where, like your history is so fascinating and you know you're involved in a focus right Travel massive. You work with tech stars, you work with startups and that's where you know the. You clearly cut your teeth with a startup, as you mentioned, the heartburn that comes with it, but the knowledge and experience that you got from that, that is clearly still with you now as you launch arrival and scale this new great business. But tell us because obviously we do want to bring it up to current times and your latest trip and what you've built with arrival. But tell us what were the next kind of steps in that journey. So you had moguls, but then you continued on your travel industry career.
Speaker 2: 11:48
Yeah Well, let's just take one quick step and then we'll go forward. So in 1994, I started to hear about this thing called the internet and my father was an engineer and he was recently retired. Like dad, why don't you look into the internet and tell me what I should know about using it for moguls? So you know, in a couple of days he says get Eudora, which was the first email client, get onto these bulletin board groups that here's three that are all involved in the ski industry and look up this thing called Mosaic, which was the first browser that was out there. Mark Anderson, right, and I kind of. I saw that and I was hooked on the internet. He literally built a website for us, for moguls and all adventure travel, black and white. There wasn't even color at that time. And as soon as we had a website we started getting email. It was just forms, right. We had a form where do you want to ski, how many people, when do you want to go and we started getting emails the next day. It was crazy. So that was the beginning of my infatuation, really, with internet travel. Basically, fast forward that to you know.
Speaker 2: 13:06
We've talked about the whole long story of you know, my MBA of hard knocks, selling the company to the wrong company, buying it back, selling it again or buying it back with a partner they go bankrupt. Buying back the company from bankruptcy court, building it back up, having cashflow issues every summer, surviving every winter. Finally selling it to a company called Intra West. That was a major, major player in the time, no longer from Canada, you know, no longer in business. And then that was my last sale and 2005 walked away and went to my good friend, phillip Wolf, another guy. Rest in peace. My biggest mentor of my life, other than my father, said Phillip, you know everyone in travel. I really want to get into internet travel. That's not ski, it's too small. I want everything. And he's like well, if sales is in your blood, come talk to me. I'm like, well, sales has always been in my blood, I can sell hot dogs. So I went and met with Phillip and became head of sales and, within a month or two, head of sales and marketing at Focus right.
Speaker 1: 14:15
That's amazing. I know Phillip myself, not like you. I mean, he was a legend of the industry and, as you mentioned, he sadly passed away a couple of years ago, and there's so many points of connectivity here. But one of the people that well, the gentleman that now is the managing director of Focus right, pete Como, who is on one of the podcasts as well, so people can listen to that. But what's interesting, as you mentioned to me, is you hired him twice. You know he actually worked at Moguls and then you hired him at Focus right.
Speaker 2: 14:43
You know he was a classic person that we hired at Moguls. Everyone that worked at Moguls it was all young people who didn't. Moguls is either the first job out of college or they were a ski bum. And then we were their first real job. Pete had spent a couple of years in Jackson Hole as a ski bum came to Boulder, you know, answered an ad. We were looking for salespeople and we hired Pete on the spot. He was an obvious talent and you know he became a lead agent very quickly and then, you know, head of sales pretty quickly from there. So he was a key part of Moguls. I don't remember if he'd left before I did. I'm pretty sure he'd left before I did and he went and got his MBA. He went to work for Orbitz and then when I went over to Focus right and I needed to hire someone for sales, I called up Pete and hired Pete which was awesome.
Speaker 1: 15:33
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, well, just for the people that are listening to this, that are getting into the industry or back in the industry, this stands out that you know the reputation that you build and the relationships that you make really do make a huge difference in your career advancement and the opportunities that present themselves to you. So a great dynamic to call out. But you then you continue with Focus, right, but you got involved in a number of things. So tell us how you spread your wings a bit further and then how, ultimately, you and Douglas decided to create a rival.
Speaker 2: 16:05
Sure. So you know, while I was at Focus right, you mentioned Techstars I got involved with Techstars, which was started here in Boulder and was just. I said I really want to get more engaged with the Boulder community because, being in the ski business and being part of Focus right, it wasn't hubbed at all out of Boulder and I really wanted to get more engaged with the Boulder community and I was able to get involved with that and just learn so much from that. You know even startups that were young kids, 20, 25 years old I would learn as much from them as they would learn from me mentoring them. One example was a company called FlexTrip, and FlexTrip was in the tours and activities industry. One of the co-founders was Alex Kramer and I was their mentor for a couple of years and FlexTrip then got acquired and Alex became one with Douglas, one of the three founders of Arrival.
Speaker 2: 17:02
Maybe five or six years later after that, after I left Focus right, I helped Phillip sell Focus right to North Star Travel Media and then, a few years later, left Focus right and did some consulting for a while, one of which was the Mountain Travel Symposium, which is the event you mentioned there.
Speaker 2: 17:21
So I started to become really involved in conferences and events, with Mountain Travel being one, because I learned from the best from Phillip and his wife, carol Hussleman. They I mean if anyone out there that's been to a Focus right conference knows it's the best conference for travel in the world. And if you haven't been to one and you can afford it because they're not cheap they're like three to $4,000, go, I don't even think about it, just go. You will get a return on that investment. And one thing about that cost I'll just state this real quick it means that you get senior level executives. You don't get middle level managers because it's too expensive. And so there is the real deal of the travel industry comes to the Focus right conference. So I learned so much from that event and took that with me to Mountain Travel Symposium. Also helped out a guy named Jake Steinman build an event that was part of the E-Tourism Summit, and so getting involved with Arrival as an events company was a really natural next step.
Speaker 1: 18:24
And Douglas too, obviously, was at Focus right before, so he had that experience. But I just wanted to highlight one aspect that you pointed out there about Focus right. When I was speaking to Pete, I did and those of you that want to listen to that discussion as well, but I did was two things I pointed out. One was that it really is like the Academy Awards of travel, like it is the main center stage, and I also connected to the Sunday New York Times. So when you read the Sunday New York Times you basically have read the news for the week and Focus right, you attend that conference and you know everything's gonna happen in travel for the next potentially six to 12 months.
Speaker 2: 18:57
Let me add to that real quick, dan. The key in what Philip always insisted on, the research was the backbone of the conference. So Focus right was and is a research company first and foremost. As his arrival, douglas was the head of research for a while at Focus right Now he puts out better research on the experiences industry than, I think, anyone in the world. So it starts with the research, because that way the analysts understand the product so well and then we bring it to the stage. So it's not just an event, it's research, analysis, analytics, and then it goes on stage and comes to life.
Speaker 1: 19:37
Yeah, that's a very important point to call out, and you highlighted the cost of a ticket, which, in my first few years of going, I started to understand the lounge lizards, the ones that would come to the conference and didn't have a pass. Did you talk to Pete?
Speaker 2: 19:54
about the lounge lizards.
Speaker 1: 19:55
I was never one of them. No, but did you talk to Pete?
Speaker 2: 19:59
when you had the podcast.
Speaker 1: 20:00
No, no, I didn't bring it up in our conversation, but I'd love for you to comment on it.
Speaker 2: 20:04
Oh, I mean there'd be like 100, 150 people sitting in the lobby of the hotel without any badges. It got so bad that a few years back they literally built like a wall around the lobby so you couldn't even get into the lobby.
Speaker 1: 20:19
I just remember, because it stood out to me, I mean, the number of times that people would reach out to me to meet at the conference and then they would ask to meet in the lounge. Or they would ask I was like, oh, meet me at the main stage or the booth, or, and they're like, no, no, come to the lounge. And at first I was like maybe they just want to get a coffee and they want to. And then eventually I quickly realized they don't have a pass. Or just like, wait a second, guys. This is a nice try, but I'm going to go back to the event.
Speaker 2: 20:45
It happens a lot. It happens a lot. Yeah, it hasn't happened. I think I've only. I remember one specific person at arrival, but you know our tickets are always under $1,000. So it's a much smaller hit and people are willing to fork up for it. I hope.
Speaker 1: 21:01
And I want to get into that because we've talked about focus right.
Speaker 1: 21:04
I really do want to focus on arrival for our discussion because what you brought when you created arrival with Douglas and Alex was a fresh start and a new opportunity to focus on activities, day tours, experiences.
Speaker 1: 21:18
I know you got the experience economy and since you created this business you've very much highlighted to the industry just how big the experience as business is the third largest sector within travel. But what was interesting for me, knowing you guys from the focus right days, is that you know I was always talking to Douglas to try and figure out a way to get multi-day tour represented on the main stage and I was saying to Pete eventually I got there and I was one of the highlights of my career was speaking on stage at Focus Right because that was the grand forum but there really wasn't an attention being paid to experiences and really that's part of the reason, as I understand that you went out on your own. You created this new venture because you saw a niche, and a very significant one at that. So maybe you just give us a bit more context for those people now with the genesis of arrival and where you guys started Cause I'd love to talk about the very first event in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: 22:13
You were the second one right, Not the first one. You had a hard rock.
Speaker 1: 22:16
The one that was at the hard rock, with like a thousand people in the theater.
Speaker 2: 22:20
Yeah, that was 2018, the second one, yeah, so wasn't that stage? Just as awesome is the Focus Right stage.
Speaker 1: 22:26
Oh, absolutely, it was epic. It was absolutely epic.
Speaker 2: 22:29
I hope so. It wasn't. I mean, the hard rock was. That was an amazing theater too. So anyway, douglas was.
Speaker 2: 22:38
He and I worked together on a project on the experiences industry. It was called Tours and Activities. At the time he did all the research, basically market-sized the business US only $38 billion. This is going back, I think, around 2010, ballpark. My role was to go out and sell it to partners. One of the lead partners was this company called Viator. That was a standalone company. They obviously wanted the data so they could talk about the market and sell themselves to TripAdvisor, which happened pretty quickly. After that study it became kind of the seminal report that started off this thing called the Tours and Activities industry. People realized that it was a $38 billion industry, us only that no one had ever even considered. Money started flowing in. Vc money started flowing in. The acquisition of Viator by Trip was huge. That was kind of the genesis of the thing.
Speaker 2: 23:41
When I left Focus, douglas was still there heading up research. He saw the opportunities. You could go to a hotel conference every day of the week and still not get to all of them. You can go to airline conferences every day. You can go to destination conferences, dmo events. You can go to the big trade shows like ITV and WTM and IPW. Nowhere can you go to a conference in the world focused exclusively on Tours Activities and Tractions. That was true then. It's still true today, except for Arrival.
Speaker 2: 24:14
There was this gap for, as you mentioned, the third largest sector in the industry. There was no community, no place to go. Douglas saw it first. He talked to Alex about it because Alex was in the sector. I was consulting, I was outside but I didn't have a full-time job. They contacted me and said hey, we want to do this conference for the experiences sector. You want to join us? I said, yeah, I'm going to join you. That's great. I'm not going to be a hired gun, like I am for Mountain Travel Symposium. I need to be a partner. They're like awesome, that's what we want. That was how the partnership was formed. The first event was 2017, douglas was full-time focus. Alex was actually. He was working on a new startup at the time, which was Redeem, which was also in the sector, is still in the sector. I was the only one that could spend full-time on it. We thought maybe we'd get 300 people. No one had ever heard of Arrival.
Speaker 2: 25:11
Why do you even spell it with only one R, that should be an obvious story, but whatever, we got 550 people and I'll never forget the first party we had on this top of the palms hotel outdoors. Everyone was just so psyched because everyone on that rooftop was in the experiences industry. It was a phenomenal event. It's an event. A gentleman named Kevin Liu, who worked for Rezvi at the time a Reztech company, who recently just got a job with tripcom. He called it the Woodstock Moment for the tourism activities industry. I just think that's classic and have repeated that many times because it really was. All of a sudden there is an industry called Tourism Activities and Attractions, now Experiences and a community. It's really, really a community as well.
Speaker 1: 26:03
Terrific, I'm going to say perfect timing. I had the privilege, as you pointed out, seeing that I guess 12 months later in 2018 in Vegas at the Hard Rock, 1200 people year two. Well, that's exactly what I was going to mention. It was over 1000 people. The people that it drew were different than any other conference I've been to before. It was so many smaller operators from around the world that had made their way there and that were so keen. These were not the same people I had seen at other conferences. Oftentimes there is crossover. You really created an entirely new market and brought all the experiences people together. There are some big players in that space, as you started to mention, like Viator, who is a great example. There are so many smaller operators that could afford the ticket and that you guys were always very conscientious about the cost of the accommodation, to make sure that the venues, that it was attainable for people. By virtue of that, it was very clear that you created an opportunity that didn't exist and that people were gravitating to.
Speaker 1: 27:05
I have to say one last thing that when I was preparing to speak, douglas's wife was briefing all the presenters. Yes, she's lovely. She said to me, and this is where Douglas was putting up the signs. It was a real family operation. Very clearly, when I was speaking to her before I went on stage, I was telling her how wonderful I thought this all was and how great that she's a part of it. She said to me that, well, douglas got to that point in his career where it was either going to be a sports car, a younger woman or a new business venture. Of those options, I think he chose the right one.
Speaker 1: 27:49
When I said that to Douglas when we caught up last time, he said well, yeah, but no one predicted the pandemic. That was obviously a tough go because you started off so strong. All of a sudden, our world was turned upside down. Tell me a bit about that, because that obviously to go from strength to strength in 17, 18, 19, and then hitting a wall like we all did you guys are all still standing and it's back and better than ever that was the next big bit of heartburn in your career was all of a sudden not being able to run events and moving to virtual. Tell us a little bit about that experience and then we can quickly move on from that topic.
Speaker 2: 28:32
Well, I was an old hand by then. Dealing with bullshit, that was no problem. No, but seriously, the growth of the company was really pretty impressive for a non-tech company we're not a tech company. We went from 550 people at our first event to 1200 people at our second event. That was 2018. In 2019, we're like we need to go international because if we don't do this international, someone else will. We want to be the only company in this sector, if we can.
Speaker 2: 29:05
2019, we went to Berlin in March and we did it right before ITB Berlin, which is the largest B2B travel show in the world. That was super successful. In June, we went to Bangkok, which people were like what You're going to Bangkok? We did because TripAdvisor wanted to partner with us and they actually said if you come to Bangkok, we'll partner with you. That really gave us the strength to say okay, let's do it. We had a hugely successful event in Bangkok and that was June of 2019. Then we had Orlando, with again over 1200 people in October of 2020. No, october of 2019. Excuse me, it didn't get the growth that we had from prior years, but that's because we're a global event company and we were in three countries now. Overall, we were now over 2000 people coming to our events, but Orlando was only about 1200 people.
Speaker 2: 30:05
Our next event is March of 2020 and again right before ITB. As we all know, that was the killer time of the pandemic. Our event was supposed to start on March 1st and we're sitting in Berlin on February 28th because at that point it was in China and Iran and Italy. That's the only place that COVID existed, as far as anyone knew. Our decision was if ITB goes, then arrival will go. If ITB cancels, then arrival will cancel. I mean, we'll wait for the big guys to decide, because if we canceled and they didn't, that would have been real strange. If we didn't cancel and they did, that would have been worse. We didn't want to be a super spreader, but this was still so early on they didn't cancel. They like delayed, delayed, delayed, and we were like screw it, we cannot do this event. We canceled On February 28th, when the event was supposed to start on March 1, there was a February 29th that year. So two days prior, four hours after we canceled, itb canceled. I don't think our decision impacted them, because it was a huge I mean that's a huge economic hit to the city of Berlin.
Speaker 2: 31:23
We're sitting there. Our staff is there. I think we had about a dozen people. In the next day we were down to six because we were just new. This is not going to go anywhere. We had to make some decisions really harshly and quickly. But everyone understood.
Speaker 2: 31:40
About 120 people showed up in Berlin and they were there. There was a guy who, when he left Australia the conference is on when he landed, the conference was canceled. But they got there and we knew we had these people there and we wanted to at least do something for them, but we couldn't do anything. We enlisted a good friend of ours, christian Watts, and I remember very clearly we met with him for breakfast, talked about what he could do. They started a WhatsApp group with these 120 people and they had what they called unarrivaled and it was a blast. They did biking tours, hiking tours. They had a couple sessions. We got them some meeting rooms. We stayed totally out of it because we couldn't be part of an event that didn't happen. They said it was maybe one of the best events they'd ever been to, because it was just crazy. They had no idea what was coming. There was no masks or anything like that. That WhatsApp group exists still today. Now, not everyone's still on it, but there were friendships from around the world that were bonded there.
Speaker 2: 32:46
That was it for Berlin. Obviously, we canceled every other event until San Diego of 22. That was the first time we felt it was safe to go back. Turns out, this thing called Omicron started a couple months before, but we were too into it to pull back again. Events were happening by then. Just masks were required and other things, vaccinations required. It was kind of safe to go back in the water. That's when we started again.
Speaker 2: 33:19
In between, we kept our brand alive. For us, it was keep the brand alive. We hosted over 50 webinars. We had a number of online events. One of them had over 2,000 people. Most of them were free. We charged for a couple because we realized that if people don't pay, people don't show up To get buy-in. We charged like 50 bucks or something, just enough so people would show up. We did a really good job of keeping the brand alive. We've heard a lot of great positive feedback that people were locked up. They couldn't go anywhere, so they were paying attention online. As soon as the world opened, that 2,000-person online event went down to like 100, very quickly. We did what was right for that.
Speaker 1: 34:02
Let's talk about that joyous moment when travel started coming back, because clearly we all had a number of false starts, as you pointed out. But eventually and now we're on the other side of this I want everyone to have a full appreciation. It's great to get the origin story. I want everyone to understand just how significant the scale is of arrival now, based on the research that you do, the number of events that you run and everything you've learned during the pandemic, because you clearly still run a number of webinars. You've branched out. You've got another podcast as well that we should talk about.
Speaker 1: 34:36
Where's arrival today? On the other side of this, you've just had this. You've finally been able to go back to Bangkok and have another significant event. Credit to all of you for keeping the brand alive, for continuing to cultivate that community that clearly they were passionate about. It's very cool that you still have the WhatsApp group. It's clear from the people I speak to and from what I see that the community that you build is just getting stronger and stronger. It continues to gain more momentum. It has to be very reassuring and very encouraging now to build the other side of that. Tell us a little bit more about what the other side of it looks like.
Speaker 2: 35:15
Yeah for sure. Back up one step, though, during COVID, which was about two years or so. Like most companies, they took that time to do something productive. What we did was we built the membership program that we always wanted to build and never had time to do the research that we did where we market-sized this industry. We were going to have this huge blowout of our data at Berlin 2020, but we had all this research that we did in 2019. That now says this industry is $254 billion globally and there are a million operators globally.
Speaker 2: 35:53
Operators being a company that runs a tour activity or attraction. We know there's a million, maybe there's 900,000, whatever, there's a lot of operators out there. If we do our job really, really well, maybe 5,000 to 10,000 people will come to a conference. That leaves 990,000 people who won't come to a conference in our business. We needed a digital product and we built Arrival Insiders as a membership program, which is our digital product, where we can provide a lot of the same information, data analysis services to people who will never come to a conference. Our starting price is like $199 for an annual membership and comes with a bunch of benefits. That was how we spent our time building something new. That will be our growth engine going forward. If we're going to scale Arrival, it's going to be through our membership program.
Speaker 2: 36:48
There's only so many events we can do. We're a small team. I think we're up to 14 right now. We're a little bit bigger than we were pre-COVID. It's really hard to scale If Douglas is not on stage. That makes it really hard for us. We did just hire someone new as a VP of content who is there to take over on stage because I'm not a stage guy, that's not my thing but we hired Steven Joyce, who's been in the industry for a long time, pioneering the industry, built one of the first ResTech SaaS platforms In the industry. So happy to have him aboard.
Speaker 2: 37:26
But still, scaling events is really, really hard. The membership program is what we did. Then we did the event in San Diego in February. We had our first big event, no. Then we had a smaller Berlin event in May, june. Then we came back with our first big event in Vegas in 2022. Went back to Berlin for a bigger event right before ITV again and then just came back from Bangkok. So we're back full-blown. I call it the revival of arrival. Our revenue in 23 was actually higher than 2019. So we're all the way back and now just trying to figure out what else we can do to scale. We've got a lot of different products and just a matter of priorities and what we can put our resources towards.
Speaker 1: 38:14
That's amazing and so encouraging. I'm glad you mentioned Stephen Joyce too, a fellow Canadian and someone that's going to do great things for arrival now, and I'm glad you mentioned the membership program. I appreciate you calling that out because that certainly highlights the usefulness during the pandemic of getting a program set up and running that. Now, clearly, the people that subscribe and that choose to because there's real value-added content. There's no question that you guys produce and it's worth paying for, and again, it's something you actually still keep at a reasonable enough price point, just like you do at events, that it's worth paying for.
Speaker 1: 38:52
The one other thing I wanted to highlight as well from the events for those of you who haven't been, who are going to plan to go, is that what else struck me as unique was when various vendors were on stage. You know, tripadvisor was always probably the one of the most contentious because people after TripAdvisor had bought Viator, people felt very strongly about Viator's policies, like their cancellation policy or the fact they allowed cancellations right up until 24 hours before the trip and so people would get wound up is one way to put it. But it almost felt like a public square and for those people not to talk too much travel industry speak, but within Viator, wait what?
Speaker 2: 39:35
This is called travel trends. What do you mean? How can you talk too much? Travel speak.
Speaker 1: 39:40
Let's go for it, then let's go for it. Well, I don't want to use after names my mom listens to this and I want to make sure that she can follow along but the platforms that a lot of these smaller tour operators use to make their trips bookable online Fair Harbor being one, bo Koon another peak, of course, resdy, who you mentioned and Kevin used to work with but there's all these technology platforms and each of those platforms have their own policies and work with different partners and for distribution, and when they were on stage, I remember the Fair Harbor guys getting taken a task over some of the decisions they made, and it's one of the things I loved about being at a rival conference, because it really felt like a town square, it felt like a. You know, people were doing their civic duty of holding technology businesses and those executives to account, which is not something that I had seen in other places, and so I think that's another avenue that is truly unique of a rival.
Speaker 2: 40:40
We got that. Let's put credit where credit is due. We got that from Focusrite and Phil. I mean Philip was the toughest interviewer out there.
Speaker 1: 40:48
So what did Douglas do on stage? So you mentioned giving credit where credit is due, to Philip Wolfe, which I appreciate you clarifying, because and then Douglas obviously learned a lot from him. So Douglas then took that tact when he was interviewing those people, because what I was referring to, most of those interviews were with Douglas on stage.
Speaker 2: 41:06
This is a hard interviewer, but always a fair interviewer. Right, he's always respectful and the idea is, you know, always be respectful but ask the tough questions. And sometimes you have to probe if you don't get a straight answer. And part of the problem is a lot of these companies are now public companies and you don't get straight answers from CEOs of public companies. So I often encourage Douglas to let's not get the CEO on stage, let's go a level or two down the people that are on the street really working the company, because they're not PR trained and they might actually give us more information that the audience will appreciate.
Speaker 1: 41:41
That's great. Another good tip. So the events are back, the membership programs in place. You've started scaling the team again, producing more content. What else is there that's worth highlighting right now about the state of a rival today, with a revival of the revival of a rival, as you've called it?
Speaker 2: 42:01
Well, there's one key thing I'll point out that's not well known at all because it's still very much in its infancy which is called get connected, and it's right in line with what you were talking about. I mean, you really highlighted an operator needs to have a res tech. That's what we call a reservation technology platform, like a fair harbor, peak, res, d res goes Zola, et cetera. So you start there you have to have reservation technology if you want to play in the global game, and then those res techs connect to distribution, to the OTAs like Viator, get your guide to amusement, groupon, et cetera.
Speaker 2: 42:36
So we were, we responded to an RFP by a national tourist office in Europe to build a connectivity distribution toolkit and we built it for them. We own the IP. So we also have now built it for another national tourist office in Europe and it's all about training their operators on how to get connected. So you need a res tech, you might need channel management, you need to be able to connect with OTAs, you need to know how to contract, need to understand Google Things to Do, which is really huge in the industry today and it's very complicated because they change it every week, and that's a product that we can scale because it's now built. We built it, we're training on it and every DMO, national tourist office in the country or in the world could utilize it. We just have to spread the word and sell it to them.
Speaker 1: 43:32
Yeah, that's exciting. Well, let's talk about the travel trends that you're seeing now, because that's core to the arrival business and it's going to be interesting to all of those listening to this, especially because you've just come back from a conference and you've gone back into a region of Southeast Asia that was actually some of the last areas to emerge from lockdown, particularly China, of course, but you were in Thailand and Bangkok and I'm very keen to know this. Guess, there's two aspects to this, bruce, where I'm coming from with this question. There is what travel behavior have you seen that has changed post pandemic? So, clearly, we're going to talk exclusively about experiences now, but in terms of what travel experiences they're gravitating to, are they different than what the travel experiences they were seeking out before? And what's the same?
Speaker 1: 44:21
Because I think both are important to highlight, because people are still people and they wanted to go on these trips and they were essentially prevented from doing that, and now they've come back in four. So I'm seeing people doubling down on the trips they didn't have a chance to do, but I'm also seeing people choose new directions, whether it be sustainability, having a better understanding of the operators and their ethics, their values, and so I would love to hear what you have seen just coming out of the conference and I didn't have the privilege to be there with you on this trip and I've certainly seen the updates but if there are any other highlights that really came out of the conference that you'd love to showcase for us, like the guys from Cambodia, the fair, I love those guys, I've been to that and I've kept in touch with them.
Speaker 2: 45:01
You've been to that? Yes, yeah, yeah, we had him on stage. I had a breakfast with him. That is super interesting, you know, and that that's a passion project, right, and that's all about, you know, helping the community. And the stories he told he was crying on stage. He had the audience crying on stage. So anyone that's going to Cambodia to go to see him, to go to Angkor Wat, which is one of the most famous iconic destinations in the world, go see the fair circus. It's not a real circus, it's more like a different version of Cirque du Soleil and it's amazing. But you know, you asked a big question there, dan, and you know I can't give you a single answer because it depends. What part of the world are we talking about? What country are we talking about? You know, being in Asia is nothing like being in Europe or North America.
Speaker 2: 45:50
I don't know enough to know about Africa or Latin America. So what do you want me? You know. And then, even being in Asia, china obviously has not really opened up, but tripcom, the largest OTA in China, was out in full force, you know, making sure they're ready when the Chinese tourists are coming back. So every country is different, every continent is different. So what do you want me to answer?
Speaker 1: 46:14
Well, let's, let's walk through them North America, europe and Asia. So let's, let's, let's bring it back to where we are now. I know you've just come back from Bangkok, but let's talk about what you've seen the behaviors changed from Americans, what? Clearly, the part that stands out to me is that, men, there's this concept of wrench travel and so many people were getting back out traveling again, but Americans were traveling a lot more domestically, even as the pandemic lifted. So it was almost like two stages. The first stage was travel domestically, fervently domestically. Viator's business was surging in the US, before it was surging again in Europe, and now Americans are going global again. So maybe if you just highlight what you saw, particularly from Americans, and then feel free, Well, travel domestically but also travel outdoors more than ever before.
Speaker 2: 47:02
The Florida water sports industry, first of all, never shut down, surprise, surprise, right, and they were renting jet skis, renting kayaks, taking boat tours, group during the pandemic. But they're struggling now, which I was surprised to hear. But they're down from last year. I'm not sure why, except for maybe what you just said, because now Americans are spending the money to go to Europe and other destinations. But also there's inflation, you know there's, there's some issues in the macroeconomic world that are impacting travel.
Speaker 2: 47:36
I've talked to a few operators lately that are down in the States, which is surprising to me. I don't know how across the board that is. I don't know enough to know. So I'm not, I'm not sure we're gonna see 23 numbers over 22,. But that's, that's Douglas, you know. Talk to him about that. That's not my world. Some of the data that I do see it's pretty obvious is the iconic areas that people would go to. Now people are marching, going with a tour when before it would be. Oh, let me just go see the Statue of Liberty, let me go to the Eiffel Tower. But now there's a lot more interest in let's go to a small group tour and it's small groups.
Speaker 2: 48:14
You see very, very few big bus groups you know, and that's a world you know really well from your past life and I don't know how how those companies are doing at TTC in any kind of big groups, but small groups, private groups, way more popular. You know I want to travel with my family and with friends that I know and trust that you know they're all backs and I'm gonna be safe. I mean, that's a real thing. Still, I don't think that's gonna change for quite a long time. So I think it's outdoors, soft adventure, small groups, private groups, and I think that's true Europe and US. The thing that Europe that might be different is they are getting the Americans back, which Americans spend more than most of the Europeans do on their vacations, and they're definitely seeing an influx of European American travelers in Europe, from what I can tell.
Speaker 1: 49:08
Well, it's interesting. You mentioned Florida and I just want to highlight this example is for those of you that haven't been doing a rival event, just to give you a context of one specific reason. I saw you guys in in Vegas in October last year and there was a gentleman, jonathan, who runs captain experiences and he had it was one of my favorite presentations of the conference and credit to him. He started on opening day as well marketplaces and he had created this deep sea fishing marketplace platform where, up until him coming up with his business, really out of college and to his full credit, is that deep sea fishing was not bookable online. You had to contact local operators and trying to arrange dates and it was a hassle, and he managed to aggregate that supply and make it bookable online. He presented at your conference.
Speaker 1: 49:55
Next thing, you know he's got two million in funding and he's going on to great things, and so what you just highlighted there showcases a couple of things. It's the change in consumer behavior, the fact that that is a new activity that people are gravitating to and more people will take up that activity if you make it accessible and bookable online, and his business has gone from strength to strength. But I also don't know that he would have necessarily had the momentum if there wasn't an event like a rival for him to go and present that, because I know there were some top VCs, including the, the final, the final interview at the show.
Speaker 2: 50:33
Yeah, Michael Zeiser.
Speaker 1: 50:34
Yeah, thank you very much. Whose experience is his investment? And he referenced Jonathan's presentation. That really stood out to him. And so that's where the ecosystem you've created, the people that benefit, so, putting the revenue aside and the business model that you have, the opportunities that get created by virtue of showcasing these travel experiences. So I just wanted to highlight that one because it's directly relevant to what you're talking about now, where you know behavior is changing and people are choosing deep sea. I actually had a look at a few of those trips. I didn't think it was a fishing, fishing.
Speaker 2: 51:11
Well, and the thing is that you know, millennials and Gen Z, they want to book online, right? They want to put their phone and book online. If you're not bookable online, they they're not calling you, they don't even they don't. I mean, my kid doesn't call me, right? I'm lucky if I get him on a phone call. This must be. He wants money, otherwise it's WhatsApp and text is, you know? And Millennials and Gen Z, that's that's what they need. So they're gonna be there the day of the trip, two days before the trip, they're gonna get online, they're gonna find Google or TripAdvisor and Find something that's bookable. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: 51:46
Yeah yeah, that is the world we live in today. So, on that note, I'm gonna put you to the test here with a few trivia questions. I want to be mindful of your time, but I could keep going with this conversation and hopefully we'll get a chance to do a session live from Arrival this October. That'd be cool, right. Oh, actually, before we just go into the the quiz, just I think it's worth mentioning to Everyone your podcast experience this you kindly invited me to be on your show. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a slightly different format than what we have here. There's certainly room for for both. Give it our audiences and our scale. But just tell everyone a bit about that show. Because you mentioned Christian already, there's Laurie as well. It's a terrific trio that you've created and you bring on. You have more of a roundtable discussion. So talk about that for a moment, please, and then I'm gonna put you to the test with the quiz questions.
Speaker 2: 52:36
Sure, yeah, I mean experience. This it's not an arrival project, it's, it's a Bruce Christian Laurie project. So Laurie Timony is With virgin experience gifts and she's been in the travel industry for her 30 years. You know mostly with Past companies like leisure pass and their predecessors and now go city Christian Watts, who's really well known with magpie travel. He also ran a hop-on, hop-off bus company, city sightseeing in San Francisco for over 20 years and now he's more into generative AI than just about anyone in the experience of space and doing all kinds of fun stuff. So we just have a fun time with each other and it's very organic. We always have at least one, if not two or three guests and just create a discussion about either a specific topic or the news, like the news of the day. What just happened, you know, a couple weeks ago, get your guide raised $190 million. Like what did that mean? Is that?
Speaker 1: 53:32
a good thing. Is that not a good?
Speaker 2: 53:33
thing for them and we just try to keep it real about the experiences industry and Bring bring some good knowledge to what people are looking for and have fun.
Speaker 1: 53:45
Yeah, you definitely do. It's timely, it's topical and I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out.
Speaker 2: 53:49
You just go to experience this dot travel, and that's the easiest way to see the videos or or hear the podcast. Okay, cool because somehow we're not available on Spotify? Because if you search on Spotify for experience this, there are so many Podcasts with the word experience in it.
Speaker 1: 54:06
Where's this, barry? Well, that's why this is called travel trends with Dan Christian, and it's not an exercise in vanity. For me, it is purely a Necessity to be discoverable. So so there we go. We didn't figure that one out. All right, let's put you to the test here with these travel trivia questions and go back to your roots in Philadelphia. So the very first question. There's five questions, of course. Let's see how you fare. First question is in the movie Rocky one I've picked this because this is your era. I think you may have seen it in the theater there's a famous scene it's actually one of the most famous moments in cinematic history at the end of the film, where Rocky runs up a flight of stairs, what building is he running in front of? Come on, really, you know the answer.
Speaker 2: 54:50
I'll tell you the thing about that. So that's the Philadelphia Art Museum, which is one of the greatest art museums in the country, and there is a freaking Statue of Rocky at the bottom of those stairs. I mean it's. I mean, yeah, rocky's a hero, a Philly hero, but at this beautiful, beautiful Philadelphia Art Museum building, to have Rocky at the bottom of the stairs you know, and everyone, that's something you do when you come to Philly is you run up those stairs, right? So okay, I'm one for one.
Speaker 1: 55:18
Next, I've never been to Philadelphia. I probably will run up the stairs at some point, I will hug Rocky and, but I actually didn't know. When I was preparing for a discussion I actually I didn't know that that was that building and I didn't realize how significant it was. So there you go. You never lived in Philly. No. Question number two, staying on Philadelphia how many times and this is where you touched on this, so I know you know part of this question how many times have the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series? And for everyone who's listening to this, I know we're talking baseball, which is a huge passion for me. But just to give context for the non baseball lovers, the Philadelphia Phillies are one of the oldest teams at baseball. They were founded in 1883 and this kind of gives you an idea of how, how rare it is to win World Series. So how many times have they won? Bruce, did you ask me what years they won?
Speaker 2: 56:03
or how many times what bonus?
Speaker 1: 56:05
so I'm asking you I asked you how many times. But if you can name the years, how about the closer?
Speaker 2: 56:11
of both games. They won two times. They won in 1980 and 2008.
Speaker 1: 56:17
That's right. Yeah, well done.
Speaker 2: 56:18
The closer of the 1980 game was tug McGraw and in 2008 it was Brad Lidge well done.
Speaker 1: 56:24
Top marks two for two.
Speaker 2: 56:26
Okay, so that should be bonus points. That should be bonus.
Speaker 1: 56:30
That should be Now the Leonard Skinnerd concert. That Because you had actually called out that you actually got to see them in their prime. But I was actually intrigued because I didn't know that where their name came from, and so I'm curious to know, if you do, is that the name Leonard Skinnerd? Where did they actually get the name for their band?
Speaker 2: 56:53
I'm not gonna know that one, I'm not gonna know that one.
Speaker 1: 56:56
So it was actually they named them, named the band after their high school gym teacher, who's name was Leonard Skinner, and I guess this this phys ed teacher at Robert E Lee high school. I don't. I think that may that that names high school may may have changed names recently.
Speaker 2: 57:10
Probably has changed.
Speaker 1: 57:11
Yeah, hopefully yeah, in Jackson, jacksonville, florida, but I guess he had strict policies regarding long hair on male students and so it was a bit of like an up yours that for them being rebellious and long hair, so they literally they did for them name Name themselves to the high school teacher. All right, moving on to university. The Yukon, um which, when people mentioned the Yukon, especially with the NCAA, I thought they were talking about the Canadian Yukon as in right, the Yukon from Canada.
Speaker 1: 57:41
right, it's u c o n n yeah yes, um, what is the name of their sports team? I may have touched on it, and where does that come from?
Speaker 2: 57:49
Well, I went to school there for four years, so how could I not know it's the Huskies, but where did it come from? Um, that is not something that I know you know the favorite sport, recreational sport at Yukon was when I was there Um it was before basketball got really hot Um cow tipping you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2: 58:11
You're pulling my leg on this this was Yukon, was in and is still in, like pretty much farm country and it was a big egg school at the time. And, yeah, kids would like to go get drunk and go out to where the cows were and they were sleeping, you know, on legs and they would tip over. I swear I never did it, but I always heard about it. Um, I don't know where the name Huskies came from.
Speaker 1: 58:32
Well, I guess it was the um, uh. The university mascot was Jonathan the husky, which was named after a Siberian husky dog, and I know it ties into the colors. But beyond that, um, it just it seemed like a rare thing for the university of Connecticut to you know, that's where I have a husky dog.
Speaker 2: 58:47
I mean, I could have told you was a husky dog that I wouldn't know, so I don't know what kind of credit. I get for that one, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: 58:54
I'll give you half points. Half points for that one.
Speaker 2: 58:56
I'll take a half yeah all right.
Speaker 1: 58:59
Now you've just come back. Not only were you in uh Bangkok, thailand, but you went to Phuket afterwards and, um, I wanted you to tell us two things that Uh Phuket is famous for, and not that thing, but um, all the other wonderful things about Phuket, thailand. Um, and bonus marks if you get to name Thailand's national dish okay.
Speaker 2: 59:21
So Phuket was a really fascinating place. Um, have you been? Yes, and what I learned a lot about was over tourism and how over tourism has taken over certain places. I also learned how to beat over tourism, so I'll get a little into that, because I think that's really relevant in this discussion.
Speaker 2: 59:42
So, the two most famous places number one was James Bond Island. You know, and it's really interesting that here we are in Phuket, this unbelievable beautiful island in Thailand, but the most famous place is James Bond Island, which was in the movie Goldfinger. That's where it's from, so you go there and you get pictures there and it's just, it's an Instagram photo spot, basically, but it's in the PP islands and you got to take a two-hour boat ride to get to it. And the only way to get to it and avoid the crowd is we got picked up on that trip. We got picked up at four o'clock in the morning so we could go and hike up a hill and see the sunrise and then go out to James Bond Island. So, and it was not crowded, right, we beat the over tourism because we're there. The second one, also made famous by a movie called the Beach, which was an early Leonardo DiCaprio movie and that was in Mayakov. And Mayakov was so overcrowded that Thailand actually shut it down for a couple of years pre-COVID, and shut it down because there were so many boats coming in, people were swimming in it. It was ruining the reef. It was just crazy. You could go and look up three pictures and post pictures of what it looked like Again, over-touristed.
Speaker 2: 1:01:04
We were there early, so we got there when it was calm and cool. You can't swim in the water anymore. You can't bring boats in anymore. They actually built a dock area on the other side of the island, so you have to come in the other side of the island. They limit it to, I think, a thousand people a day. You have to pay a couple hundred Thai baht, which is five bucks maybe, to go and take the walk on the boardwalk, so you're not destroying the island to get to the cove and usually people get there, they take a few selfies and they leave. I mean it was unbelievable, but we got there early and avoided the crowd. So the way to beat over tourism is to get up at three or four in the morning get to these famous places. So those, I think, were the two more iconic famous places in Phuket, if not the most, and it's just crazy that it's because of movies.
Speaker 1: 1:01:53
Right, absolutely, you nailed it, I mean.
Speaker 1: 1:01:55
That's why I wanted to ask you about this. I mean, there's the beaches, there's the old town, there's various cultural landmarks, but for us, one of my wife and I did a backpack for three and a half months through Southeast Asia before we went to live in Australia and we were drawn to CoPP for the same reason the beach and Leo Caprio Maybe that was more my wife than me, but that was Leo's era and that we arrived there just after the tsunami and the island was devastated. And it was the first real exposure to me where I had that moment where I was questioning why I was there and what drew me there, and seeing the local people and how much they were struggling. But yet we were still so determined to go to CoPP to see what we thought we were going to see, but it wasn't even accessible. So it is a beautiful place, a beautiful part of the world, but I am glad that we touched on that topic. So I'm going to give you solid four out of five, bruce, still at 80%.
Speaker 2: 1:02:53
Well, I didn't, I didn't, I want to say one thing about Thailand, and then I don't. I can guess on the food. The people of Thailand are so awesome. I mean they are. They're all about being gentle and hospitable and they're just just a great, just great people Running our conference in Bangkok could not ask for better hospitality from every single person in the hotel, from the people that greet you at the door they're, you know, greeting and welcome all the way through to the general manager. It was just, it was really phenomenal.
Speaker 1: 1:03:29
And I'm glad you pointed out, we intended to spend 30 days because that was the visa duration at the time and we actually had to do a border run to Myanmar for the day to get our and come back in to Thailand so we could extend our time there because we loved it so much. Chiang Rai, chiang Mai, as you said, the people are wonderful, the culture, the food, the cuisine is still one of my favorite dishes by far. So, yeah, finished on that. No, what was their favorite meal that you had? Why were there?
Speaker 2: 1:03:56
Well, the favorite meal I was going to say because I don't love, Pad Thai, Is that the official?
Speaker 1: 1:04:00
meal, or green curry. Massman Curry is one of my favorites, which?
Speaker 2: 1:04:04
Massman Curry? Yeah for sure, really like that and that might. We went to quite a few different Thai restaurants and really we just ate family style. So tasted a little bit of everything. I mean some really interesting lamb dishes, because they're really into lamb there, but all the different curries and you know, do you want it to be tourist spicy or Thai spicy? You know what can you take, absolutely.
Speaker 1: 1:04:30
That's great. Well thank you so much for doing this. It's been such an honor speaking to you, rehashing some of these stories, and I look forward to our you having continued success with the rival, of course, with Douglas and Alex. I look forward to seeing you again at the conference in October and seeing your continuous success.
Speaker 2: 1:04:50
I hear you're coming. Right, You're coming and you're going to be on our stage.
Speaker 1: 1:04:53
I would love to be. Yes, I would, absolutely. I definitely want to be there and I would love to be on stage this year. That would be amazing.
Speaker 2: 1:05:00
I believe that's what Douglas's plan is. I'll make sure he follows up with you quickly, because October is not that far away.
Speaker 1: 1:05:06
Believe it or not, it's crazy yeah no, let's definitely get that locked in and let's do a show together from there. But thank you, bruce, it's very kind of you, very generous. Thank you very much and I'll look forward to seeing you soon. But thank you, bruce, and thank you to everyone taking the time to listen to this episode of travel trends. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have and we look forward to having you join us on the next episode.
Speaker 2: 1:05:27
Well, dan, I'm so impressed with everything you've done in this short time with your new businesses it's businesses, right, yeah, and just really impressive and would love to learn more about all the different projects you have going on, and I'm sure they'll all be successful, because that's just who you are.
Speaker 1: 1:05:45
Yeah, thanks, so much. Thanks, kim Bruce, great fun.
Speaker 2: 1:05:48
Thank you, thanks, thanks.
