S1E2: Navigating New Paths in Post-Pandemic Travel
Listen to full episode :
Join us as we welcome Christian Wolters, the esteemed CMO of TourRadar, for an engaging discussion on post-pandemic travel trends and TourRadar's adaptation. Prepare to learn about the core of TourRadar's company culture, unravel the nuances of Christian's journey into the dynamic travel industry and his path to TourRadar, and gain valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape of travel after the pandemic.
Christian provides fascinating insights into the key shifts and emerging patterns in travel following the global pandemic. He shares how TourRadar is strategically adapting its offerings and approach to meet the changing needs and preferences of travelers in this new era. Plus, stay tuned as Dan puts Christian to the test in a fun and engaging Travel Trivia challenge that's sure to bring a smile to your face.
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Connect with Our Guest: https://www.tourradar.com/
Dan: 0:14
Our next guest is a friend of mine, someone I've been really looking forward to having on travel trends. Someone I always look forward to seeing at a conference and also someone that I've had the pleasure of knowing for many years as my roles have evolved and his as well. Going right back to the time when we were fierce competitors, I was at G Adventures and he was an intrepid. He of course is Christian Walters, the c m O of Tour Radar and I'm really pleased to have you here today. Welcome Christian.
Christian: 0:39
Thanks, Dan. It's so cool to be here and to be having a nice conversation in this format with you.
Dan: 0:43
I have to start off with this story cuz you and Travis, the c e o founder of tour Radar are close friends, worked together now for many years and I still remember when Christian started Tour Radar cuz I was at G Adventures at the time, going back to about 20 10, 20 2009, 2010. You'll tell us more in a moment, but when. I would see you guys often, I'd see you guys together at conferences and the one that really stood out to me, and I think this will hopefully give everyone a better idea of who you are and how great it is to work together. Is that at the Focus Wright conference? So just for those of you who aren't familiar, it's one of the big travel indu industry conferences held once a year in the US in November, and it rotates back and forth between usually Florida, California, and now Florida and, and Arizona. But there's this beautiful hotel. The Diplomat Hotel in like Fort Fort Lauderdale and one of those hotels. When you check into a conference, all you wanna do is be on vacation because you look at the pool, you look at the all the amenities and you know, you can't because you're there for a conference, you're there for work lasting, you're going to be seen as lounging by the pool and unless you're going for a, an athletic swim in the morning. But I came down already for meetings with my jacket on and in my corporate role getting ready to meet with the big OTAs and convinced them they needed to sell multi-day tours. And there you a Christian came walking in from the lobby soaking wet, standing next to me, the elevator, and you guys were going up to get change cuz you guys have been swimming in the water and hanging out on the, the beach. And I so wanted to be you guys in that moment. As I looked around at all the suits and you guys, I was just like, how cool is that? And the next morning I. I went for a walk on the beach and sure enough, I saw you guys frolicking about in the, in the waves. And so that to me really exemplifies your personality Travis as well, but also the, the culture at Tour Radar. So maybe start there cuz I would, and then we'll go back into your, your career. But is that, is that who you are? Is that the tour radar culture?
Christian: 2:40
Absolutely. You know, I think the, the biggest thing that, you know, attracted me to working with Travis, working at Terra is that while we are doing good things, we're doing big things. We're working incredibly hard. We, we are trying to impress the world. We also, at the same time, don't take ourselves too seriously. You know, we are human beings. We get tired. We have to focus and go through a long day, and there's no better way to relax and start a day then. You know, going for a little bit of a run, going for a dip you know, saying hi to a good friend on the elevator when, when you're still in your swim trunks. And then, you know, changing into into the business you know, whatever you wear for business and, and heading into the into the boardrooms. So it's that's definitely us for sure.
Dan: 3:23
Oh, you guys definitely burned the candle at both ends. Cuz I do remember that night I was in the hotel lobby, you guys were then heading downtown to Miami and you were like, are you coming with us? I was like, I, I can't, I can't. It was I should have, in retrospect, I probably should have, but we all take our roles so seriously at so times, but you guys definitely know it.
Christian: 3:41
It would've would've been good to have you out that night for sure. We, we, we we did get up to some trouble, but you know, it was, it's all good fun.
Dan: 3:49
Well I, I certainly know from my time at G Adventures how big culture, how important that plays a role. And I think that was probably the same for you at Intrepid as well. We both work for Adventure Operators, kind of soft adventure tours, which was a really exciting category. I remember when I moved back from Australia from working with Lonely Planet G Adventures, Intrepid cuz I was living in Melbourne, which is where Intrepid is based of course. And the world used to be divided in half, like G Adventures ran half of the global market and Intrepid run the other half. And somewhere along the lines they started really to compete against each other. But when you were running Intrepid based in Canada. So tell, tell me, let's rewind from to a radar and tell me a little bit about your journey, how you started at Intrepid, and how that career then turned into the opportunity you now have at to a radar.
Christian: 4:34
Absolutely. So I spent quite a few years in the automotive and motorcycle industry. I was working for Kawasaki Harley Davidson and Honda as well. I started a couple of my own businesses, one of which is my, my wife's business, the distribution business that's running. So I helped her start that up. Had my own advertising agency for a little bit. So it was a bit all over the place. But the one sort of. Interesting component was I, you know, we had done a, my wife and I had gone around the world together in a, in a 365 day trip. Consequently, I think the day after tomorrow will be our 20th anniversary returning from that 365 day trip which was, is just mind blowing how fast time goes. You know, I kind of had this affinity to the, to the travel industry and it was actually your company, your former employer, G Adventures that kind of attracted me cuz obviously they're big player in, in, in the, in the country. I had met Bruce Poon tip the founder of ge who happened to be at a conference that I was when I was representing Harley Davidson. And he was telling me about this in incredible business that he had run and that people as a benefit would get, you know, going incredible tours. And I was like, man, I, you know, even though I was working for a motorcycle company, which could. Be perceived as being pretty cool. I thought, man, I really want to get there. So I kind of started looking on the job boards at G Adventures and nothing popped up. And then there was this crazy Australian company called Intrepid Tra Travel that just happened to say, Hey, we're looking for a head of marketing. We're starting in Canada. And you know, I went down and met this guy Steven Larkin, who's a, a, a big name in the industry works for Delta right now. And he was my first boss sort of mentor leading me into the industry. Taught me everything about travel and you know, I brought my sort of marketing skill set that I had gained from the automotive world. And that's where it was. So we, we literally started in the cafe. It was like a startup in, its, in its very essence, even though there was a parent company and we opened up a store up on Blu Street which was really cool cuz back then, you know, the, the. The apple stores were the rage, I mean, still are the rage, but they were brand new then. And they inspired the founder of Intrepid Travel to have these actual retail experiences, you know, street level retail experiences where you go in, have a cafe, a coffee, and open up a brochure and dream about traveling. And then hopefully, hopefully eventually book. And so I was one of those you know, original people that kind of set those stores up in, in Canada and then, you know, do the first launch and everything. And one, one story I, I absolutely love to, to talk about is, is cuz I was a bit reckless when I was younger, not knowing, you know, sort of the ins and outs of responsible and sustainable tourism. And I just thought, you know, I just wanted to make a big splash in Toronto. How do I get the name across? And so we closed down blue street. I did get permits for that. But I had animals. I had zebras and llamas and jugglers and Brazilian drummers kind of marching down the street with you know, all kinds of fanfare and, and as much media as I could, you know gather in one place to kind of make a big splash. But then the next day I got a tap on the, you know, a call from our head of responsible tourism from Intrepid Travel. And she's like you, I heard there was some tamed, zebras and and on all these things. And so I, it, it be, it sort of got me on this journey about responsible tourism and really understanding, you know, the, the, the, the things that you're not supposed to do. And so I, I kind of made everything right by making a relationship with the wwf, the World Wildlife Federation and kind of, you know, getting on board with them and, and making up for it for my little mistake there. So,
Dan: 8:09
I know Stephen Larkin well, I actually, when I first started at G Adventures, he was leaving to go to Intrepid. He came into my office and, and wished me good luck. Hardly knew him at that point. And then he, of course, turned into be A great rival and and sometimes the best competition certainly comes from that. And I think it did with with ge you can see the con continue success that brand, but also intrepid as well. I mean, both are continued to be dominant forces in the adventure travel space. But yeah, you had the opportunity to work with Steve Larkin, so take me through the time you spent there and I think it's for the people who are listening to this, which. You know, profiling executives and entrepreneurs and helping understand your story. Even actually, I still get the question all the time. How did you get a job in the travel industry? How did you find your way? In the travel industry, and most people it's, you know, they have a passion for the product. They have a passion for travel and they're trying to find a way into it, which is clearly your story as well. You know, that you sought out an opportunity and many of the people that came to work at GE Adventures at the time were people that came to see Bruce speak, that were passionate. And that was always a big part of our interview process is that, you know, it's it's not the industry that pays as well as other industries. So that can't be the driving force is the compensation that it has to be a lifestyle or has to be more. So tell, tell us a bit more about your, as your role evolved, cause I certainly remember the retail store concept. Well, so it's cool to hear you reveal some of those things that you were behind.
Christian: 9:31
Well, I know what you mean by the salaries. I mean, I took, I took something like a 40 or 50% pay cut when I joined the travel industry. And I, you know, for a while, luckily I had gone through a little bit of an entrepreneur stint where, you know, I basically knew what it was like not to be paid at all for a little bit. But it, you know, definitely was a passion and you know, something I, we wanted to grow. It was interesting cuz, you know, some of the first people that I hired into the business you know, it, it's interesting now, you know, where people have a very strong perception of who intrepid is, they've seen the billboards and are quite excited and you know, back then I remember just like interviewing people and they were just sitting there looking at me going. I don't really know this company. I'm putting a lot of faith into what you're telling me here. It sounds exciting, but I don't know what I'm getting on top of. And so that was kind of, you know, the starting point you know, to to to develop the brand recognition and to get the name out there. And, and, you know, my tenure there was just over seven years. And it was interesting, you know, the, the, I think the biggest. Thing that really got me excited and, and was, was the rivalry with G. I had a, a brief time with Labatts and Molsons and if you're a Canadian listener, you would know that they were the biggest or are the biggest breweries in the country. And at that time they own 49% of the market share each. And so the rivalry was intense and you as sales reps, you were, you were encouraged to, you know, wrap cars and toilet paper and, and if you saw the competitors there. So then I joined the travel industry and there's this, this almost equally strong rivalry there. So it was, it was a lot of fun, you know, it, it, it sometimes is not so great cuz it gives you kind of target fixation. You only think about this one competitor. But at the same time it also you know, breeds a lot of innovation and makes you think of like, how do we get ahead? How do we do things that are really interesting and exciting and so forth? In that time, you know, from that, that 2008 and up period, it was also, you know, for anyone that was doing marketing back then, it was, you know, it was introduction of most of our digital channels, smartphones came into that timeframe. You know, anything to do with re remarketing and so forth. So there was a lot of tools that were sort of, you know, added into the, into the marketing mix at that time, which was also exciting to apply them on a travel context.
Dan: 11:44
Absolutely. Yeah. So, te tell me about Tour Radar. So when did you join and how is your role evolved there as well? Just like it did at Intrepid, right? So that you, you know, you, you were running You are the managing director of North America and now you've become the CMO and the company's gone through new funding rounds and continued growth. So just tell us how that transition came to be, because I think it's always interesting for people to understand, you know, when you move from a brand to a new opportunity. Cuz clearly, I, I asked you that question with the context that you've got a great reputation in the industry. You've been able to, you know, continue to navigate. You've got great friendships throughout the industry. You, you know, you talk to people who are competitors. I mean, the fact that we've, I mean, you and I ultimately had an outstanding relationship for many years while I was at the Travel Corporation and yourself, not only Travis, but Brendan and Caitlin, like the team members that we got to know, we sold, you know we were obviously one of your biggest partners, but also we've got a longstanding relationship. So how, how do you go about making that transition? And then, then tell us a bit how your roles evolved there at to our radar now.
Christian: 12:50
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I guess it, it, it all, it, it started where I was at one of the adventure Travel and Trade Association events. It was a summit down in Mexico and there was a tech session hosted by Travis Pittman, the founder of Tour Radar. And I was just interested because it was literally the only. Technology content at that event. And so I was like, fly, fly to honey. You know, like I just went there. Cuz it was always a big interest of mine. And ended up waiting till the end of the session, which was great and had some conver, you know, a nice couple of questions and answers with with Trav and, and that from there we had a beer and two years later I ended up starting working for him. Cuz basically, no pun intended, they were on my radar. I realized that like a few people in the industry, that there's a little bit of you know, that there was this distribution challenge that was happening with the multi-day tour space. One of the things that was going on, I was going, I was through what I call the TUI era of Intrepid Travel, where TUI had acquired Intrepid Travel and suddenly I was responsible. For interacting with multiple brands. So we are talking like Exodus and Country Walkers and, and, and a handful of other ones Venture Center. And we were trying to figure out like a Blue water strategy. How do we like separate all these brands that we're competing, that have crossover product and how do we sell them and, and not, you know, not be competitors anymore because now we're under the same umbrella. And that was where sort of the, the distribution. Idea for myself. I'm not saying I invented it, but you know, where I realized that there needed to be some sort of technological solution to deliver the right product to the right people at the right time. I proposed some, you know, talked about proposing some ideas like that. And but then when I met Travis, I realized he was already ahead of the game. He was already, you know you know, basically halfway to the solution at that stage. And then from a couple times afterwards we had chatted. He was, went from lead strictly a lead gen business and he converted it all the way to, to becoming sort of the, the merchant of record, basically taking the bookings directly. And that was kind of like the, the game changer for to radar initially. And after sort of this whole TUI cycle, I just felt like I needed a, a new challenge. And, and that's when I, I proposed to him. I said, well, are you doing anything, Travis? Are you doing anything in North America? I'd love to be your guy. To, to get things going. And he was, well actually first ago I asked him what you know, what city do you want to, you know, build your business in North America? And he said, well, LA you know, and I'm like, nah, you gotta do it in Toronto. This is the hub. This is, this is the place to, to start a travel business in North America. So I think I did a good job convincing him because you know, at that point he hired me and I started the, the, you know, the first office, which was literally just borrowing a desk off of my wife in, in my wife's workspace that she had at the time. Hired five more people over the next few months. Then my wife kicked us out cuz we, we over overstayed our welcome and went across the parking lot. And this is by the way, up in Scarborough in a very industrial area in Toronto, if you don't know the city. And that was kind of where the, the, the first like exclusive office for Toura North America was situated.
Dan: 16:11
the two of us who happen to be based here. But, you know, I've lived in Melbourne, I've lived in London, I've lived in LA and I've traveled extensively. I've time. And there's always sort of a lack of understanding about the Canadian market and what you just pointed out, which is, you know, Toronto is one of the, in many ways, a perfect urban center to conduct business in North America. And it's about, you know, the third largest urban center population. But it's, it's remarkable that many people are just unfamiliar. So so you got Travis over the line with opening an office in Toronto and, and, and you built up the office and the team. And so the business grew considerably right up until Covid. And then obviously you guys are now really navigating the other side of that. So how did your role evolve then from the managing director to the CMO role?
Christian: 17:00
Right. So, so in, in general it, it was pretty much the pandemic that was kind of the, the turning point. So we had built the business up considerably. My crossover in marketing was obviously quite extensive. I worked with our, our, our CMO at the time, Mickey poacher, who was, is a fantastic cmo. And we worked quite closely on the North American market together, even though. It was my extensive focus. We were getting to the point in where we had moved to a new office in Leslieville within Toronto. We were close to about 65 employees in, in Toronto and, you know, well over 250 and globally. And you know, things were going very, very well. You know, we were building up our business considerably. We were working, you know, more, you know, focusing towards the, you know, the, the po the period that we went into the pandemic, focusing a little bit more on profitability rather than just hypergrowth, figuring out like how to get more out of the business. You know, really looking deep and at our channels. And then the pandemic hit. I can, you know, I'm sure everyone remembers, you know, sort of what day that was for them. For me it was, I just happened to be in Vienna. And there, you know, it was Italy for us, you know, that really kind of went went dark or, or the news came out that Covid now had, you know, br you know, le leapt out of Asia. Obviously, probably was there long before, as we know now, but kind of ended up you know, being in Italy and, and we started seeing our first. Cancellations which rapidly escalated from that period for it. I didn't wanna go, you know, I, I think I'm gonna give too many people p d if I start talking about covid situations. But long story short once we dealt, you know, so at that point we had to deal with not just massive cancellations and you know, like no sales. It was, it was really dealing with, you know, all those cancellations that were coming in from, you know, prior six months worth of bookings, which made it incredibly hard for the business to, to survive. And we had to really focus on that problem which we did, you know, and our investors were, were incredibly gracious to kind of look at our business and go, okay, we'll look after you, we'll get you through this. Obviously had a lot, a smaller size and all that, and we had to. Then decide, okay. We had to refocus on, on what we wanted to do once we got past that initial crisis. And, and that's where kind of at that, at sort of on the eve of the pandemic, it just made sense that Mickey had already left the business. We were looking at bringing in a new CMO at that time, and it just made no sense to bring in someone new outside of the industry in that moment. And so I stepped up and already three years later, I can't believe you know, three and a half, three, three years and two months later here I am still as a cmo. But it obviously, it was funny because it just felt absolutely right. As a career move. I felt sort of as my, my role as a managing director was, as being underutilized. You know, I was, all the decisions, all the action was, was kind of coming out of Vienna. And I was kind of borrowing teams and borrowing resources to make things happen in North America. But now sort of, you know, being, even though I'm still here in Toronto, having centralized or having a marketing team that's really focused on global marketing, it just felt like the perfect fit for me and it was really good to, to reacquaint myself back into the marketing Lia,
Dan: 20:19
You know what's interesting you point out and yes, of course many people P T S D with the pandemic for sure, but I think that what's coming out now is, you know, hindsight being 2020 and you can look back at the decisions that businesses were making and forced to make during that time and understand those businesses that were, that successfully navigated the pandemic. And that came out stronger on the other side of it. And that to me was a hallmark of the relationship that we had with the Travel Corporation, the tour radar at the time, which when we were having. Cancellations and trying to work through ultimately, which became future travel credits. And you worked very closely with us to make sure that we were accommodating travelers with credits to book for future travel and trying as best to, to navigate getting people to come back and travel again. And then also when it came to the funds they put down as deposits, cuz clearly people were concerned about their money and if they're gonna get their money back or be able to use it. Is this company gonna be solvent and full credit to you and the team, including Travis's brother there that, you know, the C F O that helped us make sure that those funds were secure, that we made sure that you guys held them in escrow so you weren't using those funds to run the business. And those were during the really dark time. Those were important decisions that your business was making to give us the confidence to continue operating together. And I think that certainly strengthened. I mean, at the time I think we were about, 10% of your global business or a significant portion of the business. And what was clear to us was the commitment to the relationship, the commitment to guests. And I really do think that for both organizations, you know, that it withstood that major test and challenge. And therefore not only that dynamic, but also the decisions that both businesses were making during the time. It was as in terms of becoming more innovative and a lot of things. I'm keen to ask you about some of the things that you were pioneering at Tour Radar taking on that new role during that time, and now all of a sudden being on the other side of it and businesses flourishing and travelers are coming back and and so I just, I think it's worth acknowledging that, which is one of the reasons I was so keen to have you on and talk about Tour Radar. And hopefully we'll have some other team members join in the future as well. But I really wanted to connect with you first, given how close we navigated that and also to highlight. The challenges you've had to be in the successful position that you're in now. So let's just go into that a little bit more. So tell me, tell me ju during that time as the c m O of this business, that was temporarily on hold, but you were now trying to figure out how you work with tourism boards, how you generate more revenue for the company, which was a big focus for both of us. How do we generate new revenue streams that are not exclusively from commissions on tours? Cuz you guys really got into advertising as well and selling sponsorships. We have bought into, including recently when I was working closely with the Dharma team. We ran some sponsorship on Tour Radar. And so, so tell me a little bit about how that emerged. Cause I know that's an important part of your role and your team as well.
Christian: 23:13
So yeah, once that major crisis wave you know, on the credit for future tours and you know, that period was, I mean, it wasn't over, you know, immediately, but there was, it was less of a crisis and it was more, it became more business as usual. We could then refocus a much smaller team on a number of different projects. And it kind of it opened up a little bit of opportunity where we said, you know, there's usually a couple things we wanted to do, but we never got around to it. One of those of, of course, was expanding into the, into Germany. We, we, we just didn't have time to do it before the pandemic, and then we decided, well, There's not a lot of business going on, but let's, let's connect the pipes and then once Germany comes back online, once everyone's back online again you know, we should start experiencing sales from Germany, which was great. The other thing, like you mentioned sponsorship side is that we yeah, we had relationships obviously with all of our operator partners destinations and so forth, developing marketing campaigns to kind of help things, you know, carry on through that period of time, which was you know, pretty exciting because obviously what we wanted to do was make sure there was still a strong awareness of, of everyone's brand and that the company was there and that when you're ready to travel again, We would be on standby there waiting for you until you, we could able, you know, could take you on those experiences. I guess one of the biggest initiatives that kind of centralizes everything I focused on during that time Travis handed me this book called Play Bigger, and it's all about category design and category leadership. And I didn't know what the power of that book or, or how how, how big of an impact that book would have on my, you know, destiny because you know, I read it and thought it was pretty cool and said to Trav, yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. And he says, okay, I want you to, I want you to do that. And I'm like, what are you, excuse me. Like, so, so to explain what was in the book is, is that there's a whole process of, of category design, basically asking your business, you know, what questions, like, who are your real customers and what problems are you trying to solve for them? And then kind of evolving into a point where you actually are, you know, what category. Are you in? And, you know, to radar, you know, before the pandemic, it could have been labeled as a marketplace or could have been labeled as an online travel agency an ota. But through this process we decided that really what we are as an adventure booking platform, and what that meant to us is that we looked at the ecosystem of the industry and we realized that the operator is at the center. And and this is where, you know, our, our relationships previous, during pandemic and post with our operator partners have been paramount. We, we are, we're there to help them distribute their product to the market. And we realized that the missing equation in the chain was that we are just selling. Their product through our marketplace, which is great and it was a good piece of business. But we're not actually working with the travel agents cuz a lot of people love booking through travel agents and travel agents are, are, are, are. Awesome. So what we thought was that why don't we offer, you know, the 50,000 different we, so I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll just take one regress here is that we use the term organized adventures. And organized adventures also came out of this, this process where we decided that the word tours, every time I mention the word tours to somebody I find sometimes, you know, despite the fact that they're. Such incredible experiences you know, led by local guys, local accommodation, doing some amazing things. Whenever you say the word tour, people kind of take a little bit of a step back and you have to work a little bit harder to, to, to sell them on the, on the product. We decided that we wanted to call them adventures and then realized we had to add the word organized to it. It's a bit of an oxymoron, but we believe that you know, the part that most people, some people love organizing, but the part that people that are definitely time crunched don't like doing is organizing these experiences. So they just want to get on the plane, arrive and then go on an adventure. So that's what an organized adventure is. That's what we, you know, we describe what multi-day tours are. So we, we realized that, you know, to get these, to, to, to go back to that earlier part, I take those organized adventures, you know, 50,000 that we had, we have 2,500 different operator partners and how do we get those available so that travel agents, travel advisors can actually access them and book their own clients. Cuz we knew they were looking on our platform anyways, just to kind of figure out how to, you know, what, what would be some great experiences for their clients. So then also part of the book is this big event or a moment that you're supposed to take all this. Knowledge that you took out of the boardroom and kind of focus it onto one singular point which they call as a lightning strike. And we decided our lightning strike would be adventure together, which is an event where we're gonna be hosting our third annual this year on October 18th and 19th. And it's like a congregation of the organized adventure industry. So we're, we're inviting all our operators any travel agents that want to come as well as media. And of, you know, I mentioned operators and also DMO as well. So it's, it's we're really excited. It's gonna be hybrid event, our second hybrid event, third time in a row where we're gonna have everyone together.
Dan: 28:33
It's interesting you should talk about the tour radar name and the product portfolio because it, it has been a challenge for all of us who are in the multi-day tour space. It was actually gonna be one of my trivia questions for you is like, give me a better word for that, cuz I think a lot of people have tried and a few people have been able to come up and articulate it. Everyone understands what detours are, but multi-day tours, as you said, it struggles not only with the perception of what a tour is with people getting followed by a flag and and negative connotations to some of those tours. But really we know. From both of our experiences how incredible immersive amazing, like amazing tour experiences are. And so it's difficult to market because you instantly have to overcome the stigma associated with it. But I wanted just to focus on it for. A moment because with the concept of Tour Radar and the original genesis, cause I realized you sell River Crews. You, you know, you really branched out from tour and as you say, focusing on the adventure engine and, and B2B partnerships. But just to talk about tour for a moment, I don't think most peoples understand or have a full grasp of how big the tour industry is. And I know that's one thing that you and Travis and the team, you know, I've spoken to investors on behalf of tour Radar as you know, as you guys have gone through different funding rounds. And I'm a big believer in your business and the platform. And the questions I would get from a lot of those investors was they were trying to wrap their head around travel. They're trying to wrap their head around tours, and is this a sector to invest in? How really big is this? Anyway, so why don't you educate everyone here on the call, rather than me saving it for some of the trivia questions. How big is the tour market globally, and where does Tour Radar sit in that at the moment? And what do you think the potential is for the tour category going forward?
Christian: 30:15
Yeah. I don't, I don't have the precise number cuz I know my team is actually working on it right now for investors. But it's, it's, it's in, it's a multi-billion dollar industry you know, at least double digits. So it is a pretty massive market.
Dan: 30:29
I'll help you there because I, I know you have to be careful. I'll help you there. But just so some of the numbers that we've referenced for investors, so rather than you stating this number I'll just, is that it's a hundred billion industry is one number that arrival and a few of the others have, have referenced some people saying it's 150 or 200 billion industry, but I've, I've seen numbers go a lot higher. But even if you were to say it's at least a hundred billion global business, that's far greater than I think any most people have an appreciation for. So use that. I think for everyone who's listening as a, as a baseline guide for how big the tour market is and how big the opportunity still is for Tour Radar to. To dominate in that space or to continue to own more market share. But, sorry, back, back to you,
Christian: 31:11
No, no, thanks. Thanks. And definitely, you know, the one, the arrival document is one of the ones we, we use as a context as well. So yeah, I think it's well north of a hundred billion for sure. Absolutely. And it's, yeah, it does, it does surprise quite a few people for sure.
Dan: 31:27
So tell us about your plans for growing in that market, given that, that that's not only a large market, but in any of these things. Blue Ocean strategy, I remember you gave mentioned about giving Travis a book. I had given Bruce Ptip the book Blue Ocean Strategy years ago, and he'd listened to it and many of the things that we were doing at the time was about growing market share. Forget about the Coke Pepsi battle, the Red Ocean of Intrepid and Gian Ventures focusing against each other. Let's grow the market share, look at the cruise industry. Look beyond tours. So I think that's, if you can give us a bit of an idea of how Tour radar, you know, that's a big market already, but clearly it could be bigger. You're actually trying to convert people over to this category.
Christian: 32:02
Yeah, so our category as an adventure booking platform is, is and, and the platform, you know, I talked about adventure. You know, the booking I think is straightforward. The platform side of it is, is very, very important. As we're we, you know, we were, we're wanting to create solutions and have outside businesses kind of connect with us so that we can actually grow the whole category together. That's the way we see our role you know, growing the industry together. So, you know, what that means, obviously, is that you know, if there are operators that want to first of all just want international distribution through our marketplace, yes, we can do that If they want to get business through you know, our, our, our travel agents, we've, you know, recently. We signed up several thousand of travel agents and we're, we're, you know, we just, just got going, so we're gonna be getting quite a few more. So I'm hoping to, to, to really celebrate that in, at adventure together. And then of course, you know, solutions from within. So like what do you need some advertising solutions? We're, you know, potentially looking down the road for you know, a whole, whole line of solutions like shops and so forth. That's the way we kind of see our business growing extensively. And we just do this you know, across the whole entire category.
Dan: 33:16
Yeah, it was certainly exciting times ahead and I think that's where investors, you are clearly out there telling the message and when we see you at conferences we'd be kind of fighting back to back to get Tours recognized and on stage. So Douglas Qube, who many people in the industry who listening to this would know who worked at Focus, right? For many years, both Travis and myself had been advocating to get tours on the main stage at Focus Wright, which eventually I did have the opportunity to get on a panel, but really it was never a major focus for, for them. But Douglas went off to Crate arrival that we were just speaking about, which is tours and activities. And they, there's a massive industry there, like they'll highlight. It's the third largest inter industry after flights, hotels, is tours if you aggregate all of the players in that space and how big that business is. And we've seen a lot of investment flow into tech platforms. Like Peak for example. We've seen a number of companies been acquired by online travel agencies, OTAs, as we refer to them. And many people look at to a radar as a ota a, but an OTA that has got an incredible niche. In the tour space that many of the OTAs are still not even. So it's not a, not only are we not necessarily on the main stage, we're also, you know, carving out, there's new conferences and new players that and, and still some of the big OTAs have not ventured into the tour space. I've got some points on that, but I'd love to hear if there's anything you'd like to share on why you think that's not the case. Because clearly there is not only a market there for tours, but also a market for selling tours online, which is a challenge I recognize for a lot of businesses. A lot of these based on the price point and the complexity that often these convert offline. And that's something that you guys have focused on as well too. Working more closely with the tour operator providers and allowing them to nurture those leads and to interact with the customers and, and increase conversion rates. And that's another innovative concept that you've brought to the table with, to a radar that. You know, other companies are not even selling this product. You're also figuring out how better to sell this product, improving the online booking engine process, all the iterations that the team goes through to improve that experience. But at the same time, you're not relying on that to convert. You're also making sure that you give the human touch, the handholding and the offline opportunity as well. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that side. If you wouldn't mind, maybe just talk, talk us through a little bit about the technology side of, of Tour Radar. And again, getting back to that question about OTAs, why you think it's still the case that the big players are not in the multi-day tour category?
Christian: 35:56
Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a great question. You know, I, I. In my, i many hats that I've worn at at, at, at terra. One of them was, you know, on the partnership side, and I did have some very deep conversations with, you know, with, with a few OTAs. Some, you know, some well-known ones that everyone knows and loves and uses. And at the time, this is pre pandemic they came back to me. The biggest rejection statement was like, well, we wanna do this eventually, you know, we wanna get into the multid tour space, the organized adventure space. But it's, it's like if we just tweak, you know, a couple of things on hotels or a couple of things on flight will substantially make more income, we believe, than what we would get from the, the addition of adding organized adventures into our repertoire. Whether that's true or not, that's kind of the, you know, the sort of the, the standard rejection we got. So at that time we, we, we realized that, you know, this is pre pandemic, that we needed to grow bigger as a business in itself. And we decided that we wouldn't, you know, knock on their door again until we grew the, the category even further. So that they would say, look at us as like, okay, this is actually a much more substantial, the interesting prospect for us as a business. And that's why, you know, as a venture booking platform, we realized that we have to kind of show the whole Interconnectivity of the industry, cuz it's obviously, as we all know, that whoever's been in this industry like yourself, Dan, it's so complex. You know, we, we've got 2,500 different operators, but I, you know, we, we know there's at least 10, you know, 10,000 if not 20,000 to 30,000 depending on, you know, how, how deep or how what you define as an operator or even a multi-day tour operator. So it's, it's, it's quite complex. It's kind of been our moat. And it's helped us kind of you know, evolve without a lot of competitors cuz we've figured out the complexity of connecting them all together and then now actually figuring out how to distribute them a across the industry. But I think that's you know, I think it's probably a little bit of a too much of a challenge for, for a lot of these OTAs at this time to get their heads around it and they just figure, okay, well we're really good at this space, so let's just tweak that and, and get it done.
Dan: 38:09
Yeah. Well this is kind of a great segue into travel trends themselves, cause we're kind of getting into the topic now and we'll come to Travel Tribune in a moment, but I wanna. Make sure that we spend some quality time talking about the trends that you're seeing in travel. Cause I think a lot of people will benefit from knowing that. It was always something that I was keen to get on a call with you and the team and understand what you're seeing. Because being inside a tour operator, you have access to your first party data and you understand your booking behavior. And some people hold their cards close to their, their chest, and that's necessary to a certain extent. But the greatest benefit typically came from being able to share information and understand that the UK market is starting to come back. Are you seeing some nibbles from the Australian market? Are you like, where, where are the booking trends and what product are they looking at? Because that is before the pandemic. It would shift so rapidly if there was a. A political event or instability in a region where all of a sudden you would see people would quickly, people still traveled. That was the remarkable thing. People, travelers are resilient. They just change where they're going. And they just decide that all of a sudden they're not gonna, they wanna go to an island. There was this trend all of a sudden, it was like Japan and Ireland. Everyone was just, that was the, they wanted, they felt there was the safety of going to a, to an island. But what other travel trends you are seeing today? So let's talk a little bit about destination and markets, and then I want to get into things like ai. So maybe give us a bit of an idea of what you're seeing in terms of the destinations people are traveling to. Has much of that changed since the kind of revenge travel movement has been underway? Are they traveling to places they didn't travel to before? Is there any markets that are over-indexing that previously under indexed by comparison from the, the major outbound tourism market. So tell us a little bit first about, you know, destination and the markets you're seeing. What are, what are the main trends?
Christian: 40:03
So, you know, we've, we've seen our numbers in 2023, like bounce back bigger than 2019 numbers. But it's interesting cuz we've looked at the flight. Data and, and we realize that this, the capacity isn't quite there yet. So we can only imagine if, you know, capacity was at a hundred percent of 2019 numbers and capacity on the, on the organizer's adventure space as well, what we'd actually see in actual booking numbers. But we're actually still, we're actually seeing booking numbers quite, quite substantial now, specifically on destinations. A lot of the same destinations that were doing, well, you know, like Europe, Italy Iceland, they've, they're all doing really well, just as well as they were doing previously. I would say that the biggest one that's kind of spiked the most I, I, I'd love to have the answers on why it's the case is Japan. We're seeing around 256% increase in, in, in interest in Japan and across all age groups, but specifically the younger. Age group. Even my son, you know, he's 14. He, he goes, I ask him, where do you wanna go in the world? He goes, I wanna go to Japan. I, it might be the anime. I'm not sure what it is for him, but but it, we are looking across all that, even the, even in the 45 plus category, there's a 70% increase in, in, in interest in Japan. Something that's under indexing, it's probably for more obvious reasons, is Peru. Because they've had some civil unrest. I, I expect now that things have settled down there people are gonna want to get back into Peru really, really quickly. So I imagine there's gonna be a bit of a floodgate getting back into that country. So those are, those are two you know, pretty much Italy, Egypt, Japan are, are some of the bigger ones. Obviously Australia's just has some capacity issues. Once that changes, I think they'll bounce back. Thailand's is more one of the interesting ones that hasn't kind of bounced back yet. And I'm not too sure why at this stage maybe there's some you know, some of the political news that's been going on there might be impacting it as well. So yeah, that's some of the, on the destination side, that's some of the highlights for sure.
Dan: 42:01
And what about the outbound travel markets? What have you seen there from Australia since you're primarily focused on English language tours, however you have started to make inroads into places like Germany, and these will feature in the quiz, just so you know, that is coming up. But so knowing the German market is, have you seen more resurgence in certain markets? Has any markets of one or two markets that are over-indexing where they've just, it's very clear that they're desperate to travel? Obviously the US has a very strong dollar at the moment. That's a big factor. But yet how what have you guys seen for outbound travel markets?
Christian: 42:35
The US has been, you know, it's, it's, it's been our strongest market through all through the pandemic. They were the most resilient post pandemic. They're very strong. And you know, they, I think they've, they've gained a, a larger percentage of our outbound market. Obviously we haven't seen Australia nearly bounce back to where it was in 2019. That might be a capacity issue. It might be related to the cost of flying right now. But there's a, I feel like there's a, there's quite a ways to go for Australia to, to get back into the game. Canada is, is a little bit under and UK is, is is a bit under meaning, like, I think there's a lot more potential for, for it to bounce back. And, you know, like I, I've heard you know, questions like on, you know, revenge travel, is it over? I I think there's, there's a lot more. You know, if you want to call it that revenge travel to be had. I think the more, you know, the, the, the most restless people have already traveled, but there is going to be a whole new wave of people that haven't got out there yet that really want to get out there. So I'm sure once the capacity's there, hopefully with the flight, flight prices will go down a little bit. We're gonna see a lot more travelers for sure.
Dan: 43:42
Now the other thing I wanted to ask you about is the travel styles. We know both of us, that small group adventure, small group travel has been a theme for some time and it's a competitive advantage of those businesses that market around that. But also the concept of private groups. Certainly during the pandemic, that was a big focus, traveling in a bubble. Many people were booking private tours for their family and friends rather than traveling with people they don't know. You guys changed your system so that there was not only the opportunity to book private tours, but also custom tours. Are you still seeing those trends in terms of how people are traveling? Anything in terms of travel styles as that now coming back where people are just more comfortable booking, again, with groups with people that they otherwise are not familiar with, which was again, how most of us, many of us traveled before anyway. Is that coming back? Is there any other lasting effects that you've seen? With regards to how, how the travel styles, how people's travel styles have changed?
Christian: 44:43
Yeah, I, I think, you know, overall we've seen the, you know, what average order value go up and that's above inflationary numbers. So, you know, look, diving deeper into those numbers, what we saw is that people are looking at smaller groups they're probably paying for a little more luxury or what they believe will allow them to have a bit better hygiene on the trip to maybe expose them less to To, to things like Covid and so forth. So that's definitely been on an increase. Overall. But nice to see is that there's a lot of active active trips have jumped up substantially. It might be because in the last four months we've seen the Gen Zs and, and the millennials jumping into travel a lot more than we have in the past. So we're seeing like you know, cycling tours for example has bounced up 30% which is really, we lo we we're very excited to see that at Tour Radar cuz you know, our founder and a few of the people on the LT are big, are avid cyclists, so we'd love to be able to. To, to sell more of the product we love. Safaris are up and food, food experiences ex you know, exploring a country through its food is something that's gone up substantially as well. I'd say, you know, something on the downturn we saw a little bit regretfully is on the river cruise side. Perhaps, you know, some of the issues that some of our travelers experienced you know, with the water levels in the past years and so forth, there was a, a little bit of disruption to that. But we're hoping, you know, once things operate more regularly for, consistently for a couple of years, the word of mouth that goes back to customers will improve there as well. No doubt it will be as there great experiences, they'll bounce back pretty fast as well.
Dan: 46:21
The other thing I wanted to ask you about in terms of trends, and then we will we'll get ready to, to quiz you here, but with ai, I was recently listening to Brian Chesky being interviewed, who is, you know an incredibly inspiring entrepreneur. And I think everyone has seen not only Airbnb's growth but also its ability to navigate the pandemic. And then on the other side of it, a continuously very innovative company, very focused on the user experience, the design, which I think there's some similarities to what you offer with, to a radar and the focus on that. But he's spoken a lot recently about how AI's gonna change their business, and it's certainly been a big focus for myself. With the acceleration team and some of the startups that we're working on. And interesting one that he pointed out recently was, you know, shifting the model from when and where to who and what. And I thought that for sure, that's something that was a concept that I was already working on with this idea that for most travel experiences, you always start with where do you want to go and when do you want to go? It's where and when is the, is the common question. So I was very curious to know how the Tour Radar team is looking at AI given the number of consumer profiles you have. And not that it's just the topic of the moment, because in asking this question although we haven't touched on it before, my assumption is that your team is thinking about these things and how to apply them not only from a marketing point of view, but from a customer experience. So maybe if you can reveal to us or share to us some things that are maybe coming or just some of the, the, the thinking that's going on to a radar about how best to leverage this incredibly powerful technology.
Christian: 47:49
Yeah, I mean, first off, we're, we're super excited about it. You know, we, we recently hired a new head of engineering Chintan, who, who comes from Amazon and, and from a Virtuoso background as well. And you know, he's kind of led the charge a lot in, in sort of deep diving and understanding what the capabilities of AI is to date and how it can be implemented across the business. As a marketer, you know, I can easily say like, you know, chat, G P T is a, is a tool to help us do rough drafts and in, in, in content writing and developing, helping us develop, you know, certain aspects of contracting and basically kind of, you know, giving, helping us leap forward in that capacity. But more importantly, I see, you know, you know, it's going to have a major disruption. Definitely on the, you know, the, you know, on the, on the wear side, what we see is that we have the, you know, curator has the connection to the. Tour operators. So we have the, we have a, a really good supply chain and if AI can kind of facilitate the connection between the customer who's already now figured out what they want to do to actually making their dreams come true and connecting them to that tour operator, that's the part I think that's the connection that we're trying to make with ai, if that makes sense. Rather than, like, I don't see AI coming in and kind of going in and, and, you know, taking over a tour operator business because you still need boots on the ground to make those things happen. So that's kind of the excitement part of us for us is, is that how do we deliver products quicker to the right people that are looking? Obviously it helps us with segmentation. It's going to be able to help us communicate. Quicker, more efficiently and provide the exact content that people are looking for. So that all they really have to do at that stage is like, oh, wow, I, you, you actually have the product that I wanna do, that you have that organized adventure that I've been dreaming about and I'm just ready to book right now.
Dan: 49:43
Yeah, it's a very exciting time to be in this space. I think that for each of us being in this industry for many years. There's been certain times where there's been a quantum leap, and this is definitely one of those moments, and new companies are gonna be created, existing companies that leverage this technology are gonna find incredibly competitive advantages. So it's, it's very exciting. I'm very keen to see what Tour Radar does. So I'm very keen to have you back. We're gonna have some of the other team members on at some point in the future so we can talk about this a bit more. But this has actually already been the longest session that we've done, which I think is a reflection of your experience, our dynamic. And I could talk to you for another hour, but I realize that people will look at this and say, wait a second, I don't got that kind of time. So we wanna be mindful All right, so let's hit some trivia questions. We've got the Fast five and others have come and struggled here. So I've tried to balance out the complexity of the questions, but always trying to make them very relevant.
Christian: 50:40
I wish you didn't have the video down. I'm, I'm sweating here, you know.
Dan: 50:45
Well, I've tried to make them relevant to your industry, so they tie into tours, they tie into your background. The first one I want to ask you is, and I'll try and give a little bit of a hint, but I think that you're a smart guy. You should be able to get many of these. But let's see how we do. The first question I have for you is, who or what company? Ran the first guided tour and when was that?
Christian: 51:07
Whew. Oh, I, I know there's a few,
Dan: 51:09
And of co of course, please. I I referenced more modern, obviously you can go back in time and say there's been people guiding tours back to the Holy Land for many years.
Christian: 51:19
Yeah, I, I, there's evidence of the ancient, you know, evidence of the ancient Egyptians, you know, that have ran tours
Dan: 51:26
Exactly, yeah. So I'm not looking for obscure, I'm looking for More recent where we can kind of point to a specific tour operator that introduced these types of trips.
Christian: 51:36
Whew. It's tricky. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like going, you know, to to operators like Colette, you know, that, that, that, that just they're 105 years old. But I think I don't know, was it Globus or Globus Cosmos? No.
Dan: 51:49
Going back 1841, so a little bit before them. In, in the, in England, a gentleman by the name of Thomas Cook.
Christian: 51:56
Okay.
Dan: 51:57
So Thomas Cook was the first to introduce these kind of low package low-cost package holidays. And his, his first trips were railway trips. And interestingly it was about trying to get people away from the drink and trying to encourage people to, so, you know, they were definitely bettering themselves by having an experience and and so, so yeah, I mean it's remarkable.
Christian: 52:18
I, I, I think someone should write a book with each chapter being the, the, like the founding stories of all these tour operators, cuz each of them is so exciting cuz they're all, they all kind of started in, in sort of a a haphazard way. I find it was less about, you know, I'm gonna start a really, you know, proper business and, you know, run organized adventures for these people. It was more like, yeah, I just, you know, got a couple of my friends in a bus and drove across a desert and, you know, broke down and there's, there's infinite stories. I think someone should write that book.
Dan: 52:47
Yeah, no, it's a good point. I mean John Anderson, who founded Contiki his book, which was two seats left and how their business model got started, new Zealander living in London, encouraging people to travel around in a van in Europe. Remarkable origin story and the flight center team as well. So there's, you're, you're right, there are, there's some great origin stories for travel companies, but that's, that's one of the first, so I'm afraid you're oh, for one, but let's see if we can pick it up from here.
Christian: 53:10
Yeah, I, I'm just trying to add extra context to, you know, you know, forget about that first question.
Dan: 53:17
Unfortunately, it doesn't give you any bonus price. Yeah. All right. You mentioned Vienna. Many people may know that, that Travis, of course, is Australian. Met someone and they decided that's the business of Vienna. A lot of the team is based there Now. What is Vienna known for? It's, so this is a two-parter. It's the city of what, and name two famous residents from Vienna.
Christian: 53:40
Like, like it alive or dead or
Dan: 53:43
Yeah, exactly. It doesn't have to be contemporary artists. Yeah. Current currently in the charts. No. What is the Vienna known for as a city? And then who are two famous artists or intellectuals that were residents?
Christian: 53:57
Like Sig, Sigmund Freud and Mozart. And yeah, definitely known for incredible classical music for opera.
Dan: 54:04
Ding, ding, ding, city of music. So you've got it. Music, and also it's known as the City of Dreams because of Freud. But Beethoven would've been an acceptable answer as well. But there's certainly a lot of greatness to Vienna, not just the the tour, the tour radar team being there, but certainly inspirational. I'm sure when you're across, which is multiple times throughout the year.
Christian: 54:23
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Dan: 54:25
given you're a sailor. So this is this is one that could be right, right up your alley. What is the sailing distance between Newfoundland and Ireland, which are the two closest points for those people? Looking at a map and trying to figure out how people get from North America to Europe what is that sailing distance in nautical miles approximately? You just have to come close. And how long does it take to make that journey?
Christian: 54:47
Wow. Okay. That's nautical miles. Now you got me there. I should know this. I should know this cuz I've done this. I've actually done that trip. It, now I can take you on a, on a sailboat. 11 days to nine days. I don't know the nautical miles. I'm just gonna make a fool of myself. So
Dan: 55:03
That's all right. It's 1800 nautical miles.
Christian: 55:05
1800, okay. I was gonna, I was gonna say like to, I remember cuz we, we, we did Newfoundland to Kin Sail Ireland. And that was a wasn't the plan. The plan was to get to the uk, which was 2200 miles nautical miles. And so yeah, we ended up cross, we ended up going a little bit of a divergent because of the a storm.
Dan: 55:24
Well, you're one for three at the moment, and now you got two. One and a half maybe. Got two more to go. What is the most northern capital city in the world?
Christian: 55:33
Northern Capital City. Is it St. Petersburg or I'm just gonna go with St. Petersburg
Dan: 55:43
Well, it's almost a trick question for a Canadian, which is why I wanted to ask you this, cuz many people think Ottawa. Ottawa comes up many times, but it's not Ottawa and it's actually, people think o think Canada or Russia typically as northern nations. But the answer is actually on the trip from Newfoundland to Ireland, just above you there. It's Iceland, it's,
Christian: 56:03
yep.
Dan: 56:03
Yes, it's alright. Here we go. The final question and I may, I alluded to this in our session, what is Tour Radar in German?
Christian: 56:14
when we came up with the name, we wanted to make sure that it was a name that could be used anywhere. But yeah, I guess if there was a direct translation p I don't know.
Dan: 56:25
No, that's it. No, you got it. Yeah. It's intended to be a trick question. But my favorite is what is to a radar in Spanish. That's radar touristic.
Christian: 56:32
Radar.
Dan: 56:36
There you go. Much, much better accent. You're ready to expand into the Latin market. I think it would be great.
Christian: 56:43
Yeah, no, that's it. We, we, that was, I think when tra I'm not, I'm not know this for a fact, but I believe what Trav once told me was that you, you know, they, they, they figured radar was gonna be a word that kind of fits many, many countries. So, in many languages. Yeah.
Dan: 56:57
No, it definitely Does. Well, this has been such a pleasure, Christian. I've so looked forward to having this conversation with you. It's delighted me more than you know, and I'm looking forward to seeing again in the near future. But is there so thank you for making the time for doing this, and I wish you every success in the next few months ahead as you guys continue to to build your business back. Is there anything you wanna leave anyone else with? Is anything like a final thoughts or remarks from yourself or where people should look to for, for more information on Tour Radar?
Christian: 57:24
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously refer everyone to our site to a radar T o u r r a d a r.com. That is even, even if you are. You know, just dreaming and looking and, and, and just want to figure out an incredible organized adventure for yourself. I just recommend jumping on the site. The other thing that I definitely recommend is you know, check us out. We're, like I mentioned earlier, we're running a hybrid event called Adventure Together. And that's gonna be on October 18th and 19th. The information is on Tour Radar. But you can sign up and hear a lot more about the industry. I promise we're not gonna do the talking this time. We're gonna have the industry do the talking. So it's gonna be very, very exciting and insightful. We'll have a few tidbits to add too, and, and share some things, but it's all about the industry's voice more than ours. We just wanna host the party.
Dan: 58:14
Sounds great and a great party. It'll be, I've joined the last two years, so I look forward to again in October
Christian: 58:18
That'd be great.
Dan: 58:20
That was great. Thank you so much, Christian. Really great to have you here.
Christian: 58:23
Thanks Dan. This has been a lot of fun.
Dan: 58:25
I'm so glad. All the best. Take care of my friend. Bye for now.
Christian: 58:28
You too. Bye-Bye.
