S2E1: The Skift Story - From Journalism Graduate to Global Media Leader
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Welcome to Season 2 of the Travel Trends Podcast! Join our host Dan Christian as he welcomes Rafat Ali, the esteemed CEO & Founder of Skift, for an engaging discussion on his riveting journey into the travel media industry and the trailblazing success of Skift. Prepare to explore the core of Rafat's personal and professional growth from a struggling graduate student to a global media entrepreneur, understand the nuances of Skift's unique voice, fresh approach to design and content, and its remote work culture emphasizing work-life balance, and gain valuable perspectives on current travel trends, the future of the industry, Skift's business models, and their global expansion plans, highlighting the inseparable link between travel and global issues.
Rafat candidly shares his inspiring story, including the powerful impact of an encouraging letter from his father, which fueled his entrepreneurial spirit. He takes us through his globe-trotting experiences that sparked the creation of Skift and provides insights into how Skift carved its niche in the travel industry through its distinctive voice and innovative approach to design and content. Furthermore, Rafat sheds light on Skift's successful remote work culture, their commitment to work-life balance, and the creative strategies they employ to maintain team connectivity. The conversation then navigates through current travel trends and delves into the future of the industry, with Rafat detailing Skift's business models and ambitious global expansion plans, underscoring the crucial connection between travel and broader global issues and the necessity for fresh perspectives.
Curious to explore the journey of a travel media pioneer and gain insights into the future of the travel industry?
Don't forget to show your support by hitting the like button and subscribing to the Travel Trends Podcast for a wealth of industry knowledge and expert guidance on your favourite Podcast App!
Connect with Our Guest: https://skift.com/
Speaker 1: 0:13
Hello everyone and welcome to this very special edition of Travel Trends. I'm Dan Christian and today we have a extremely special guest, someone I deeply respect and admire in the travel industry, someone that many of you know. He is the CEO and founder of Skift. Welcome, rafa, great to have you here with us.
Speaker 2: 0:30
Thank you, dan, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: 0:31
Of course, it's a pleasure to speak to you and to give everyone a bit of context of your background, which clearly you've had a great deal of business success. So, going back even before you started Skift, which is now 10 years ago, going back to 2012, you had actually had a startup before that which was paid content content. Next you sold that to Guardian in 2008 and prior to that you were active in journalism. You were the managing editor of the Silicon Alley Insider. So you have a very impressive story.
Speaker 1: 1:02
But I think for me, one of the things that really stands out is to know Skift is really to know you, and although we've known each other for a number of years, elements of your personal story only recently came to light. And there was a great example. You recently shared, just after Father's Day, a post that your father had shared with you when you were living in Indiana. So you're born in the UK but primarily raised in India. You did a computer science degree and then you moved to Indiana, of all places, and you pursued a Masters in Journalism and it was tough going for you, and so I'd love if you just briefly tell that story, because I think it was obviously a poignant moment in your life and it was a really powerful letter for me to read.
Speaker 2: 1:44
Thank you for bringing that up, and I had actually forgotten about that letter until five, six, seven years ago. In my house in India, my family house where my mom lives, I rediscovered the letter and then obviously everything played in my head and my father was already ailing at that point and I knew at some point when he passes away, that letter was going to help me mourn him. And then and then I know I would have to tell the story because my whole life has been a storyteller. So I would have to tell the story and this was a letter. I was, I think, six months into a few months, coming from India to Indiana completely different cultures, just separated by one alphabet and was having a hard time adjusting to life in Indiana, which was a university town and coming from a culture and also college life, as you can imagine, in US is very much driven by party party and alcohol, Neither of which I was used to. So I don't drink. I've, you know, as a Muslim, I don't drink. I didn't, you know, certainly didn't drink that and was having a hard time adjusting to the culture and just gently America and wanted to go back, as you, as I think you mentioned, I did a phone call back to my mom, she panicked of like what's going on, what's happening to my son, and so my dad wrote me this six or seven page letter and which traditional Indian dad or I guess the traditional dad in those days was the strong and silent types and I didn't really have like a conversations with him as I was growing up. It was very much a respected relationship, mainly being afraid of a father, a stern father. He, he softened later in life and we are three, we are five siblings, so the younger siblings had a much different relationship with him than I did, and so I said that this is probably the longest I ever talked to him, even though I wasn't talking in the sense that he wrote this long letter to me about, about how I'm so lucky in life to have a chance to come to America from a place like India, very sort of middle class existence and study here. So, one, I should be thankful of that, and two, how to overcome this loneliness and it's, you know, I guess, bothering on some sort of depression. I didn't understand that at that point of getting all overcoming that, which is something that you know now.
Speaker 2: 4:18
This letter was 99. So we're sort of talking to almost 25 years now of over, of creating your own space, creating on meaning into your daily existence and and you know, taking taking the boat by the horns, if you will, and make your own way in life. And he was obviously talking in context of that moment, particular moment in time for me. But in many ways, his aspirations of what he was outlining for me about making your own space in the world has very much played out, which I didn't realize until, obviously, I rediscovered this letter turns out, that's I have lived my life, so I think that was very helpful.
Speaker 2: 5:03
And when I when I posted this letter the post that you referred to I posted it six months after he passed away in December 2019.
Speaker 2: 5:13
So this was in the depths of COVID, and I know your story and my story intersected in many ways on how much COVID meant to us in terms of how we reinvented or at least rethought our lives in many ways, and I guess we'll discuss this a little bit and six months into it, I was having a hard time mourning him and I go into this poster why that happened. That happened because initially, in cultures like India, I was not allowed to mourn him, because I'd stay strong for my mom and my sisters and family. And as soon as I came back after a couple of months in India, after it's passing away, covid hit. So I was just busy rescuing the company. So I didn't have a chance at all and like four months into COVID, even though we were in depths of COVID, I sort of started the process of mourning and I wrote this letter, reread this letter a few times and then posted this letter and posted this post, and so that's the context. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1: 6:10
And thank you for publishing and sharing it. I think one of the things that's unique you have a remarkable business story, but what truly makes you unique, as far as I'm concerned, is your authenticity, your transparency and the fact that you're willing to share. You talk about being an exhausted dad with two kids and one day being able to write a letter to your son in a similar context, and you certainly you know you do share, you have an opinion, you have a view and you're here to contribute, and all of those things really resonate with me. And for those of you who would love to read it yourself, please refatorg. You will find many amazing and inspiring blog posts and you will also find that letter, which the one part that certainly stood out for me. I was comparing the letter with a post you did when you turned 46, and you were sharing some advice, and I appreciated some of your advice as well.
Speaker 1: 6:59
But the one that stood out for me, because obviously directly connects to my personal story, is, on page five, your dad, your dad. On page five, your dad makes this particular statement, which is that most of the time, job becomes first priority, but in the case of a disturbance related to health, either of the self or a family member. The job slides to second position and then health of the man. Family member takes first place and, as you know, that was certainly my experience of my journey, because I had a very difficult decision to make and I decided to step away from a significant corporate role to take care of my dad, and I am so glad that I did, and every time I see something like that it reminds me of the fact that was the right decision.
Speaker 1: 7:41
And there wouldn't even be this podcast and this opportunity to speak to you had I not made that decision at the time. So again, thank you for sharing and that inspiration. Now tell us a bit about your family and then where you are. So you're in Queens, new York, and you are very busy traveling, but you've got two young boys who are four and eight. That clearly inspire you to do your best every day with your business. But how are you in the family doing today?
Speaker 2: 8:07
Very good. Thank you. Yeah, I live in this neighborhood called Astoria, which is a very diverse neighborhood. I know many of your listeners may have come heard of Astoria through the Greek neighborhood, so people come here for Greek food, even though now it's not just a Greek neighborhood. The Spongladeshi's and Arabs, and this is New York, so it's a very diverse neighborhood. I have two boys, eight and four.
Speaker 2: 8:30
We went as a company skiff when completely remote as a company, so we had an office in Manhattan next to Penn Station. We made a decision very early on to be completely remote as a company. So my life is completely intertwined with kids and family, and so it used to be that we used to fit life in between work prior to pandemic. This is how I sort of think about it. Now it's the opposite. I fit work in between life, so I work when I can in between the day and the one.
Speaker 2: 9:04
I guess luxury that I have as the CEO now of a company that's into year 11. So it's a more mature company is that I can set my own schedule and so my work isn't linear as a CEO and founder now in year 11. My work is not linear and so I'm able to do that. But, boy, it's intertwined in so many, so many different ways, and I'm also an older dad, which there should be, by the way, an older dad podcast, but that's a separate, separate discussion. I'm, we had kids late. So, as an older dad, the responsibility to stay fit and then take care of kids and obviously now my 80, almost 80 kids, if you will, in the company, as a size of the company, is a lot of work, but it's fun. This is why we do what we do, because it's hard but it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: 9:59
I think you said kids are worth every pain they give you for the joy they give you Correct, so that was one of your insights. So, moving on the personal story, to your journey and starting skift and I would love to hear it from your vantage point because you know, we've known each other a number of years and I've seen the success that you've had and also how you navigated the pandemic with your team, which I do want to talk about today, in terms of the team culture and the amazing dynamic, your initial trip to Iceland, your recent trip so there's a lot of ground I want to cover today and I've been so looking forward to this conversation. I think I was telling you before I got 12 pages of notes and so I will use up as much time as you give me because I think there's so much to share. But I would love to just talk about the origin story of skift itself, because if people want to see your success before, clearly that's there. They can look that up and you've spoken about that previously.
Speaker 1: 10:52
But you took two years off, you traveled and you decide I think you'd registered the domain name skift, which is, yeah, which was Nordic, swedish word for shift and digital transformation and so, but you finally had the time to have some time away and actually look back at the travel business and clearly you were someone 99. You mentioned that letter. So when you, you know, just prior to 911 and the dot com downturn, so you you lived through those moments, you know, in the years following your dad writing you that letter, and so I would really like to understand, from your vantage point going back to 2000, 2012, what made you decide to really jump into travel and the business of telling, of telling the travel stories, right?
Speaker 2: 11:44
Yeah, let me just say that you should be a journey. If you weren't what you do in business, you would have been a journalist, because you obviously are very good at research, background research. So the the Genesis of skift wasn't. So I traveled for two years. I sold my first company, as you said, to Guardian media group. I had a two year lock up. This was during the, so we sold three months before the financial crisis. This is July 2008. We had a lot of goals of expanding into us. Guardian was a UK based company. We were a US based company. A lot of those goals we couldn't meet because the financial crisis hit and we were a small company. When I sold my first company, 25 people I think we're down to like 11 or so by the time the cuts got done. In their defense and guardians defense, they were also laying off hundreds of people back in UK, much like every other company. The financial crisis was. So I left after a year and a half and they just said go, they paid me out for the rest of the six months or whatever the contract.
Speaker 2: 12:45
And so I went to Iceland as my first. I took a two year sabbatical. It wasn't meant to be two years. I sort of just I kept on traveling and it ended up being two years. I started my first sabbatical. The first country I went to was Iceland, and it was the week after the that infamous or famous volcano stopped. And just so that I booked my trip many months ahead and it's the volcano happened.
Speaker 2: 13:10
I didn't know if I was going to be able to go, and so I kept on traveling for a couple of years out of New York and London as my two bases of places to go. London happens to be just a lot easier to go into these more isolated places in the world, whether it was Mongolia, our Hebrides, komaras Islands, uzbekistan so very random countries that I that I went to, or less travel countries, and not that the idea of skiff came in like middle of Mongolia, said I want to solve the world's travel news problems or something like that. But it just the the way in which travel intersects in the world with every sector and how vast the industry is, its influences, versus a media information brand that covers it with that amount of seriousness. I didn't see it and so I said I'm going to start what initially the pitch was. I want to start the Bloomberg of travel news, research conferences for the travel industry. That initial pitch is essentially what the last 11 years have been.
Speaker 2: 14:19
Obviously, the contours of how we build it, different parts of it, variations of it have obviously changed from the from the initial pitch deck, but the larger contour of that we want to be the Bloomberg of travel globe on a global basis has remained, and I think that part is important, which is, like you, you certainly believe in the core mission of creating something that stays. You stay true to, and initially the goal was for us to not just create a B2B media company but also then to create a B2C travel news publication as well. We discarded that pretty early on, just because we realized there's so much to do with the B2B side, and so that's the early genesis of what skipped was obviously are a lot of trades that have existed forever in the travel industry, people that are focused on hotels or airlines or online travel or cruises, etc. Our thesis was that in an age where consumers are in control, they have digital tools, globalization has happened, they don't care about the industry silos per se. There needs to be a business information media and information brand that speaks about that collapsing of silos. If you will across these various parts of the travel ecosystem and talks about it in a big picture way of what focus on the industry, but talks about it in a big picture, where where the future of travel is going. Which is why you know us for travel trends, because very much focused on where travel is going, not in like 10 years from now, because that becomes too futuristic, but like what's happening now, what's what's coming in the next year, what's coming in the next few years. And the lens that we used early on and has continued, of looking at the travel world because obviously you can look at it from various different ways has been tech, marketing, user experience and design. So the those, the intersection of tech, marketing, user experience and design we felt was the best way to look at what consumers are doing and how that's affecting the business of travel and how it's reacting. So, so that's really what it is.
Speaker 2: 16:38
Since then, obviously we've learned a lot about the industry. We were naive outsiders. I don't have any background in the travel industry. My co founder, jason Clampett, who you've met, came from the consumer travel guidebook world. He was at folders from us etc. And so and and then we hired Dennis Shull, who I think you obviously know very well our executive editor, employee number one. He was the most veteran, I guess, of the of the travel industry world, having covered it various publications over the years, the online travel part, and so that naive outsider view of like, oh, we're going to create something that cuts across on the silos, which initially people laughed at and said, oh, this is not like who cares, like a generalist travel industry thing versus a very specialist, for instance, hotel industry thing, but turns out that's what the industry needed and wanted and and obviously 11 years later we have a different story.
Speaker 1: 17:40
Absolutely, you do a very successful one, and I wanted to ask you specifically on the voice of skift. When you got this business off the ground so you mentioned you were an outsider coming into this industry you had real strong industry veterans as well partnering with you and creating this new venture, and Jason, of course, and Dennis, who I want to speak about as well, because I certainly greatly respect him, and it relates to the question I want to ask you now, which is that when I started in travel, corporate travel, I would go into the business room and I would find these magazines, these travel industry publications, which was new to me at the time and I have to say and this is by no means intended to be disrespectful but it was informative, but it was dry, the content wasn't captivating. And so to and when I discovered skift, it was fresh, it was edgy, it all of a sudden had a new tone and voice to it. And even before I knew your background, clearly everyone has the sense. Now you're a global citizen, you lived in multiple countries and you've lived on both coasts and so even when you ran your last company, you're in Santa Monica, you're back in New York now.
Speaker 1: 18:46
I always saw skift as an East Coast New York voice, and maybe that's because of Dennis, but I'm curious to know. Not that you were vice there's obviously that's a totally business unto itself which has blown up spectacularly more recently, and so it's a good thing you didn't go down that path. But you clearly made some decisions fairly early on around the skift brand and I would just love to know was the voice, the intention, the tone and even the interviews that lends itself to the interviews you'd conduct on stage and the hardball questions you'd ask people? Was that very intentional from the beginning to captivate?
Speaker 2: 19:25
Yeah, it was. Thank you for noticing that and that's a good, good, true line. You've, you've, you've tried to paint there. So my first company was was a blog. So I started as a blog, turned into a media company. If you know anything about the blogs or the early interviews, they always came with a voice. So it was a solo blog that turned into media company. I was a journalist covering the business of media with paid content my first company and that voice was always a part of how I did journalism, meaning I was reporting in the industry but also had not just a reporter but I was also an analyst slash opinions on things that were happening. These opinions weren't, weren't were based on reporting when we started this gift.
Speaker 2: 20:11
We are very particular about having a voice, because the voice is the only way. We assumed correctly. It turns out that we would break through and, as you said, the trade industry that existed prior to that was boring and for everything we know about the promise of travel like, nothing about travel is boring. And how can we, a new industry publication, bring that creative promise of travel into the brand that we create? So we were very particular about a few things. We had opinions on everything, even if we didn't know what the hell we were talking about. So that helped. Over a period of time, we obviously learned about the industry more and, as I said, dennis had opinions because he had experience in it. We had a sense of design meaning. One of the things I've always learned and obviously practice as well is design helps you punch above your weight Meaning if you're a small company, but your website, mobile, any type of digital channel is well designed, well thought through. Fresh. People have a perception of oh, they know what they're doing, or they're bigger than they are, or their voice is more valid, et cetera, and so we learned from the best of consumer web media publications.
Speaker 2: 21:38
At that point, we didn't have that much money because we were just starting out. Initially I funded it and then we raised some angel funding as well along the way. And so the design, the yellow color that you've seen people associate Skiff with yellow that was very intentional. Even now, if you come to a Skiff conference, you'll see like everything is very well thought through in terms of stage and chairs. Even the chairs and stage have to have a certain look. Everybody, including me, wears a certain type of dress. They always have to have yellow on them, and we don't necessarily impose them. It's just part of our brand, and so the voice and the look and feel is part of what has built our reputation, if you will, and it's very important for us.
Speaker 1: 22:33
And how did you find in those early days when you're shaking up an industry? And I'll give one specific example that really stood out to me when I was at Skift in New York and Dennis Shaw was interviewing Dara, who was the CEO of Expedia at the time Many people now know Dara is running Uber and maybe that's why he left Expedia but Dennis was hitting with a series of hardball questions and he kept his poise, to his credit. But some of those questions even related to conversations that Dennis had either overheard or had been relayed to him from a dinner conversation the night before. And you could see the surprise on Dara's face as the litany of questions continued and eventually it got to a point where Dara said are there no softball questions? Because if you're only going to have hardball questions, I'm not coming back next year.
Speaker 2: 23:17
Yes, yes, and he did say that in. Just by the way, that cliff is a great cliff, so sorry, your question is so I was there in the room when that happened and it felt electric.
Speaker 1: 23:29
So I hope people do go and find it, and that, to me, was one of those examples where you are paying attention because something new is happening. You haven't seen this before. You haven't seen these executives be putting under that level of scrutiny. They're not there just to do an infomercial and promote their business, and you guys really pioneered that approach, and so I wanted to just understand how was the? How do you successfully? I guess this is where my question comes in. Is that, how do you then successfully then court them as advertisers and court them as partners in the research when you're going to ask tough questions? Because, I have to say, I was terrified when Dennis interviewed me in San Francisco in 2018 because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Dennis is great.
Speaker 2: 24:12
Dennis. I mean, yeah, dennis's, his interview style is just a start. It's an art. You have to see it on video or be there in person to be able to. It's so great. So, and, by the way, dara had since subsequently come as CEO of Uber. In fact, this year, our skip global forum he is a speaker there at the at the skip global forum. I'm going to interview him on stage myself.
Speaker 2: 24:37
So the the one thing that we created an informal environment at the skip global forum with an idea that typically CEOs that are used to very sort of corporate conferences don't wear suits and ties. We instruct their people like, if it's a public company CEO, we actually instruct their team to like there's the guideline. So what, what? It helps it. It brings some sense of informality which is a proxy to them being a little loose on stage, and then it works with most people. It doesn't work with everybody, but it it generally. That's our guideline. So like come with for this informal discussion on stage, and in that informality they probably say more than they would say at a more formal industry conference. So certainly that's part of it. The second is they know that we're prepared. Our journalism in on skiffcom is basically what we're trying to recreate on stage. One of the things I do try to tell our moderators and our companies like you're inviting somebody into your house, they're not going to piss in the air. So like there has to be a respect. The other thing is these CEOs are not CEO of the public companies by chance. Like they have gone through all types of, they've heard everything, even if they haven't heard it on stage, like if you haven't heard it. So it's not like they're not prepared. Dara is fully capable of answering any type of hardball questions, and this is true for Brian Chesky, who, the CEO of Airbnb, who, who who's now speaks at our conferences as well, and I think we have more in-depth discussions on stage and I've interviewed him for the last two years. He's coming again this year that that he doesn't get at other industry conferences where it's more softball.
Speaker 2: 26:36
I think by being Many of these CEOs or top executive CS as peers, even though we're not like I'm not a travel industry, we're not a travel industry, we're not a travel company, we're media company but I think our influence is such that in many ways, they see us as experts and peers, so they're they're able to have a more elevated conversation than they would typically with a journalist who occasionally covers it as part of their beat, versus, you know, if it's a other mainstream industry conference or something or some other Business conference in general. So I think there are many variables there that we are able to do. And the other thing that Dennis is very good at I think our other journalists learn from him. I certainly learn from him.
Speaker 2: 27:23
You ask a question to a CEO, they know how to deflect it, because this is what they've, you know they're they're good at. If they don't want to answer, then he's gonna reword it somehow, if not directly falling that question, but somehow later in the interview he'll, he will reword that question and bring it up again. So, like you attack from many angles and and so you get something out of them. So I think that's the context, particularly with Dara, which is such a just a funny clip, but anyway, that's that's. That's a context, cool.
Speaker 1: 27:55
That's. That's fascinating. Let's talk about how that relates to the culture that you've built inside the company. You've mentioned a few of the great people that joined you from the very beginning. You're now at a team of 75 plus and growing. Seeing your recent trip to Iceland, where your journey began, was wonderful, and not only because of the, the shift that you successfully made from having an office in New York to having a remote Culture, which not everyone agrees with, as you know, with a hybrid approach and Barry Diller, in fact well, who was interviewed, the, obviously the chairman of the interactive group owns Expedia in their concerts last year.
Speaker 1: 28:30
Yeah, he was being interviewed remotely and One of your team members Mentioned you don't have an office. And the shock on his face. It looked like he was gonna take the Take the microphone off and say I can't believe I'm being interviewed by a company. It doesn't have an office. This is preposterous, but people on your team like Dennis, who we both clearly have a great affection for he Moved from New York to Puerto Rico the guy looks the best he's looked in his entire life, as far as I've known.
Speaker 2: 28:57
He's like he's living his best life. He really is his best life.
Speaker 1: 29:01
He's like Benjamin Button, he's reverse aging, he's like a young Brad Pitt. Now, yeah, and so that's fascinating to me, because a lot of people in in companies, they age rapidly, the stress level, and so Clearly you've been able to retain people, bring the people into the business, and people are in many cases, the happiest They've ever been and doing their best work, and I would love to understand a bit more about how you've been able to achieve that. So, moving to remote is one, but you've moved to remote, but you're still in New York, that's where you've chosen to be with your family. And but tell us a bit more about the culture within side skiff that's enabled you to now be succeeding on this side of the pandemic, to have navigated it, and now be Rising on the other side of it.
Speaker 2: 29:44
Yeah. So let me answer that question by actually bringing up an article that I wrote last year whose provocative headline was don't create culture and so what? That and and the and the follow up to that is create meaningful work. Meaning, by Focusing on the quality of the work that we do, we create Meaning into people's lives work lives such that they then are happier as part of the gift which then creates the culture. So I think that's kind of how we, we sort of reverse engineer it, if you will. At the end of the day, it's, you know, work is the majority of the business. The other thing we try and say is like culture is not this thing that you put at the end of work. To make work bearable, it should be work that should be bearable. That creates the culture, and a lot of it has to do with and our culture has changed quite a bit. I would say, from a physical company, meaning in person company, to being a remote company.
Speaker 2: 30:47
Now. We're now, as you said, 75 people in our spread globally, but in US we're spread everywhere. My co-founder, jason, moved to London. Carolyn, our president, who I think you know as well, she's split some time between Miami and upstate New York, dennis, as you mentioned, is Puerto Rico. People We've hired since 2021. We stopped hiring in 22, like everybody else I Think I've hired in New York, two people in New York out of like the 40 people I've hired, and so and we have where? Dozen people in London, we have, I think, six people, soon to be six or seven people. In India, philippines we just hired somebody South Africa, so globally spread team, and One of the things that I'm very we put a lot of effort into is how do we stay connected, because everything else follows.
Speaker 2: 31:41
If people feel connected and seen and appreciated, everything else follows and it's it comes from the top. I'm very focused on it. Our executive team is focused on it. Mariana, who's our head of HR, is focused on it. Everybody's very intentional about making sure we use this thing called base camp, which is a bit I'm sure many of your listeners have heard. It's a. It's our virtual headquarters, if you will. We put a lot of effort into making the best use of base camp and how people Get, get recognized, appreciated.
Speaker 2: 32:17
We, we, we aim for. We don't always get there. We aim for an asynchronous work, meaning people work in their own time zones, not not on American time zone, if you will. It works Well, it's, it's, it's, continues to be a North Star. I don't think we'll ever get like hundred percent it 100% asynchronous, because obviously it can't. A lot of the teams have to have work that coincides. Obviously, you need time with your manager or different team members as well, so that's part of it.
Speaker 2: 32:48
The other thing that we very, very, very particular about is we talked about family and life is that the work life balance, which, which in many ways is a cliche term and and and the many opinions on you shouldn't use that word work, life balance, but whatever the, the, the import of that is my goal and our company's goal at is that Get your work done in time and go live your life, and so that, again, that's not achieved. Always, journalists work probably more than others, just because sometimes it's news breaks and after hours work happens, and Now we're globally spread company, but the intent is there. But even if the intent is not there, then there's nothing will aim towards. So at least the intent are all times is for us to make sure that, and we're very Again, these are I'm gonna use the cliches, but I'm gonna say it anyway we're very family friendly companies. It also comes from us founders and our top team being Having either young kids or or kids in their family life Right as we're building this company. And so for us, a lot of the.
Speaker 2: 33:57
For me, the point of pride of people working at skift is especially the young people. If they come and I don't know, meet their boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, get married, buy a house, have kids as part of skift, that's very meaningful to me. That shows that they're comfortable taking major life decisions as part of skift, which means we're doing something right. So this and another fine that actually Ied At the end of the day and my I don't know if we're going to get into this, but I'll say it anyway like 11 years in my role has changed a lot, where so much of my work is communication internally and obviously externally that you've seen. But internally a lot of my work is communication and talking to not just my direct reports but different people in the company, and I think that hopefully reflects we're very wary of politics in the company where humans I'm sure there there's some, but we're very we're also very particular about not creating competition inside the company, even in sales team, but just not.
Speaker 2: 35:04
I just don't think that's a healthy environment, so very supportive culture, as much as we humanly possibly can. The other side of it is we're not an adult daycare, so don't expect like every you can't expect to get meaning of life from SKIFT. You're coming here for work, so there's a balance between being as supportive as humanly possible and yet you're sort of still. This is still work, and one of the things. Last thing I'll say, one of the things I've said to our team and I try and practice as much as possible, and we alluded to it early on is like in this, in scheme of things, you and your health is number one, your family and friends are number two and work is number three. And if I, as the founder, say that again and again and again, it gets internalized. So I think that keep hearing that is important. So that's what's created our culture, if you will.
Speaker 1: 36:04
Absolutely, and I think you've just come up with the title of this podcast, which is a gift, is not a daycare, and do not listen to this podcast if you're searching for the meaning of life.
Speaker 2: 36:13
And don't take it. Take care for it, else Please don't put that as a title.
Speaker 1: 36:19
It all serious is.
Speaker 2: 36:20
Well, it all serious, One of the things that there's. Since we're talking about work, I'll say this there's a movement in general in work and has been for the last I don't know five, 10 years of your. Bring your full self to work Right. There's a phrase that that comes particularly with the millennials. It came about that. My philosophy is please don't, because you'll be disappointed. You're setting yourself for disappointment because work cannot give you all meaning in life, and that's the. There needs to be a separation between work and your personal life, especially in a remote work, because it's so easy to mix both of them. I mean, certainly I'm a case study of it and try to separate as much as possible. But yeah, so that's what I try. We try as a company to try and tell our team and live it. That's great.
Speaker 1: 37:10
You clearly well you do, and I would say the example of that is the fact you've been able to integrate other businesses into your organization. You highlighted about avoiding friction within the organization, the competition that otherwise sometimes does occur and some of the politics that result from that. But you not only have been able to successfully grow SKIFT as a core business and obviously there's kind of the three core aspects of your business as the conferences, there's the subscriptions and there's SKIFTX as well, where you create some amazing content working with a number of travel brands. But then you also have brought on airline.
Speaker 2: 37:44
We've been really lodging report and then we bought something called NMB that's not called SKIFT meetings. So we've bought three publications over the last four and a half years.
Speaker 1: 37:53
Exactly yeah, and so how does that work? Because I really appreciate you clarifying the approach. So, rather than focusing on culture, focusing on the work itself and the inspiring work, and really has that then helped you integrate those businesses? Are they fully integrated into SKIFT? Do they all see themselves as one team?
Speaker 2: 38:09
Yeah, and they are, and various stages of so. Dailylogic report we bought in 21, so that's the newest one. We came close to buying two businesses last year. Unfortunately weren't able to come to terms, but we are in the middle of closing one now. So hopefully that will happen in the next 60 days and we have our. So for us the growth is both organic and inorganic.
Speaker 2: 38:35
In a company like ours, in a sector like B2B media, you have to sort of bring all business models along. What I mean by that is you can't just have one business model that's advertising and scale that as big as possible and expect that to be a big company or that to be the sole revenue generator. In a vertical focused company like ours, just focused on a specific subject, which is the global travel industry, you have to bring all business models along. Media they're relatively known you. There's, as you said, advertising, subscriptions and conferences the three main lines of business. We started a fourth one called script advisory, which launched last year and we're still early phases of that's a industry focused advisory business as well. And these publications that we've bought the idea is that these are usually and somehow we specialize in husband, wife and publications. Two out of those three were husband, wife or on newsletters that have existed for tens of years, daily, daily lodging report is I think it's 28 or 29 years of being a newsletter, which is incredible.
Speaker 2: 39:50
And so we come in and modernize the stack, if you will tech stack, marketing stack, design, everything and then we figure out the pricing. Two out of those three are subscriptions, so we try and raise the price depending on what the industry dynamics are, and then we create a conference on top of it. So we've done that with airline weekly, we have done that with the event and B, which is now called skip meetings, and with the lodging report. We've actually done very, very well in terms of modernizing tech stack. We haven't yet started a full conference on top of it, but hopefully that's to come.
Speaker 2: 40:32
And we're not just looking at buying publications that we bought like traditional read what publications we're looking at buying. As I mentioned, we started skip advisory, so the next company that we're hopefully to close is in that space, so it's not a media publication. We're looking at data companies that will potentially roll into skip research as well. So, and we're looking at companies not just in US but outside of US as well, because our business is quite global. I mean, middle East has suddenly become second largest part of our business, for all the reasons you can imagine, knowing that region very well yourself. So much is happening in that part of the world, and so that's how we look at it.
Speaker 1: 41:15
That's great, and you've certainly started to speak about the future of skip, and that was really the last question I wanted to ask you on this topic and I'm clean to get your feedback on some of the travel trends. I know we'll only be able to cover some of the surface of that today, but I think those people listening to this would definitely benefit from understanding what you're seeing as the major trends in travel. But before we do that, one of the questions I was keen to ask you was about the future of skip and really your inspiration as well. So what kind of packages together? I mean, you were recently at the Conn Lyons Awards. You spent some time in France, which I find spending time outside of our industry and bringing back. Sometimes. That's where you provide the greatest insights, and I actually even used your AI tool on your website to ask about the future of skip and it gave me an answer about that. Skip will likely continue to expand its global presence.
Speaker 2: 42:05
It did. Okay, I should ask that question. I should get some ideas from the tool that we created.
Speaker 1: 42:09
Yeah Well, apparently your company's also going to strengthen its editorial team. Journalism efforts can continue the commitment of the travel industry, which I actually I appreciate, but you're going to remain curious about travel's place in the world. You're going to ask hard questions and constantly come up with new ways of look.
Speaker 2: 42:25
Well, that's actually a very accurate answer. So I'll say we created the right tool. So those are my words that I wrote along the way that it actually picked up.
Speaker 1: 42:32
Must have been. So yeah, tell me how you see the future of skip You've certainly already talked to that and also some of the inspirations for you going forward.
Speaker 2: 42:39
Yeah, and I think that the inspiration really I'll say that this sounds like a total cliche, but it was the reason why I started skip which is like the creative promise of travel and what it means to the world, what it brings to the world, the joy that it brings to people there. Obviously we can discuss the downsides over tourism, climate change, those are all certainly issues that are layers underneath it, but the creative promise of travel, that it's the most progressive expression of human curiosity you and I sort of fully embrace it in our personal lives is what animates skift, it animates me. Travel as a lens to understand the world you can, because travel intersects with the movement of humans, basically intersects with every issue in the world. Covid was the opposite. The stopping of the movement of humans was obviously how you understood Covid. So for us it was a very important topic. Besides obviously directly affecting global travel industry, the movement of humans essentially underpins every big issue in the world, every big and small issue in the world, and I think that animates me 11 years in. And our goal is how do we constantly come up with new ways of looking at the industry and hence new ways of looking at the travel of the world, and which is why we do sometimes do these things where we coin terms. Sometimes it looks like a gimmick, but it's. There's a method to the madness, which is unless we come up with fresh ways of looking at the world. Some of that includes coining fresh terms. Some of them stick, some of them don't stick. Our goal is to surprise and delight the travel industry in many ways, for them to say, oh wow, I didn't expect to see this from Skift or to think about traveling this way.
Speaker 2: 44:40
Last year, I wrote this essay. I don't write as much but one, you know four skift on a daily basis, but when I do, I try and do like big thing pieces and I wrote this thing called the Great Merging. This essay called the Great Merging, which is a long essay which in March or April 2022, was a relatively new concept of how we live, work, socialize and travel, emerging into each other, which certainly has happened over COVID and what that means for how is it reflecting in the different parts of the travel industry airlines, hotels, destinations, et cetera and it was an original thought. One of the biggest things that I'm keen on is how do we put our original thought into the world, because that, for me, is the biggest bar for us as a company, like how do we constantly keep putting our original thought into the world, and so that's a big part of what we do? There was a second part of the question that I'm forgetting now.
Speaker 1: 45:39
Well, just in terms of inspiration. So you were highlighting that Inspiration, yeah, where you get your inspiration from and bring it back to travel.
Speaker 2: 45:46
Yeah, so widely read. This is a huge, hugely important part. Read as wide as you can in different parts, as you said, bringing lessons from other industries, retail history. I'm a big fan of reading business history books and, in general, history books Early, like I've I've back in the day, is Monocle magazine.
Speaker 2: 46:11
I don't read as much now, but Monocle is a is a lifestyle magazine that I was a fan of, continue to be. I just don't have time to read as much now. It's a very eclectic collection of of of global things in the world. So you know very random things like I remember an insert in that magazine had a certain design that I took and told my design team in 2015 to say this look visually, looks very interesting, can we? We're writing this manifesto on the future of travel. I wrote this in 2015. You may have seen it manifesto on the future of travel in 2020. I wrote this in 2015. We got inspired by that the design for it in a totally random, non completely unrelated thing in Monocle magazine.
Speaker 2: 46:58
So again, bringing influences from different parts of the world, which is why I'm very much against silo thinking and my superpower that I've realized and I'm 49, so I'll turn 50 next year, superpower that I realized in hindsight. My first company, and my gift as well, is joining the dots across different, seemingly unrelated industries, sectors in travel, different industries don't think that they're part of a single industry, airlines don't talk to the hotels, etc. So joining the dots across these seemingly disparate sectors that are connected and then connecting them to the larger world. In many ways that's exactly what I did in my first company paid content, recreating it in skift, and so a lot of it is just having a wide sense of curiosity. That just so happens that travel enables that curiosity as well, so so just sort of everything connects in my mind, if you will.
Speaker 1: 48:02
Yeah, no, that's fascinating. I really appreciate sharing that.
Speaker 2: 48:04
And you're asking the future, the future of scale. Let me give you quick, quick on that. It's to expand, continue to expand geographically. So for us, different parts of the world where we're not today there, southeast Asia, where we were prior to the pandemic. I want to go back and quickly start soon, middle East has become a large part of our business. India is becoming a much, a very important market for us for for for many reasons. And and then go deeper into different parts of the travel industry. We bought these publications, we're buying other things and creating other things. We just launched something called the skift shortroom rental report, which is a subscription newsletter three times a week, that that we launched on our own. That goes deeper into the shortroom rental sector, beyond the the coverage on skift that we create. And so it's to go deeper into different parts geographic expansion and horizontal going deeper into not horizontal, vertical into different parts of the travel industry.
Speaker 1: 49:05
Absolutely, that's certainly clear.
Speaker 1: 49:06
I mean, I really appreciate spending the time talking about the future of skift and your focus, and I think that is a good segue into the trends and just so we can spend a few minutes on those, because clearly that's what a lot of people have come to listen for and I think actually most of our conversation they're going to get more from because they can go and read about trends.
Speaker 1: 49:23
But the conversation that we're having now is, you know, your journey, your story, skift, and so this was the conversation I was ever so keen to have with you. But I definitely want to touch on some of the trends that you are seeing today as travel comes back, and I guess what I'm asking is because, from my vantage point, I love seeing what has changed in human behavior as an outcome of this and I think we've touched on it a bit in our conversation and then where travel behavior still remains constant. But I'd love if you maybe could just give us an overview of one or two areas that you are seeing as travel comes back. They're the top trends that you and the team that are recurring themes that you're focusing on and telling that story.
Speaker 2: 50:00
Yeah, so I'll say this. And travel itself is a mega trend. We use the word mega trend a lot. We recover travel mega trends. But if one thing COVID has proven, it's that the desire to travel, no matter how much you clamp on it, will come back stronger than before, meaning travel as an aspiration for human societies as they progress in their economic evolution, particularly countries that historically were, let's say, developing countries you don't call them that anymore. Emerging countries have a desire. Certainly, if you're, if you're earning, power hits a certain threshold. We've done research on this, on skill research. Your desire to travel increases as a result of you, of the country economically progressing, which means travel is a mega trend has been proven 100 times over itself In COVID itself.
Speaker 2: 51:01
There are some themes were falling on this the rise of India, for instance, as a demographic entity. It crossed China as the main, as the most populous country in the world today. Gdp not there yet, but the mass of people coming out of India To go into different parts of the world will be a bigger force than Chinese outbound traveler has been over the last 10, 15, 20 years. It will become it in the next five to seven years, maybe even earlier. You're seeing a version of that with what's happening in the airline world, where Air India and Indigo Air have just placed the biggest orders in history. India is the fastest growing, fastest growing airline market and it's not just, you know, faster growing, but also just the giant market. Middle East Airlines, the big forces that exist in the world Qatar, turkish Emirates, etc. Their whole business is propped up by Indians moving around the world from go, transiting through these Middle Eastern hubs. So just the power of India. So we're certainly following that as a, as a as a global force. Of course this you've talked with your previous guests as well what AI is going to do to the travel industry. So much early promise there. We ourselves are using it in our business as well.
Speaker 2: 52:23
For me, the biggest thing that I latched on to early on when it was launched was the travel search box, which has basically stayed the same for the last 20, 25 years. Put the destination, if you're talking flights. Put the destination to the dates, hotels similarly, and you get back a list has stayed the same since, I don't know, 96 or 97, 1996, 97. And the ability to change that, which. There were a couple of promises along the way. Voice search was there, the messaging apps were there, etc. None really proved out. Now is now when conversational and by conversational I mean chat based or voice based search behavior in a larger context, not just in travel larger Google type type context. If that changes, which is what these large players want us to do Chad GPD certainly shown that then it will come to travel search.
Speaker 2: 53:25
If it comes to travel search, what does it mean for how people discover and make decisions and then book travel? And so I think that's the biggest piece of the pie that AI will help on the consumer side. On the back end side Too long to go into, but you already know this efficiencies on operations and digital transformation all the stuff that you worked on I know in your previous role as well at Travel Corp, and so it's just a huge. So certainly we're following that. We are also following the what we call the financialization of travel, where companies like hopper and other fintech players have come in and have had many innovations on how you buy travel and how, and, and that have Unbundled travel insurance, if you will, into different parts. Booking has adopted it, expedia, so everybody's experimenting with the financialization of Travel booking. Another trend that we're following, of course, sustainability. So what travel means to the world in terms of Travels effect on climate change and how how that interests intersects with over tourism is Another fascinating topic that we were covering pre-covid, post COVID.
Speaker 2: 54:52
How much a business travel is lost and what it means and what new forms of business travel or hybrid travel are coming up. Those are that's another big theme. I think the consensus, as we're in 2023 now, business travel is that about 15 to 20 percent. It's sort of it's topping off at 80, 75 to 80 percent pre pre-covid volumes business travel. It also intersects with, obviously, an economy not being that great but all, but that's generally the number, if that's the new reality that we've lost.
Speaker 2: 55:34
You know, billions of dollars of business travel for now being made up by companies on the leisure side, meaning Leisure continues to be very strong. The rates are very high. What does that mean? And then, in general, related to what is the future of work, because whatever the future of work is is what the future of travel is, because one people get money from work. That's how they they get money to travel to. It's what allows you time to travel, Like if, if you're a remote person versus a hybrid person, versus a fully in office person, your travel habits are different. So, whatever, whatever technologies and and policies and culture norms come in, future, work, that's what will come, that's what is the future of travel. So that's why I say watch the future of work versus trying to figure out what the future of travel is.
Speaker 1: 56:26
So many valuable insights there and trends that you've pulled out.
Speaker 1: 56:29
I just want to go back To one in particular, when you talked about travel discovery and we talked about AI, of course, because it's a very important theme and we're going to see a big quantum leap forward.
Speaker 1: 56:40
I know you've interviewed Fred LaLanne from Hopper and Brian Chesky, who you mentioned, of course, from Airbnb, two Companies. They're doing fascinating things that have really built innovation into their DNA of their business. They're able to adapt very quickly, seize new market opportunities and listen to Brian more recently talk about the fact that travel discovery Is broken by virtue of the fact that people still have to search where and when and that almost every travel site you go to, you start with those two criteria and you just say then you end up with results and it's about refining them. It doesn't start with who you are and what your interests are, and I think that's a shift they're looking to make and some of the startups that I'm working with Airbnb, chesky, brian Chesky has been thinking about it and he says that they will launch something in the next I don't know 12 calendar months or something like that.
Speaker 2: 57:25
That will take a crack at intent, and Not just intent, but also your history. Like we, every time we search, it's a dumb box, a box like it doesn't know anything about our habits. It should have some semblance of it, right where we're in age, where, where that's entirely possible technologically to that, especially with with the new moves and generative AI, and so I think I guess that's your question, that's that that's where you're trying to Get you.
Speaker 1: 57:54
Well, that's exactly it, rafa which is that you know you are clearly having those conversations as well and seeing that change and what's about to come, what's right around the corner.
Speaker 1: 58:03
Because I, when I look back, as you mentioned my role of the travel industry For many years, one of them was this 10-year wallet concept of trying to make sure that Travelers continue to book within the 40 brands in the group. So one year they'll take a River cruise, next year, in African safari, they'll stay at one of the hotels, they'll take a tour, and you can only do that by virtue of understanding who the customers are, their intent, their previous travel history. They're spending their age, and I think that's where it gets really exciting for the companies that have that data or are able to mine data Like that to be able to shape traveler future booking behavior. So it's it's clearly a very exciting time to be in this space, and I was just saying that some of the startups I'm working with are thinking along those lines and trying to get to market with solutions, and that's where we're going to see some real significant shifts in the year ahead, and I know you always take keen interest to profile those startups and bring those to the forefront.
Speaker 1: 58:56
So We've covered a lot and, I believe me, I do not want this conversation to come to a close. I'd rather I'd gladly spend the rest of the day with you, rafaad, if you'd make the time, but I'm why so much? Thank you, I but.
Speaker 1: 59:08
I do want to make sure that I ask you the quiz questions, and the reason for the concept of the quiz really was to Inspire people and to make them intellectually curious, and so I've tried to customize each of these quizzes. It's really not about getting five out of five, because poor Zach, who's the producer of this, got one out of five and he's still beating himself up about it but the importance is to ask the question and be able to enlighten people who may not be familiar with some of these answers. So, let's, let's take on the travel trivia. If you will, I'll put you on the hot seat and throw you a few hard balls for a moment and then we'll wrap this up for everybody. So question number one Rafat is Going back To India. There is a city Known as the pink city, and if you could tell everybody yes, jaipur, what the, what the name is and why it has that name. So Jaipur is a is a Jaipur.
Speaker 2: 1:00:01
J-A-I-P-U-R. So Jaipur is a city in Rajasthan, the, the desert state in India, in the western part, which is called the pink city because the houses that the, the limestone that they use for the, the houses, the historically not the new ones, but these are historical buildings have pink limestone and so so that's so, that's what it is, well done, and One for one, and I have had the opportunity to be there and travel India and it's a beautiful part of India and and so, hopefully, those of you who are hearing that for the first time, google it.
Speaker 1: 1:00:36
Look at images, don't go summer.
Speaker 2: 1:00:39
Yes, google, google but don't go on summer. That's all the advice that I'd have. Too hot, okay, cool, all right. Question number two Indiana.
Speaker 1: 1:00:48
Is the Indian. Indian is home to what famous annual car race.
Speaker 2: 1:01:02
NASCAR? Oh, I'm sure NASCAR, but I just don't know what the name of the of the races the indy 5 Indianapolis 5 indy 500. Indy 500. Yes, of course I know that indy 500.
Speaker 1: 1:01:13
Anyway, yes, there you go, which is in speedway indiana? Did you ever get there when you were in indiana? Did you ever see? No, no, no.
Speaker 1: 1:01:21
No, no, I should not not a reason to travel there, necessarily, but yeah, it's a part of american history, no question. I mean, it's been around since 1911. It's uh, um, as a very interesting history for for car aficionados. So, sticking on the us. Closer to home for you, in new york city, the new york city subway, the metro subway, is one of the largest in the world, and this is I'm going to give you three options here. How many stations does the new york city subway have? Does it have 100 stations, 250 stations or over 400 stations?
Speaker 2: 1:01:54
So my eight year old son would actually know that answer. I'm just going to guess the highest number, 400 plus well done.
Speaker 1: 1:02:04
Yeah, it's actually four. Your son would know it's 472.
Speaker 2: 1:02:09
And it's.
Speaker 1: 1:02:09
He could probably name 400 of those 472, but yes, well, let's see if you can name this one, but clearly he will as well. But you live in queens, as we discussed in Astoria specifically, but obviously that's one of the boroughs of new york. What it's queens named after. Where does, where did the, the neighborhood of the town of queens, get its name?
Speaker 2: 1:02:32
I should have known that. I guess I don't, but Is it named after the queen of it? Like that's got to be some connection to to the queen of england right now very close.
Speaker 1: 1:02:41
No, you're like I gotta give you a half point for that. But it was originally settled by the dutch, and so it was actually named for In honor of queen kathryn. I should have known that yeah, to pay tribute to queen kathryn.
Speaker 1: 1:02:55
I'm gonna go ask, go ask chat gpt after this, absolutely so you got three out of four and we're gonna bring it home here with number five, and this one will be some Region of the world that you are clearly passionate about. It's but Iceland. I would love you to tell the audience why is Iceland called Iceland and green land is called green land.
Speaker 2: 1:03:15
Oh, I thought it was just a joke thing, but like certainly, but I don't know the reason. A certainly ice, iceland green land doesn't have Green in it, so no green and Iceland does have green, but I don't know the. Is that the reason why?
Speaker 1: 1:03:33
I'm gonna give you a. I'll give you the mark for that one, but it was. They were both named by Norse Vikings, but the Iceland was actually given that name specifically as a way to deter colonizers or rivals. So it was a very strategic move to discourage other people from settling on the island, to make it seem cold, barren and inhospitable, which you know it's anything but. However, they actually wanted people to move to green land, so they actually came up with the idea of green land to attract potential settlers. So it was a marketing tactic. But the reality is exactly what you said is that Iceland is greener than its name implies and green land is icier than its name implies. So really they should be reversed. But anyone who looks at a map Hopefully after listening to that, you can have a new appreciation for that part of the world Things things that are learned.
Speaker 1: 1:04:21
Well, thank you, rafa. I'll give you a solid four out of five. Appreciate it, of course, no. Thank you very much for making the time for me today. It really is a an honor and a pleasure to speak to you. I wish you much continued success, my best to the team and I look forward to seeing you at the skift global conference in september. I'll leave it to you for the last words september 26 to 28.
Speaker 2: 1:04:38
There you go, all right, thank you. If you, if you want to know more, go to lifetaskiftcom. I'll do that flag, but thank you again for for asking me to speak. I'm a huge fan, and now a regular listener, to a podcast.
Speaker 1: 1:04:51
Thank you, rafa, and thank you to all the listeners. I hope you really enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and I'll tune in for the next episode. Thank you so much.
