August 19, 2020

Maybe What is Needed for Leisure and Corporate Travel to return is Local Human Support

Tweet It was 1992 and I was traveling with an associate at Sun Microsystems to Montreal visiting a travel software company.  My traveling companion was a classic road warrior who went into auto-arrival mode as soon as the plane landed.  As he bolted out of the plane when the door opened, I struggled to keep up as his routine was […]
June 24, 2020

Will Med-Tech Save the Travel Industry from Covid-19?

Tweet As the industry shows signs of a limited recovery, many hope science, and specifically, advancements in medical technology (Med-Tech), will play a key role in ensuring cleanliness and safety to help the travel industry recover.  Most pundits will agree that without extensive testing and contact tracing, controlling the pandemic is a challenge. Of course, a vaccine is the best […]
June 17, 2020

The Challenge of Being a Disruptor – Changing the Fundamentals of Travel Distribution and Settlement

Tweet It was a Sunday afternoon in 2013 and I did something I normally don’t do; I checked my Facebook feed (I’m not a big FB user). There I discovered a Meetup for Travel Startups scheduled for the upcoming week in San Francisco. It happened to coincide with an event where I was speaking earlier in the day, so I […]
June 10, 2020

As Travel Returns –Assessing Risk

Tweet I applaud the travel industry for its resilience in the face of the global pandemic. By all indications travel is slowly beginning to return.  To aid in the recovery some sophisticated tools have been developed to evaluate risk and track demand. These include the comprehensive travel recovery insights portal from BCG, ARC and 3Victors and the demand forecast portal […]
June 1, 2020

Travel Tech Investment Opportunities in a Post Covid-19 World

Tweet With the industry at a near standstill due to the global pandemic, we often forget that over the last decade the travel industry experienced significant investment from Angels, Venture Capitalists and Private Equity, creating new travel/transportation unicorns (e.g. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TripActions, Travel Perk and Oyo to name a few).  While post Covid-19 investors need to exercise caution, there […]
May 13, 2020

The Role of NDC in a Post Covid-19 World

Tweet The recent announcement that beginning June 1st Sabre agents will no longer be able to book Lufthansa flights on the Sabre GDS may be a signal of more changes to come in travel distribution as the industry slowly recovers from the global pandemic. Though the Sabre/Farelogix deal was cancelled, the Sabre/DOJ trial clearly uncovered the airlines continued commitment to […]