Sector: Day tours & activities

10 questions to ask candidates in an AI tourism job interview

February 13th, 2024 by Alex Bainbridge

I am thinking about hiring. Not actually hiring, but thinking about hiring. So with that in mind, I have pulled together some questions that I could ask in a job interview. The more senior you expect to be, the more of these questions I expect you to be able to give a good answer to. […]

What should sightseeing OTA marketplaces do about AI?

January 3rd, 2024 by Alex Bainbridge

The new year period is a time of reflection. With that in mind, I realised that most of my recent focus has been on what can startups do with AI, or what can tour operators do with AI. But what about the current generation OTA marketplaces, how can they adapt to AI? Are they destined to […]

GetYourGuide Originals in the AI era

December 18th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, the 2019 version of the GetYourGuide Originals would likely be in place providing 50% of GetYourGuide’s current net revenues, their IPO would have happened, the executive team would have retired to their Swiss lakefront homes, and everyone else would be scrambling to work out how to compete against […]

Big tech is winning using AI for destination experiences. The sightseeing sector needs to talk

October 18th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Last week I went to the Arival conference in Orlando and I was surprised by the reaction to the content. Some tour operators were saying too much AI in the schedule. Well I have news for you, your upstream big tech partners are winning AI and you are not part of their plans. Tomorrows experience economy […]

Let’s get physical – comparing Viator, GetYourGuide & Google moving from digital to IRL

August 10th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

In the AI age, you can’t just be a digital service anymore. For the digital only companies this makes it a strategically important task deciding what to do beyond digital. This post is a quick summary of how Viator, GetYourGuide and Google are going physical with three different approaches. Not mutually exclusive of course, but […]

For and against rolling up reztech in 2023 – Checkfront / Rezdy

July 20th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Depending upon your perspective, the big news this week was either the Checkfront / Rezdy shared ownership announcement, or Tripadvisor launching their AI tour itinerary generating service to consumers. Here is how both stories can be viewed from a singular perspective and are relevant to more than just suppliers who use Checkfront / Rezdy. But […]

GetYourGuide betting the haus on attractive unit economics

June 26th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Along with GetYourGuide‘s recent funding announcements came some interesting leadership quotes that I just have to memorialise for future reference as their statements about unit economics and strategy are significant. Before we cover that, a clarification, GetYourGuide are not THE largest funded in our sector, the autonomous vehicle mobility platforms are funded far in excess […]

How decentralisation & AI will dominate the next decade and beyond in sightseeing

May 25th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Too much AI debate in the sightseeing sector relates to generative AI such as text, image & video generation. This article outlines why we should prioritise addressing other forms of AI first, and how we can incorporate decentralised technology approaches within an overall AI strategy. First, why is everyone distracted by generative AI? I believe […]

Is forming a sightseeing industry DAO the only solution to AI centralisation?

January 25th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Generative AI such as ChatGPT is an era defining technology and it merits the number of articles and videos created on this topic. However we are ignoring one core debate, we need to talk about what happens when this and related AI technologies scale, which they will. This article focusses on this important topic with […]

OCTO standards in sightseeing – the case for and against

September 23rd, 2022 by Alex Bainbridge

Niche topic, perhaps only of interest to technologists, however…. lets summarise the case for and against OCTO standards. What are the OCTO standards? When you connect a rez tech with an OTA, you have to make the product data continually align between the two platforms. This is tricky, e.g. on booking cancellation terms, how are […]