Latest / Reframe First / Janet Semenova, Co-Founder of Boutique Travel Advisors | The Future of Luxury Travel

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Janet Semenova, Co-Founder of Boutique Travel Advisors | The Future of Luxury Travel · Reframe First

• Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey, of the podcast and let me welcome our today's guest, Janet Semenova, co-founder at Boutique Travel Advisors. Hey, Janet, it's great having you here. Janet: Thank you so much, Alexei, it's great to be here. Oleksij Rak: And thanks a lot for joining and finding time for that. So from what I learned, Boutique Travel Advisors is a luxury travel company that's offering highly personalized, concierge-level planning for individuals, families, corporate teams who are seeking for some extraordinary global experiences. So could you tell us a bit more about what your buildings are, what your buildings are, what kind of extraordinary experiences you're selling? Janet: Sure, sure. So we started our agency in 2017 and we ⁓ work primarily with luxury clientele. in the experiential travel space, meaning not people who are just looking to necessarily just book an all-inclusive vacation, but people who really want to have a meaningful, deeply immersive, authentic travel experience. ⁓ Most of our clients view travel as an investment. It's an investment of time, it's an investment of financial resources, and it's an investment into their family and into the time that they're spending with the people that they're traveling with. Oleksij Rak: . Janet: You know, a lot of our clientele is very busy, successful professionals. And those of us who are busy, successful professionals, know time is our most valuable resource. And so how do we spend that time? How do we invest that time? And how do we utilize the time that we have with the people who we want to be with and who we want to ⁓ experience unique new destinations with? you know, whether it's children and how... Oleksij Rak: . Janet: what you're doing with the children, whether it's your spouse and where you're spending time together. So most of our travelers are deeply aware of the impact that the travel has on them. And whether it's a quick getaway or a really far flung, very highly intensive destination to get to the experiences that we build into that travel is not just a, you know, Oleksij Rak: Okay. No. Janet: check marks, right? It's not just like, ⁓ I'm going to go to Paris and I'm going to see the Eiffel Tower and I'm going to see the Louvre and then I'm going to ⁓ eat some crepes and then that's it. It's really, I'm going to go to Paris and I'm going to have these immersive travel experiences. And so we really curate those in a very intentional way. Oleksij Rak: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I'm hearing a lot about people willing to switch to some authentic experiences, not like just seeing Eiffel Tower as you mentioned. What kind of destinations are you working with and when it counts, when coming down to... ⁓ to the services you offer, like what exactly do you package in the service? Janet: So you know, it depends. It's completely curated to the traveler. Some travelers want everything fully. organized and booked for them. want, you know, A to Z. They want a person at the airport to meet them at the gate. Then they want that person to take them to their hotel. They want a driver and a guide with them at all times. And other people want a little bit more flexibility. So it's very much curated to the individual traveler and very destination specific. We plan travel around the world, Asia, Europe, South America, Antarctica, Africa. So the destination in a lot of ways drives the structure of the itinerary. You need a lot more Oleksij Rak: you . Janet: organization and structure if you're going to be going on safari in Africa than you do if you're going to be you know going to I don't know Rome for the third time and you want to just have a beautiful hotel and maybe do some cooking classes and see some art exhibitions and have a little bit more freedom. So the destination drives it the level of experience and comfort of the travelers. Oleksij Rak: Okay. you Janet: You know, sometimes if you're traveling with young kids or we do a lot of multi-generational travel where grandparents are present as well, we have to be a lot more intentional. If grandma's traveling with you and she's not able to walk on all the cobblestones and all the steps, we have to be a little bit more mindful. If you have young kids with you, then you have to be more mindful about the pace and how quickly the itinerary is moving versus if you have a couple who's really well traveled and they're just revisiting one of their favorite destinations, you know, for the third or fourth time. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. And what is the most, I would say, labor-intensive part of your service? Is it like itinerary creation, or is it like guiding them through the itinerary afterwards? Because quite likely you provide that service. Janet: Yeah, the logistics is always the hardest piece. ⁓ Creating the itineraries, know, our team is very experienced in the destinations. We have wonderful suppliers in all of our destinations, but it's really the logistics of piecing everything together. So you can have this big, beautiful dream, right? I want to arrive here and this is how I want to feel and then these are the things I want to do. But putting all those pieces into play and making sure that the driver is there on time and tracking your flight, making sure that the guide for the family is kid friendly and not just adult friendly, making sure that the cooking class knows that mom and dad are gluten free and the kid has a peanut allergy. So it's actually the things that happen that are ⁓ very logistically focused, but that are the most important pieces that are very much behind the scenes. And when they go smoothly, you don't see them, you don't really think about them. But for our team, that's the piece that's the most labor intensive. Oleksij Rak: And you're are you providing the support for like the guests who went into into the travel so after they started the travel Or is it only like the initial part that you could like create everything, glue all the pieces together and sell them? Janet: We. We're with them the whole way. And we have, again, we have wonderful partners all over the world, so we'll have teams on the ground and destination as well, but our advisors are there to help and problem solve and support the trip. you know, from start to finish. So until they get back and even after they get back to really kind of debrief and understand what went well, what we could have done differently, what was the most meaningful impactful part of the journey, you know, so that we can learn and really give those feedback back to our team on the ground. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. I had few discussions with guys from travel industry who represent travel agency or are travel agents by themselves and from what I hear from them, biggest problem is visibility because it's really hard to expose your level of expertise, level of service because anybody can write that I can build an itinerary for you. How do you... distinguish yourself, how do you attract your guests from the market? How do you attract your clients? Janet: Yeah, we're very community based. We're very community focused. We have a lot of repeat and referral clients. we're present in the, our advisors are present in the communities in which they live. We're very philanthropically inclined. So we partner a lot with nonprofit organizations. We do a lot of give back. We encourage our clients to give back in the communities that they visit, the partners that we work with on the ground, the hotels, the tour operators are very philanthropic. Oleksij Rak: you you you Janet: inclined and so we really try to work with travelers who are intentional and mindful about that as well and so the organizations we partner with in our home communities align themselves well with the types of travelers who want to have that experience you know who care about how their travel impacts the communities that they visit and so a lot of what we do is really driven by the community in which our advisors live. Oleksij Rak: So do you understand the drive that like your mind customer acquisition channel is local communities that you work with? Janet: Yeah, niche, and then we are, I mean, we are present online as well. You know, we do have, of course, an online presence. I think you have to. But it's a lot harder to convert a cold lead who doesn't know much about your agency and hasn't had that personal interaction and experience than it is somebody that's had multiple touch points with our agency. ⁓ So, of course, the best client acquisition is a referral from another traveler who's worked with us. I think that, you know. what your friends say about you is much more meaningful than what you read online about something. But we have, of course, we do also have Google reviews and SEO and all of those kind of traditional means of client acquisition. like we talked about right before we started the podcast, those channels are harder and harder to capture. And especially for a smaller business that's not a conglomerate, that's not a huge OTA, Oleksij Rak: you Janet: It's very hard to be visible and to break through the noise. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. That's what I felt like. We had discussion before the recording. that's what I felt in my own business, for sure. With regards to market trends, what do you think that has changed the most in the last year or two, three years of time? Maybe post-COVID. because you're on market for eight years, I guess. You quite likely have seen the change. What's the biggest change? Janet: I mean, I do think post-COVID people are more intentional about where they travel and how they travel. I think people view travel much more, they're much more aware of the importance of travel in their lives. Whereas before COVID, I think a lot of us took it for granted. Post-COVID, I think there is a little bit more of an intention and an awareness that travel is important and we want to continue to travel and that it's an important part of our. kind of well-being. ⁓ I think that's a big trend. And I think, you know, of course it was very pronounced immediately after COVID, but I do think that there is still that lingering effect. I also think that social media and AI and the preponderance of just, you know, Oleksij Rak: . Janet: the influencer effect definitely shapes how people are traveling. think that it contributes a lot actually to over tourism. And so one of the things that we do a lot of is actually ⁓ educate our clients about the reality versus the image. You you can see beautiful images on Instagram or on TikTok. You can see these videos, but that's a very curated perception. It's very filtered. That's not the reality and destination. And so if you see a beautiful video, Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Thank Janet: of a, know, influencer walking through Positano and they're eating their gelato and there's no one in sight and you're going to visit Positano in July, that's not the experience you're going to have. And so it's really kind of... Oleksij Rak: . Janet: know, moving back the, pulling back the curtain and showing them this is what your expectations are and then this is the reality of the destination and the seasonality and the pricing and the crowds. And so a lot of what we do is really education and kind of dispelling some of the misconceptions and myths surrounding destinations. I think travelers are, Oleksij Rak: . . Janet: in some ways more influenced, of course, by social media. It impacts a lot of their decision making. But in other ways, I think people are getting a little bit more skeptical. We're noticing, especially younger people, they're more skeptical. They understand that not everything they see online is reality. ⁓ And younger generations who are growing up having always had social media, I think are much more cognizant of the reality of social media and what is portrayed versus what is, you know, actually the experience that they're going to have. So it's an interesting time because you have the older generations that are not as impacted by social media. They're not necessarily looking on social media as much for inspiration. Then you have the younger generations that are. The older generations actually I think are more likely to believe everything that they're seeing. And, you know, the younger generation is more skeptical because they know that it's not necessarily reality. There is a lot of AI generated content. There is a lot of, you know, filters and editing of photos. And you take this photo again in Positano or the Amalfi Coast or Rome or parents and you're you're editing out the people in it. So then you arrive and suddenly you're like, wait a minute, the Trevi Fountain has 20,000 people lined up to go see it. And then the videos and pictures that I saw it was like this beautiful sight that I had all to myself. So it's interesting. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's interesting for sure. With regards to younger generations that you mentioned, how do they change the travel industry? Because they do change and their expectations are to be followed on every social platform that you are following them. Their expectations about response times are different. But how in general do they change the travel industry? Janet: I mean, think that they're impacting the, it depends on who's spending the money. The payers typically in the luxury segment is still the parents and the grandparents. so, however, the children and grandchildren are impacting the decisions, right? And so they're driving a lot of the desire and the demand, but they're not necessarily the ones paying for the travel experiences in the luxury space. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. you Okay. Janet: And so I think that they're changing the conversation. also think that because of overtourism and the impacts of overtourism post COVID in a lot of our favorite destinations, people are much more willing to look at Oleksij Rak: Okay. Thank Janet: secondary destination. They're much more excited and curious about off the beaten path travel. They want to go to Italy, but maybe not necessarily to Rome and Florence and Positano. Maybe now they're wondering about Puglia or Sardinia or Lake Garda and destinations that are not necessarily what you first think of when you think of a destination, because they want to have an enjoyable experience. They want they don't want all the crowds. They want to have a little bit more authenticity. They don't necessarily want to spend three $3,000 a night on a hotel in a destination that's blown up because of social media. And so I think that there's a lot more awareness that's happening, even though it's a little bit slower, about, hey, I see these beautiful places, but now where can I go that's similar to this experience but more enjoyable? The Duke. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, so-called dupes, yeah, duped destination, yeah, for sure. But you mentioned an interesting topic, concept that the younger generation is not really the ones who is paying for the luxury travel. So this is really the case, right? Because ⁓ I was hearing from a lot that Gen Z has already, if you take some younger generation, has already earned some money. they start to start traveling by themselves but from what I hear in in luxury ⁓ they still aren't so ⁓ are not the ones paying ⁓ Janet: It's a much smaller, very, very small percentage because in the luxury segment, travel is much more expensive. And so I think that they might be discovering certain destinations. They might be experiencing travel and enjoying the experience because maybe they're studying abroad in college or they're doing a college tour type trip. And then they're coming home and saying, want to have this experience. Mom and dad, let's go together as a family. And then mom and dad are paying for it at a much higher level. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I see. Could we talk a bit about the luxury segment because it's something new for me? I have not really touched it yet. By calling luxury, what paycheck do we mean? On average, some range, I don't know, 10 to 50 or whatever. Janet: It's not, you know, I... Yeah, it's interesting. It's more about the spend of the trip. ⁓ And a lot of the travelers in our, you know, in our agency, most travelers when they're taking an international trip, the minimum spend for a family of four, for example, is around 20 to $25,000. That is the investment that they're making in the trip. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Okay. Janet: And so, you know, the average salaries in the US, probably for a lot of our travelers are in the $250,000 plus because you're to be able to invest $25,000 in a single trip, you have to be a little bit of a high income earner or travelers who are more towards their retirement age where they've, you know, they're they've earned their money. They and now they're able to treat the kids and the grandkids and be able to pay for these experiences. You know, a lot of our luxury hotels Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Janet: the price per night has gone up substantially. And so when you're looking at some of these really popular destinations, $500 a night is a entry-level room in a nice four-star hotel. $1,000 a night is kind of your baseline price point for a nice five-star. And when you're talking about the compounding effect of the overall cost of the trip with flights and meals and experiences and tours and tickets and all these other things, plus the accommodations, The price tag really adds up very quickly. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, so if you spend minimum 20 to 25 per vacation, it's indeed an investment into yourself, into your family. Yeah, for sure. And what does it take to distinguish yourself in the crowd in this kind of segment? Because it's not mass segment, it's not just SEO or whatever. So you need to really distinguish yourself. And if somebody is investing like few tens of thousands, in vocations, they do consider who to work with. It's not spending, I don't know, thousands or two for vocation. Janet: Yeah, it's expertise and experience. know, our travel advisors travel a lot. They visit the destinations. They have the partnerships on the ground. Travelers want to have, want to work with people who are professional and who are very experienced. So most of our advisors have many years of experience and they're traveling. to a lot of the destinations that they're recommending to their clients. So they're pre-vetting destinations, they're pre-vetting hotels, they're pre-vetting the tour guides and the operators that we're using, the cruise ships that we're sending our clients on, so they can have that firsthand experience, or at least have the experience of a colleague who recently visited it. People want that, want, you know, you can read anything online and you can see beautiful pictures, but that's not necessarily indicative of the level of experience. Everyone can take a beautiful picture and then filter it and edit it. What's it like when you arrive in that destination? What's the service like? What is the room quality like? What is the view? Is it in a great neighborhood? What do you see when you step outside of that hotel? What do you feel? ⁓ Those things you really need to experience firsthand. Oleksij Rak: Okay. . Janet: or have a very, very trusted source that experiences it firsthand in order to have an accurate representation of what that experience is really like. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, I see. And what do you do to prove your expertise? Because anybody can say, I've been to that destination, I've seen that, I've seen that. ⁓ When you get clients, you need to prove that expertise. I'm asking for myself because I'm also trying to. Janet: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: to build a travel business and trust is one of the biggest challenges in this business from what we see. Janet: Yeah, I mean, we're very much about honesty and transparency. So we would never tell a client we've been to a place we haven't been. We would never ⁓ recommend a destination that we don't personally have a relationship with. And I think it's honesty and it's trust and it's kind of a reputation. You we've built a reputation. that has a certain level of service. also are a member of Virtuoso, which is a luxury travel consortium ⁓ that is very reputable and has very high standards to be able to join in and belong and to stay in. And we're also endorsed by the Forbes Travel Guide. There's only about 60 agencies in the world that are endorsed by the Forbes Travel Guide. It's a very... Oleksij Rak: Okay. Janet: high standard to be able to be endorsed by them. You can't buy your way in, you don't apply. And so it's a third party that's vetting you and that is recommending you and that's essentially ⁓ saying that yes, this company is what they say they are. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, it makes sense. Great position to be in. If talking about net margins, what are usually net margins in this kind of segment? Because in mass segment, from what I'm hearing from travel companies, they are continuously whining about... Margins margins are very thin and it's really hard to compete and it's really hard to stay profitable. In luxury segment is probably different, but how much different is that? Janet: industry is at the end of the day still very much a passion industry. ⁓ And we really, I mean, in our agency, we're very much about transparency and we don't do big markups. The commissions that hotels pay and suppliers pay is not very high. And so the margins are slim, the profits are slim, ⁓ you know, but you have to balance that with hiring really good, high quality people. And so it's an industry that requires a lot of passion and love for the industry. Most people are not in the travel industry because they want to get rich. They're in the travel industry because they really love travel. They love to help people plan travel. They love to travel themselves. They're really passionate about this industry. ⁓ And so that's why they do what they do. Of course, we all have to be profitable in order to be a sustainable business, but the margins are very slim. in luxury or in non-luxury, you know, the end is higher, but the expectations are also higher. And so, yes, you know, maybe the trip is $25,000, but the amount of time and energy and work that goes into curating and organizing and putting all the pieces together, it's very labor intensive and it's a human connection. Industry luxury is about people. It's about wanting to have that connection with the person, with the advisor and trust. And those things are, you can't really automate. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Janet: a lot of it because a lot of it requires human touch and human touch is time intensive. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that was my follow-up question. Why don't you automate? ⁓ Janet: We do. We build a lot of our own in-house technology and we're trying to be smarter and automate the things that we can automate so that we can humanize and have our advisors spend more time on the human connection pieces by automating some of the pain points that traditionally take a lot of time. But the industry is still very disjointed. know, there is no, we don't have cohesiveness between flights and trains and transfers and tour guides and hotels. And a lot of these pieces, they don't talk to each other. And so it requires a human being to relay information a lot of the time, you know, because there is no automation that happens. a flight is delayed, the transfer company can monitor that flight. Great. So then they pick up the person when at the delayed flight. But the hotel never gets that message. There's no there's nobody that automatically sends that message to the hotel to say actually the flight's three hours delayed now this client is going to be checking in at 2 a.m. instead of at 10 p.m. ⁓ There's no automation that lets the guide know hey FYI they're going to miss their their meeting points because they got lost or there was a lot of traffic. It has to be the person texting and messaging and picking up the phone and calling. ⁓ And so even with all the automation and technology that we have, so many of the true pain points in travel are still very human pain points and they require a person to have a direct connection with the other person on the other end of the spectrum because a tour guide might not have, even if I have the best in the world, that doesn't mean that the local tour guide is going to have any of that technology. They have a phone and WhatsApp and, you know, they can receive a text message. That's kind of about it. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that sounds like a lot of freqs, micro-freqs in each travel and they are really custom. But what do you try to automate? Like some booking processes? And what else? Janet: Yeah, we have a booking engine. have a CRM system. We've built a lot of our own technology and house just to solve a lot of the pain points that we're noticing. ⁓ itinerary curation, building the proposals and the inspiration to automate some, to expedite, I shouldn't say automate, but expedite some of those pieces, ⁓ expediting some of the booking processes, expediting some of the reporting and the data entry, the manual data entry that is so painful and nobody likes to do it and it's so time consuming. So we're trying to automate some of those pieces. ⁓ some of the communication pieces on the back end with the hotel partners and with our partners so that the advisor again then has more time to spend on that one-on-one with their clients. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's already a lot of automation that you mentioned. I can imagine. And that's what I hear all around the industry. Margins are slim and you need to automate your operations and become more operational efficient because otherwise you're wasting labor. Janet: We've built a lot of technology. Oleksij Rak: since it's labor intensive, you're losing money, you're losing convergence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome. And what other trends do we see? We've touched generation, we've touched... experiences, ⁓ authentic experiences, ⁓ dupe cities, dupe locations, and what else do you see? Janet: off. travel is ⁓ it's been big. It's getting bigger. I think people are much ⁓ You know at least in the US the younger generations are drinking less ⁓ So there's less alcohol consumption, which means that there's more intention around wellness and how they feel when they're traveling. And so as you're consuming less alcohol, a lot of the activities and the, you know, the experiences built around traditional types of travel experiences like wine tasting and beer tasting and all these things. If you're not drinking, they're being replaced by something else and more and more they're being replaced by wellness experiences. We're seeing a lot more Oleksij Rak: Thank Janet: properties offer much more robust wellness experiences that are not just massages and facials, but really truly, you know, programs built around wellness and longevity. So we're seeing a lot more demand for that. and we're seeing demand for ⁓ actually concert travel and again built around experiences that are not necessarily your traditional experiences. people are really into music, they're really into events and so they're traveling much more, you know, whereas they used to just go to a concert in their home city, now they're planning our entire trips around concerts all over the world, know, Taylor Swift, people booked. trips to Scotland just to see Taylor Swift perform in Edinburgh, even though she's performing in Chicago and LA and New York. So I think that's a newer trend. It's getting bigger and more popular. I don't think it's gonna slow down. I think it's gonna continue. Oleksij Rak: Yes, that's what I heard. And not only about concerts, it's about ⁓ adding some social layer on top of transactional travel. So I had a chat with a startup called Bubble. They are kind of mixture of Airbnb and the social layer on top of obviously kind of LinkedIn or whatever, Instagram on top of that. So where people can book some accommodation and share it with others. members of some community and socialize that way. And I'm also hearing like people travel, authentic experience for sure, concert travels for sure. What else do you see emerging in that kind of sense? So it sounds like a trend that people want something more on top of something social on top of transactional travel. Janet: You know, Yeah, I think that they're taking what they enjoy in their daily lives, whether that's attending concerts or sporting events or, you know, hiking or running or tennis or pickleball and bringing that with them on their travels, right? So rather than having the travel just be about the destination, it's the destination, but it's also taking all the things I love in my life, my hobbies, my interests, and bringing that and infusing that into my travel experiences. Oleksij Rak: Why is that? Why is the trend now? Why is the trend emerging now? Is it because of COVID or it's not related to that? Janet: I think it's just a, it's a lot of different factors. I think it's the way that people live their lives. I think it's remote work. I think it's how people choose to spend their free time. I think it's less drinking alcohol. I think it's the combination of all these things and also social media that popularizes certain ideas and makes things more accessible. You didn't know that you could do these things before on your trip and now you know that you can do them. So why would you not want to do them, right? Oleksij Rak: Most work. . Janet: And I think that experiences for this younger generation is really a big part of their life. That's what they spend a lot of their money on. They're not spending necessarily as much money on material things and possessions. They're spending more money on experiences. They're investing in going to concerts. They're investing in going to sporting events. They're investing in travel. And so now they're kind of combining all of these factors and it's kind of creating this global trend. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, see they kind of growth have grown in their smartphones and now they want to socialize Yeah, Yeah with regards to alcohol drinking, yeah I've heard that a lot that like younger generation is not really drinking much of alcohol and I have an upcoming interview with a guy who is doing Janet: Not really. Oleksij Rak: ⁓ wine tasting trips around Virginia region, Virginia wine region. So that will be my question about threat to the business. Awesome. What are you building nowadays? What are your bets about the future and what you're trying Janet: You know, we're building, the technology piece that we're building is very much about being innovative and also automating again the pain points for our team to be able to enhance the human connection piece with our clients. We're building itinerary tools, we're building CRM, we're building a lot of training. We're focusing a lot on really elevating the level of expertise that our advisors have. and also their level of confidence with selling different types of travel experiences and how to communicate their expertise because you can know a lot but being able to communicate what you know is really important. And so, you know, we're focusing a lot on that training component to really elevate the advisory team. ⁓ And then also working a lot on our client facing portals so that our travelers can have access for inspirational content that's vetted by our agency. So our preferred hotels, our preferred experiences, giving them access to that and giving them flexibility and tools. So if they want to work with an advisor that the advisor does absolutely everything, that's fine. But if they want to do a quick weekend getaway, you know, or book a hotel for a staycation, they can do that in their client, in their portal, in a very contained environment, knowing that everything that's in that portal and in that booking platform is vetted and supported by our team on the back end. So rather than calling the advisor and saying, hey, can you book me this hotel, they go into their client portal, they book the hotel, and then they know that the advisor will come in behind the scenes and elevate the stay. Oleksij Rak: With regards to the customer support, I think, like now I'm thinking you're on the market for eight years. You have collected quite a lot of knowledge base, I would say. Quite likely, every single trip is every single tension that happens there, know, that's a knowledge base. I'm trying to utilize some AI agents or whatever to act on top of that. Maybe not even act, but at least prepare something. Because that's a big knowledge base that can be used by some AI agents. And nowadays there's a big trend towards not only automations, but rather AI agents who do some agentic work behind the scenes. Janet: Yeah, we're not doing as much of the agentic work, but we do have our own internal AI agent that has access to our full CRM system that's been trained on thousands of data points about trips and travelers and experiences and preferred suppliers and what works, what doesn't work, itineraries that go well, how things kind of flow together. And we use that a lot to help our advisors strategize, plan. ⁓ harness and really research information and get that information, extract that information because typically what happens is we have a group chat and everyone just throws in the chat, has anyone had a client recently stay at the hotel? Is it still as great as it was two years ago? And there's a lot of back and forth and so we're trying to help. Oleksij Rak: . Janet: the AI agent can help by gathering all that information and then instead of the advisor waiting for someone who has time to respond to them, they can put their questions in the AI agent and the AI agent will say, Janet had a client stay there two months ago, they had a great experience, here's the link to their itinerary. And then the advisor can reach out to the other advisor, to their colleague or not, or just kind of read this information and have it easily accessible. Our AI agents are trained on our brand and our voice and our style of travel. They help advisors quality control. They help them really strategize on maybe different routes and the best kind of flow for an itinerary. So they're a coworker rather than a, they're not replacing, they're really enhancing. Oleksij Rak: Awesome, that's already a lot. That's much more than I've heard from... most of the people I had a chat with. How big is the team that's building that? Janet: Not that big. think that there's let's see four people on it Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, and that's a great advancement with regards to technology. ⁓ Impressive. ⁓ Janet: Yeah. Well, the funny thing is I go into technology, had zero technology skills or any sort of training before I started all this. And really it came from pain points, then frustration about not having access to the tools that I needed, that our team needed. And I said, well, screw it, we'll just build it. And I think you don't know what you don't know. And if I had known how painful and difficult and really complicated it was gonna be to build a lot of these tools, I don't know that I would have done it. So I'm kind of happy I didn't realize how complex it was gonna to be and I've really learned a tremendous amount. know, I have my own terminal now on my computer never in a million years that I think I was gonna have. But I think knowledge is power and I love to learn and I think the more you learn about what's available and the tools that are available to help streamline and help build efficiencies, it's really hard to build them and it's hard to change Oleksij Rak: You Yeah. Janet: people's habits because a lot of people in the travel industry are much more inspirational, they're creative, they're not techie, they don't go into travel and advisory services because they're tech savvy. They go into it because they love people and they love creation and curation and they love talking. And so sometimes there's this disconnect because it's hard to get them to adapt a lot of these tools. Once they adapt them, they see the benefits, but to get people that are not traditionally very ⁓ easily embracing of technology to embrace the technology is actually a really big challenge. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, it did cost you a lot, so maybe, but in the end, it really helps a lot from what you hear. This kind of AI coworker assistant is really, really helpful in this regard. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And it's like, what breaks the most in the travel? When you plan a travel for your... for your clients what breaks the most and what costs the most, what kind of mistakes are the most costly. Janet: You know, lot of the things in travel are sadly outside of our control. Airlines, know, delays, cancellations, rerouting, which derails all, it's like the domino effect, right? Your flight is delayed, so then you miss your connection. Then you, then the transfer company doesn't know that you've missed your connection, so they're waiting at the airport for you. And then you have a transfer that needs to be paid for that's not used. And then you have a tour that's missed because it was scheduled for a time that you're not in the destination. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Janet: have a hotel night that wasn't utilized and so you have this domino effect of things that are a lot of times outside of our control. ⁓ The other things that break is communication because there's so many different time zones and it's really hard when you have travelers who are in a completely different time zone from their advisors and we're not necessarily because we don't have this very consistent flow of information. You're relying on people to convey the information that needs to make it to all these other different people on the ground. ⁓ And sometimes information is missed, sometimes things are missed because there's that human error on the one hand, and on the other hand, you just have miscommunication. And it's not really anyone's fault, but it's the reality of what happens when you have the pieces that kind of don't fall into place. Because again, you have a flight delay or a train delay or a missed connection or a traveler who got confused and went to the wrong. part of the train station to meet their driver and they didn't find their driver so then they took a taxi and then the driver was sitting there waiting for them and then you have all these different things that happen. ⁓ But I mean that's part of travel. We warn our travelers don't expect things to be perfect. Part of travel is the misadventure, as I call them, the things that don't necessarily go according to plan. And sometimes they can lead to really beautiful experiences. And it can lead to, you know, if you have kids and they're traveling with you, it teaches them a lot of perseverance and. overcoming challenges and obstacles and all those things that seem a little bit uncomfortable or stressful in the moment can actually lead to beautiful memories down the road. luxury travelers want things to be seamless and it's not always possible in travel. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I understand. A car driver does not have an API to easily call it and tell him go to another gate. Janet: No, yeah, don't, human beings don't have APIs, right? There's no, there's no chip that's gonna tell me. So in real time. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Janet: relying on someone to call me to pick up the phone and to have the correct phone number and sometimes they dial and they forget to do the plus one or whatever it is I mean, it's like ⁓ silly things or you don't have service constantly. I mean, that's one of the things I laugh at I'm like we have robots in China that are doing cartwheels and cleaning rooms and whatever and then here I am in the middle of Europe and I have no cell service so I'm going to miss my connection and I have no way to let the driver know because I have zero service and there's no Wi-Fi And so I'm, you know, certain things like that that you're just like, ⁓ my god. Oleksij Rak: By mentioning different time zones, do you have 24 hours support? I heard other companies make night shifts to have somebody 24 hours around. Janet: Yeah, for most of our travelers, it depends on what they're doing. We have in-destination support, so somebody in that destination that's available. Oleksij Rak: I understand that. Janet: ⁓ at that time zone and really very readily close by. So if they're traveling to France, we typically have in destination support in France. If they're in Spain, somebody in Spain, Africa in Africa, because it's really important to have a person on the ground that is aware of, especially with everything going on in our world, between world events and, you know. weather events and you know, natural disasters and all these things that happen suddenly you have a hurricane that's coming in and so all the airport is getting shut down or you have clients in Dubai and the airspace is closed and how do you get them out or you have I mean so all of these things you have to have in destination people to really have a more seamless experience. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. Well, ⁓ Janet, thanks a lot for your time for this conversation. We agreed to have it 45 minutes. It's 44 right now. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you would like to add? Janet: I mean, I think we covered a lot of different things. We covered trends, covered luxury, we covered pain points, we covered adventures. I think it's, I've said, I don't know, I don't have anything else. feel like I've shared a lot, but travel is always changing. It's always evolving. And I think it will always be there despite economic hardships. think right now the economy is not great in the United States. So of course that impacts the decisions that people make for travel. Oleksij Rak: That was interesting. Yeah. Janet: But at the end of the day, as human beings, we want to explore, we want to travel, we want to see new places, we want to have these experiences. And I don't think that once somebody has experienced this beauty and wonder of travel, it's very hard to put that genie back in the bottle. So I think people are going to continue to invest in travel because it's such a meaningful part of our lives. Oleksij Rak: For sure it is. ⁓ Thanks a lot again. That really was intense and we covered a lot of topics. I don't even know what else to ask you. Yeah, for sure. Thanks a lot for your time. Thanks a lot for joining and sharing all the information. Maybe let's get in touch and maybe reiterate again in half a year years time and see where it moves. Janet: Perfect, that's a good podcast episode, huh? I would love that. Thank you. Oleksij Rak: Thank you too and have a great day. Bye. Janet: YouTube, bye-bye.