2022 Program

Contact the hotel now to review their offerings and make your reservations! Learn More

Register or check in, and collect your conference materials. Phocuswright Reception is the go-to spot for all your needs.

(Limited Availability – Registration required.)

Begin meeting fellow attendees and join the fun for a friendly outdoor game of Pickleball. All levels, especially beginners are invited to join. We kick off with an instruction session learning the basics and rules of Pickleball followed by friendly game time. Please dress accordingly, with comfortable sportswear and sneakers. Complimentary pickleball racquets will be provided. Light refreshments will be served.

Pickleball is a game resembling tennis in which players use paddles to hit a plastic ball over a net. Limited availability for play – please register in the event app by bookmarking this session to secure your spot.

Private event - by acceptance only.
Each year, Phocuswright brings together the industry’s best and brightest travel leaders aged 35 and under to be part of this elite group. This private program during The Phocuswright Conference is a launching pad for the next generation of travel luminaries to connect, debate and collaborate.

Private event - by acceptance only.
Innovation is the lifeblood of any industry. The Startup Program is a curated networking platform to connect startups with corporates and investors to foster real innovation.

Diversity Advocates share initiatives they have implemented in their own organizations that address issues related to diversity and inclusion and will serve as a source for PhocusWire throughout the coming year.

This 90-minute session is open to registered conference attendees. Capacity is limited, so register early to be included in the discussion!

View Complete Agenda

Presented by RaizUp

Limited Availability – Registration required
A personal and professional development opportunity designed to empower women and members of other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.

In this interactive session, you will participate in group discussions and exercises to develop the confidence and skills to promote yourself effectively.

This opening reception kicks off the evening and gets everyone networking and buzzing about the coming days' sessions and speakers.

Register or check in, and collect your conference materials. Phocuswright Reception is the go-to spot for all your needs.

Then, meet with innovators and exhibitors one-on-one! The showcase is open for business and abuzz with activity.

Taking over the reigns from the founder after 22 years is a challenge that this media giant's CEO doesn't take lightly. Hear what's changed and what's the same from Tripadvisor's new leader.

As the fight to be travelers' lodging of choice heats up, should hotels promote their own unique attributes or mimic elements of rentals? Are the lines between the two really blurring or are they coming into sharper focus? Hospitality leaders share their views on the future of the lodging industry.

So where’s the money? How can the travel industry navigate through a turbulent and volatile environment to a profitable future? A leading travel futurist highlights the exciting possibilities emerging to enrich relationships with existing customers, attract new travelers, and create offerings for untapped markets. In this fast paced session he will show how such growth is being enabled by emerging ideas, new business models, and technology enabled opportunities arising from AI, metaverses, crypto acceptance, and NFTs.

Transformation and reinvention, modernizing travel and simplifying retailing. Easier said than done or a real change in the making? We go beyond the headlines about customer centricity, improved user experience and technology with these two titans.

Accessibility, inclusivity, safety and innovation come together at this pioneer of autonomous driving technology. Hear about its commitment to partnership within communities and how it opens up the world for the differently abled.

They paved the way for online travel – but what do they think about the state of the industry today and where do they see it going? Industry luminaries opine on stage and predict the future of travel.

Innovation isn't just for startups - scaleups and established companies are also breaking new ground and developing new technologies. Launch demonstrators use this spotlight to wow the audience and compete to win the People's Choice Award!

Authentic Intelligence is the next super power of AI to be proactive beyond human speed for seamless aviation connections.

Company Profile: Netomi

Azygos - A multi-source airline retailing SaaS platform to launch, scale, and build a successful travel business.

Company Profile: Mystifly

Meet Mobi Agent for Agents and Mobi Agents. We’ll say out loud we’re a trip planning company and share what it takes to persist, succeed and win.

Company Profile: Mobi Systems

Vervotech presents room mapping solution, an age-old unsolved problem, with the use of ever-evolving clustering ML algorithms and NLPs.

Company Profile: Vervotech

Kodo is a partner enablement platform providing any two travel companies working together with a context driven workspace to collaborate and grow their volumes.

Company Profile: Gimmonix

See the magic of Cherry. Our product intercepts users on OTA sites and sends them to property sites to drive direct bookings.

Company Profile: ReZme

SynXis Retail Studio enables hoteliers to create relevant customer choices outside the room, increasing guest satisfaction and total revenue.

Company Profile: Sabre

A new collaborative way for travel brands to share insights on the traveler journey and humanize the traveler’s experience.

Company Profile: Amadeus

Introducing CELITECH - eSIM API, the new ancillary service that travel companies and their int’l travelers need today.

Company Profile: Celitech Inc.

TripStax is a connected stack of modules, uniquely driven by ‘The Core’, that untangles the chaos of legacy tech integrations.


Company Profile: TripStax

Joyned F&F booking platform lets travelers book together directly on the OTA, increasing overall bookings by 10%.

Company Profile: Joyned

@hotel is the first hotel booking platform for Instagram and powers a portfolio of travel brands on social media with 40M+ followers.


Company Profile: Tripscout

We’ll cover key why, what, and how topics around hotel ABS, starting with a definition:
• ABS enables shoppers (and travel managers) to define the room experience they want by selecting:
• Specific room-level “hard” attributes (e.g., work desk, view, bedding, room size, adjoining rooms, high-floor, closeness to elevator, etc.)
• Stay-level “soft” attributes (e.g., Wi-Fi, cancelation polices, etc.)
• ABS carries a guarantee that the room will have the attributes paid for -- the attributes are not “on request” or on a bid-if-available basis
Discussion will include a financial and operational model: since different guests will value attributes quite differently, there’s an opportunity for both significant positive impact on top line and profitability for owners, and to delight guests and attract corporate travel managers and meeting organizers with the prospect of clearly superior experiences.

The writing’s on the wall for the old business model. Treasured destinations are being degraded, while inequalities and climate risks worsen under the heavy burdens of tourism. Increasingly, pressure from investors, regulators and customers is building a head of steam. The current system can’t change course – so who will take up the challenge of redefining success and creating the new system?

Building off their just-released Envision 2030 research, Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, and Joshua Ryan-Saha, Director at TravelTech for Scotland, will provide the context, and invite participants to bring their entrepreneurial and collaborative spirit to explore this once-in-a-generation opportunity to shift the paradigm for the next 30 years. Tech innovation can – and must - empower destinations, grow the true value of tourism and design out the vulnerabilities embedded in business as usual.

This breakout session builds upon the seminal Payments 2025 work published by Worldpay, which explored the extent to which global payment preferences are changing. In particular, how these inter-regional differences are becoming ever more pronounced. It goes without saying that the evolution in regional payment preferences has significant implications for travel companies across the world, if they want to be ahead of their competitors. This break-out session will explore six key payment trends, and what they mean for travel companies worldwide.

Phocuswright's signature session dedicated to the intersection of finance, investment, M&A, IPOs and the world's largest industry - travel, tourism and hospitality. Wall Street's leading analysts on digital, travel and hospitality share their perspectives on where the money, the market and its movers will go next.

Blockchain was going to transform travel distribution, but applications have been piecemeal at best. Could 2023 be the year blockchain-based solutions go mainstream? Hear from three blockchain trailblazers about their companies' implementations across hotels, airlines and short-term rentals and how decentralized systems using smart contracts are changing the way travel is bought and sold.

Hear from Google’s travel lead about the latest insights on consumer behavior, marketplace trends and product strategy in this data driven, interview style session.

Experiences are becoming a core reason for travel. But connecting growing demand to a fragmented supply landscape is a challenge in itself. Integrating tours and activities into the booking path is crucial but what more can companies do to capture travelers' attention and keep them engaged? Panelists discuss the increasing importance of tours, activities and experiences in the travel ecosystem.

How has the combination of recovery and recession impacted travel demand? Hear from one of the world's largest travel companies about the latest trends and the future of travel distribution.

New rules, global uncertainty, a hybrid work environment and structural changes have reshaped business travel. Everyone agrees that a dynamic, flexible, traveler-centric program is required - but is it for real? And what are the implications for TMCs who have long been the linchpin of the industry? Panelists debate the changing nature of what once was business as usual.

There are many moving parts to a short-term rental, from finding the right match, to checking-in, and communicating with hosts or property managers throughout the stay. For many travelers the journey is seamless, but not always. Communication break-downs and unmet promises still fuel some bad experiences and mar the growing sector. Speakers explore various angles and explain how technology intersects with hospitality to solve real problems and keep travelers satisfied.

He steadied the ship during wild turbulence and then enjoyed an epic turnaround. The CEO of one of the world's largest travel providers talks turkey about prospects, patience and potential headwinds.

The showcase is open for business and abuzz with activity. Meet with innovators and exhibitors one-on-one! Need anything? Stop by Phocuswright Reception, the go-to spot for all your needs.

A custom audience strategy is an intentional approach. Each travel brand faces a unique set of challenges while navigating a fragmented traveler data landscape to drive business outcomes. To maximize revenue and foster brand loyalty, you need more than just a generic segmentation strategy. During this breakout session, we will be joined by Marriott to discuss how they identify opportunity audiences using distinct characteristics from traveler data. We will also demonstrate how you can create a custom audience strategy based on your specific business goals to maximize your growth opportunity.

Tours, activities and attractions (TAA) is the most diverse and fragmented sector in the global tourism industry. It is the least understood, vastly understudied – and yet the most important part of every single leisure trip. This session features key highlights from new research by Arival and Phocuswright on the state and future of travel's third-largest and most complex sector. We’ll explore key trends emerging from the pandemic, the big shifts in booking and tech, the size of the market now through 2025, and the opportunity for all sectors of travel and tourism to tap into the explosive growth of travel experiences.

Startups are the lifeblood of any industry. This year, selected purely for their capabilities by Phocuswright, the top companies that have shown potential to have breakthrough success take the stage and showcase their innovation.

Get ready for fresh ideas! Phocuswright's Innovation Platform features some of travel's newest innovations.

Drive climate impact, delight your customers. CHOOOSE is the leading platform to integrate climate action everywhere you meet your customers.

Company Profile: CHOOOSE

In this session, Morgan will concretely explain why the resale revolution that has disrupted the retail industry in the last years is coming to the travel industry.

Company Profile: Fairlyne

In a volatile market, it’s impossible to manage the revenue based mainly on historical data and linear demand models. The solution is to adopt proven real-time technologies from sophisticated markets and move to continuous pricing.

Company Profile: Fetcherr

Cloud-based Central Sales System with dynamic, feature-based & AI powered inventory sales, revenue management & automation.

Company Profile: GauVendi

Grapevine empowers TMCs to increase hotel attachment rates and ancillary revenues through AI-powered Intelligent Remarketing.

Company Profile: Grapevine

Predictive personalization engines for Vacation Rental Managers that drive revenue on autopilot.

Get the fast, flexible, non-debt financing you need to scale your rental portfolio — without raising equity.

Company Profile: Nectar

We are a novel digital identity infrastructure to empower people to seamlessly achieve their travel goals. We do this through an intelligent and secure information exchange that connects different parts of the trip.

Company Profile: NeoKe

Swayed maps and shapes customer journeys in physical settings by using their location, behavioral, and transactional data.

Company Profile: Swayed Intelligence

Jyrney enable travel companies to launch and scale mobility solutions, using data to improve the ground transport experience for the passenger.

More than ever, being transported to new destinations is at the touch of fingertips for consumers. And as communications grow more visual and immersive, travelers’ expectations for learning more about destinations and being inspired are accelerating. 80% of consumers are interested in Augmented Reality for travel and exploring the world, there’s never been a more perfect time to deliver their needs. Join Snapchat to learn more about the massive opportunity to influence inspiration and booking of that next adventure via tools and solutions that grow your bottom line.

Traveler sentiment and needs have fundamentally changed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep pace with the rapidly evolving customer expectations, travel companies need to rise to the occasion, despite existing budget constraints and resource crunch. They must go farther to reach their customers and deliver the experience that travelers now expect.

It’s time to re-invent how travel companies attract customers, provide services to them, and nurture their loyalty. All parts of the traveler’s journey must work together seamlessly to create holistic, digital-first experience - all while optimizing costs, ensuring safety and being environment friendly.

Looking beyond traditional siloes and departments to re-imagine the entire traveler journey can have a tangible impact on fulfilling the brand promise - and on the bottom line.

Key takeaways from the session:

-Enabling personalized experiences across the passenger touchpoints
-Better, faster, cheaper fulfilment driven by technology
-Digital - the travel industry's passport to tomorrow

The online travel payments experience can make or break the merchant-consumer relationship. But how do you stay on top of rapidly changing customer needs, regulatory and technological evolutions, and still contend with online fraud?

Multiple digital touchpoints bring in the data that travel merchants need to build smarter, faster eCommerce operations and personalize payment journeys at scale. But it also comes with challenges. In this session we will empower travel merchants to proactively take control of your risk and performance, and fuel your growth strategy with evidence-based decisions. Learn how to successfully:
•Offer a frictionless payment experience for your customers
•Leverage data to recoup lost revenue and support growth
•Make machine learning models work for your travel business
•Protect against fraud, while also increasing approval rates and reducing chargeback rates

Hear firsthand from James Hall, CFO at TravelPass Group, about how TravelPass gained these benefits from using ConnexPay’s all-in-one payments platform—and how you can too:
•Get real-time access to incoming customer funds that can immediately be used for outgoing supplier payments.
•Save money on merchant processing fees and earn higher virtual card rebates.
•Reduce chargebacks and fraud risks.
•Use one modern platform to both accept and make payments, with a single reconciliation and unified reporting.
•Process unlimited volume with no reserves.

This genius-level breakout will explain how travel sellers can use embedded insurance to improve the customer experience, apply this technology at the right price and the right time and, increase ancillary revenue opportunities.

A shift in traveler behavior means advertisers may need to reimagine how they engage with potential customers. A better understanding of changing consumer habits, evolving technologies, and expanding advertising opportunities will allow travel brands to make the most of the industry’s upswing while successfully engaging today’s modern travelers. Amazon Ads will share valuable insights and best practices to activate new audiences through non-traditional ad channels, including mobile, streaming TV, and audio.

An estimated 1.5B more passengers globally will fly by the end of this year compared to 2021. In addition, short-haul flight volumes are up 25% compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. After over two turbulent years, it’s now essential that organizations across the travel supply chain consider how they are set up to capture this growth and ensure maximum sales.

Join Laurie Gablehouse, Global Head of Travel Solutions, Worldline and Chiara Quaia, Senior Vice President, Mastercard as they discuss:
•How rebooting your payment strategy will set organizations up for success in 2023 and beyond.
•What learnings can be taken from the Covid crisis to ensure the future health and resilience of the travel industry?
•What trends, themes and priorities are emerging that will impact travel payments?
•And what does commercial payment success now look like for the sector?

The pandemic changed how and why people travel. But now that people can roam more freely again – from down the road to around the world – new challenges are replacing the concerns of pandemic-era travel.

Travelers expect safety, flexibility, and refundable services. Inflation and climate awareness are growing in importance. Finding time to get away is getting harder, but more appreciated than ever. Ultimately, delivering the “right” experience is more complex because expectations are increasingly unique and personal to each traveler.

Join Cheryl Miller, Senior Vice President of B2B Marketing, Expedia Group, to access exclusive new research that reveals the gaps between what people want from travel and what the industry is currently delivering. Importantly, the session will outline how to build loyal travelers, repeat bookings, and a successful business in the next era of travel.

Find out the winners of Summit and Launch!

While the dragon slept, the elephant came out to dance. China may remain closed but the Indian travel market is going full steam ahead. A slew of factors are at play – the leapfrogging of the online shopping and payment ecosystem, resurgent airlines and a flourishing OTA sector. We find out more from a trailblazer turned titan from this land of a burgeoning, eager to travel middle class.

With so much uncertaintly remaining in travel, how do you buck the trend? One of travel's longest-reigning founders explains how to relish the best times while surviving the worst.

Social apps connect, entertain and inform, but do they impact travel decisions? Experts discuss generational shifts and, the subtle - and not so subtle - ways that social media influences where we will go next.

From price protection, to insurance, to home rentals and superapps, Hopper has been known to follow the money as the industry ebbs and flows. How is the strategy working? And what's the next adventure for one of travel's most watched companies?

Travel and payments should go hand in hand but, until recently, that was rarely the case. As the industry seeks new revenue streams, increased engagement and customer loyalty, can fintech solutions fill the gap? Veterans and pioneers alike take the stage to discuss the future of payments and fintech applications on travel.

Phocuswright’s Hall of Fame inductees led the way for many of today’s titans. The very epitome of trailblazers, they continue to inspire the travel industry and make a profound impact.

Welcome to the stage: the winner of WiT and Phocuswright's Global Startup Pitch

“First in, last out” is the Asia Pacific region’s pandemic story in a nutshell but the pace of recovery remains uneven. While most of the region is opening up, China remains closed. Can Asia or global travel truly recover without its largest travel market? What does the massive acceleration in digitization, social commerce and fintech mean for the new world of travel in Asia? What are the opportunities for travel brands? All this and more in an enlightening hour.

The battle for travelers’ trust and loyalty has begun anew. OTAs are responding to demanding post-pandemic travelers’ needs by leveraging new technologies and creating new products. Titans and Trailblazers from across the globe bridge perspectives, ideas and solutions.

Join us for a once-in-a-lifetime hot air balloon experience alongside conference attendees and Travel Tech Leaders. During the flight you will have unobstructed 360-degree views, allowing for breathtaking photographs and networking with your fellow industry colleagues.

Limited seats are available, please register to secure your spot. If unable to attend, please notify us by Monday, November 14th at phocuswright@localadventures.travel. Transportation will leave from the Hotel at 6:00 AM sharp!

Contact the hotel now to review their offerings and make your reservations! Learn More

Presented by RaizUp

Limited Availability – Registration required. Breakfast included.

A personal and professional development opportunity designed to empower women and members of other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.

In this interactive session, you will participate in group discussions and exercises to develop the confidence and skills to promote yourself effectively.

Here’s your opportunity to speak with the analyst team and tell them what’s on your mind.

Breakfast is served starting at 9:00 am. Meetings with Analysts start at 9:30 am.

Meeting rooms are available for anyone in need of a space to meet or work. No appointment necessary.