Nicer raises $2M pre seed money to help travel agents

"Nicer solves this problem by harnessing the power of AI to craft highly customized experiences while preserving the personalization and insights of travel advisors”. That is how founder and CEO, Ragan Stone explains the mission of the new startup as reported in this article by Travel Agents Central.

The article claims “A recent survey of travel advisors revealed that 60 percent view AI positively and nearly half want to use it in their business” but unfortunately without a link to the source material. I’d say for at this moment in time, that seems high given the very real posibility that ai has the potential to eliminate travel agencies completely as predicted in a Yahoo Travel articel this week.

The most realistic outcome is that all travel agents will be using ai in the same way they generally have a website as well as a physical presence, and the only real question is the rate of adoption.

That is the bet that Nicer are making and they are backed by some pretty heavy hitters including Shane O'Flaherty, Microsoft's global director of Travel and Hospitality, Angie Licea, president of Global Travel Collection, an influential collection of international luxury travel advisors who presumably are also first customers plus “Gilad Berenstein, founder at Brook Bay Capital and board member of Virtuoso; Javier Villamizar, operating partner, Softbank; Lee Thomas, former COO of ALTOUR, an Internova company; and Carlos Garcia, general partner, Trip Ventures.”

Stone is also a lifelong agent herself, an insider who knows the mindset of hose she is serving with the tech and that might be the greatest advantage of all.

This wasn’t the only news in this area of tech for agents with Travel Weekly reporting that the first 100 agent “have signed on to try TobyAI, a generative AI engine that can help with things like crafting itineraries and writing correspondence.” One hand picked agent “called TobyAI "my new best friend." She uses it for research, itineraries and correspondence. It is not clear at this point the difference between this tech and that which Nicer brings to table. What is probably more clear is that they won’t be the only one’s in this space.

AI Summit is on next week!

Things are starting to ramp up for the upcoming AI Summit to be held online next Wednesday & Thursday. We had our brief this week with my fellow panel members Christian Watts & Jeff Kischuk (both who have been on the Everything ai in Travel Podcast) along with moderator or more likely inquisitor, John Lyotier from travelai.com 

Our topic is how to form and maintain a leadership position in ai and we will be looking at it through the lens of past(!), present & future. We are bringing the Summit home as the last act on the Thursday and no doubt be putting a big ! on it.

The summit is 100% virtual and there are still just a couple of tickets left in our allocation for subscribers to this newsletter with the code below (100% free). The full agenda can be found here: https://www.accelevents.com/e/travel-trends-ai-summit#agenda

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Roam Around is acquired by fellow startup Layla

The second piece of big news this week was that Roam Around had been acquired by fellow startup as reported on Tech Crunch.

“Travel startup Layla — backed by firstminute capital, M13, Booking.com co-founder Andy Phillipps, Skyscanner co-founder Barry Smith and Paris Hilton — said today that it has acquired AI-powered itinerary building bot Roam Around.” was how the news broke.

We are extremely pleased for Roam Around founder Shie Gabbai, another of our recent podcast guests who was extremely generous with his time and thoughts for that show. It is basically a masterclass in how to do a startup and now comes with a transaction on the end.

Gabbai is also an active member of the Slack group (see below) attached to this newsletter and we hope to hear more from him in there when things calm down. It seems he is all in with Layla with his Linked In profile already describing him as the COO at Layla.

A strong team plus millions of users is a pretty great place to build from and we look forward to see what happens next for Layla.

Would you let ChatGPT plan your honeymoon?

First Rolling Stone and now The Verge are getting in on the act of some long form reporting on our core topic here of ai + travel.

The very well written piece is not just here for entertainment purposes however. If you dig deep you can also find some wisdom. In this article it was this part which really jumped out at me for its simplicity and truth:

“Then again, the internet might just be the problem. “I don’t think AI really gets it,” Cohen, the travel agent, tells me. In the end, ChatGPT is spitting out the same advertisements that make every resort look wonderful, she thinks. The same reviews that decide what is “luxury” or “drab” based on anonymous reviews and SEO phrases, the same blogs that send tourists straight into tourist traps. (And this is all before the internet gets flooded with AI-generated content itself.) Cohen’s peers made it this far by asking travelers the right questions about who they are and what travel actually means. That seems to be all that people are really looking for, whether they ask her or Google or an AI chatbot.”

The bold type is mine. Read it again and go build with that in mind.

KLM tackles onboard food waste with ai

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and it seems KLM have seen a pain point in the onboard food waste that it warranted some special ai attention.

I has no idea what the costs of food waste might be to an airline, but presumbly once multiplied across all flights, all year - it is one of those areas that can have a pretty big impact both environmentally and to the bottom line. In the Business Traveller article KLM quantified it as a saving (of) 111,000 kg of inflight meals from being wasted each year.”

The ai in this case is a predicitive model “beginning predictions 17 days before departure and refining them up until 20 minutes before the flight departs.”

Where those sitting up in seat 14A generally get the choice of chicken pasta or beef casserole, as I’m usually found dwelling somewhere around seat 89K I already have succumbed to the eventuality that I’m just getting greeted with a cheery “Chicken Pasta!” I can also see that should the ai now get it wrong that might become 5 packets of biscuits & crackers (…..can I get an extra glass of Shiraz to go with this please….)

More seriously though, it is clear that at KLM they are going around and asking people where the (money saving) pain points are and both listening and acting. This is a 101 piece in the strategy work I do with clients on this subject.

What happened at Journera

 Travel Weekly got the scoop on why Journera is closing its doors as we reported here last week. They sat down with founder Jeff Katz, who was also former president of Sabre and founding CEO of Orbitz.

The outcome: bad luck or maybe bad timing. In Katz’s own words "The travel industry is known for really pernicious external events," Katz said. "They're unpredictable, but they always happen."

Journera used ai to give the customer a more ‘connected trip’ by offering things they might seemingly want from different vendors through the travel planning and bookig phases and then rewarding everyone in the chain. This is of course great from a customer mindset POV but there is also the problem that all the big brands are also working their way back up to be able to offer everthing themselves without an extra middleman in the way. That is also extremely hard to do and so basically no-one achieves it, but strategically, that is the mindset and that makes this collaborative approach a harder sell.

Priceline roll out next feature set for Penny

Priceline are doubling down on “Penny, its AI-powered travel assistant. The latest additions to Priceline’s Trip Intelligence suite make it the travel industry’s most comprehensive array of AI tools – including more than 30 new features to dramatically streamline the travel planning and booking process” as reported by Breaking Travel News.

The big feature - Save money! How? Ask Penny for a deal and you’ll she’ll give you 10% off (but only until February 27th). I wonder what she will tell people on Feb 28?

The focus area seems to be about speed, “consumers spend an average of two full work days – 16 hours – on trip research and booking, Priceline’s smarter, faster, and more proactive tools can significantly reduce the time a customer spends on travel planning.”

Whilst there is a time and a place for speed in some travel booking, I personally rail against that approach when it comes to leaisure travel - the one big holiday for the year (or one of many for the retired and wealthy). Rod Cuthbert explains it well here,

Linked In makes it easier to get travel jobs with ai

In a rebuff to narrative around ai taking all our jobs away, it was reported this week that Linked In have built an ai bot that will help you get a job, specifically “in the hospitality and travel domains”.

“Located within the job listings section and denoted by a sparkle emoji, this tool offers unprecedented access to what could be considered insider insights. It enables professionals to inquire about various job aspects, from descriptions and responsibilities to benefits and company culture, specifically tailored to the hotel and travel B2B sectors.”

In somewhat related news, Linked In this week suggested I might look for opportunities at Bunnings (a DIY wharehouse outfit pretty huge in Australia). My friends who know my DIY capabilities would find that pretty amusing. There would be blood in aisles, literally, if I were to hang around with hammers and saws all day.

“How Google Artificial Intelligence is transforming global travel industry ?”

This wasn’t my headline - but it certainly got my attention. I expected it to be a reveiw of Gemini similar to this post on Linked In from Christian Watts where he declared SEO to be dead and that “Google Gemini is now the best trip-planner - using Gemini Ultra, with access to Google Maps, Flights & Hotels (+Gmail, Docs and more).” We are still waiting on an explainer video with more detail or maybe Christian is saving it all for our panel at AI Summit this week……

The actual article however was more like some type of ad for the changes made to Google Ad bidding which we reported on here last week. It did report some actualy numbers such as “Minor Hotels increased bookings by 86% and improved ad spend efficiency, while Corissia Hotels saw a 32% revenue boost and a 26% increase in direct bookings.”

I mean maybe that is true? Not reported were the numbers who had just flittered more money away trying to figure out the new system as is the general wash up in these types of changes. Cue the inbound emails from agencies who say they’ve got it all figured out. Pass the salt.

I’m attending Arival & ITB in Berlin in just in just a few weeks!

Looking forward to catching up with many of the readers live and in person in Berlin shortly. Next week I’ll drop my calendar link here into the newsletter for anyone who would like to catch up one-on-one.

Specifically interested in chatting to you about:

• Your ai strategy - especially if you don’t have one.

• Your staff training & onboarding if it is costly and ineffective

• Your itinerary creation process especially if a core part of your business is in creating bespoke travel arrangements especially in the multiday and soft adventure space. If you are drowning and burning inquiry or if you can’t find the balance in human costs vs results - lets chat.

You can also just reach out now - you don’t have to wait for Berlin (or if you aren’t going to be there). Just reply to this newsletter or hit me up on Linked In.

Most clicked last week was the link to the free tickets to AI Summit. A few more there for those still without one!

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focussing. If I’ve missed something, you’ve got a tip or any feedback at all - you can simply reply to this email and it will come straight to me. I’m doing this for You so please don’t be shy to tell me what you think