Phocuswright turns 30: Industry veterans look back and ahead

Internet boom. 9/11. The financial crisis. The COVID pandemic. ChatGPT. The list goes on.

The last 30 years have been full of course-changing events and technological innovations since Philip Wolf founded Phocuswright in 1994. The world has become digitalized with travel shifting largely online and expected to account for nearly 65% of all bookings by 2026, according to Phocuswright’s Global Travel Market report.

And some industry leaders have had a front row seat to those changes while pushing travel towards the future.

Bob Diener, president and co-founder of the Travel Funders Network and co-founder of Hotels.com, is among that group, as is Melissa Maher, founder and CEO of the Pinnacle Enterprises Group and a former Expedia Group executive and Rod Cuthbert, founder of Viator, who was inducted into the Phocuswright Hall of Fame last month.

As Phocuswright celebrates its 30-year anniversary, the trio took some time to look back and look ahead at the world of travel in a discussion with senior reporter Morgan Hines in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference.

The three, well-versed in innovation, navigation of change and success, opened up about their own journeys in the industry and touched on what interests them right now and going forward.

Unsurprisingly, technology takes center stage when it comes to the most exciting developments.

“I think the travel industry is developing,” Maher said. “I think [what] we have not taken advantage of is technology. We’re traditionally a slower industry to adopt technology, and I think that’s really hurt from a consumer standpoint as well as supplier standpoint. So moving forward, my one wish for the industry is really focusing on how to increase adoption of technology.”

Diener is looking forward to the transformation artificial intelligence is sure to bring to the industry.

“There’s really two parts to artificial intelligence … One of them is efficiency,” Diener said. “We are getting so much more efficient, and we’re just scratching the surface. It will dramatically reduce costs. It will also make booking travel so much easier … It’s really going to expand the whole really the whole marketplace for all of us. So yes, I’m feeling incredible about that … boom in artificial intelligence.”

Cuthbert agreed.

“We’re on either the up or down part of a roller coaster, because this AI thing, it’s really revolutionizing … the back end and the front end, it’s all changing really quickly,” Cuthbert said.

He continued later in the discussion, “I think AI is going to help the industry reduce costs, make everybody profitable, maybe, and allow them to innovate more.”

Part of that comes from belief in the technology, Diener said, noting that a few years back, people didn’t have confidence in AI.

“They really didn’t believe that these tools [would] really work,” he said. “Today, they’re starting to believe and that’s making a big difference. Because if you believe, if you really believe in it, you start embracing it, you invest in it. And we’re seeing how it makes such a big difference to our bottom line and to the consumer experience.”

Maher said that while adoption has traditionally been on the slower side, the general mindset around technology has changed in the industry.

“It feels like the mindset is, ‘let’s adopt faster’ and use somewhat of a test and learn philosophy,” she said. “So, that’s what I’ve seen over the last several years … really the mindset of, ‘we have to embrace technology. We have to think about innovation and really [do] it faster.’”

During the discussion the founders also touched on what’s changed, what has stayed the same, the future of the connected trip, ancillaries, challenges the sector is currently facing, their dreams for the world of travel in the next 30 years and more.

Watch their full conversation below.