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Technology

Catching Up with Tripism CEO Adam Kerr

By Elizabeth West / December 20, 2019 / Contact Reporter
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Tripism once was known as the personalization poster child of Microsoft's travel program. It's matured since then. The platform has registered 1 million travelers and serves as an engagement platform that brings travelers, travel managers and suppliers together in a virtuous data cycle that benefits every participant, according to CEO Adam Kerr. He spoke this week with BTN editor-in-chief Elizabeth West. 

How has Tripism matured since the early days with Microsoft?

Working with Eric [Bailey, Microsoft global director of travel, venue sourcing and payment], the product was focused around presenting highly specific travel program information and enabling travelers to share reviews and local destination information. That's an important foundation. But we've spent a lot of time enabling suppliers to communicate with travelers—not to present marketing information from a brochure, but content, images and information that is relevant and important to corporate travelers. We're now focusing a lot of energy on capturing the data, so we can use it ourselves to understand the traveler and share with the travel team. Things like sentiment data; drivers of sentiment; top supplier performers and so on. We can also build a more detailed picture of traveler preferences by capturing data at certain touchpoints. 

Has there been any effort around aligning with corporate strategies in terms of carbon reduction or other issues where travel has a big impact?

That's increasingly something that we are working on over the next year, helping companies to align travel messaging with corporate priorities and strategies. It's all about informed decision-making and making it easy for travelers to make the right choice. 

You mentioned enabling supplier access to travelers. That's something many travel managers have sought to avoid. Is that changing?

Yes and no—and different travel teams have different responses. When we start with new customers, we are introduced to their supplier partners, and we typically build out the partner content—like airline or hotel, and we include the negotiated benefits. We also enable different types of supplier promotions, and we agree on what types of promotions they want, whether they are geolocated and other kinds of targeting. We do all the heavy lifting on that and certainly share everything with the team before opening supplier access to travelers. There's a step of faith that we aren't opening a window for suppliers to do whatever they want. But the buyers who come to us want higher traveler engagement and experience. The concept that suppliers can make the travelers feel important and cared for is really compelling, so [travel managers] become happy to take that extra step forward. And we are cautious, as well, that we aren't fully opening the gates. 

How many clients are you working with these days and what are their priorities?

We're working with 14 big companies. And I would say that among these companies, the travel teams have worked super hard to be a part of the conversation on employee engagement and satisfaction. We do see that as a larger trend, along with a focus on traveler well-being. 

What about personalization?

You have to build a foundation to get there. Something like 95 percent of corporate travelers don't even know what their negotiated benefits are, and most travelers don't go straight to the corporate booking tool [when they need to plan a trip]. They try to piece together bits of information, and they go to the booking tool last. You have to get the engagement and the usage before you can really get to more personalization. We've seen fivefold growth in the number of travelers using Tripism content. Once you have that, and the travel team can see what's working and what's not, what's compelling to certain groups, then they can start to do additional personalization. 

How have you funded your growth?

We were seed invested from small funds, but we're now cash-positive. One thing I enjoy about this industry: The platform evolves with the work we do with the customer. By learning through them, they understand what they need, and it informs how we develop the product.

Is your plan to continue to work directly with corporate clients, or will you forge some strategic supplier partnerships?

It's important for us to do both. We'll announce new strategic partners early next year. For example, we want to improve the integration with corporate booing tools to make the user experience as seamless as possible. To that end, we are working on some deep integrations that will allow travelers to plan their trip on Tripism, then click through deep links to complete the booking/reservation. We don't want the traveler going to any leisure sites to search—that's where our corporate customers tend to see booking behavior outside of the preferred program and poorer traveler experiences. We're in conversations with a number of technology companies and [travel management companies] regarding partnerships, and we'll be sharing more on this in early 2020. 

Do you ever plan to share data insights other than through reporting to the corporate? I'm thinking along the lines of APIs that might feed into traveler profiles. 

Every user has a profile on Tripism, and we continually learn about the user and the profile. We look at behavior within the platform and [collect information from] touchpoints that add real value to that profile. The next stage is to enable a fun and super easy way for the traveler to answer [experience] questions to inform that profile as well. There's step beyond that, though, where we could federate that data with other providers. For example, there's an old-fashioned traveler profile at the TMC. Can we use the power of both those profiles to benefit the travel team, the traveler and the supplier? That's definitely something we are thinking about. 

Will you ever become a booking tool? 

There are plenty of booking tools. We don't want to become one of those. We want to offer a new environment and a new way for travelers to plan their trips.

There are other mechanisms being developed to get at personalizing corporate travel. ATPCO and Routehappy are piping richer content into global distribution systems and booking tools; of course, there are ambitions around New Distribution Capability. What are your thoughts about these?

There are good initiatives around content, but I think there are miles to go for the industry in general. Uniquely customizing content and informing that with data to get a better understanding and relationship to preferred suppliers—that is completely unique [to Tripism], and I don't see [how] NDC or Routehappy/ATPCO will make that happen quickly. 

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