What Went On At The London Barcamp?

This November, London Travel Massive hosted the first ever Travel massive Barcamp focusing on travel industry trends for 2017 and beyond. Here’s what we learned along the way!

During this special half-day mini-conference/Barcamp in London, we focused on a few key questions:

1. Where will the travel industry head in 2017?
2. What trends should we focus on?
3. What should we be working on right now to capture the next wave of travel innovation and disruption?

What is a Barcamp?

Barcamps are hands-on events where every attendee is a participant. They are collaborative events where members can share their collective knowledge in a number of breakout sessions.

Our sessions were based on interactive “micro hacks” and “mini-presentations” run by the attendees. At the start of the event, we pitched and voted on what micro hacks and presentations we wanted to work on and share.

What are Micro Hacks? Micro Hacks is collaborative expert brainstorming in order to discuss and solve a particular topic.

What are Mini Presentations? Mini Presentations allow the sharing of a skill or particular knowledge to other members.

Why Attend a Barcamp?

• Learn from your peers and share your knowledge
• Learn insights to help take your travel startup, business or websites to the next level
• Meet some new, cool people who also like to go to bars and work in the middle of the day

What did the attendees think?

“Awesome to be part of the first EVER barcamp! Great company, great minds and decent beer! It was great to get such excellent insight into relevant topics and trends within the industry and to see how each individual interprets them. Bring on the next one!” – Julian Carnell, Large Minority

 What did we learn at our first Travel Massive Barcamp?

There was certainly a lot of information to take out of our first Travel Massive Barcamp. With the help of a couple awesome Travel Massive London members, Alex Bainbridge and Lucy Ogilvie, we have put together a list of pointers discussed during the event.

Distribution

• Google is the gatekeeper
• Brands are looking for cheaper distribution (e.g hotels in London 10 USD per click)
• In 2017 there will be a big battle between Facebook and Google
• In China, customers start their search on Facebook and engage with bots there, in Europe and North America, people are inspired on Facebook and then head to Google to start the purchasing process

Online Travel Agency (OTA)

• OTAs will have a better booking path – because they have greater investment in tech
• Problem: OTA is not instantly confirming, but they appear to be (e.g. you can receive an email 24 hours later saying the booking is not confirmed)
• Meta-search websites are better for saving time  (e.g. Trivago)

Social media – the next BIG thing

• Video
• Open profiles – fixing the cold start problem – e.g. a diver with PADI qualifications is able to tell people this, without telling them explicitly
• Live broadcasting / live subtitles

Experiential Travel 

• Accommodations sites like Airbnb offer a more experiential travel opportunity rather than larger chain hotels
• Experiential travel is about having closer contact with local people and adventures – not just going on tour
• It seems like experiential is the future – and so traditional tours have to adapt to that
• Airbnb might start hosting personalized tours, especially in the developing world

How is customer acquisition changing?

• Google is ahead of the consumer
• Don’t be a jack of all trades, pick a mode of acquisition and stick with it
• Become a leader in your industry – free PR + Brand recognition. Integrity sells
• Word of mouth works the best out of any campaign

Interested in running your own Travel Massive Barcamp? Get in touch with us and we can start you out on the right path to planning your next Travel Massive Barcamp.