Direct Travel’s platform-powered transformation

Justin Schuster: Welcome to the Travel as a Human Emotion podcast. My name is Justin Schuster, and I’m the SVP of Marketing at Spotnana. I am very, very excited today to welcome two guests: Christal Bemont, who is the CEO of Direct Travel, a very well-known global TMC, and Sarosh Waghmar, Spotnana’s founder and chief product officer.

Christal, my first question is for you. Before we dive into all the great things that are happening at Direct Travel, I wanted to ask you a personal question, if I could. You have had a very long career at Concur, and you rose through the ranks to become the chief revenue officer. Then you left the travel industry for a few years to become the CEO of a data integration company called Talend. What brought you back to the travel industry, and why did you decide to become the CEO of a TMC?

Christal Bemont: Well, hi, and thank you for having me. It’s good to be here with you, Justin and Sarosh. It’s a pretty simple answer. It is a deep belief and conviction for something that Steve Singh talks about all the time, which is really this passion for reinventing travel and reinventing what it means to solve problems for people in the travel ecosystem. It is something that I “caught the bug” for back at Concur, which was a wonderful experience.

Something that happened along the way, you mentioned Talend. It was a really informative three or three and a half years for me to spend at Talend because that really set the stage for me on the importance of something that I think is the underpinning of what Sarosh really has done with this incredible technology : data, the ability to access data, and the importance of having access to content. At Talend, that was a really important component, not just having data, but having high-fidelity, high-quality, trusted, and comprehensive data. So, it has been a journey that has been a build and a return to something that I love, with a lot more appreciation for the importance of Spotnana, this incredible technology that is changing the way the world works.

Justin Schuster: Fascinating. I think data is probably going to come back as a bit of a theme as we talk throughout this conversation. But before we get to that, I wanted to ask you about this past year for Direct Travel. I think it was a really spectacular year. Why don’t we start by talking about the acquisition of ATPI? How has that acquisition changed the way the market is seeing you? And are you seeing more interest from global multinationals now that ATPI is part of Direct Travel?

Christal Bemont: Well, the acquisition of ATPI was probably the least surprising thing for everyone in the industry. I say that in a couple of ways. One, because we had this incredible partnership for more than years, and it was just the most obvious extension for both of us. It has brought us together in ways that are really, truly complementary, and it has changed everything. There is a huge focus on how we show up as one face to the customer to really expand our reach beyond North America.

Tying this back to working with Spotnana and the team , there has been a massive shift in the size and profile of the customers. It has expanded beyond what we focused on prior to working with Spotnana to really include multinational, global, strategic, large enterprise, and SME accounts. These customers raised their hands and said, “We love Spotnana, and we really look to have a global footprint to support our entire organization”.

It was a very obvious pairing with a company we knew very, very well. We were deeply ingrained as a relationship across the company and in how we work. Now, the fact that we can bring Spotnana via the vehicle we have, which is Avenir, to customers that are absolutely running towards the opportunity to work with Spotnana and to have support globally, that’s the first thing. This was just the most obvious pairing and triangulation. The next thing is that it opens up these specialty markets, such as rotational travel with offshore sports, mining, marine, and energy. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t complement and extend Avenir and our support and services across the globe to those specialty industries.

It’s really exciting. The list goes on and on, but the simple answer is we have had an abundance of reception. Our existing customers, as well as many joint customers and future customers, have shown interest and excitement for the fact that ATPI and Direct Travel are now one organization.

Justin Schuster: Fantastic. You brought up Avenir, and I think this was another big milestone in the year. Since that launch, you’ve taken on quite a significant number of customers. When I talk to buyers and they’re curious to learn more, sometimes I get the question: how is Avenir different from Spotnana? How do you think about that?

Christal Bemont: Well, I’ll try to simplify this because I think it is fairly straightforward. Think of Spotnana as our engine. This open architecture API and the way Sarosh built this was intended to be extremely open, and interoperability was an important component. So, we are taking Spotnana and “supercharging” it. Spotnana is the engine, and we are like the driver sitting at the wheel offering not just services around it , but also looking at ways we can enhance the experience.

Whether it is leaning into additional data offerings, supporting travel managers with AI tools and technology, or leveraging things across the industry like automation , we are fully leveraging the core intentionality of Spotnana, to be open and to be something that we can then build upon to solve critical problems. We look at Spotnana to solve problems for travelers, and for travel managers, we look at what things we can do to lean in and support them. It is an extension of Spotnana, and it’s something we put a lot of investment and focus on.

Justin Schuster: Sarosh, I want to bring you into the conversation now. I know it has been a big goal this year for us to work on innovation that drives a reduction in the cost of servicing for TMCs. I wonder if you could take a moment to talk about how you are breaking down that problem and how you are working with companies like Direct Travel to achieve that goal.

Sarosh Waghmar: Firstly, welcome, Christal. Justin, big shout out, this podcast has come such a long way since it originally started. That’s a great question. When we started this journey, the focus was on building out this open platform. But if you truly want to add value in this ecosystem, you have to think of the TMC too.

The TMC does a lot of heavy lifting. We talk so much about AI thinking it is going to replace human beings. In the context of travel, I feel it is going to enhance the workflows. I think it is going to make travel agents a lot more efficient. The narrative people have is a little different than the approach Spotnana has taken. Our approach with Direct Travel is that if you really want to add value, it is not just about them attracting new customers to use Spotnana as a booking tool; that would fail.

If you truly want to be the platform, we need to understand the underpinnings of how Direct Travel works. Why do they have such a highly successful NPS score? Why are their agents considerably better than anyone else in the industry? It is about understanding those workflows. To modernize and create a platform, we need to understand all that legacy infrastructure, the scripts, and how agents respond in seconds so that Spotnana can make them respond in three. That journey is so critical.

The single biggest problem in travel is data. Everyone talks about user experience. Concur is still the most used product in the market for a reason , and they have built a phenomenal product over several years. No one replaces that simply because they have a better user experience. If you really want to change the way travel is built, you have to understand the infrastructure down below. You have to understand that from a travel agent’s perspective.

If you are building this platform and you don’t understand what someone across the screen is doing when you are stuck somewhere at : AM and frantic, you want the voice across the phone line to say, “I’m going to take care of you, Justin”. They need to have systems to do that. Without them, the agent has to do everything manually. It is a very thankless but essential job.

How do you make life for the travel agent as easy as it is for you to point and click? By understanding that at Direct Travel, we focus on reducing their costs because they have a very well-defined, scalable process. Spotnana is understanding those workflows of what travel agents do, not just what a traveler, finance team, or procurement team needs. It’s everything that happens behind the scenes. Once we understand those workflows, that is how you scale TMCs.

Spotnana is not just an online booking tool; it is a platform that TMCs can work and build on top of. We provide TMCs that operating system so they do not have to cover or different tools on top of booking tools to make their businesses work. Everyone is under the impression that you provide a booking tool to corporate customers and then the TMC is done. No one truly understands that TMCs have so many different tools and things they have put together over the last or years to make their organizations work. The whole premise with Avenir and collaborating so closely is that we have a chance to build that platform together for the industry as a whole.

Justin Schuster: Christal, when you think about the innovation you are leading at Direct Travel and the opportunity of working with Spotnana on reducing servicing costs, what other areas of innovation are you excited about in the year ahead?

Christal Bemont: There are so many things to be excited about. I couldn’t imagine a better time to be coming together and partnered with thought leaders who are not just visionaries, but executioners who can execute against a problem. First and foremost, we highly leverage the work Sarosh talked about, and we see it as “divide and conquer”. Nothing else is possible without curating data.

We are really leaning into data as a strategy. It is what we wake up every day thinking about: knowledge and data as power. We invest in it and curate it to create data graphs for highly personalized outcomes, but also for us to leverage for AI and machine learning, which won’t work without it.

For years, data has been a big pain point for people. How do we continue to improve that and make it easy for people? We look at how we use this data and information to get really predictive to help travelers and travel managers. I think Spotnana is doing a wonderful job leaning into how we create a different outcome and experience for travelers.

The world is changing and remolding in ways that are actually a little bit unknown right now, especially for travel managers. I have conversations with people who say, “We don’t even know if we’ll have a policy in the future”. How do you rationalize the things that are going on and manage the influx of questions? We see ourselves as having a role in working on tools we can extend. We have an AI concierge tool that will help our travel manager partners.

We also see suppliers as a critical part of this ecosystem. We want to change the way we show up for our customers and supplier partners to bring value at a completely different level. All of this goes back to data, how we layer on AI and think about predictive duty of care so we are not reacting to problems, but actually being as proactive as possible in our servicing.

We’ve talked a lot about technology, but where the TMC comes in, there is a servicing element that still has a component. I believe there will be a need to have different forms in which you interact with people for the foreseeable future. Sometimes when you need people the most is during a crisis or disruption. To be always on, /, our agents and support staff need to be as equipped as possible with technology and tools so we can show up as a human-centric plus technology partner. We will continue to invest in the things that make our people great because we won’t rest on reputation capital. We are spending the investments to make sure our people are available, strategic partners to our customers and partners in the ecosystem.

Justin Schuster: I want to follow up on one theme I’m hearing from both of you: the pace of change in the travel industry is really accelerating. Sarosh, we are seeing a progression where already well over % of bookings are made on a self-service basis with technology like Spotnana. We’ll see that changes and cancellations move above that % mark in the near future. AI is going to keep pushing that boundary. Travel providers are upgrading their infrastructure and the flow of data is becoming richer, creating new opportunities for personalization. When you think about all of this happening, what is your view on how the TMC is going to evolve over the next five to years?

Sarosh Waghmar: I think the role of the TMC is going to evolve with access to more capital and better technology. I see them becoming platform integrators. The value they provide is going to be a lot more, versus previously being tagged as just a service provider. The challenge has been that no one truly understood what it entails to provide that level of service or how many systems they had to cobble together.

With AI and what has happened with cloud computing, I think TMCs realize they want to be at the forefront, which is why having partners like Direct Travel is so critical because the thinking is different. Every TMC feels they own this data and has all this information about customers, but how many of them have even done anything with it? They are sitting on this gold mine, but no one knows where to dig.

The whole premise of Spotnana and Avenir is focus on data. If data is the central piece, how do I bring it to life? Everyone wants a story to be told. The most important thing is the focus on it. If I want to provide value as a TMC, it’s not when the disruption happens, why are you not telling me what I want before I even ask? That “art of the possible” is only when you use the platform or AI available to you.

That requires intentionality. Data allows you to provide better service, have a richer story with suppliers, and make better decisions for travelers. Online adoption is a very small piece of the pie. We believe the future is TMCs that are forward in their thinking and actions. Someone has to tie together NDC and content. It comes back to the same problem ongoing for years: data. Legacy systems can’t do what we need them to do today. If you want a Spotify or Netflix kind of experience, Netflix is a data company. If that’s the approach TMCs take, then they really have a very compelling offering to change the narrative to their customers.

Justin Schuster: So Christal, do you agree? Do you think platform integrators and focusing on data as a strategic asset are the two core elements of how TMCs will evolve?

Christal Bemont: I think those are the foundation. Sarosh used the example of companies you wouldn’t think are really data companies; I’ll use Tesla. It is a data company, and fundamentally, it’s the underpinning of what will drive all possibilities. We not only have a right to do this because we’re in the exact spot, but we have an obligation to forge forward.

This is not just about disruption; it’s just about what you’re willing to accept and what you fundamentally believe to be true. I fundamentally believe there are a lot of broken things in the industry that no longer need to remain that way. You have to understand the importance of data and then what you are going to go do with it. We happen to have partners that are really well aligned on that front.

I think a lot about the experience, not just problems today, but things that have to be rationalized because change is hard for a complex industry. We are in a fortunate position to lean into change and resist models that have held agencies and the ecosystem back. As Steve Singh says: “Solve the problems that are high-value and meaningful, and everything else falls into place”. It is very rare to work with someone who not only believes that but executes that way.

What does the experience look like in three years, who are we serving, and what is the value? I don’t believe we’ll be an intermediary. I’ve told supplier partners that if I’m having the same conversations in a couple of years about business models, then I’ve failed. We have to radically change the way we think and prioritize. One thing I admire about Sarosh is that he leaves little space between a high-conviction thought and the ability to drive an outcome on it. He is simply driven to execute.

I’m very fortunate to be flanked by a visionary like Steve and someone who executes like Sarosh. We’re right down the middle, making sure the problems are clear and we are aligned on how we fundamentally transform the way we show up for partners and customers.

Justin Schuster: Thank you very much. Since this is the Travel is a Human Emotion podcast, when you reflect on the connection between travel and emotions, what stands out for you?

Christal Bemont: For me, you’ll see a logo we have that says, “reimagining the way the world connects”. It is our North Star. I believe in people and technology and the combination and power of both. Travel is all about connections. Travel is an experience, but it is also hard and needs to get a lot easier.

Whether people are traveling for a company or themselves, they are creating connections, but that comes with high anxiety and traversing different landscapes. I feel a deep passion for helping people connect and making that a whole lot easier than it is today, because I believe in those connections. What makes us special is the ability to bring people together and connect. We just need to take some of the friction out of that problem. The idea of a “perfect trip” still stands as how we make that happen. This is a perfect podcast for the core of everything I believe in.

Justin Schuster: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure hearing from you both.

Christal Bemont: Thank you for having me. Nice to see you, Sarosh.

Sarosh Waghmar: And you too. Thank you for doing this.

Christal Bemont: Thank you.

Sarosh Waghmar: Thanks, Justin.