Powering Travel welcomes hospitality industry leaders to share how they’re building, innovating, and evolving their travel businesses for the future. Hosted by Brandon Ehrhardt, Senior Director of Partner Programs and Sally Smith, Senior Director of Market Management at Expedia Group, they’ll explore the latest trends, reveal best-kept hospitality secrets and try to predict where the industry is headed next.
In this episode of Expedia Talks, we ask Karen about what drew her to the intersection of travel and technology. We also chat about her first startup and how Expedia acquired it all those years ago. Then, Karen gets candid about the formative years that brought her to Expedia, before answering today's most pressing question - what's a human quality that cannot be codified?Stay tuned for more episodes in this series. New episode of Powering Travel coming in 2024.
27/11/2023 • 35 minutes 21 seconds
Expedia Talks: Greg Schulze, SVP of Strategic Travel Partners & Hari Nair, SVP and General Manager, Lodging Marketplace
As a company, Expedia Group is no stranger to change - the company has been through many shifts in the travel and hospitality industry, from technological booms to slumps in the global economy, to the current AI revolution amidst a worldwide recovery phase. Similarly, two travel veterans, Greg Schulze, SVP of Strategic Travel Partners and Hari Nair, SVP and General Manager, Lodging Marketplace, are no strangers to transformations in the industry either. In this episode of Expedia Talks, we sit down with Greg and Hari to talk about their roles at Expedia and how it has evolved over time, especially with data, AI, and machine learning. We also go back to the early days of Online Travel Agencies and how it changed the way we travel, and why travel professionals need to always be one step ahead of the curve with trends in
20/11/2023 • 40 minutes 34 seconds
Expedia Talks: Alfonso Paredes, SVP, Commercial Partnerships, Expedia Group
Expedia Group rolled out a few partnerships recently – SoFi, Mastercard, and WalmartPlusTravel.com. By enabling giant retailers like these, do they risk losing business on the B2C side of things? And what does it take to form lasting partnerships in today's travel and hospitality scene? On the first episode of Expedia Talks, a special series powered by Expedia Group, we chat with Alfonso Paredes (SVP, Commercial Partnerships, Expedia Group) about finding synergy in a competitive travel market, looking for common goals among collaborators, and how tech is helping build bridges instead of walls in the new tourism and hospitality scene. Stay tuned for more episodes in this series. New episodes of Powering Travel coming in 2024.