The Phocuswright Conference, a travel industry event that focuses on tech and innovation, brings together the most influential industry leaders from all around the world. This year’s event was held in Miami, Florida. Johannes Reck, co-founder and CEO, and Eric Gnock Fah, co-founder and COO of Hong Kong-based travel experiences company, Klook, were joined on the main stage by interviewer, Arival CEO, Douglas Quinby.
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The panel focused on the future of the experiences sector and the rumors regarding the future of GetYourGuide and Klook, both of which are backed by Softbank. The host gave both co-founders an opportunity to address the topics of potential mergers, conflicts of interest, and exits. Watch the video below and jump to our highlights below.
In short, no. Johannes explains that Softbank is just one of our investors. “We are founder-led, entrepreneurial, we just do what we do.” He clarifies that we have a few board meetings with our investors a year, and jokes that he doesn’t call up Softbank to ask what we should be doing every morning, “Softbank is along for the ride, share the same vision and are very supportive.”
Following the same tone, Eric reminds the crowd that many similar companies operate under the same umbrella, it’s no different from sharing an investor with another company that’s in a similar space. He uses the example that Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak, are all under one holding company. We should be asking instead, “Is this a viable industry to go with?”
“No, not at all,” Johannes brushes off rumours. “Softbank has a very long term vision that’s shared by the two of us.” He tells the host that the travel industry is broad, there’s a lot to gain, and that no one’s pulling the breaks.
On when the next big online travel agency exit is going to be
Despite the size of the travel market industry, both Johannes and Eric agree that it’s far too early to forecast. Johannes points out that travel experiences only make up a small percent of the US$180 billion global market size of travel bookings, with most of the market comprising of flights and bookings. “The runway is so long for all of us. For the experiences industry, we’re just getting started. We’re still thinking about innovating for the customer experience. It’s way too premature to be talking about exits,” says Johannes.