AI Is Here. Now Travel Has to Figure Out Who to Trust.

0:23Seth Borko: We're in a real podcast studio talking to each other in real life.

0:28Sarah Kopit: You can will things into existence. You can. It's insane.

0:32Seth Borko: I cannot believe we're – this is the first time that we have ever done the podcast looking at each other in the eyes.

0:39Sarah Kopit: It is. It's going to be very different. Oh, my God. I'm actually a little intimidated. I'm, like, moving this around so I can actually look at you because, yeah, sometimes you've got to be careful what you wish for. We're here in person as a podcast. I know. I'm like, oh, my God.

0:51Seth Borko: I kind of love it. It's amazing. So we are on day three, last day of Skiff Global Forum. Yes. I mean, it seems like it went over, it went by like that. And it also seems like we've been here for many, many years.

1:05Sarah Kopit: We live here now, right? Yeah, we do.

1:06Seth Borko: We do live here. Yeah, we do. I am exhausted.

1:09Sarah Kopit: It was such so much fun, but I am getting, I'm tired.

1:13Seth Borko: Oh man, I was just telling Katie Klein that I am so looking forward to it. It's going to rain here in New York this weekend. There's going to be a Nor 'easter. I am going to binge a, I'm going to find a show. and I'm going to binge it and I'm going to lay in bed and my children are going to get carte blanche to order whatever foods they need to order.

1:35Sarah Kopit: Smart.

1:35Seth Borko: And I'm going to have a lion this weekend. It sounds perfect. It sounds perfect. I might copy you.

1:41Sarah Kopit: That sounds amazing. Okay.

1:44Seth Borko: Don't call Seth or I over the weekend. That's right. We will be bed rotting. That's right. We officially bed rotting. That is the term, bed rotting. It is the term.

1:51Sarah Kopit: We will be bed rotting. But you know what my favorite parts of the Global Forum has been? Has been meeting fans of the podcast in real life.

2:00Seth Borko: I cannot. I cannot. It is amazing, Seth.

2:03Sarah Kopit: It feels like, I think we've said this to multiple people who came up to us. But I didn't realize anyone was listening.

2:11Seth Borko: Well, that's the thing. So Seth and I don't have a one-on-one. And so we use the podcast as our one-on-one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, basically, we have the podcast. We talk. We talk about some travel stuff. We do prep in that we decide what topics we're going to cover. But then we basically just talk and catch up. And that is what the podcast is.

2:34Sarah Kopit: And we just kind of, it really is kind of like you're overhearing what a conversation might. A bunch of B2B travel nerds in a professional context catching up about what they found interesting. That's what it's supposed to be.

2:46Seth Borko: With their microphone on. With their microphone on. And sometimes mine is off and like Will yells at me. He's like, if you push the button, it's red. Please turn your microphone back on. So what was your favorite part of Global Forum? What was a highlight for you?

3:02Sarah Kopit: What was a highlight for me? I have a lot of highlights that come to mind. I really enjoyed premiering our new research that we did with McKinsey & Co. This is not like even a plug. I really enjoyed it. We had a great panel with IHG, with Priceline. Tracy of Priceline told me that she listens to the podcast. Shout out, Tracy. Thanks for being a listener and on our panel. But that research, I mean, I think, did we preview, did we talk about it before?

3:32Seth Borko: No, I don't think we did. We'll do it next week.

3:36Sarah Kopit: Okay, good. We'll do it next week. But the idea of moving from, you know, a linear or even just a predictable journey to this like orbital concept of like travelers are exploring a whole universe of options. They are orbiting multiple ideas. The inspiration environment is ambient. It's always on. Like there's always a new trip idea. There's always a new trip inspiration somewhere. And there's a lot of other research, too. We found stuff about like postbook and cancel AI, lots of cool stuff. And I actually got really excited about it. You know, it's a project we've done for seven years. It can be hard to stay engaged or something when you've done it for seven years.

4:12Sarah Kopit: But I was really excited. Like, it wasn't hard for this one. It was really exciting. I enjoyed that panel a lot. And, yeah. The other thing I really enjoyed, and I'm just going to say it because I know we've talked a lot about your Midwestern humbleness. Midwesternness, yeah. I'll just brag for you. The other one I loved was Sarah. You talking to the prince, the Duke, Prince Harry.

4:37Seth Borko: What a thing that was.

4:39Sarah Kopit: That was amazing.

4:40Seth Borko: I tell you.

4:40Sarah Kopit: You were so good. Well, thank you. Genuinely.

4:45Seth Borko: I, that was like nine months of blood, sweat and tears. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, when you have a, when you have a super high profile person, I think it, it can, you know, who has a schedule. That's a full pregnancy. Nine months. Yeah, exactly. so but he was I will say just personally he was just so gracious my husband and kids actually came yeah for any of you who were here at global forum you may have you may have seen the copic clan like running around um he I asked him because we were walking they invited my family to walk with us like upstairs. I mean, it's just so lovely. And I said to him, I'm like, you want to meet my kids?

5:32Seth Borko: They have no idea who you are. And he's like, absolutely. He's like, even better is what he said. And then he talked to them for like five minutes. I mean, I don't know. It was just, it was so, it was so meaningful.

5:43Sarah Kopit: Is that going to get you cool mom cred for life that you introduced your kids to royalty or?

5:49Seth Borko: You know, it's so funny for those of you who were here. So I wasn't kidding when I said that they didn't know who he was. Like he might as well have been like you or any of the people that they met here. Like I asked my daughter this morning, who was your favorite person or yeah, who is your favorite person that you met at Global Forum yesterday? And you know who she said?

6:13Sarah Kopit: Who?

6:14Seth Borko: Ann Duffy.

6:18Seth Borko: and Duffy is Roth's chief of staff and amazing

6:21Sarah Kopit: and amazing and amazing we love this is a pro and Duffy podcast we love her and so

6:27Seth Borko: like so they were very impressed with the scale of Javits yeah they loved the massive LED screens they really liked the garden here at Javits which is where they did talk to the Duke but they enjoyed the heads of lettuce. They were very impressed that they were all the heads of lettuce. Oh my God. So out of the mouth of babes, right? Yeah, that's right.

6:52Sarah Kopit: That's right.

6:53Seth Borko: And my husband -

6:54Sarah Kopit: You ever need like a deflate your ego a little bit?

6:57Seth Borko: I will say my, I want to give a shout out to my husband, Alex, who prepped the children well because when the Duke spoke to them, they spoke back. My children are teens and tweens.

7:08Sarah Kopit: Yeah.

7:09Seth Borko: That does not always happen.

7:10Sarah Kopit: It's not a guarantee.

7:11Seth Borko: It is not a guarantee. So my almost 15-year-old son shook the Duke's hand, smiled, and had actual audible words come out of his mouth. Amazing. Yeah, so it was great. But just seriously, it was so just amazing to have such a voice talk about such an important topic for the travel industry on our stage.

7:37Sarah Kopit: For those who weren't here, the topic is sustainability. Prince Harry runs Travelist.

7:42Seth Borko: Yes, which is a non-profit that he founded, I think, in 2019. So it's a while ago, and he is really talking, like, his main point now is that the travel industry really needs to focus on the destination and the health of the destination, not just the value of the traveler.

8:02Sarah Kopit: Yeah.

8:02Seth Borko: Which, you know, is tough for the travel industry because the traveler is how, you know, unless you are a destination, the traveler is how this industry makes money. And so, but on the flip.

8:14Sarah Kopit: Well, he made the point about a line in incentives because the traveler is how the industry makes money, not the destination. And when the money doesn't go into the destination, the incentives are misaligned because he gave a speech. I felt very sophisticated because I felt like he was addressing like oh I'm being addressed by the he gave a proper policy speech talking about how he's been going to Namibia for 25 years and the town even as it's developed for tourism he hasn't seen the people he's been seeing in Namibia for 25 years really advance in the way that you would expect have you ever been in Namibia?

8:59Seth Borko: I have not, you know, I have not been, I think the only.

9:01Sarah Kopit: Oh, no, no. Sorry, it wasn't a movie. It was Botswana. Oh, shoot. I messed up. Correction. It was Botswana. So people will care about the facts. It was the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Have you been to Botswana? Does that change the equation?

9:12Seth Borko: I need to get to Africa.

9:14Sarah Kopit: The Okavango, I'm told, is amazing. I've been to Botswana. I've not been to the Delta. I'm told it's incredible.

9:21Seth Borko: One of my other favorite conversations was, and I feel like I could just listen to Dara. Yes, Dara.

9:26Sarah Kopit: But before we go on, I want to say my favorite part of that session was you, though. You were so poised. You were. I would have been. I just we have different. I could not have. I could not have done that interview because you were just like so poised, confident, prepared. I thought it was great. I enjoyed that so much. Genuinely.

9:47Seth Borko: Thank you so much.

9:48Sarah Kopit: I know you have to take a compliment. I'm sorry. I know. I'm sorry to do this to you, but you have to take a compliment. You are really good. And you went off script. Shh. Okay. We're not going to talk about that.

10:01Seth Borko: We're not going to talk about that. But opening night, I thought was also amazing. So there's so many people here. It was absolutely packed. And we had the chairman of OpenAI, Brett Taylor, who also co-founded or founded Sierra.

10:17Sarah Kopit: Which is AI agents for customer service. And they're like brand new and they're already I have huge inroads into the Fortune 500, Fortune 100. It's crazy.

10:27Seth Borko: And Dara and Glenn Fogel. And it was like a, I don't know. I mean, it was just like a master class. I mean, it's kind of an overused term of just, like, I just sat there. I could have listened to Dara talk, like, for hours. Like, I just love listening to that man talk.

10:47Sarah Kopit: I mean, I've heard him talk before, but, you know, he just, everything's interesting. He's a great leader. What I thought, you know what stood out to me? We kept trying to ask him about driverless cars. Yeah. And he was like, do you mean autonomous cars? Because they will have a driver. Yeah. And I was like, what do you mean? It was like, no, driverless. No, they'll have a driver. The driver won't, the implication, the driver won't be human. Right. They'll have a driver. Right. And I thought that was like, okay, this is a guy, unlike some of these, I don't know the right word. I'm not trying to be mean, too mean.

11:19Sarah Kopit: But unlike some of these AI leaders who don't really seem to have an ear for, oh, our product's going to kill you. Don't seem to understand how that's received sometimes. It was great to see Dara be like, oh, no, no, this is not, it's not driverless. You're still being driven. You're just being driven by a more professional chauffeur, a robot.

11:37Seth Borko: And as we have talked about many times in the past, like, I am just completely all in with the, it's like, it's one of those things like where. that of all the technologies that have come out that are new like truly new truly novel and innovative the very first time you use them you're like oh okay i now see how the world will change that was that was how i got for me it was a waymo but i took that first waymo in san francisco and i was like all of a sudden in my mind i could just i could see i felt like i could see the future Yeah.

12:11Sarah Kopit: Yeah. I mean, but it does. I mean, Uber is going to go deeper to travel. I thought that was like, you know, he was talking about, I mean, he wouldn't get pinned down, but flights was not dismissed. You know, I mean, they're going to do more. It's super interesting. Well, I mean, he, it's no accident. I mean, he was the CEO of Expedia.

12:31Seth Borko: So that is his, he grew up, he grew up in travel.

12:34Sarah Kopit: Yeah, that's right. Even if you think Uber is maybe travel adjacent, they are certainly not going to be terribly adjacent for long. And I thought that this is like a bit of a sentimental point, but I really enjoyed. There's just some great leaders and great people on stage. The Ken Chenault one was just amazing. He was talking about his heritage and what it means to be a leader and be an American. and even Dara he didn't talk about this on stage but he grew up in Iran in the revolution. It's just incredible that these people with these backgrounds and they're these great American CEOs it's like amazing to see.

13:15Sarah Kopit: It was really cool. I love listening to Chris Nassetta

13:20Seth Borko: I've done a lot of reporting on hotels this year we had a lot of hotel CEOs in the house between Sean and I

13:27Sarah Kopit: I think we got most of them

13:29Seth Borko: We asked almost all of them about our owner-operator brand situation.

13:34Sarah Kopit: What did you think of Sebastian Bazin of Accor, his response? Because he talked about that question. He said, that's totally different in Europe.

13:41Seth Borko: Yeah. So I will say, Seth, I did not get to watch Sebastian Bazin because I was backstage chatting with the Duke.

13:49Sarah Kopit: Oh, that's about the best excuse I've ever heard. That's the best. Fair enough.

13:57Seth Borko: So you'll have to tell me. So tell me. No, no. So what did he say?

14:01Sarah Kopit: That's an amazing excuse. It's so good. So, no. So what he said, Sean was talking to him about it. Yes. And he asked him to talk about his profit margins. Yeah. Why are you have lower margins than your American peers? And he said, it's about the credit card fees. He kind of said, we've tried to optimize our margins as best as possible. He said, I think we've basically done it as good as the Americans. but they have this extra basically 100 % margin cash flow stream from credit card companies coming in. And as a result, it's different. And then he said, I don't know if it's true, but he said the stat he gave, I'm hopefully remembering it right.

14:39Sarah Kopit: We can fact check me later. But I think he said our hotel owners earned more than we did. There is more revenue going to, they pay out more in revenue to their hotel owners than they earned in franchise fees. So he sort of made the point, And these dynamics are true, and this really depends on what market you're in. Also, as they've gone more upmarket, maybe it's become less of an issue. But it was an interesting conversation. There's one worth checking out if you're into our squeeze commentary.

15:08Seth Borko: It was interesting. I talked to Banyan Group, and I asked them, because I looked at their financials, and they also are moving into an asset light model more and more. That is working really well for them, and they're primarily in Asia. They have a couple hotels in Europe. nothing in the United States.

15:26Sarah Kopit: I think they have one in North America and Mexico, right? And Mayakoba.

15:30Seth Borko: Yes, and they just sprinkle a little tiny dusting in Europe. So they are a APAC-based luxury, wellness, very high-end property.

15:42Sarah Kopit: What did you think of her saying that they're not in it for capitalism? Didn't she say something like that? She made that comment?

15:47Seth Borko: She did. I had to really hold my American.

15:53Sarah Kopit: Yeah, yeah.

15:54Seth Borko: I had to hold my American-ness down. You know, I am a big proponent of capitalism. I do think, I think the market works and, you know, all that good stuff. So, you know, I, I look, I, I don't want to be presumptuous about.

16:11Sarah Kopit: Presumably they are making money, right?

16:13Seth Borko: Yeah, I, I, I held, I held my tongue.

16:18Sarah Kopit: They have found a way to build this interesting brand, to build around sustainability, around culture. And maybe the profit is not their only motivation, but surely they must. I mean, the fact that they're expanding and they're moving to asset light, I assume they're finding a way to make money along the way. What about conversations we've had? What would you say are some of the big themes that you've heard across the forum?

16:42Seth Borko: So without question, the number one word. And, you know, because of AI, I have not seen it yet, but we are going to be able to dump every transcript and see what words were said the most.

16:53Sarah Kopit: Oh. Truth. It's got to be. It has to be.

16:57Seth Borko: As far as like really like chunky, meaningful words. I think. Truth and trust.

17:05Sarah Kopit: I agree.

17:05Seth Borko: They it's like that was it's like people are people, companies, leaders are obsessed in 2026 with trust. And I think that is a direct answer or pivot or response. I suppose response is probably the best word. That is a direct response to AI.

17:25Sarah Kopit: Yes, because one of the great human things is trust, right? And like, do you trust a robot to act for you? Do you trust a robot to sell you? Do you trust a robot to book? Do you trust an AI to do your research for you? Do you trust an AI? Blah, blah, blah. Like, it has to be. Like, you know, Silicon Valley is talking a lot about taste. The response to AI is taste. But I think this is more accurate. This is a better one. The response to AI is trust. And where is your trust line? How do you build trust? How do you build trust with people? How do you build trust with machines, with systems? And the other word I heard, not as much, but related, is accountability, too.

18:04Seth Borko: Yeah.

18:04Sarah Kopit: Right? Like, I think that's a part of it. Like, in order to have trust, you need to know that someone is accountable.

18:09Seth Borko: The other thing that I also heard was, and this is just conversations like around this floor, was people talking about how they didn't want to hear about AI anymore. And I thought it was interesting because maybe we've kind of like had a jump the shark moment. It's one of those things where I understand that they are sick of hearing about it, but it doesn't mean we can stop talking about it. If you know what I mean there, like they're sick of hearing about it because it is the thing.

18:37Sarah Kopit: The AI beatings will continue and tomorrow I'll approve this kind of thing. But you have to. No, you're so right. Yeah. It felt to me that this was, not even the conference, but even as these past few weeks, because we talk about instinct. I had a lot of conversation about instinct. Muse from Facebook came up multiple times. The new Facebook, not the, although we love the hotel PMS company Muse. This is the Facebook.

19:03Seth Borko: This is M-U-S-E, not M-E-W-S. Yeah.

19:07Sarah Kopit: The Greek one instead of the, um, a Mew is, uh, it's like a house.

19:11Seth Borko: Yeah.

19:11Sarah Kopit: Or I was going to be birds, but whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Muse team. Sorry. Muse PR team.

19:16Seth Borko: Please, please, please send us an email. Tell us the, uh, the origin of your name. We will correct the record on the next podcast.

19:24Sarah Kopit: M-U-S-E.

19:26Seth Borko: Yeah.

19:27Sarah Kopit: It would be funny. I like Richard Velter of Muse a lot. It would be funny to talk to Richard, what he thinks about. Yes. It's different.

19:32Seth Borko: Yes, exactly. No, I, yeah.

19:34Sarah Kopit: But MUSE, the new meta, Facebook meta AI agent, at the same time that Instinct, this AI agent, came out. So it's funny because you're saying it feels like we have jumped the shark from a cultural moment. Yeah. At the same time that that's happening, it feels like all this stuff that we've been theorizing about.

19:54Seth Borko: Yes. Is now, feels very tangible. It's out of beta.

20:00Sarah Kopit: And it's only, I think, accelerating this talk about trust and this panic of like, we used to say this is a platitude. Oh, AI is going to do, AI will automate the boring stuff, but we'll also have the human stuff. But now it's real. And it's like, all right, no more time for platitudes. No more time for like.

20:15Seth Borko: It's actually doing it. What the, what the frick is your response? Yeah.

20:20Sarah Kopit: And yeah, I feel like that was a big theme of almost like shock. I won't even call it culture shock, but like. Right. Oh, this thing we've been talking about. It's here. It's here.

20:29Seth Borko: And that's why we, and that's why just to kind of bring it all back, like when we were, you and I were doing the power list this year, that's why we picked builders.

20:36Sarah Kopit: Yes.

20:37Seth Borko: Because it's those people that are really, they built the stuff that has allowed, I mean, it's not exclusively AI, but they built the stuff that allowed this moment to happen.

20:50Sarah Kopit: And we've had a lot of those builders, you know, percolating. We've had Nivan, we've had Nuiti, we've had Spotnana. I'm sure others I'm not coming to mind for. Yeah. But some of those AI builders have been here on stage, and hearing from them has been really, really interesting. I also did this interview with Steve Case and Greg O 'Hara. Steve Case wrote an AI op-ed talking about AI regulation. So we had a conversation about regulation. Greg O 'Hara was talking about human reinforcement training, about the need to train models, how to do that. And he sold Amex GBT actually in an AI play. And Steve is talking about AI regulation.

21:24Sarah Kopit: He said, he's the founder of AOL. He said when he found AOL, it took them like a year to get to it. I don't know the exact numbers, but basically he said when they got to a million users, it was a landmark number, and it took them a ton of work, a ton of building, and that Claude and OpenAI have basically hit 10 million users in a fraction of the time. So the AI regulation thing is real. It's going to be a major issue in the midterms. It's going to be a major issue to all the industry. It's like, yeah, we can't stop talking. How could we stop talking about it?

21:54Seth Borko: We know you hate it. we know you hate it you're sick you're sick of it we're all sick of it but alas here we are uh yeah alas here we are i had an interesting conversation back to the travelist idea of

22:08Sarah Kopit: sustainability um back to the duke back to the duke interesting conversation with someone who said i won't name him i didn't give me permission to to speak but the the basic concept was that he he felt like at a lot of conferences and wasn't talking about global forum in general just talking about the the broader travel conference circle there used to be a balance between volume of travelers and scale and like destinations and experiences and like and like and he was telling me at least that he felt not just at the forum but just in general that a lot of the conversations now center around scale and i think that's another theme i sort of heard it's like and maybe it's an outgrowth of this ai thing is it feels like this is a moment where everyone is reaching for scale yeah airbnb is like oh yeah we are now full steam ahead on car rentals on hotels on experiences all the builders are like oh our our apis are live our mcps are live our ai agents are like it does feel i mean even booking and expedia talking about their their they both talked aggressively about collectively connected trip right i'm out cross on it up so it feels like This is a moment where the industry is pushing scale in a very big way.

23:18Seth Borko: Well, to take the doomerist view on this, I mean, I'm sure you have heard and probably many of our listeners have heard. There is this big cohort of people, especially Silicon Valley people, especially AI people that think 2027 that it is the last great leap. like where you are in 2027.

23:41Sarah Kopit: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:41Seth Borko: You know, is going to cement your place. Like it is the, it's the, you know, after this particular war is won, there are no more.

23:53Sarah Kopit: Yeah, the meme is that this is, you have 12 months to escape the permanent underclass. Yes. It's been a countdown. You have 24 months to escape the permanent underclass.

24:01Seth Borko: Exactly.

24:02Sarah Kopit: Are you worried about escaping? Are you worried about being in a permanent underclass?

24:06Seth Borko: I am not worried about myself. I am worried about it for my kids. So yeah, I am a little bit just because, I don't know, I feel like when I was, I go back 30 years, I felt like I could see what the future looked like. And while I could not see this and I could not foresee a lot of things, the world doesn't look that, you know, you still have to have a job, you still have to have a house, you still have a car, you know, all of these things. Got to get a babysitter if you want to go out on date night, you know, all this stuff. I truly, sitting here, hand to God, could not tell you what 30 years into the future is going to look like.

24:51Seth Borko: From a fundamental, are you going to have to have a car?

24:55Sarah Kopit: Yeah. No, you won't, right?

24:59Seth Borko: Dara was talking about that. Yeah. You know, I suppose you might have a place to live, but it might be, you're going to have to live somewhere. But like the model of how you, are you going to have to own a home? Is it going to be a shared situation as far as like, you know, are any of us going to have jobs? Is there going to be universal basic income? Like all of this stuff I think could be really, society could be fundamentally different. I'm rambling now, Seth. You got to stop me. All right.

25:30Sarah Kopit: Let's wrap it up. I want to do two things to wrap it up. All right. I met Grace from Strife. Awesome. A viewer of ours, fan of ours. Yeah. And she said our favorite, again, it's so fun. It's been so nice.

25:43Seth Borko: Oh, it has been so fun talking to all of you who actually listen to our podcast. Please reach out. Please reach out.

25:50Sarah Kopit: Let us know what you think. Give us your feedback and give us your thoughts and scoops and tips. Scoops and tips.

25:55Seth Borko: Scoops and tips, yes.

25:56Sarah Kopit: No, no, no. she said she loved our bet the coffee segment and we haven't done that in a while so I would love to make a coffee bet with you

26:07Seth Borko: coffee bet okay

26:07Sarah Kopit: I will do the winners and losers and I want I got a loser I'll start with and then we can do some winners okay

26:14Seth Borko: but in the meantime

26:15Sarah Kopit: you want to make a coffee bet with me you got a winner I got a winner you do the coffee bet

26:19Seth Borko: I don't have a coffee bet

26:21Sarah Kopit: okay I'm going to do the loser and I'm going to think of the coffee bet live

26:24Seth Borko: in the moment yeah

26:27Sarah Kopit: anyone who had to book a hotel room traffic New York City UN General Assembly Week

26:32Seth Borko: it was brutal

26:33Sarah Kopit: I heard that so much I apologize for it it was just a brutal it was so great being here in person in New York City but the traffic has been a nightmare anyone who had to go across the loser is anyone who had to go across town in New York City this week

26:47Seth Borko: so my winner of the week is and you know this is maybe a This is a very nascent idea of a winner. But just earlier today, I saw a headline come across my screen. You guys all know I love science fiction. I like space. I like space tourism. I like thinking about space, writing about space, blah, blah, blah. Google is exploring putting data centers in space. Let's fucking go. Yeah, absolutely. And that's always what I thought it was going to be. I always thought it was going to be business travel. Business travel.

27:18Sarah Kopit: Space business travel. That's the market. That's the one. did you hear me ask Greg and Steve about space travel or no no I didn't I did a lightning round thing because they're these big investors I said what would you invest in I gave them like AI travel planner they said no I gave them space tourism Greg O 'Hara called space tourism a gimmick Greg he's probably right yeah but space business travel now that's no gimmick

27:45Seth Borko: well space space in and of itself is not like space for business yeah period

27:49Sarah Kopit: space for business travel

27:51Seth Borko: The business of space.

27:52Sarah Kopit: We're going straight to the business of travel. We're over space as a leisure traveler. We only want frequent flyer space travelers on business consultants, space consultants.

28:01Seth Borko: Concur, where are you? Where are you? Tell us your plans. Write to us.

28:07Sarah Kopit: Can I tell you, I don't mean to harp on this. My winner of the week is also you, Sarah.

28:13Seth Borko: Oh, thank you, Sarah.

28:14Sarah Kopit: You were so amazing. You were so great on stage. Your whole team was so amazing. And of course, you got to meet the Duke.

28:21Seth Borko: The Duke. I will give props to my team as well. They have been just knocking it out of the park this week. And I will also give some props to Skift Intelligence. We've got a new platform. We've got a new tool. We've got a new toy for you to play with. It's amazing. Please try it out. Also, let us know what you think.

28:42Sarah Kopit: All right. What's something we can bet on for our coffee? It has to be actionable. All right. I'm going to D.C.

28:48Seth Borko: next week.

28:49Sarah Kopit: Okay.

28:50Seth Borko: Talk to U.S. travel.

28:52Sarah Kopit: How about this? I got one. Yeah, okay. Because I think we shared this in the podcast. You booked your trip to D.C. on instinct.

28:59Seth Borko: I did.

28:59Sarah Kopit: Why don't we make a bet? Will you have your ticket? Will, if you booked your trip with instinct, I want to know, will your AI agent make a mistake?

29:09Seth Borko: Okay. I did it, you know, and I didn't do anything. I just said yes.

29:13Sarah Kopit: Okay.

29:14Seth Borko: Okay. I think that it's going to work.

29:17Sarah Kopit: You think it's going to work? I think it's going to work. All right. So if it, you think it's going to work. So if it works, I'm going to buy you a coffee. Awesome. If instinct breaks and you don't even make it to DC and you miss your meeting and you, then.

29:28Seth Borko: Caramel macchiato on me.

29:29Sarah Kopit: Then not only will you be miserable, but you'll have to buy me a coffee.

29:33Seth Borko: Deal.

29:35Sarah Kopit: All right. All right, everybody. Do you want to shake on it? Because we can actually shake.

29:40Seth Borko: Hello. Hello. All right. This is awesome. We should get a studio.

29:44Sarah Kopit: I know. All right. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody. Bye.