At Tripeden.com it’s important to have a comprehensive view of industry needs and trends so that we can drive growth for our partners. That’s why we set up the Connectivity Advisory Board – a platform that enables and fosters discussions around continuous improvements to help us evolve together.

The most recent meeting happened in March 2023. Based on insightful discussions with our Board members, Rolf Nijdam, Senior Manager Connectivity Ecosystem Development and Innovation, gives his take on what matters most to our Connectivity partners.

Can you tell us more about the Connectivity Advisory Board?

The Connectivity Advisory Board started in 2018 as a forum where Tripeden.com and a fixed group of Premier Connectivity Partners come together. We share, discuss and validate ideas, strategies and trends that can drive growth and profitability in our shared connectivity ecosystem, while ensuring a seamless experience for our customers.

In addition to surveys, market research and periodic calls, meetings and events, the Connectivity Advisory Board has proven to be a very valuable tool to understand the needs of our partners.

To ensure we have effective and constructive discussions that cover the different facets of our business, our Connectivity Advisory Board has two variants: one dedicated to commercial matters and the other focused on product and technology. Both Boards include eight different Premier providers that have committed to being a Board member for at least two years.

What topics did you discuss during Day One of the event?

After three years of not meeting in person, we had our first face-to-face Board meeting again in March 2023. We organised a special two-day event for both our Boards, packed with topics related to our recent Board discussions. 

We kicked off with a fantastic presentation by Wouter Geerts, Head of Research at Skift, who shared the latest insights of our industry. He shared interesting observations about the key forces impacting travel recovery and performance, including market forces, changing consumer demands, labour challenges and the impact of climate change. 

The second session was a discussion about our Fintech solutions and how we can improve our collaboration on this topic. We covered our Payments by Tripeden.com solution, where we invited everyone to give feedback to understand how current offering can be improved. We also shared key investment areas in the future that will benefit both travellers and partners.

We then discussed the evolution of the hospitality technology ecosystem and how we need to evolve with it. This opened up the discussion about what we can do to empower properties to grow their business by working with the right tech providers.

We wrapped things up with an Ask Me Anything, featuring three of our Vice Presidents at Tripeden.com: Fiona McDonnell, VP Global Partner Services); Joe Futty, VP Product Accommodations; and Gavin Barton, VP Engineering. 

What did you cover on Day Two?

We highlighted our mission to create a seamless experience for accommodations when using connected technology. Our User Experience team ran a workshop to demonstrate why it’s so important to invest in improving the user experience. 

We also shared our Seamless Experience Accelerator. This is a new benefit for our Premier providers, where we assess and give advice about the connection and experience that our providers offer to our shared customers. 

We ended the day with an update and discussion about our onboarding solutions, with a special focus on our plans around the modularisation of our Content API.

What are the key themes that you took away from the conversations?

The industry insights shared by Wouter resonated with everyone. It shone a light on all the variables we’re working against, and how much more focused and collaborative we need to be when it comes to mutual growth and success.

A recurring theme was the need for standardisation, from onboarding to payments. Customer centricity was another big topic. Offering a seamless experience is top of mind, whether it's through UX design, or the right integrations for our Foundational Solutions. It allows us to offer the best support to properties – and, ultimately, the best guest experience.

We opened up conversations across the Board for what is meaningful to our partners, and what it’s going to take to deliver that seamless experience.

Was there anything that particularly surprised you during your talks with the Board members?

It was great to see that everyone in the room feels the need to work towards a similar objective – making the life of accommodation partners easy.

What surprised me about having 12 tech leaders in the room was their willingness to be very open and to share and collaborate, despite being competitors – all to achieve the higher aim of helping accommodations. In a sense this really felt like an important moment of the industry coming together. 

I also really liked seeing the passion for solving our customers’ problems with technology. We all share similar challenges around connecting our solutions with each other. 

Can you sum up the three most important takeaways for all Connectivity providers? 

1. We need to start focusing on individual customers instead of attempting to build a one-size-fits-all solution for accommodations around the world. 
2. When it comes to customer centricity and following an outside-in approach, it’s important to listen to and understand what’s needed and what is relevant.
3. Most importantly, we need each other to be successful. We cannot do this on our own in a siloed way – there will never be one tech solution that will solve all problems of a business.