The Value of Storytelling - Ian Sharpe - NextTrip - Episode # 238
You can convey the sheer, horror of that situation, and other people, in retrospect, find it funny because at least you survived.
Dan Ryan:What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together, we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives. I'm Dan Ryan, and this is defining hospitality.
Dan Ryan:This podcast is sponsored by BERMANFALK Hospitality Group, a design driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms. Today's guest is an entrepreneur, media strategist, international team leader, and author. With over twenty years of experience, he has built and sustained global teams and partnerships. He brings a strong background in video game technology, visual media, and global streaming platforms. At his current company, he merges travel, culture, and adventure programming within a global streaming television that reaches audiences worldwide.
Dan Ryan:He's the chief operating officer of media at Journey TV through Next Trip. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Ian Sharp. Welcome, Ian.
Ian Sharpe:Thank you for having me. I hope the crowd has gone suitably wild.
Dan Ryan:The crowd is going insanely wild on this side of the pond. I hear them screaming. Where are you right now?
Ian Sharpe:I'm in Victoria, BC. So I am on the scene.
Dan Ryan:On this
Ian Sharpe:side of the Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. The accent the accent to confuse everyone, but we've been here long enough for my children to become to be born Canadian.
Dan Ryan:And Love it. Doing that.
Ian Sharpe:I just live in a little bubble of Englishness watching the BBC, reading the Guardian newspaper, and and not going outside much.
Dan Ryan:Well, that's a shame because you have a beautiful outside environment there in BC, and I'm in BC at least twice a year, and I love it. I'm a huge fan.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. You know? I do. I I I jest because it is a wonderful place. And here on the island, you've got, you know, orcas caressing the waves, you know, just just moments away.
Ian Sharpe:So it's a you have big trees and big lungfuls of oxygen.
Dan Ryan:Well, I love it. And maybe it's just because you're working too hard get like, growing your company and not getting outside, which I also appreciate as well. But one of the reasons why I'm so excited to have you on is, you know, I've been doing this podcast for four years now. And so I've created this platform within our niche of travel and hospitality design and hospitality. And I always think about what's next.
Dan Ryan:What's next? What's next? And what I've settled on for now is aside from creating other content around this, is doing these smaller impactful I'm calling them symposiums, dinners in different cities, and that's kind of what works for me right now. And I thoroughly enjoy it, and I love that interpersonal connection. What I'm really intrigued with you about is on TV, you know, if people remember what TV was, we still have TV.
Dan Ryan:Many of us still pay for cable. The Travel Channel, it was there. We would get inspired and kinda see cool places. But now it's just like all haunted houses and weird shit. Like, I don't understand how it's called the travel channel, and it's just like a bunch of jump scare programming.
Dan Ryan:But you have created and I don't wanna tell the story of what you've created, but but you've created a travel channel that impacts everyone, explores the world, maybe can even book stuff. So so tell us, like, where the TV situation went and what we have to look forward to in the future. Actually, but before you do that, tell me how you define hospitality.
Ian Sharpe:Defining hospitality. So I'm gonna define hospitality as turning strangers into friends. Now the reason that the reason that's my definition is I've gone etymological. Right? Because we know that the word hospitality, you has got Latin roots, and all of the words like host and hospital, all of those words like guest all come from a very similar route.
Ian Sharpe:And there was this, you mentioned in your intro about some of the things I've done. I've written a whole bunch of alternative history novels. And but one of the, you know, one of the things that you do as you research that social fabric, that the the stuff that glued societies together in ancient times is because hospitality was this sacred duty, and it was all about welcoming guests from other lands, from faraway places, and and you had you were honor bound to do right by them and to give them food and to send them on their way into, you know, safety with a a full belly and a full heart. So that's that's what we talk we're not talking about defining hospitality. That's what I go for.
Ian Sharpe:And that's something then we carry on into the TV station journey. So journey is what we were talking about there. It's our replacement for the travel channel of old. We wanna step into those shoes. We want to inherit that mantle, and we want to create a a TV channel that's all about embracing hospitality or in about embracing cultures and showcasing them and and continuing to build upon that social fabric of of, you know, that sacred duty and embracing this beautiful blue green pearl upon which we live and making sure that all corners of the globe
Dan Ryan:are welcoming. Okay. So in that, you're you're creating this intersection of travel, technology, commerce, media, but also bringing people together. How did you decide to come after that intersection? Like, what was what was the thought thinking and, like, what's the what's the dream state of Journey?
Ian Sharpe:So how did we come by that? So the Nextrip is the company you know, Nasdaq company that owns Journey and acquired Journey and is in the process of acquiring and rolling out other channels worldwide. I'll come back to that in a bit. But the, you know, the goal was always to find that connective tissue between storytelling and booking. We call it inspiration to itinerary.
Ian Sharpe:And here's the reason why is that I think that attribution and driving bookings, you know, the the value of tourism as a global vector for for driving economies. Right? I mean, if you if you turned tourism into a country, I think it would be the third largest country in terms of GDP. Right? So it's just it's a huge industry, but the business of travel doesn't necessarily convert as easily as you might think.
Ian Sharpe:Right? People dream. People are inspired. People do five year plans. They have their bucket list.
Ian Sharpe:They're putting together their you know, the the the place they really wanna go and see family reunions or or or sporting pilgrimages, all of that kind of thing. Right? There's there's people people are are always drawn to travel, but the people who are in the business of travel come to link that storytelling, that that that pictures in the mind, that that, you know, that dream destination with the actual booking and the ROI that flows from it. So that's what we've set out to do. We whether you call it inspiration to itinerary or content to commerce.
Ian Sharpe:When I came to Nextrip, it was to propose to them the idea that you take the learnings I had from the video games industry and apply them into the travel space. And so it's then all about creating a course to action. It's all about, you know, some kind of measurability. It's all about attribution, and it's trying to create the same kind of lifetime value from our digital properties in Nextrip and the the the video fridges that hoteliers and DMOs create and turn it into something that's actionable. So
Dan Ryan:you at the beginning, you mentioned that you you've written novels of alternate history, which is super fun. So and also the in the video game your video game experience. But I my sense from you is that you are a storyteller at heart. Right? And I we but I also feel like that word storyteller is very often overused these days too.
Dan Ryan:But with you, I definitely feel that just in my interactions with you. And how do you take that idea of storytelling and creating content and creating and then driving that to making strangers into friends, which is how you define hospitality in the beginning.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a good question. In a run, it is is an overused and sometimes pejorative term. There's a podcast I listen to with Will Arnett and Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, Hollywood, they're always laughing about the storyteller, highfaluting storytellers.
Ian Sharpe:So the thing is though that whether you're bard or in Nordic terms a scowled, telling stories are oral tradition was how we still deliver information. There's a reason why podcasts are are are compelling, and people perhaps don't read as much as the oral tradition. The ability to evoke and conjure with your words is is is an important thing. You know? It's again, it's part of the fabric of society.
Ian Sharpe:And when you were a guest in someone's home, you would be expected to perhaps entertain them with a story with with with tales of foreign lands. That exoticism that came from travelers, came from the unknown, came from, you know, looking beyond your borders. That was an important part of wanting people welcome strangers. It was it was part of the social compact that you would tell a story. So, you know, in modern terms, I think that it's great to do that with documentaries or, you know, social activations, you know, bite sized chunks of of a story, but whether it's long form or whether it is short form, as long as you can get your point across and then you can showcase, you can conjure the the destination in mind, and you can want to get people to to go there, then that's what, you know, a storyteller is all about.
Ian Sharpe:It's a bit it's about weaving with the imagination. And if you can convert that to commerce, then, you know, the shareholders are all the happier.
Dan Ryan:Yeah. And and that's an interesting I mean, obviously, that's the business case. We we you wanna turn a profit. You wanna delight people and have them keep coming back. The world's a really big place.
Dan Ryan:Walk us through, like, where you focus on creating content as far as regions. Like, how do you pick where like, what it makes me think of is that old saying of how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? This little blue and green dot that you talked about floating in the void, how do you pick where to start and how do you how does someone how does an outsider engage with that? And then in the perfect sense, how do you once you found the place, told the story, attracted the people to learn from it, what's their what's the best outcome for them and you so that ever it's a one plus one equals three where everyone wins?
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. So how do you choose? So if you're commissioning a show as we do because, again, we're trying to inherit the mantle of the travel channel, so we want to create compelling shows with authentic hosts. And, you know, that's that's something that we wrestle with, Cosme, what the right content content mix is. So if you're greenlighting a show, then, you know, you are thinking about really the human story and why people want to go there and whether it is for health and wellness and whether that's your focus or whether it is the sports pilgrimage that I've talked about, whether it is an adventure holiday or whether it's just the kind of flop and drop stuff, whether it's exploring historical ruins and, you know, the the background took place or whether it's, you know, working with the local fishermen on on some gastronomic delight.
Ian Sharpe:There's all kinds of reasons why people go in, and I think that we're we're recently at WTM where they have this thing called the trend fest, and they they list out the reasons why people go in, you know, on on vacation. And some of them are, you know, wellness or gastronomy. So that's one that's one layer. Okay. We have to make sure that we, Harrow, identify the reasons why people go, and they create the right kind of showcase.
Dan Ryan:Okay. So that was super helpful. I never heard of the trend fest before. Yep. Okay.
Dan Ryan:So because because if travel was its own country, I think you said it would be the third largest country by GDP.
Ian Sharpe:Yep.
Dan Ryan:Okay. So what's interesting about that, if you when you go to the TrendFest, I assume you'll see where what the most popular travel destinations and experiences are, and then you're because you can't do everything. Right? You have to focus on what's getting the most eyeballs. So walk me through that inspiration.
Dan Ryan:Like, you walk in there. How do you connect the dots? And then how do you decide which story to tell? Because and then how do you measure success? That's, like, that's really amazing.
Ian Sharpe:Because
Dan Ryan:It just seems so vast and so difficult to pick where to choose. I'd love to hear, like, really cool examples of what worked and maybe what you decided not to do.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. Okay. So I I'm glad you talk about the vast complexity of it because, you know, when my CEO hears this, then he can give me a a pay rise. The the you're right. The the challenge is is to boil it down into something that is bite size and watchable because you're gonna be making a show that ultimately edits down to a commercial half hour or commercial hour and run it on our channels.
Ian Sharpe:And our channels are connected TV with Samsung and LG or on YouTube or on social. Again, you're gonna cut it down into various different chunks. So you might have a very small social activation, which is thirty seconds left. How do you create a hierarchy that helps tell that story? So let me give you a concrete example.
Ian Sharpe:And some of this is led, I should say, by just the commercial reality. Right? The commercial reality is that we're while we are storytellers, we would like those stories to be sponsored in the same way as that patronage has always been a part of storytelling. Right? You were the court poet.
Ian Sharpe:You were the you were the head scout. You were you were part of the the king's court. Things have just changed now so that that corporations and DMOs are sponsoring these things. Let me take a concrete example.
Dan Ryan:So And before you get to the concrete example, corporations, I'm assuming, could be like Viking Cruise or Marriott or Hilton or you name the brand. Yes? Yep. Exactly. I'm actually I don't know what a DMO is, so you have to enlighten me.
Ian Sharpe:Okay. A destination marketing officer. They're 10 they're they're what you might call tourism boards. Right? They're the people they're the people who represent
Dan Ryan:London. Country.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. Yeah. Visit visit London or brand USA. Yeah. Yeah.
Ian Sharpe:Okay. K? So there's and let's take one particular example to to to kinda put all of this into context. So we work with a PR agency called Fin Partners, and Fin Partners are a global agency that represents lots of these DMOs and brands. And one of the things that happened at WTM, which is World Travel Market, one of the biggest shows with, you know, 40,000 people all around the world turning up at London's Excel Center.
Ian Sharpe:With Finn's introduction, we met the Oman Tourism Board, DMO. And Oman, a Middle Eastern country, they've determined that in order to try and drive tourism dollars into their territory, they've done a big partnership with Ironman. So Ironman, you know, the endurance race Mhmm. It's not something that I'm gonna be entering anytime soon, but Don't
Dan Ryan:don't sell your don't have a limiting belief, Ian, please. I I know you can do it.
Ian Sharpe:Okay. Well, they my New Year's resolution for 2026 is is now sorted, But they've they've signed on there to try and I mean, it's obviously very beautiful desert rugged terrain.
Dan Ryan:Toro. And
Ian Sharpe:perhaps the perfect place to to to host this competition around tenacity. Anyway, so what we did for them is we said, okay. Well, look. There's all any number of show ideas that he could do from following the athletes, the potential contestants. And we always there always needs to be a human angle to these things.
Ian Sharpe:It can't just be pretty pictures of desert oases. So following the competitors telling their story as they go from their training regime in their home state to the eventual race. And in the meantime, you can you can dip into the culture and the geography and tell those stories. So we had put together a a program for them because their desire was to drive people into their country via this mechanism of Iron Man. So then that becomes the story that is most appropriate for them.
Ian Sharpe:And you could pitch them a story on, you know, the, I don't know, the the the camel safaris, the the apple or the or the religious pilgrimages, but that's not what they've focused on. And so it's our job as, you know, showrunners and storytellers is to listen to what that tourism board has has wants to try and focus on and give them the right kind of story. So it's there's an element here of, you know, again, the oral tradition. There's an element of improv to all of this because, you know, one of the key things in improv is yes and. Right?
Ian Sharpe:You never say no. You go, oh, I've heard what you say, and then you riff on it. And that's the that's the great thing about TV is ultimately you can tell any kind of story that you want. You know, neighboring Saudi Arabia, for example, is very much focused on wellness and spas. It's a very different story that you're gonna tell there, so you're gonna be looking at luxury hotels.
Ian Sharpe:So so that's so that's one encapsulation of how we would work with our partners at their request. And then another, you know, to give you a couple of other examples of things that are filming very soon and one will be launched on the the channel. We have a show called Tide, which is hosted by below decks chefs, chef Ben and chef Rachel. They're you might have seen their show on Bravo. And and so they've been hired by a cruise ship company called SeaCloud.
Ian Sharpe:SeaCloud is a is a is a luxury, you know, yacht with many baths, and, chef Ben and chef Rachel and some other chefs over the course of the year, they cook for the guests. Our show Tide is gonna follow those chefs and what they do and how they how they go and source ingredients along the way, you know, as they sail the Caribbean and bring on board fresh produce. And so you can kind of see the story there. The story is not just, you know, sweating away in the kitchen. You're all swearing Gordon Ramsay style, but it's interacting with the guests.
Ian Sharpe:It's serving these beautiful local meals. It's stopping at each destination pool.
Dan Ryan:And learning how to forage or or shop for at the for the best produce or Exactly. There's no truffles in The Caribbean, but, like, just so you get that experience. And you're like, oh, I wanted that. And then I know with below deck, but but you're not bringing along, like, the conflict and the swinging that might have happened in the Below Deck show. These are just like nautical chefs that have experience delivering amazing recipes and cooking and fine and sourcing foodstuffs to prepare for the guests in different locations.
Dan Ryan:That's super interesting because I find that and I I don't know if it's as I get older, I love those more experiential travel experiences. Like, for us, a really simple one, we we just were in Mexico. We rented a house down there. We had some friends come over. We they they cooked a dinner for us, but there were some little kids with us.
Dan Ryan:And the woman who who was our chef, she was making all these fresh tortillas, and it was just so she was doing it for us. So I was like, hey. Can you just teach the kids how to how to do it? And then that was such an incredible experience that I'm sure those girls will remember forever. Right, because they got to do that.
Dan Ryan:And I think I I prefer trips like this all the time. Like and now it's making me think my daughter, she's graduating from high school this May June, and she want she's like, dad, I wanna go hiking in the Dolomites. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay. Great.
Dan Ryan:I wanna do that too. I love the idea of walking. And I think that and now as I've started to research all that stuff, those types of walking trips, there's so many out there that I might not have actually known about because I would just wanna go and figure it out on my own.
Ian Sharpe:And and look. What you're talking about is experiential
Dan Ryan:travel. Right?
Ian Sharpe:It's it's really evoking the senses, you know, taste and smell in the in the form of cooking, but, you know, your muscles will certainly remember a walking tour. Right? So these so these things are all about creating memories and some of it is sense memories. Al, we've clearly got a visual medium, but when you're creating a show that is about culinary expertise and about local ingredients and about local culture because, you know, food is very much part of everybody's culture. I think that that's key.
Ian Sharpe:So Tide is gonna be hopefully a a good show for us, and you're right. It's not reality TV. We're not Yeah. Striving for those you know, that that interpersonal drama. We're aiming to showcase how magnificent and tranquil and enjoyable a cruise like Sea Grounds can be, and and and again, looking at the the Caribbean place.
Ian Sharpe:And we and then there are shows that we because the practicalities of this, right, is you can't just send a crew, parachute them onto a ship and then send them out again. What we're trying to do is build economies of scale in the filming, so we've got another show called Borderless Table. It's an extension of of of one that we've done previously with our in house production team called Paradise Kitchen. And you can watch all of these previous shows on Journey TV. It exists as a video on demand site as well as Okay.
Dan Ryan:So then so question, Ian. Because then what what are the chef's name on SeaCloud? Ian? No. Ben and Ben and Rachel.
Dan Ryan:Ben and Rachel? Yep. Ben and Ray. So if I'm watching this and streaming it and I see it and I and I click for more info, I can actually research and make a purchase and go have that. But Ben and Rachel might not actually be there.
Dan Ryan:It would be more to go to SeaCloud and say, hey. Can you replicate this for me? Or can Ben and Rachel be there to cook for us on that on a trip?
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. I mean, it all depends on when they're booked and how long they're Uh-huh. Booked for. You know? So, you know, the SeaCloud has a relationship with these celebrity chefs and and, you know, they kind of roll on and roll off.
Ian Sharpe:So we can film with Ben in January, for example. Rachel is a little bit later in the year, but there are always some kind of high end Michelin star chef available. So you're getting But
Dan Ryan:SeaCloud, I could do that same trip, and then whoever's the chef on the boat, they could also have an experiential shopping, cooking experience. It might not be Ben and Rachel, but I would have a similar ex That's really Something serious. Because as you're saying, I I think back in 2018, I moved out to Vietnam with my family for three months. We were I was opening an office out there and, like, going to see factories. And one of the coolest things that we did, what I loved about Southeast Asia so much, and the kids were of a great little age, you could get anywhere over the weekend.
Dan Ryan:Right? So every Friday, we'd fly out to Laos or Cambodia or Singapore or other parts of Vietnam, and I would print up. I'd go searching the Internet. Now it's probably easier with AI. But I'd print up Anthony Bourdain's old itineraries from his shows, and we'd go and try and find those little restaurants or street vendors in all these places.
Dan Ryan:But it was, like, it was difficult, and I and part of the surprise is I just didn't know what I was getting. But this just seems so much more, like, frictionless, and you can really, I don't know, see exactly what the experience might be like. Hey, everybody. We've been doing this podcast for over three years now, and one of the themes that consistently comes up is sustainability. And I'm just really proud to announce that our sponsor, BERMANFALK Falk Hospitality Group, is the first within our hospitality industry to switch to sustainable and recyclable packaging, eliminating the use of Styrofoam.
Dan Ryan:Please check out their impact page in the show notes for more info.
Ian Sharpe:And so let's just pick up on one thing you said there, but it might be easier now with the advent of AI. Mhmm. So one of the things when we're talking content to commerce, right, is you have to create some kind of deep link or some kind of QR code or something that takes you through to where you can find out more information. Right? The the site where you book c cloud, for example.
Ian Sharpe:Alright? So there's c cloud and their site. You watch the show. QR code pops up. Find out more.
Ian Sharpe:Oh, okay. Great. And then I'm gonna look into my booking. Mhmm. With what you just talked about about Vietnam, there's actually something that we're looking into right now.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. You know, as as a commercial partnership whereby you can literally sit and watch an episode of any given show that's on Journey TV today and go you know? And and and you know how the celebrities work. Yeah. The celebrities will take you through all of these different places, and they'll give you, oh, here's the local specialty cake, and here's the local specialty drink, and here's this fun ride that we went on.
Ian Sharpe:And they, you know, they give you the you you a little package. You could sit there in, you know, the the olden days, and you could go, oh, I wanna do that. I wanna investigate that. I'm gonna take some moats. What we're aiming to do is put on a layer of AI that just watches the program and tells you what that exact restaurant was and what that exact address is, what that menu is, and gives you that itinerary.
Ian Sharpe:So the would you you know, were you watching for inspiration journey and you watched a certain show? Would you go everything that that host did will be packaged up for you for you to emulate or for you to edit into something that was something, you know, a little bit more palatable for you. But if you wanna follow in their exact footsteps, then, you know, that's one of the things that we're working on. And that then creates this very compelling call to action. Right?
Ian Sharpe:You think, I really wanna do what they did. They they kind of curated this experience for me. Their producers and researchers went out there and said, what's the best that you can showcase in this country, whether it's Oman or Estonia or or, you know, Bangladesh or wherever. They've done it, and so we translate that into an itinerary. And should you wish to take the pain out of booking your holiday, then you can just press a button and and start to make those bookings instantaneously.
Ian Sharpe:So that's where we're going.
Dan Ryan:So I have I have a question. I have, like, a tip yeah. And this is a more of a technological question because I my wife, she does travel consult. She's a fashion stylist. She does travel consulting, And she'll book things for people and make it all happen and do a lot of research.
Dan Ryan:But then sometimes people will just go to Expedia and book whatever. And Sure. Okay. She missed the opportunity. So it's like a it's a leaky system sometimes.
Dan Ryan:Right? How do you how do you make sure that you get credit for that original inspiration, or if do you just have a certain bleed off of people who will get the inspiration and go do it on their own? Or how do you how do you make it sticky for them to to, like, stay committed with you through until they click
Ian Sharpe:buy? So, again, we can't come back to what we talked about the video games industry and then and how we layer on some of the learnings that we got from that space into this travel space. I'm not a travel guy, right? I'm a storyteller. I you know, but I've I've come from various digital industries and applying the principles that we learned there into the travel space, which is tiny little bit antiquated in its thinking.
Ian Sharpe:Right? It's traditional, should we say. So you're quite people go into a shopping cart, and they browse, and they think, and they compare prices, and then they go to a trusted name. You know, for example, you mentioned Expedia as opposed to the, you know, smaller size. They just you know, they wanna they wanna do what's easy.
Ian Sharpe:Margin. Right? I'm sure. And that's a good point because, you know, we can work with hotels directly, and and we do. You know, Seacow is is an example of that.
Ian Sharpe:It's a floating hotel, but, you know, some of the the advertisers that we've had in the few months that we've been running the channel are just direct mid tier hotels who want to get their message across without losing the business to the big online travel agencies. Anyway, the point here is is that there is not quite the instant click gratification when it comes to travel that you might get from an Amazon purchase,
Dan Ryan:for example.
Ian Sharpe:Because you go, oh, I want a new microphone. I'm gonna quickly look. Okay. I'm gonna buy that one because that's the one that's highly rated. You're not gonna spend, well, in my case, I didn't spend hours choosing a microphone.
Ian Sharpe:I spent minutes choosing a microphone. The on a holiday, because it is such an expensive proposition, you're gonna spend longer and you're gonna shop wider, and you might abandon shopping carts, etcetera, etcetera. So you've got to create a framework by which the consumer will feel rewarded and and stick with you and that may well be again drawing from the world of video games, that may well be anything from a royalty system. We talk about viewing miles parallel to air miles where you earn from what you've watched and you get a discount on the basis of if you watch and you go through to transactions. It could well be that there's some gamification attached where you get, you know, tokens and discounts based upon your activity.
Ian Sharpe:So those are the things that we're starting to apply to our experience, is all about watching and booking and creating that throughput between them. So it's not an exact science, but what you're trying to do is to reward and incentivize people to not leave where you are and go elsewhere. Ultimately, though, it's always gonna come down to user experience and trust. If you make a frictionless experience, people will just do it. If you put barriers to entry there, you'll mess them up.
Dan Ryan:I don't know how you said it, but I think of the real value that I see in this also is, you know, I travel a lot, and usually I'm pressed for time. And when I search for the hotel I need, it's like one of the major brands. It comes up in my and I book it, and I just go. But I find some of my most memorable travel experiences, like, in the sense of travel to create memories are when those are not available or I have to dig a little deeper or something. And for what you're doing to find those, like, uncovered gems or those hidden gems, right, as far as hotels, floating hotels, restaurants, all of these other things where we're all directed to, like, the people with the biggest marketing budgets, right, typically.
Dan Ryan:And I think to be able to dig in to that third or fourth page and have those people where it's like owner operator run or there's just some kind of a passion play in experience. Like, I miss 80% of those, I think, because I'm just going in my traveling for just work and life, like, the the easiest thing. But I think that to be able to to give it's almost like what you're doing with Journey is finding those hidden gems and giving people the courage to try that thing that's a that's sometimes a lot different to have a cool experience.
Ian Sharpe:I do think that there's I don't know. There's a kind of indie nature to it, isn't there, where you are trying to unlock these experiences and go a little bit deeper and and also to to have an element of authenticity. And while I talked about AI in the sense thereof enabling, you know, the taking the data and delivering an itinerary, I wouldn't want to, and we've certainly got a kind of policy that in terms of creating the content, we don't wanna touch AI. We want this to be human led discovery, and so we want you know, there's it's kind of an open casting call for the channel because we want to find you mentioned Anthony Bourdain. We wanna find the next Anthony Bourdain.
Ian Sharpe:We wanna find someone who is so expert and so charismatic that they can unlock, I don't know. Just that kind of decency of travel. Right? Just the just the the humanity that's inherent to to make people feel welcoming.
Dan Ryan:I'm laughing so much right now because I'm like, oh my god. You should totally get a crew and film my daughter and I walking across the Dolomites and me yelling at her to forget her blister and be strong and take the next damn step as I yell at her to Vivian, I love you.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. Shouldn't have pact shouldn't have pact that in the first place. Exactly. Proper shoes there. But the the the the the point really is is that there's a the Journey represents a kind of democratization of this content.
Ian Sharpe:Same way that YouTubers enable people all across the world to be influencers and to showcase destinations and and be their own spokesperson, mouthpiece, bring their own unique idiom to things. What so so there's you know, people can get their voices out there. What Journey I think does because it exists on these fast channels, pre advertising streaming television because it exists on Samsung TVs and LG TVs and across the world and on YouTube and on social channels. It just creates a focal point for it all. It collects it.
Ian Sharpe:It collates it. It has a business model behind it. It has a sales force behind it. Very difficult for individual contributors and individual voices to operate at the scale.
Dan Ryan:Yeah. And and I love how you said how you're like, for the for the c cloud example, you also you you have the crew in to do that one with the chefs, but then maybe another one, I don't I forgot how you set it, but, like, you're leveraging the time of your crew there to do different shots and pickups and so that you can be efficient in the production as well, but also a higher value production. And that's gotta be That what is that is that the biggest challenge on creating the immersive travel content, or is it act what's harder? Creating the content or actually figuring out what to take that step on to, like,
Ian Sharpe:to explore? You know, it's actually been a long time since I've been on a shoot, so I would be I would be disingenuous if I were to say that that was the hardest part. Because now, you know, my life in in management is about coordinating one of these pieces and doing the deal. However, what I would say is, and you know this just from this podcast, whenever you're doing anything live and you're recording stuff, stuff goes wrong. You know?
Ian Sharpe:And whether it's a technical glitch or whether it's a recalcitrant guest or whether it's, you know, a host who goes AWOL or a guest who gets drunk. You know? It's just there's there's all kind of things that go wrong during the actual filming. And so, you know, there's there's a reason why the phrase, oh, fix it in edit exists. Right?
Dan Ryan:That's why waiting for someone to leak all of the apprentice outtakes. Like, that would be so amazing to me. And I know they're sitting in a vault somewhere. That would be really fun to watch.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. Yeah. Sure. There there's there's all kinds of things that should be perhaps locked away and and And burned. Locked away.
Ian Sharpe:And burned. Yeah. So and and and and look. The same applies for for the the, you know, the travel space. There will be outtakes and bloopers and catastrophes.
Ian Sharpe:My only point is is that I now just get to hear about the insurance claims afterwards as opposed to experience them.
Dan Ryan:Well, insurance claims and, I don't know, the travesties, I think you said travesties. When the things go really sideways as a traveler, especially with family, it's kinda it's shitty and stressful as it happens, but those are also the most memorable and loving and incredible memories that I have of traveling with my family is when the flight gets canceled, you have to sleep, string up a hammock between chairs in the airport, or you're caught in some torrential typhoon and, like, I don't know. You just remember the I find that I remember those experiences more than when everything goes perfectly smoothly.
Ian Sharpe:Well, you're a better man than I. The yeah. That that just elevates my stress levels to the point of hypoplexy. So, yes, I remember them all. I wish that I didn't.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. And and and, look, we we were we were talking with the the team during WTM because it was the first time we'd actually got together in person. This is a remote organization to a large part, and you tell war stories. Right? That's another thing that people people do.
Ian Sharpe:You know, travel stories, war stories, those are the bits that make you go, well, I'm glad I wasn't on that trip or or there there, but for the grace of god, go I. And and, again, you know, other is there's an old adage that, you know, what was horrific for you is comedy for other people and vice versa. And that's part of that's part of storytelling. Right? You the you can you can convey the sheer horror of that situation, and other people in retrospect find it funny because at least you survived.
Dan Ryan:Yeah. And I I remember being in where was I? In somewhere outside of Nairobi in Kenya. Karen. I think it's called Karen, Kenya.
Dan Ryan:It's like a suburb of Nairobi. And I remember being at these British expatriates. They probably considered themselves Kenyans, but old old like, imagine Ernest Hemingway and his significant other hosting a party and drinking a lot of gin and tonics. But just hearing them tell their stories of, you know, when I was logging in Uganda and and Matilda contracted malaria. Like, those again, it must have been horrific and horrible as they were going through it.
Dan Ryan:But then to to hear that story probably forty years later is like it's just I'm transfixed. And he's probably said that story 75 different times, but or maybe even more, a thousand times. But I love I love hearing about when the train comes off off the rails. It's just it's awesome.
Ian Sharpe:I think yeah. I mean, I've experienced like the insurance claims. I've experienced that first first hand of it, but going back to my honeymoon, which is now many moons ago, but my wife really was really keen on going to Morocco, and so we we went there. She was, you know, she was being inspired by, you know, the the Esauera, the the blue skies, the white buildings, and, you know, she she she really had this this almost tangible feeling for it. And we went there and then it was a bit of a disaster because let's just say I had an extreme case of indigestion.
Ian Sharpe:Viewers can cock their ears in case they don't wanna hear any of girdling noises. But the point is is that it was like we we went there and had that fairly desperate experience, and then we came back and her father said to her, well, you know, you've seen Under a Sheltering Sky, the film with John Malkovich that was set in Morocco. Yeah. And that was that was what inspired you to go, wasn't it? And my wife said, oh, I've never seen that film.
Ian Sharpe:Why should you know, that's that wasn't the inspiration. We rented it. We were living in New York at the time, and this was an early version of Netflix. We got the DVD. We put it in, and she watched thirty seconds as she said, oh, yeah.
Ian Sharpe:I have seen this film. The the the the point being that there's these kind of indelible traces of storytelling all throughout existence that lead us to these places that we want to go, and then we wipe our memories clean if they are problematic.
Dan Ryan:So for a listener or watcher of this, if they wanted to see Journey TV, they would they could go to the web. They could download the app. I think you mentioned Samsung. Right? So you can download it and browse the content.
Dan Ryan:Like, walk us walk us through what an ideal newbie coming to Journey TV might experience and how to experience it.
Ian Sharpe:Sure. So you can, yes, watch our travel content. There's hundreds of hours. There's probably three hours of premium travel content that we've licensed from the best storytellers around the world, and we continue to commission. And so anyone listening to this who has a story to be told or or is interested in making one with us, then by all means, get in touch.
Ian Sharpe:If you are just a viewer, then you can go to j.tv to watch our video on demand. You can download the iOS or the Android app and watch it on your phone if you're so inclined. If you are a more traditional big screen viewer, you can log onto your Samsung Smart TV, scroll down the menu there, and look for Journey in the old school electronic program guide. We're in the process, and it's it is news that has been released because we've signed a letter of intent to buy the GO USA channels, which are part of BrandUSA BrandUSA being the tourism board for The US. Right?
Ian Sharpe:The biggest DMO in the world.
Dan Ryan:DMO iron.
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. There he goes. Because she fell out.
Dan Ryan:Thank you.
Ian Sharpe:You learn, mister Folty. I don't know if you're a Folty Towers fan, but he was from Barcelona. The the the you know, we're expanding by by hopefully acquiring those channels, lawyers, redlining documents as we speak. Mhmm. And, you know, that's that will give us more distribution.
Ian Sharpe:So, ultimately, that you can whether you access it on your your phone, your TV, or on your desktop, on your laptop here, you can watch these hundreds of hours. It's all free. It's all ad supported. That's how we make our revenue. So there are ad breaks, but that's just a traditional model.
Ian Sharpe:Industry, the television industry as a whole is going back to the tried and tested models of showcasing adverts because people were getting a little bit fed up of subscribing to Disney and to Paramount and to Netflix. And, you know, you've got you've got a colossal bill. All of our travel stuff is entirely free. You just have to watch the odd ad. But a contextually relevant ad, I might I might suggest because, you know, most of our advertising is from those little boutique gems, those those hidden destinations who have started to find out about Journey and want to get their message out to your high intent audience.
Ian Sharpe:You know, you're not watching travel channels and and travel television if you aren't an aficionado of adventure.
Dan Ryan:Yeah. And, yeah, super targeted, and that's where those gems can actually get in because they know the demographic. They know who's watching, and it can get served up to you if you're in the if you got your travel searching mindset on. That's really I mean, that's pretty cool. And then can you can you actually book the trip from there as well, or is that something you're working towards?
Ian Sharpe:Yeah. There's an there's a kind of version of it now, but it's not the all singing, all dancing version. Again, you the next trip, the parent company, uh-huh, has nexttrip.com, which is a booking engine where you can book things. It has Five Star Alliance, which is, again, another place where you can book premium destinations. So some of the, you know, the underpinnings of that content commerce piece exist within our ecosystem already, but we're always aiming to expand them.
Ian Sharpe:And the crucial part about Journey is is despite the fact the parent company does have a booking engine, we're agnostic. We will work with any platform to showcase their material, to tell their story, and to drive attributable bookings to them. That's the whole reason why this is set up. And and we know, you know, so many bookings are made because of video and because of people going, wow. I wanna see that for myself or Yeah.
Ian Sharpe:I wanna participate hearing that for myself. So, you know, we'll we'll dig you up the Dolomites, you know, the the the stuff that we've done on that. I'm sure someone's been there, and we'll send it to you and see if you get inspired.
Dan Ryan:Oh, good. Yeah. My daughter is really pushing me to book. So I actually I think there was one slot left on this one trip, so I need to get that done today, actually. If people wanted to learn more about you or find Journey or experience it, like, and and learn more about the company, what's a good way for them to do that?
Ian Sharpe:So journey.tv is a a good link to start with. That will give you the access to their their video on demand site, which is watch.journey.tv. The parent company, Nasdaq company, like I said, NTRP is the ticker, and nextrip.com is the home for that. So, you know, plenty of places. Or, you know, if you're if you're watching TV or you've got your phone out, go to the App Store, go to the Android store, download the app, and and, you know, sit back sit back, relax, watch, and maybe book a trip or two.
Dan Ryan:Love it. And get inspired for to book your next trip because I don't know. I think that there's so many people who just don't have the opportunity or the time or the inclination to travel, but I just find travel's just been such a part of our family and my experience that it's I find it it keeps feeding my curiosity and keeps, I don't know, making me feel connected to the world and to people and and just gives really good stories to tell about contracting malaria in Uganda.
Ian Sharpe:And that's and that's and that goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. Right? Your podcast defining hospitality, it has to be the world has to open its mind to all of these different cultures and approaches to life. Walking a mile in another man's shoes, there's a reason for that proverb. Right?
Dan Ryan:It it
Ian Sharpe:helps you understand people. It helps you foster brotherhood or sisterhood. It helps you embrace this magnificence of the of the planet and the people that are on it. We should cherish that. Hospitality turning strangers into friends has to be a key tenant for everybody, especially in the somewhat benighted times.
Dan Ryan:Love it. Strange. And you brought it full circle back to strangers and to friends. So that is a testament to
Ian Sharpe:your story, Ali. If I if exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Beginning, middle, and end.
Ian Sharpe:And you always do a cool bank.
Dan Ryan:I love it. Well, Ian, I'm so grateful that we connected and that I got to hear about this, and I'm definitely gonna go check it out. And I'd suggest all of our listeners to check it out as well. I'm excited, and maybe you can film some content of my daughter yelling at me or me yelling at my daughter. I think that'll be
Ian Sharpe:really fun. Said, we're always keen to find the next Anthony Bourdain, and we may well have just done this perfect casting call here.
Dan Ryan:Perfect. An unintended an unintended interview. So I thank you so much, and thank you for sharing this, and I wish you the best of success. Thank you. Thank you.
Dan Ryan:And to all of our listeners, if this changed your way or thinking about how to experience hospitality or experience the world or you know someone who could benefit from it, please pass it along. Don't forget to like and subscribe because it goes a long way. We grow by word-of-mouth mostly. And thank you. I appreciate you, and we'll catch you next time.
