Travel Trends with Dan Christian
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Travel Trends with Dan Christian
Turning Destinations into Immersive Storytelling Experiences with Geotourist
Imagine walking into a distillery and being greeted by the master as a hologram who already knows your questions. That’s the bold vision of Geotourist, and where our conversation with CEO and Founder Shaon Talukder begins. From its start as an “audio map of the world” to hosting community voices, screen tourism, and accessibility routes across 94 countries, GeoTourist is redefining how stories connect travelers to place.
Shaon shares how DMOs use the platform’s view-to-visit data to prove impact, why communities and fans create the most compelling tours, and how Holoxar—an AR layer powered by light AI—is bringing guides into real-world spaces without distraction. We also look ahead to the traveler’s near future: natural language interfaces, ambient AR glasses, and real-time translation that dissolve barriers.
Packed with insights on immersive travel, destination marketing, and the future of in-destination experiences, this episode shows why the best tech amplifies human stories instead of replacing them. For more information on Geotourist, please visit geotourist.com.
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You have minority reports which shows Tom Cruise walking through a shopping mall. It's a vision of the future where he's wearing smart lenses, and as he's walking through, there are various holograms that pop up and speak to him directly. They know who he is, they know that he's visited these shops before. And he's got this personalized experience of the world around him, and that's essentially what we've created. We've created this new technology called Coloxar, which takes Geotourist to the next level.
SPEAKER_02:Hello everyone, and welcome back to Travel Trends. This is your host, Dan Christian, and today we're going to be speaking to the founder and CEO of GeoTourist, Shaum Tulichter. Now, this is the third episode in our In Destination Experiences part two, which is brought to us in partnership with our friends over at Perno Ricard, who certainly share our passion for authentic experiences and are very much leading the way of immersive travel. You can find out more information about their brand homes at Perno-Ricard.com. Now we started our second series with Vince Katalubic from MeowWolf. And then last week we spoke to Laurel Greatrix, who then was the VP of Marketing at Viator. And since we published that episode, she has now become the chief communications officer at TripAdvisor Group. So a huge congratulations to Laurel. We hope that this podcast helped on that journey, but I'm sure most of that was already in the plans. But congratulations to Laurel. It was great to have you on the show last week. And now we're going to round out this series with Sean Talikdar. Now he also is a captain of industry. He is an advisor to the British government. He's part of the WTTC. He serves an associate advisor. He's been recognized by entrepreneur.com as one of the top entrepreneurs to watch. He advises startups and he has a lot of passion and interest in this space. He's been running Geotaurus now for almost 14 years. So we get to talk about the early journey of Geotaurus and where they've gotten to today in the age of AI. So I'm really looking forward to sharing this discussion with you. Don't forget that we do have our AI summit coming up at the end of October, the 28th and 29th. You can register on our website, traveltrendspodcast.com. And we do share clips and highlights from all of these episodes on our social channels, which you can find at LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram at Travel Trends Podcast. Now let's bring Shaoun into the conversation and talk about Geotourist. Welcome, Shaun. Great to have you on Travel Trends. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm really excited about this.
SPEAKER_02:For sure. I think you're a perfect fit in our In Destination series. Obviously, we have a mutual friend in Laura at Pernault Ricard, and she was very much uh keen for you to join us as part of this series. And I certainly can understand why, as I was preparing for our conversation as part of the In Destination series, which all of our listeners they've heard from Vince Katalubic from Meowwolf, who is one of the most inspiring people I've seen on stage. And I know she's highlighted that you are very similar for her when she saw you at Tourism Innovation Summit. And then we had uh Laurel, Great Tricks, from Viator last week. So we've literally gone from having someone innovating and creating in-destination experiences like Meowwolf to Viator, which is the leading experience provider globally with more than 400,000 destinations uh activities they offer. And then now we have someone that has been building an incredible app that really transforms the in-destination experience. And I've been playing around with the app and I'm like, I think it's fantastic. I love it, and I'm surprised I didn't hear about it sooner. But um tell everyone, Shaoun, about your background and give everyone a little bit of an overview of what GeoTourist does.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. Um so my background was not in travel and tourism, and this is one of the one of the um things that I have to qualify because now um I often go and speak at uh universities and you know lecture at um you know um tourism uh university courses and their professionals in tourism, or they're starting to be professionals in tourism. I actually studied pharmacy, so nothing even remotely close. And I practiced that for 10 years. And during that time, my sister and I set up a real estate business. Um so we went into uh creating short-term uh service departments for professionals who are moving around graduates and professionals moving around uh the UK. And while we were setting that up, I traveled to Australia with my wife for um one of her friends' weddings. And while we were out there, she um she decided to add do a add-on to our journey. So she bolted on an additional trip um, not just to the wedding, but also to uh uh Uluru or Ezrock as it used to be called. Um and she said, Look, it's not gonna take any extra time for us, it's gonna be just a 24 hours in and out. And um she said, we'll arrive at night and then we'll fly out the following night. So and she said, Look, I've always wanted to see it, and you know, who was I to come to argue with that? Um and while we um you know, while we were preparing for that, we were trying to ensure that we maximize the opportunity and the experience we got when we were there. I mean, my you know, my wife does like to kind of immerse herself in local culture and understand. And you know, she's one of these people that gets the museum guides and stands at every plinth and podium, you know, reading every sign, listening to all of the content. And when we um were preparing for Ayers Rock, um, we did what everyone else did. And this is like going back, I think four, yeah, 12, 14 years. And um at the time we were using TripAdvisor, so we were scrolling through TripAdvisor, looking at um experiences, and there were some tour guides that were available. And there was this one tour guide, and I I believe his name was Doug. Don't, you know, don't hold me to that. But um he just kept getting these five-star reviews from loads and loads of people. So everyone said, Oh, he brings the rock to life, he lives and breathes the rock. You know, so we were like, we need to book this guy. You know, this is the guide. We're only there for a few hours. We need to just make sure we you know get a hit when we when we get there. Um so we booked, we booked the we booked the guide. Um, it was heinously expensive from from uh from my perspective. Um, but you know, when you're there, you're a captive audience, there's you know, you have very few options, and so we thought, okay, we'll go ahead and do that. Um and when we land, you know, we we were there the night before, um, and then we had to wake up before dawn, I think it was like 5 a.m. or something, really, really early. We showed up to the uh the tourist office, which is basically a porter cabin, it's like a you know, a trailer, like a lorry trailer, and they converted it into an office with like two or three desks inside. And we said, Look, we're here for the tour, um, you know, we're here to do see Doug. And um they said, Oh, sorry, it's Doug's day off. So we we basically kind of showed up and we were like, oh, okay. And they said, Well, not to worry, we have somebody to take you around. And um essentially they had uh a guide who took us around the rock, and the whole tour consists of you walking around, so about three or four hours to walk around the actual thing, and you do it at either dawn or dusk, and as you're doing the walk and the kind of the sun rises or it sets, and the rock just changes colour from a you know, like a dark red, blood red colour to a golden colour by the end of it, like a golden orange colour, and it's stunning. And at different points around the rock, the guide would tell, you know, would have this narrative, and you'd look at the rock face and it would kind of um they would tell you kind of what the Aborigines, the indigenous uh population would uh, you know, with the stories that they would tell and how they would see the rock and perceive it. And from that, um, you know, they would get, you know, they'd be smoking various things and they'd have this, you know, this uh story that they would recount. And within that there were cave paintings to kind of, you know, to echo these stories. And it was all great, and we saw the cave paintings, they looked like they were kind of painted yesterday, it's all very, very, you know, good. Um, but at the end of the whole tour, um, I did not fit get that feeling of a five-star uh experience. And I'm not sure it was because of the depth of the knowledge of the guide or not, but um at the end of it I just felt left wanting. I felt cheated, I felt robbed basically. And so at this at the time as we were flying back from uh Ezrock or Uluru to Melbourne, I was sitting on the plane thinking, look, I I really, you know, I've seen everything, it's stunning, it's beautiful, but you know, I I I wish I could just listen to what Doug had to say in his version of the story. If only there was a way he could leave his voice on the on, you know, in location on the map for me to um show at my own convenience, um, that would be amazing. And I thought, well, I'm not coming back here anytime soon because it took two days to get there, right? Um and so I thought, well, the next place I travel to, who's to say I won't have the same negative experience again? And that was the light bulb moment that kind of started the ball rolling with geotourist. Um and I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if you could create a platform for the whole world where everyone can share their stories and selfishly I can travel around learning from um other people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's fascinating. I always great to get the origin story of an entrepreneur and exactly what the pain point was that you wanted to solve. And obviously, this goes back now, like 14 years. So, like you were very early in developing an app for tourism and and and creating GeoTourist. Um, but let's tell everyone where you are today. You're in London, that's home for you. Tell us a little bit about more about uh uh about you and your and your life now. So obviously, GeoTourist is a big part of it, but I know you're also an advisor to the WTTC, as people heard in the introduction. You work with uh the British government. So give us a bit of an understanding of how you went from Air's Rock developing this app to being a part of these global organizations.
SPEAKER_01:So so yeah, we were, I mean, as I said back when we um before we set up, there were very few travel apps on the market. Um I mean, there was Booking.com, they're the big players, so the TripAdvisor types. Um there wasn't that many, uh, or there weren't that many apps in the way of you know, experience and guiding. And if there were, they were very focused on very specific destinations. So if you were looking for a digital solution, um, it may not exist for the destination you're going to. And so, you know, you know, if you wanted to have that experience, you would have to go to the specific place, or you would have to kind of find whatever traditional solutions there were. Um and so since then, um, you know, apps started to kind of you know have a life of their own, and people, every every man and the dog wanted to make an app. So there was there was a huge pro proliferation of lots and lots of apps. And before we'd even set up the company, we'd actually we actually um did some work with the university in the UK um to do research in the space before we set up, you know, before we even kind of incorporated. And the the research kind of basically entailed understanding what traveler needs were. So understanding what does the best companion tool for travel look like. Um and so, you know, understanding that, you know, when you're there, provided you have the ability to see what's in front of you, you can create, you know, the the thing that would augment the experience was the story. And so um, you know, compared to whether you wanted something that played video or you know, be more visual, you know, when you're there, you've got the thing around you, you want to immerse yourself. So it was those um stories, and it would have to be by people. So it wasn't kind of a synthetic uh robot at the time and now AI. It was uh preferred to be um you know stories created by local people or local or experts on subject matters. And so we had this um and also what they wanted was a single solution and not have to keep on downloading an app every time they, you know, went traveling. So you know, download your travel, you know, your transport app, your hotel app, your museum app, your you know, theme park app. You know, there was just you know, people just essentially as you know, what they what they do is they don't download anything and or unless they need to to get access to what they need, right? So that was the kind of the prevailing feedback. So we had to kind of address all of those kind of uh needs for the travelers. So as we saw the proliferation of loads and loads of apps out there, we we over the next kind of you know two, three years, we saw that those destinations that had created, you know, got funding to make apps, you know, for sp for specific destinations, found that they weren't getting the engagement and the kind of the uptake that they were had anticipated because they thought, you know, building left when everyone will come, right? And that's that's definitely not the truth. So um so what we what we then kind of did is we kind of tried to understand what the industry needs were. So we kind of we realized we'd addressed what travelers might need, but we needed to kind of onboard content. So we started kind of speaking to a lot of the industry leaders specifically from destinations because we saw them as the custodians of the stories and of the stories that you might well know. So we thought if we work with them, then we will have stories that people will recognize or trust, and we can kind of give them a home. And that worked in part in a few destinations, but for every one or two destinations we bring on board, there were nine or you know, eight or nine that would say no. So we kind of lent into the no's. We kind of said, Well, you know, what is the reason that they're doing this when we know the travellers want a single solution or a single easy way to access this content? And so that was the beginning of our journey into the industry to understand really what the pain points for the industry were and what kind of challenges they were facing. And I mean, in the UK, it's similar to different parts of the of the world, but the the structure, the kind of the industry structure of tourism has changed dramatically. So they've gone from being a government-led, government-funded national organization to having funding withdrawn and then creating a vacuum that suddenly gets um uh filled by lots of small operators and other solutions and DMOs of different types. And that creates a lot of fragmentation, and this is replicated in lots of different destinations around the world. And with Geotroads, what we were able to see was we were able to see that people were not just going to one location, they were going to other locations because they were using the app. We had stories in different parts of the UK or America or Australia or you know, wherever. We've got content in 94 countries right now, but we saw that users were kind of accessing all these different stories. And within the UK, in the kind of the kind of the more um focused area around London, for example, we could see if people were using tours in London and then if they were using any tours outside of London. And this was, you know, when we kind of shared this insight with uh the industry, it was like we were showing them magic because you know they didn't they didn't know this. And so that was our light bulb moment when we said, okay, well, look, we have insights about how these places are connected together. Because the the travelers, the consumers, they don't see the barriers that exist in the tr in the travel industry. They go to places that they want to, and they you know, they have different reasons for traveling, and we had some insights on that. So that was the beginning of our A, our relationship with the industry, but B, our journey into becoming more of a data platform and kind of connecting and aggregating uh data together, understanding what data was missing from the uh from the industry, and critically we've uh we focused our kind of efforts on one unique uh metric, which was the view-to-visit ratio, which is what stories actually bring in real visitors. So the conversion of um, say, for example, a digital view into a real feet on the ground, and we were able to measure that. Um and so that um, you know, just kind of doing some pilots, doing some uh work with um, you know, in the beginning, some like small uh city type uh DMOs, and then you know, then going branching out to regional and then uh you know expanding that to national, we were able to kind of map different organization stories all in the same platform and then show how they were all you know connected through the movements of people and you know various other insights. And and that um, you know, again, like I said, you know, I'm not a DMO, but I can sit with uh destination leaders and say, look, let's look at how people are engaging with your destination uh before they travel and then when they're there. Uh and so um one of my roles is that I'm the chair of something called the National Council of DMOs in the UK with the Tourism Management Institute. Um and and that has led on to me joining the Visitor Economy Advisory Council by the um the the current ministry, Minister of Tourism in the UK. Um and on that I'm leading on data for travel and AI. So I mean this there's a through line through the story that has brought me here, but that's kind of where I'm at now.
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SPEAKER_02:And now, back to the show. Many of our listeners would have been uh also listening to a spotlight series we've just done with Mind Trip, which is an AI company that's focused on uh DMOs, destination management organizations, and tourism boards. But obviously, this is where you know you are um around long before AI. So one of the things I wanted to talk about that I think would be a great benefit to all of our listeners. I mean, now understanding your background and then how you created GeoTourists, look we talk about the journey that you've been on with GeoTourist, and you mentioned you know you've got content in 94 countries. Tell us a little bit about the experience of the app itself. I mean, I'm sure people will be downloading it, and obviously we've mentioned the website at the beginning, and I've uh been playing around with it to see what's in my hometown in Toronto, and I was surprised how much content you have. But tell us a little bit about who's using the app today. Like what are the countries that are uh predominant in terms of like uh source market, I suppose? Where where are you seeing the most activity? And then I also noticed that you had another development, which is this uh uh Holo XR, Holox R, the you know hologram technology, which obviously you were ahead of the curve on when you know the everyone was talking about metaverse before it became AI. Uh so tell us a little bit about where you've gotten to with GeoTourus app, who uses it, and and what are the, I guess, the most um uh common utilizations of it today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so um it's a great question. I think when we when we started, we wanted to make sure the barrier to entry was as low as possible. Because the the kind of the vision behind it was that everyone has really, you know, everyone has potentially great stories that they can share. And often what you what you have is that um you you know we've all had the experience where we've met somebody local and then they tell us some stories about their experiences of living in that location. And those are often the ones that are the most compelling. And for Geotories, what we wanted to make sure is that we had a way that we could capture those stories by locals and of community members, as well as having the kind of the official kind of uh typical destination uh led stories. So um so the types of people that have um left stories include community groups, of which, you know, and that's one of our kind of you know the things we're most proud of, because often they they aren't the voices that get represented um in a digital way um for destination marketing. Whereas we feel that's often the thing that can drive people to connect at a deeper level with the destination. So we get to work with, you know, not just museums and galleries, we get to work with community groups, charities, um niche, you know, niche types of outfits. So in the US, for example, there's someone who's created a tour of missile bases around his hometown. We've got um an archaeology tour of, you know, I can't remember 50 or 100 points around Iowa. Um we've, you know, there are tours of architectural tours where you've had open house type. I don't know, there's a there's an organization in the UK called Open House, and they have another one in America called Doors Open. So every year they have an o an open day where you can enter public buildings that for the rest of the year you can't. So we've represented that. Um and so you know, the the the point is that there are lots of different types of stories that are available on here. We have accessible tours for people who want to navigate through places with a certain kind of uh route and you know, understanding how to navigate um, you know, various challenges. Um, we've got some the other I think one of the other ones we've kind of found um a sweet spot in is uh something called screen tourism. So when people uh watch films and TV shows, often those locations will drive travel. So we've become the home of a lot of those stories. So we've um been in in Scotland, for example, we're the official platform for the Outlander map. So the TV show called Outlander. It's very popular in the US and and Europe. Um and it's um we work with uh Visit Scotland to host their official map of the of the TV show. But also there are some fan groups that have created their own versions of tours. Um, and that has led to a lot of um kind of traffic. And in fact, I think the the fan groups are driving much more traffic than the official um Visit Scotland tour. And the point is there is that people can leverage the technology and you know drive that um you know, drive the that story to the people that want, you know, want to access it. So those are the types of um people that can benefit from using it.
SPEAKER_02:It's really fascinating. So tell us where you've gotten to. Obviously, that's great to have an understanding of who's using the app and the journey you've been on. Tell us where the app stands in 2025, especially as you introduced the hologram. Tell us about some of the new features and functionality and where GeoTourist is today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so uh initially we had, you know, our vision statement was we were looking to build an audio map of the world. And um in the in the 10 years or the 14 years that kind of um happened after we kind of set that as the vision, we had so many people saying, What about video? What about video? What about video? And when we put that out to um, you know, user groups for feedback, you know, we'd get mixed responses. So some people said, yeah, or kind of indifferent, or why would we use your platform for video when we've got YouTube? And others were like, you know, we don't want distractive technology, we want immersive technology. And so we kind of put it to one side and we thought we're only going to go into um visual uh technologies only when we're when we're able to create something that is truly engaging. For us, the story is key, the medium by which it's delivered can vary, and we've always been kind of uh flexible about that. But um, we always wanted to keep, you know, we wanted to be the home of human stories, right? So we wanted to make sure that people could create stories, share them, and find a way for others to kind of connect with that. In the last couple of years, my uh dev team have been working and playing around with augmented reality. Um when the metaverse came out, we we couldn't really understand why people would kind of spend their time, you know, locking themselves away, going into these uh, you know, these virtual places. Um but we do see the value of augmenting what's around you. Um and there's various um kind of uh versions that have been seen on TV and sci-fi shows before. Um things like you know, Superman when he's speaking to his, he's speaking to Jarel, his dad, and there's a hologram that pops up. Um Star Wars, you've got Princess Leia pops up when Arthur Dita shines the hologram on the ground. Um, and then you have minority reports, which um shows Tom Cruise walking through a shopping mall. It's a vision of the future where he's wearing smart lenses, and as he's walking through, there are various holograms that pop up and speak to him directly. They know who he is, they know that he's visited these shops before. And he's got this personalized experience of the world around him, and that's essentially what we've created. We've created this new technology called Holoxar, which takes GeoTouries to the next level. So we haven't just mapped, you know, we've we've gone beyond mapping uh, you know, or you know, building the audio map of the world. We're now putting people uh in locations so that they can tell stories and leveraging the advances in uh generative AI to personalize that experience and to create um unique knowledge bases for specific kind of um locations or attractions.
SPEAKER_02:Very interesting. And I guess that's where you know, for myself, I love history, and obviously you've got architecture, and there's you know, one of the things I uh love about traveling, and I have um chosen different tools as I've traveled. Rick Steves is one of my favorite uh uh travel guide publisher of of all time. Yes, exactly. He's uh and uh so I often listen to his podcast as I'm walking around a destination like Prague. Prague was actually one of my favorite destinations to explore. And I just kept pausing it as I as I stopped to appreciate I I've often thought there's just still a massive missed opportunity here. Um and so when you look at where the business stands today and where you want to take it, tell us a little bit more about the the the overall plans for the future of GeoTourists, because I mean I'm sure obviously investment is one big component given how expensive technology is to develop. But um and that's why I was asking is who's utilizing it, what are the use cases, who some of the partners are, because clearly tourism boards, number one, obviously they want people to go to their destinations, learn more, and be able to showcase all the amazing things you can do in a destination. But yeah, tell us a little bit about where you see the the future of GeoTours in the next few years.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I mean the the idea is that we want to be your personal guide to the world. So rather than building the audio map to the world, we want to be your personal guide to the world. So this is something that will understand who you are as a traveler and what your interests are based on the types of things you engage with. So um our kind of proxy that we model a lot of what we do is YouTube. So YouTube as a platform allows open access to everything. So I can freely go onto YouTube, consume content about anything I want. So and the value exchange there is that YouTube knows me as can as a um consumer of content. So they know that I love to watch travel content, they know like I like to watch cooking content, they know that I like sport. And but they have a very based on all the videos that I've ever watched, and obviously people are watching, you know, dozens of videos, if not more, um, every week, they have a DNA-like profile of me as a uh consumer. And obviously what that ha you know what happens next is that they then um can tailor marketing ads um towards my interests. And so that's something which you if you apply the filter of travel and travel content and travel movements, that's where we're going next. Um so understanding what consumers are interested in and then using that to um then connect them with products and services on the ground based on the things that we know that they are engaging with. Because there's a lot of um uh money that's spent by advertisers on demographics and who people are, but often what we've seen in our data is that it what you do is much more important. So because we've seen what converts people from uh engaging with the platform into real visitors, we can see before they travel that they are potentially likely to travel. And we've been working with um a university in the UK to um use our data to explore whether we can predict if a person is likely to travel to a destination next and apply actual probabilities to the likelihood that these people may travel to destination X or Y. And then with that knowledge, looking to see whether we can then also nudge some other options and suggestions to those uh travelers. Um and so we we feel there's a huge amount of value for our future in that knowledge. So understanding where people might go before they've actually traveled.
SPEAKER_02:Very interesting. And I guess that's where you know your app is designed to be uh utilized in destination. I think that's one of the things that you know stands out that you know you can you know there are ways to experience the destination remotely. Some people are embracing some of those tools, but the idea that you can actually go to, and I guess I'll use maybe an example of uh you know a Prenora card, like a brand, a home, like um let's use um uh uh Dublin as an example, like the Jameson distillery. So uh tell us in in those scenarios where you're working with partners that they want to ensure that people discover their local activities and and then also in a way that can um enhance the experience by having some sort of augmented reality or you know, utilizing the GeoTorus platform to give you additional insight, context, and benefit. So how does that work in practice?
SPEAKER_01:So it's in in a couple of different ways. So um from the inspiration stage of the journey, so before they've gone to Dublin, so let's say they're in you know in Toronto or London, they you know, they they begin their research. So, you know, now I would say a a lot a large contingent of people are using AI to create itineraries or to do some of the research for them. So they will say, you know, you might say to Chat GPT or Gemini, I'm planning a trip to to Dublin, I'm gonna um be there for a couple of days, and I'm really interested in drinking and you know, Guinness and famous and whiskey, you know, and uh, you know, and it will create an itinerary. And the idea is that Geotourist exists as a platform, so if you you know you might go on there to find more uh content that's created by local people or local organizations in Dublin. We can also plug in our technology into other people's sites. Um and the reason you you know an organization might do that is because then they get the data to see whether something is converting into a real visitor. Right. Um and so the idea is that from that stage you can see your um who's interested, where you know, where they are on the kind of things that they the other types of things that they're interested in. And then when they're in location, then it comes into its own because suddenly you have an immersive way to A, confidently travel around that destination and be guided to each of the places that you want to go and see. Um, and then use you know, using things like the holograms, you you can suddenly have really, really engaging narratives that will say, Hey Dan, welcome to you know Jameson, we want to take you on a journey. And it can be, you know, because they're holograms, they can be the proprietor of the distillery, or it could be a local celebrity. You know, the you know it's limitless in terms of the types of uh storytellings that that's possible. Um one of the things that we we know with AI um it's possible to kind of really create synthetic things, but we think the the real kind of engagement will happen when you have real people telling their real life uh stories and kind of that will bring it to life.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. Stories, things coming to life. I think those are the things that you know with technology. I mean, I certainly see and I'll just share my view on this, which is that you know, it should be an aid to the human experience and not replace it in many ways. That's exactly what I think most of us are looking for. You still want that strong cultural connection, you still want to taste that glass of whiskey. You still like you want to, you know, you you want to, at least I do in my travel, you want to excite all the senses. That's kind of like you know what's like so wonderful and overwhelming about being in and new destinations. Um you really feel alive. And uh and so uh one of the things I'm keen to ask you about, since you mentioned AI, and obviously that's you know dominates every conversation today. So I've actually deliberately held off on discussing AI until now. Um, but how are you utilizing AI within GeoTours today? And how do you see AI enhancing the experience for your users in in the the years to come?
SPEAKER_01:So I mean what was interesting is like I I think the discussion around AI and travel maybe started what two years ago when ChatGPT first kind of showed itself uh to the world. Um and the first thing that I saw other providers like myself looking at doing was using utilising AI to scale the building of content, because it was much quicker to do that. And we chose not to do that because you know there's a labour of love that's put into the tools that um are on our platform um and they're done by real real people. Where we use AI is to personalize the the kind of the narrative. So, like I said, you could have um you know a celebrity welcoming you to London and they all say, Hey Dan, welcome to London, and then it will launch into the uh the recorded content. Um in terms of the you know, with the uh holograms, there's some AI that's used to kind of um with the kind of the visualization of um the the holograms. Um so we use some technologies around that. And then around the data, so understanding um we've got some models which are looking at um how to predict certain behaviors and whether that's going to kind of guide people to certain locations. So we're using kind of machine learning and AI there. Um but that's kind of very early stages because we're still trying to scale out. Um but yeah, yeah, early evidence is showing that we've got some very highly predictive uh data.
SPEAKER_02:Very interesting. And I guess that's where the data is one of the advantages that incumbents have uh is that you've got data to draw from that you can then you know determine how people are using the app and the and and and where you can build out enhancements. So um tell us a little bit about the overall trends you're seeing. That's one of the things I'm also keen to get your take on, since we're having this conversation about in-destination experiences and how the consumer journey is changing. Clearly, you've seen that over the better part of 14 years, and here we are having this conversation at the end of 2025, going into 2026, and you know, um, you know, and we're three years past the pandemic, and obviously that's when this show started, was trying to understand what was the same, what was different about consumer behavior, and trying to tap into the trends. And I know our listeners are very keen. So if you, you know, as soon as you said data, I'm like, that's the sort of thing that I you have access to the data of how people are using it, and I'm very keen to know what our listeners can understand and benefit from that. So tell us, you know, just in general terms, but also feel free to reference anything that's uh related to GeoTourists as far as where you think the traveler experience is headed in 2026. And I'll give one last uh caveat as we're having this conversation because today the announcement was coming out that um the new meta glasses have arrived. And uh uh incredibly, Facebook slash meta has had a great deal of success with these Ray-Ban uh sunglasses. And you know, there's been a lot of people that are uh concerned about privacy and having a camera on your glasses to be able to record things, but it seems like they've gotten way cooler. They're they're less um and I think this is where all of a sudden I do think this technology will be better utilized. And I do see some people that use it that absolutely love it. And so tell us a little bit about what you're seeing, what you're paying attention to, and where you think the traveler experiences is heading in 2026.
SPEAKER_01:So um again, it's I mean, technology is moving rapidly. Um and I think what we're seeing is kind of a convergence of certain technologies and you know, AR glasses um are one of those things that can really augment or bring us closer to a seamless experience of what's around us. Um and I think the interface, provided it it you know, it is kind of immersive and not kind of uh onerous, you know, there's not too much that it is required in terms of inputs. I think from a user design perspective, what you want to do, you're always trying to um ensure that there's minimal uh inputs from the user to get the outputs that you're looking for. And so um the glasses are a good example of that. AI is a good example of that. So generative AI, when you ask it a simple question, it will give you a whole essay on you know whatever whatever you've asked. So minimising that need to either have, you know, you know, type something or you know putting all of you know, putting more input in, but getting more, you know, but putting what's minimal in and um getting the most out, which is why the natural language processing, when it understands what people are saying and can give it a you know a human type answer or response, those are the things that are gonna get the most engagement and growth. I think the other thing where I see um some big uh kind of transformations will be things that remove barriers. So I think is it in tomorrow or the day after AirPods are gonna release their live translation um AirPods. And so what that will enable people to do who are wearing them, it will enable them to listen to someone speaking in a different language and have that translated in real time. Now, if you imagine two people wearing those, and that you know, one person is from one country and another person's from a different country and they don't know each other's language, what you'll have is two people speaking their own language and the other person seamlessly understanding that and responding in their own native tongue, but you know, they'll have a you know a conversation that feels seamless. And I think those are the types of things that suddenly remove the barriers to travel because you may decide, you know, up until now, you may have felt uh not confident to travel to places like, say, for UK, you know, for Western travelers to say Asia, because there's huge um travel barriers. And I know that those destinations spend lots of time and investment trying to make it much more um accessible to you know uh Western travelers. Um this kind of technology is the thing that will open the doors to much more travel by lots more demographics. Um, you know, Gen Zs and Millennials are using technology much more for, you know, in every part of their life, and travel is probably one of the biggest ones. And so, you know, these tools become an aid to facilitate that. Um so I think you're gonna see a lot more of that kind of thing. And you know, we can't really get away from AI. AI, it the way I see AI um kind of doing the biggest transformations are are in the things for shortcutting. So, you know, previously people who wanted to travel somewhere would have to go through this whole gauntlet of research, booking, um, you know, arrangements, and AI can, you know, shortcut that down to kind of a few prompts. And so I think that's where people will start to kind of um, you know, that's kind of gonna be a new behavior for travelers. And I think, you know, we're seeing that already, and it's doing a lot of the work. I think obviously there's been some concerns around accuracy in terms of the response. Um, I think what will probably be, you know, the answer to that is where you'll have focused AI on certain things. So, you know, if it's a specific destination or a specific type of kind of cultural theme, you might be able to interrogate a certain AI about that subject and get very detailed, accurate responses. So I think we may see the growth of those types of solutions going forward. But I think anything that makes it removes friction from the traveler experience is something that will be adopted by most people.
SPEAKER_02:So glasses and you raise an important point there, and something that I think is one of the most exciting developments from my point of view, which is real-time translation. And I'm saying that from a person that is, you know, uh born in England, raised in Canada, and I, although I speak some functional French, having uh been uh gone through the school system here, it's Quebec crois French, which isn't uh also uh with all due respect to my uh all of my friends in Quebec, it's not as useful on the on the world stage, especially in France, because I always get teased for my choice for my word choice. And um and I've struggled to learn Spanish, and I just I do not have a natural proclivity uh towards language. However, I love culture and I do love language, but it's uh you know, I'll use the example of watching uh foreign films, which I think uh many of our listeners can identify with exactly what I'm gonna say here. And you can even take probably let's let's pick the most pop culture example, um, which is you know the um incredibly successful Netflix uh series out of Korea.
SPEAKER_01:Squid Game, yes. Yeah, it's exactly Squid Game, yes.
SPEAKER_02:No, Squid Games, yeah. Well, and what I find fascinating about that is because people argue about whether or not you should watch it in with um dubbed or subtitles. I mean, dubbed is a horrible experience. Subtitles is absolutely the way to go. And watching any show, like Narcos, um, is another obviously popular series. It's a totally different experience to watch it in Spanish with subtitles than it is to watch a dubbed version. And I, you know, when I've been traveling in the last couple of years, I've been heavily using Google Translate. And I was in uh Panama last year for the Adventure Travel and Trade Association conference, and I had a guide for the day, and uh we used Google Translate, and he could express himself um in the most dramatic way in Spanish, and I could understand what, and then I would I would talk back in in English to into the Google Translate, and we would have a much more interesting conversation than either of us would have had in broken English back and forth to each other. And I love this. And I think all I could think was, you know, I cannot wait until this is real time and that my AirPods will be able to translate. And I know there's various tools out there now that's just not as uh not yet quite as accessible as I think it will be very shortly, um, to be able to have those real-time exchanges. And I couldn't agree with you more. Like that's a development in 2026 that will truly change your travel experience because now both sides can converse in their own language that they're comfortable with and be able to have the full meaning of a conversation, which you know is is only enabled by the virtue of technical like we've never had that point, unless you had had the privilege of a translator, you know, you've never, you know, we've not had that opportunity before, right? Uh accessible to everybody.
SPEAKER_01:With with with glasses as well. I mean, that I mean with Google Lens, I mean obviously it was on a phone to begin with, but that can also translate what you're reading as well. So when you're let's say you're traveling and there's like road signs and directions, with Google Lens, you can actually just hold it over and it will do the translation for you. Imagine once that's plugged into your glasses and your, you know, basically ever all of the barriers have been then removed and you can literally go anywhere in the world and talk to anyone. I mean, that's for me, that is the equivalent of in the UK we used to have when the mobile phones first came out, so cell phones first came out, there were I think four big providers. And um but when they started doing um SMS, so short short messages to each other, so before WhatsApp and all that, you could text people, send messages to each other. You could only send people to send messages to people within your own um provider, and then and it was insane. So you you know, if your friend was on a different network, you couldn't you couldn't message them, so it was ridiculous. But then there was a stage where they opened the the doors to be able to text each other without any additional, you know, you know, prohibitive costs. And suddenly you had a proliferation of um engagement of people to people using messages. And I think this is a similar type of thing that will change the game in terms of it suddenly removes a massive barrier um and allows people to consider places that they may not have otherwise considered traveling to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's so fascinating, and I guess that's where you know your platform and um you know the the the potential is, you know, I think I would say um even greater today than when you started it. We'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_02:And now, back to the show. To finish off, I just had a couple last uh questions for you, and then we're going to do a quick rapid fire uh round of questions to close off. But um tell us where you think GeoTourist will be in 2030. I mean, if you uh I know what, and again, that's we're moving into pretty uncharted territory, and I I liked your uh description um uh with regards to not being just beyond audio tours, but basically helping you plan. But where where do you see GeoTourist in the consumer journey? Like what is your ultimate vision to be realized here with GeoTourist?
SPEAKER_01:So we've this with our technology, it's not just about maps anymore. It's not just about um pinning a story to a map, and then you're walking, you know, it is geofence story that activates when you're there. Now, what it is is that we can take people through buildings, you can look at a painting on a wall in the gallery, and using um AR glasses or using your phone, the phone will recognize what you're looking at, and then it will activate uh the story or the hologram to tell you more about it, and then it will literally map your uh footsteps through uh buildings so that you could have the most effective, efficient, and experiential um you know, journey through places that you want to kind of spend time in or go and explore. And so and it's not just um say travel um where the use case lies. I mean, obviously we we um what I mentioned earlier the minority report example, we've that's the technology we've created. So there's a huge retail um use case there. And earlier this year when we did a soft launch, we did a uh conference. So we uh there was a big conference in the Middle East where we um had all the delegates using uh Holoxar around the conference. And when they arrived in the uh the airport, there was a hologram that greeted them, and it was uh by the host of the conference. So we created a hologram of her and she personally welcomed everyone as soon as they arrived, and then when they got to the hotel room, they would scan, you know, they would they would use their phone to look at a thing in the room, and then the hologram would pop up and you know, tell them about what the conference itinerary was going to be, and then they would use it around the kind of the exhibition hall to be guided from you know room to room, or if they scanned, say, a sponsor logo, they would then be guided all the way directly to the sponsor's uh exhibitor table. So, you know the use case potential is that it facilitates um you getting much more from what's around you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's really interesting. And the one other thing just to highlight, too. I know you speak at a lot of conferences, so knowing that you are gonna be continuing to be at the biggest uh stages in the world, like you were at Tourism Innovation Summit. I know we won't see each other there. I know you're still planning out some of your schedule, but just to make sure that people know where they can find you if they want to reach out to you directly. And then I've got a few rapid-fire questions to finish off. But tell everybody a bit where you're gonna be um through the end of 2025, any of the big conferences, depending on when people are listening to this. So 26 for that matter.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so um the ones I know about are World Travel Markets, so that's in London, so that's easy for me to be at. So I'm gonna be there for the three days in November. Um there's a question mark on Tourism Innovation Summit at the moment. Um in the UK, we're hosting uh the Tourism Management Institute um annual convention. So I'll be doing an AI workshop there. Um and that's as far as I know for this year. I can't remember what else. Um but if anyone wants to follow me on LinkedIn, they'll find out what I'm doing. They'll know better what I'm doing. I was speaking at a creative agency tomorrow, right? Consulting in in the UK in Coven Garden. So there's there's various ones that come up and uh on my radar.
SPEAKER_02:Got it. That's great. Well, um, I certainly looking forward because I've not seen you present in person, but obviously you came highly recommended, so I'll look forward to seeing you on stage. But let's do a few rapid-fire questions that hopefully will also illuminate a little bit more about you and how people can use the GeoTourist app. So the first one is if there's one specific tour that you could do or recommend to others on GeoTourists, which one would that be?
SPEAKER_01:That's a really good question. I mean, we have some celebrity tours on there. So if that floats your boat, so we have some like Game of Thrones actors, or um you know, these are kind of depending on what you're interested in, there are some interesting people on there. So um there's those types of tours. I think the two that come to mind in terms of tours that really made me think deeper. There was one which was it a really obscure tour that we did in partnership with the National Trust in the UK, and it was about a local reservoir in in Birmingham, England. And the reason it was um interesting, it was it part of the tour was narrated by a mum and her, I think she was like three or four, like five-year-old daughter, something like that, young, young daughter. And they were talking about what that reservoir and the walks that they used to do um through that place that meant to them. And it was a, you know, they would have, you know, mother-daughter time and they would walk through and they would kind of create these narratives and you know, explain to the listener what, you know, why they felt that this location was quite special. So that was one. Um the there's another one which was definitely it was on Geotaurist, but I think there was a it was built for one other person. So it was about a uh a guy who created this tour, um presumably for his his wife stroke partner, and it was literally talking about um moments, special moments in their lives. So like um there was one location where they met and where they had their first kiss and when where they um where they uh were like the doctor's office um where they found out when you know when uh the wife was pregnant or the partner was pregnant. Um and then basically this tour was created, and then the I think the last point was meet me here. So I think he'd designed this tour as a personal journey for um for his partner. And that's that really stuck with me. Um but I mean we we've got some really, you know, really, really um, you know, we're really privileged to have like some indigenous tours. So like in in the US, we have some native uh Indian tours. Um so yeah, there's there's some really, really kind of you wouldn't find them anywhere else. And so those ones we're I'm you know, I'm really proud of. That was a good one.
SPEAKER_02:And what's the next destination that you're missing? Yeah, that you're missing that you want to make sure gets added. Either you personally want to travel to and get onto Geotourist.
SPEAKER_01:So we're on we're on six continents. We want to be on seven. I don't know whether anyone in Antarctica will do a tour, but that's no that's that's um by the by. No, there's loads of places to add. In terms of my own personal travels, I have yet to go to South America, and it's been on my radar for most of my life, and like just it's just escaped me. So traveling to say Brazil, Argentina, um, Paraguay, Mexico, um just that whole region. I mean, it's huge, obviously. Um, I'd love to go there. And Africa, Africa as well. So two big continents that have so much to offer. Um, I mean, I've traveled extensively around Europe, extensively around America and Asia. Um, obviously, GeoTours was born in Australia, so we had done some travels around there. But um, yeah, I've still have some traveling to do.
SPEAKER_02:That's great. And then uh when you're not using the GeoTouras app and you are traveling, what's your other other go-to app or website? Like what else do you leave the home, leave home and you don't want to travel without?
SPEAKER_01:Um so I mean, I think everyone uses YouTube as a as a kind of a leisure tool as well as a learning tool. And I think there's, you know, it's it's an example of it's it's whatever you want it to be. And I think it's it's a great model for understanding um consumer behavior. So YouTube is obviously up there. Um I'm using AI a lot more now. Um, so I use uh AI Studio, Gemini, um, ChatGPT, because I you know I'm getting my head around some of the more deep research type tools, which are really, really powerful. And I think there's a lot of opportunity for learning there. I mean, I'm using it all the time now for learning, um, whether it's industry stuff, whether it's kind of more personal stuff that I want to learn about. Um, you know, I come from a science background, so it's a really interesting way to kind of do deep, deep dives into certain things that you're interested in. So Um yeah. So those are the ones I would say I use the most. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And if you weren't running geotourist or uh working as an advisor to all of these tourism organizations, what would you be doing? It sounds like you were a pharmacist, so maybe would you go back to that? But what would you be doing otherwise?
SPEAKER_01:Look, if if if if money was no object, I'd probably set up a restaurant and cook. I love cooking. Um I love eating. I love cooking. Um I don't know. I love I love architecture, but I don't necessarily have the skills. So I know I can cook. So that's something I I would do. I look I love traveling. I I would do I would travel if if if money was an object, I would take my family around the world. And it may well happen that that becomes the way of life going forward once AI takes everyone's jobs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, true enough. Well, you go, like you could be inspired by Anthony Bourdain and uh and just cook and travel the world. So I think that's that that's certainly the ideal lifestyle for me, not cooking, but actually um eating my way around the world. I guess maybe that would be part of it. Yes, indeed, exactly. Uh well, um it's been a real pleasure to meet you. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I just want to finish by uh making sure that people can find out where to connect with you, get more information. Obviously, I'll include a few details in my outro here, but yeah, uh just want to give you the last word to make sure that people can find you, connect with you, and learn more about GeoTourus. So, where would you encourage them to go?
SPEAKER_01:So um Geotouris.com. So Geotaurus.com is the main site. We have apps on Apple Store and Android or the play Google Play. Um I'm on LinkedIn and so is Geotaurus. So if you want to connect with me, do reach out. Um, I'm writing a book which is coming out next year, hopefully, on AI and uh travel technology. Um so hopefully that will happen probably the first half of next year. So look out for that. Um yeah, that's that's where I am. And if ever if anyone's ever in London, uh do reach out.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. That's great. Well, a real pleasure to meet you. Thanks for joining us on the Travel Trends podcast, and I look forward to keeping in touch. No, thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining us on our latest episode of Travel Trends. I really hope you enjoyed the conversation today with Shaun Thulikdar, the founder and CEO of GeoTourists. And I hope you enjoyed our entire part two of our in-destination experiences brought to us in partnership with our friends over at Purneau Ricard. If you want to find out more about their brand homes, check out Purneau-Ricard.com. Now, our next episode is going to feature another true captain of industry, one of the co-founders of Get Your Guide and the Chief Operating Officer, Tao Tao. I had an amazing conversation with him that I cannot wait to share with you next week. So please make sure that you are subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice. And don't forget, we do post clips and highlights from all these conversations on our social channels. And you can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at traveltrendspodcast.com. Until next week, safe travels.
