How Fever Is Changing the Way We Experience Destinations

Today's travelers aren't just choosing where to go, they're choosing what they'll experience once they get there. From immersive exhibitions and live music to unique cultural events, in-destination experiences have become one of the biggest drivers of how people choose, remember, and share their travels.

In the first episode of our In-Destination Experiences Series, Dan sits down with Rocío Trujillo, Regional General Manager for Southern Europe at Fever, one of the world's leading platforms for discovering live experiences. Rocío shares how Fever has grown by combining technology, data, and local market expertise to help people discover everything from intimate Candlelight concerts to immersive exhibitions and one-of-a-kind events.

The conversation explores how Fever identifies emerging demand, scales successful experiences around the world while adapting them to local audiences, and uses its Secret Media network to inspire millions of people to discover what's happening in their own cities. Rocío also shares her perspective on the future of experience discovery, including how AI is making recommendations more personalized and how emerging technologies could soon help travelers build complete itineraries in real time.

Whether you work in travel, tourism, or hospitality, this episode offers a fascinating look at why experiences have become one of the industry's most powerful competitive advantages and why they're increasingly the reason people choose a destination in the first place.

Thanks to Pernod Ricard for sponsoring this series!

👉 Listen to How Fever Is Changing the Way We Experience Destinations Now

🔥 Special Thanks to our Season 7 Title Sponsors for their Support: Bokun, Civitatis, Intrepid, Kaptio, Propellic and Protect Group

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Transcript

Welcome And Season Theme

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Travel Trends Podcast. This is your host, Dan Christian, and I'm thrilled to introduce our final theme for season seven, which is indestination experiences. This has been our most popular theme for the last three seasons. We introduced it in season five with our good friends over at Pernault Ricard. And we had another amazing three speakers in season six. And this is the very first episode of our three-part series for season seven as we go into European and North American summer. We thought it was the perfect time to introduce this series as we move into July. And there's been one company this entire time that we've been so keen to get into the podcast. And it hasn't worked in season five and season six. But there's this amazing individual, Rocio Trujillo, who works at Fever, who I met last year in Sevilla at the Tourism Innovation Summit. And she was on a panel, and she was extraordinary on this panel. So I was so keen to have her join us for this podcast recording. And so before I do, though, I just want to quickly acknowledge our sponsors, of course, Perno Ricard, as part of this in destination series. They have these incredible brand homes that you've heard about in our last uh few seasons, where their brands really come to life through immersive world-class experiences from iconic distilleries to innovative visitor centers. Perno Ricard brand homes explore how destinations are shaping the future of experiential hospitality and engaging travelers once they arrive. You can learn more about Perno Ricard and their brand homes and their global portfolio at Purneau-Ricard.com. So thanks again to Laura and the team at Perno Ricard for kindly sponsoring this series. And now, on that note, let's kick off with our very first episode with Rocillo

Meet Fever And Rocío

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Trujillo from Fever. Rocío, welcome to Travel Trends. Thanks so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Dan, thanks to you and the team for finally making it happen. We're very I'm very, very happy and we're very excited to be part of this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Wonderful. Thank you so much. And the uh for our listeners, they've heard me talk about fever over the last uh three years because I had such an extraordinary experience at the Stranger Things in Los Angeles when I first discovered fever during the pandemic. And since then, I've gotten to learn so much more about the company. I know Bruno Ricard and Kim Viviala Ventures have invested in fever. I've met uh the founders who are also uh incredibly inspiring and fascinating. And you've built such an impressive global business that many listeners, I'm sure, are not even familiar with. They may have taken some of your experiences but not know about fever. So maybe let's start with that, or I'll see you if you might give us a bit of an overview of fever. And for our listeners, it's feverup.com if you want to multitask and check out the website at the same time. But yeah, give give us a bit of background on the company, please.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Indeed. Or maybe the listeners want to check out the the app, which is just fever. Um well, fever is the largest um discovery platform today for live entertainment. So what we do is we give our audiences the menu of the things that they can do at any destination so that we help them discover what's out there. Let's leave it here because we have a very long conversation and I think we're gonna cover a lot of topics.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Well, and your role specifically, you're the regional general manager in in Europe. You're based in Madrid. So tell us a little bit about your role and how long you've been with the business.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Sure. So I joined FIBA three years ago when we were, I think, around a thousand people in the company. Today we're north of three thousand people in the company. It's been three years, three amazing, amazing years. Um, so I'm managing Southern Europe, meaning I am responsible for landing the incredible um um partnerships that we bring from outside, such as the ones we have with uh Football Club Barcelona or Atlético de Madrid or uh the F1 Gran Premio de España, which is gonna happen in September in no time. Well, we're we're responsible for um the technology on those. And precisely for the Gran Premio de España, we're also taking care of the fan experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Fantastic. And this is where when I got a chance to meet Rocio last year in person and be on stage with her, I'm always very keen to make sure that not only we get a chance to meet uh beforehand we go on stage, but also the night before I was reading up on uh all the panelists' background. And I just want to share this with our listeners too, because I'm sure many of you will connect uh with Rocio afterwards on LinkedIn. But she has a law degree, she did her MBA at Inseed, she's worked at McKinsey and um also Amazon. So uh Fever is very fortunate to have you, first and foremost. But but it also highlights you know what an incredible scale-up uh Fever is, and then the fact that it attracted you to be a part of the business to join. Um and so I know things have grown considerably over the last couple of years, but yeah, tell tell us a little bit more about where the business is today.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Sure. So um and thank you for for your kind words. Yeah. Um I was a lawyer initially, but then I switched completely into strategy, did my MBA, and then um jumped from McKinsey in SEAD, and then finally Fever, and this is where I hope I can stay long. Like I don't I don't need any other change. But um on Fever, what we do is we are we are a multi-category platform. That means we are taking care of technology for life events, um, and we don't settle or we don't focus into one category per se, such as music or such as nightlife. But we take care of everything because we have the assumption that who buys today a concert is or any category is the person who tomorrow is gonna take their kids to a theme park, and then yesterday was the one visiting a museum and tomorrow it's

What Fever Really Does

SPEAKER_02 5:45

gonna go to a to a football match or to a sport experience. So um this is, I think, the heart of what we do. We we understand consumers as a whole, and then we gather learnings and data from one side and the other.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

One of the things that's really fascinating about your business model is that you not only draw from potential inbound travelers, but you also give people a chance to explore their own city. And this is where I see what's really unique about Fever. And I was having a conversation with one of your investors comparing Get Your Guide to Fever, whereas with Get Your Guide, you know, you need to go to a new destination, whereas Fever, you can explore your own city, especially these amazing candlelight events that you run. I I'm always getting targeted with your ads on social media, and I want to ask you about that because you guys do such clever marketing. Uh but tell us a little bit about more about how you curate these experiences, and I'd love to get your take on the overall experience economy because clearly you guys are leading in that space.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Sure. So, Dan, the fact that you are constantly targeted by candlelight means that you're gonna love the candlelight because we only target people that we believe we're gonna love the experience, and second, that the team is doing a great job. So, congrats to the team from here because they're doing a very good job. Um, all right, so on the experience economy, well, when we think about travel, um, what we've seen is there's a switch from people looking at accommodation, transportation as their main driver into experiences as the main driver of choosing a destination and actually be building a travel around, right? So today people find what they want to do and then they build a trip around. And that means we're switching from destination economy to what we call the experience economy itself. And people are more and more looking towards how am I gonna belong into the place that I visit? How what how am I gonna feel? What are what's the feeling? What's how am I gonna engage with the city? How am I gonna engage with the destination rather than what am I gonna see? Or what's the sightseeing part of that I visit, right? So this means um experiences broadly considered are are becoming increasingly important into the economy more and more.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Well, it's interesting. Uh, the experience economy, as many of our listeners know, Joe Pine, who's been on our podcast, the author of The Experience Economy. We've talked about the fact that you know this year, 2026, is very much the year of the transformation economy. That's obviously the title of Joe Pine's new book. And the connection there, when I mentioned the investor that was on the podcast, it's Michael Zeisser, who runs FMZ Ventures, and he's the one that his two biggest successful investments, and this is someone that goes back to working for Alibaba and even before with uh Expedia and has had incredible success investing in travel. He decided his thesis for investing was the experience economy, and two companies that he got behind were Fever and Get Your Guide. And he was early into both and has done incredibly well and continues to remain invested, bullish. And so with fever, the fact that you have this opportunity to take trips within your own city, I would say that is what is one of many things that's really special about fever. And the fact is, is that once you become a customer of fever, then clearly, as you mentioned at the beginning of the app, you know, there's so many experiences for you to continually discover events that are happening around you. So I've got so many questions on this topic, uh, but I I guess I'd love to understand the strategy around that, Rocio, when you look at the cities you operate in. Tell us, yeah, I guess give us a little bit of overview of the scale of how many your your cities you're in now.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Sure. So I think I already mentioned that we're north of 3,000 people in fever, out of which 1,500 are based or around are based in Spain, where we have our um central services and headquarters. And we're present in more than 50 countries. And we have been um selling uh in more than 550 cities. So I can say we're pretty much almost everywhere. So yeah, scale is big.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, and that's where I mean your um, you know, five years plus overnight

From Destinations To The Experience Economy

SPEAKER_01 9:50

success story and and have an incredible five-year trajectory ahead of your global growth, because not only you have a chance to scale to more countries and more cities, but also to build up the number of experiences you're offering in each of them. And so let let's talk a little bit about those experiences because I know you work with partners, you do a licensing model, if I understand it correctly, with some partners, um, the Stranger Things being a great example because I also have been to Stranger Things uh through fever in other cities as well, because having kids that were super into the show, and then having nieces and nephews that um also then discovered it. And so um clearly there's something for all ages. So tell us a little bit about the types of experiences that you curate when you work with partners, how you create your own experiences. Uh love to know how it all comes together.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Interesting. Well, the thing is, fever doesn't necessarily work imagining imagining experiences. What we do is we get hundreds and millions of data points per month, and then we're able to understand what are the trends that are actually shaping the industry. So if I take a step back, because I think we're we're moving um deep into what, like into this part of the conversation, but without necessarily understanding that FIBA as a company, it has this um discovery site that you can jump in in the app, you can jump in online in FeverApp.com. Then you have all this ticketing technology, which is key to have a seamless experience to make sure that you get the transaction whenever the audience has the impulse to buy. And then you have all these marketing tools that are actually um feeding from the uh from you let what you learn from the app, what you learn from the transaction to make sure that you're targeting and retargeting the right people. And finally, you have all these secret media, which is the largest media outlet of uh live entertainment uh content in the world that actually tells you the many of things that you have to do in the city, not necessarily transactionable, all of them. Some of them are for free, but it gives you an idea, it gives us an idea of what people are liking, right? So this is fever as a whole, like in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Then what you just shared is really important. So I'm glad you underscored that, which is that as fever creates these experiences, you also manage the entire ticketing and booking process and do the marketing. So like it is you are the marketplace for the own experiences that you create, sell, and promote. And that's really important for people to understand.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah, it's important. And I'm lett helping them understand what's the audience, what do the audience care about, so that we can then in turn get a larger audience into these into these experiences that they weren't necessarily interested in in the first place. But then I uh what I wanted to say um before I explain this about Fever is that we don't necessarily create ideas. Yes, we do have the candlelight um events, but we didn't create the classical music. What we did is we found um insights um within our million, actually it's billion data points, that people were looking for classical music and they were looking for formats to experience classical music, but they weren't liking what they see. So imagine 10 years ago, five years ago, you wanted to see uh Beethoven concert, and you would go to the um largest and most most historical um cultural place in your country in your in your city, and it was like very old school, it was a very long uh event, you didn't know how to dress, you didn't know when you could take out your cell phone, etc. What we've done is we have infused into something that we know people are looking for, which is classical music, which has which are we we have infused certain elements that we know people like, so shorter formats, um closeness to the to the musicians, we tell them when they can get out their cell phone, um, we tell them how to interact with the with the format, how to share it, etc. So people just like a new way of consuming something that has always always been there. So this is what we do when we say that we experience like that we create experiences, what we're doing is we're finding spaces that people are looking forward and we're just um understanding what what's what's actually that blank space and feeling that filling that up for them.

Sponsor Break And Industry Ads

SPEAKER_00 14:03

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SPEAKER_01 16:16

And now, back to the show.

Bestselling Formats And Partner Playbook

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So let's maybe look at a few examples because I'm familiar with a few of your major success stories, and that's from the outside looking in. But from your vantage point, I'd love if you wouldn't mind sharing, you know, and you mentioned things like F1. So I know you're in music, you're in sports, you do different um uh cultural, you do pop-ups. Um, and so there's there's quite a range of offerings that uh fever focuses on. Take us through, if you wouldn't mind, how how you categorize some of those experiences and what are the most popular fever experiences do you offer?

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Interesting question. So we take care, like we take care, as I said at the beginning, we're not focused on a particular category. We take care of everything um that could be sold in person, like any in-person um experience, right? Life experience. The thing is, what's what's gonna be our our locker is that we only sell things that we know are gonna be valuable. Because um part of the value that we bring to our partners is that once we have a curate like a um really worked on PL, like we have um optimized the capex, we have optimized the operation so that our opex goes well, um, we can then scale this uh experience throughout the world. And we can only do that if whatever we sell, it's gonna be solidly um managed from a P ⁇ L perspective, right? So um so that's the thing. Um, and then some of the experiences that that we that are our best uh our best sellers, one of them for sure is a candlelight that we've discovered, we've discussed uh already. But then we are here just for anything. I would say in Southern Europe, we're very, very large in sport, um, with all these amazing uh partnerships that we have, but we are also present in the world of theme parks. So we work, for example, we were taking care this month. From this month, we're launching Madame Tussaud, The London Eye. So we're working with Merlin Entertainment, which we have been working before, to actually take care of their London cluster. Or um this month we saw the experience of uh El Papa, actually the Pope, coming into Spain, and we have taken care of their access control for all the media. So we took care of tens of thousands of people, accreditations um to visit the Pope. So the scale and the amplitude of what we do is just amazing. We just take care end to end of anything that is um entertainment, live entertainment related.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Rossi, I found it fascinating, all the types of experiences. I know when I speak to Laura Pernault Ricard, they have a great relationship with Fever, and you guys not only help them uh promote the brand homes and provide ticketing, but also uh co-create a number of um experiences with them, like at Havana Club. And so, how do you work with partners? I'd love to know for partners that are interested in collaborating with Fever, uh, how does that all come together?

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Interesting question. So, the basis or the core of what we do is that we take care of their um ticketing technology. That's gonna help us understand. And and that means anything that they sell, it's gonna mainly be sold through Fever. Then we can connect all the OTAs and all the traditional platforms if needed, but um we are the core technology. That means we're gonna be, we're gonna have an unparalleled view of how the audiences are are behaving, in what they do and also in what they don't do. And actually, we understand very well, and this is like the amazing job of hundreds of engineers that we have here, um, we understand very well what people are why people are um leaving the the basket, where people are not transacting, um, and that help us then re-work on the value proposition. We we reshape together with our partners how we need to tell the storytelling of what's going on in the in the experience, how do we need to rework on the pricing side of the of the event, which is also very important, or how do we need to take care of the, I don't know, number of of um of tickets sold or uh sessions. We work with them so that the the package, the value proposition of the event, it's very well, it's very clear, it's well known and very well understood by the audience, so that more and more people start um buying that event.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

One of the things I'm keen to ask you, because you obviously not only have the opportunity to work with all these partners, but you have the opportunity to visit and to have these experiences yourself. So one of the things I'm gonna come to in a moment, uh Rocillo, is some of your favorite experiences that you've um uh either helped create or you know that you've just enjoyed yourself. But before we do, one of the things I'm sure our listeners would be very keen to understand is how you go about creating a successful experience and what signals you're looking for. Because I really interesting of all all the data points you're looking at to try and understand, and obviously that's perfect for our podcast since Travel Trends is about trying to separate the signal from the noise and understand what consumers are looking for. And as you've highlighted, it's you know, you sit at the intersection of discovery, ticketing, and creation, and you're not just distributing experiences, you're creating them in certain instances, but not always. Um, but clearly your track record of success is so impressive. So you are making sure that you are paying attention to the signals to then determine what a successful experience would look like. So, if anything, you're

Signals That Predict A Hit

SPEAKER_01 21:45

working with partners to know how you can create something together or how you would actually be able to market something successfully. So tell us a little bit more. Tell us about that. I'm really intrigued to know what signals you're looking for and what makes a successful event.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So um let me use some mu. Example here. So DIECE, it's one of the companies that works with FIBA that belongs to the FIBA group, and they have been working with Olivia Dean since she was almost not well known in the UK, right? Or nowhere, right? She was it was very um in her early days. Well, we started launching into our audiences this post telling them, hey, Olivia Dean is coming and she's gonna be doing XYZ in this in this area, in this, in this venue. And we realized, or these are the things that we measured for, right? We realized that um whenever we posted about her, the volume of engagement, the volume of people sharing the post, actually liking the post, commenting on the post, or saving the post was larger than usual. Then, whenever we had the countdown for the event, um, there were a lot of people activating the countdown more than on average. And then whenever we had the wait list open, people would just go into the wait list like massively, and people would go like, Hey, even if I know sales are not launched yet, I'm just gonna go and try to buy to see if I find a bag here and I can get my ticket soon. Well, all these signals are those that show us how are people liking uh a format, how are people liking an experience before it's even on sale, so we can see what's the size of the untapped audience. With this knowledge and information, we get back to the to the orders of Olivia Dean and actually her song, listen, if you haven't closed it yet, I mean if it's possible, go to a larger venue or get a second night or a third night or a fifth night because there's gonna be demand. And today we can say that she has, I think it was like no long ago that she has um been part of these uh arena and even larger than arenas, and she has been um performing in front of tens of thousands of people. Well, that's the sort of signals that we're looking forward, that that that we're looking to.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yeah, we saw her perform at the Grammys this year, and Olivia Dean has become a huge success. So fever was part of her journey, if I'm understanding you correctly.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I'm very happy to say so, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Oh, that's a great, that's a great success story. I mean, I think that's where you know music, culture, the things that people, especially in their own cities, and that's I guess that's um an important point to understand, uh, is when people are booking with fever, is there a can you kind of share a little bit of guidance for us on how many people are actually within their city booking fever or traveling when they're booking fever?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Yeah. Um, well, I don't think I have those numbers um top of mind, but I can say the recurrence in the app, it's very, very high. So the whenever we see that our audience, well, they're based in a city and they're looking for things in a city, and it's it's um we tackle them, right? We inspire them. But then we see that the person is looking for a different city. What we do is we get their insights and we understand and we trap um transpose the things that we know they have liked in their own city into their city they're looking or they're exploring now. So and then we show them the um experiences that we know they're gonna like. So after all, we we're just learning what people like and we're just giving them the menu in the place that they're interested in.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, that's really interesting because we still see that many travelers are booking in destination. And although more people have started to book in advance of their travels, it's still very much just the case that people, you know, half of travelers will be booking in destination. And it's interesting you mentioned that because that's certainly my experience in using fever. When I was in Berlin last year for um earlier this year, rather, for ITB, I was looking, I had seen um a fever ad, and then I and I always see your marketing because it is very effective, but then I look to see whenever I'm in Europe, local events that are happening. And so I use it, you know, both to see what's in Toronto, and there's always like there's always uh new events coming up in Toronto, but then I whenever I'm traveling. So it's interesting, and that's why I was curious to know because clearly the answer is both. I mean, people are using it in their home city, and then people are using it when they're traveling. So um just to keep uh on one more question for you on the experiences and how they scale, since you've given some great examples on music and you mentioned the candlelight concerts. Um, is there uh a formula, if you will, or some um consistent elements that you've seen that has gone from an idea to creating these immersive exhibitions at scale or you know, seeing what uh formula for creating experience resonates globally, but still has this wonderful local feel because that's you know the candlelight's probably the best example of that because you know I see multiple candlelights in Toronto and I see candlelights in every city I go to. So um, yeah, tell

Scaling Globally With Local Flavor

SPEAKER_01 26:45

us a little bit about how you create a formula for that, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

That's uh a very good question. I would say when we find um an event or a format that can scale, and we say, we tell our partners, listen, there's a big, a large opportunity here. There's a lot of demand, there's a lot of untapped demand, let's go big. What we're looking forward is, I think I shared it a little bit before, but we're looking forward to something that it's gonna be profitable. So we know very well what are deliverers from a PL perspective or cost, revenue, etc. But then we look for um events that can actually be curated to tackle the audience like in each of the cities. So we curate the elements to make sure that we are um catering what people in South Europe or in southern Spain like, which is not gonna be the same as people in Chile or people in Toronto or people in South Korea. So we need to have this format which can then be um infused with um local elements that people are gonna be resonating with. And I would say the formula here is the more simple an idea is, the more people um can also experience it, can resonate with it, and can somehow extract an emotion out of it, the more successful the experience is gonna be. So we don't have to look for very, very complex ideas. We have to look for people for things that actually generate um an emotion, generate a feeling in the audience.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

For you, this is where I'm keen to ask you what have been some of your favorites that you've really enjoyed? Because they really stay with you. This whole idea of immersive experiences, a lot of them are so like profound and like especially this whole idea of immersive, ever since the pandemic, when all of a sudden we, you know, we were stuck in our own cities and couldn't travel, and now we can travel again. But some of these art exhibits that travel around that I know Fever partners with, and you know, fever presents. I love when I see that. I feel like it's like Netflix presents. I get excited when I see Fever presents. Because to me, to me, that shows a standard. That's like a it's I'm I'm pretty much assured I'm gonna love this. Like you guys, you know, it's there's a a production level that fever has that is just like, you know, I don't I can't even think of uh what compares to that. Like Meow Wolf does an amazing job, but really, you know, you guys are incredibly unique in how you operate. So um I'm sure there's many that I've missed that have been in Europe. So tell tell our listeners what some of the highlights have been for you in your time at Fever and what have been the big successes.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

So to me, and I know it's uh it's um it's it hasn't passed yet, but the Gran Premio de España, F1 Grand Prix, it's by far the one that I'm most exact excited about, right? It's it means the first time that Fever has partnered with F1. We're taking care of the fun experience from the awareness side to the moment they reach the Grand Prix, and then everything that they they do around like the entertainment, music, but even the Putin Berber. So we're gonna be taking care of all that, and that's gonna be amazing. But I have to say two other things. One is this um drone art show concert that we did in the Vatican called Grace for the World, where we had starring um amazing, like amazing stars. Like it's such a pity that we cannot put some images here because it's worth having a look at Grace for the World. We had um Andrea Bocelli, we had Carol G, we had like amazing, and everyone was we had hundreds of thousands of people in in the San Marcos Square, and there was this uh gospel cars, uh chores like increasingly like amazingly big, and on top of everything was the drones, and you could see the the hands of Michelangelo, you could see the face of the boat, amazing. That was amazing. And I also have to say the um drone-up show, um, sorry, the the Harry Potter show, the the light trail, and the the last one I went to was in Montaban in France, the Harry uh Harry Potter, a forbidden forest experience. And my kids just loved it. They they went nuts with it.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah, that's a perfect one for a family. Anything to do with uh Harry Potter, and this is where, you know, when you get to partner with these amazing brands at this scale and be able to have an impact on millions of travelers, because that's literally what your uh your your audience is each year and growing, um, you know, you're an important part of the the cultural connection of a city. And I I would love to ask you that because I'm sure you give a lot of consideration to who you partner with, the experiences that you offer, and how much needs to be uh a strong cultural connection with a destination. And so uh, and given you guys are based in Spain, which is one of the most amazing places to travel in the world, I'm you know, often in Spain. I was just in Barcelona last week, as you know, and I love traveling uh to Spain. Um and even when you mentioned F1, I just want to highlight too, one of my favorite podcast episodes is the Acquired podcast. It's a I I know many of our listeners likely listen to Acquired as well. And the one they did on F F1 was amazing. And then all of a sudden, once I learn more about F1, I want to do an F1 event. Like it just it brings you into that experience and the storytelling and knowing the history of it. But as to in terms of culture, how much consideration do you give to uh being mindful of local culture or leveraging local cultures to create experiences?

Secret Media And Science-Backed Marketing

SPEAKER_02 32:00

All right. I have to say on F1, um, we announced last week that we're gonna be powering the F1.com Um technology. So now we're gonna be this source of technology for any and all the uh Grand Prix happening around the globe. So from Azerbaijan to Barcelona to um you name it, we're gonna be their um their provider and we're extremely proud of this. Wow, it's huge. Yeah, it's huge, it's huge news for us. So then on the on your question, we believe finding the local flavor is so so important that this is why we developed the secret media network. And as I said, this is the I I don't know if I said it already, but this is the largest media outlet, and what we do is we have um uh presence online in almost, I think it's 500 cities, and we tell the audiences what it's there to do. So we inspire audiences. 80% of what we tell them, it's not necessarily transactional. So in Spain, we will tell them about where they can find the best um and the coldest beer or what's happening this week on on um cultural events where you don't have to pay or where to take your kids this weekend, and and we just tell them things. But then people like us, people engage with us. In Madrid Secreto, we have millions, I mean, and we have millions and millions of people following us in in Secret NYC, Secret London, Paris Secret, it's all all across Europe. And then we tell them, hey, but there's an amazing new thing happening in the city, and it's I don't know, a uh a new museum which is opening. Why don't you go and check it out? Well, people like us and people know that we offer very Q rate, like very nice plans, Q-rated elements, what to do with the families. Whenever we tell them, hey, get your ticket, people are in the best of moods to actually get out um their wallet and execute the transaction.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

The secret media part of your business is probably one of the most uh incredibly savvy and I would say sophisticated approaches to marketing that is, and it's even the branding around that. Like Fever has a great brand, but these you know, secret, the idea that you are an insider, that you're getting access to something special and unique that other people may not know about, is really clever marketing as far as I'm concerned. And one thing I'm I'm keen to ask you on that is um having worked with the fever team on some initiatives, it's so one of the things I didn't fully appreciate is just how powerful the marketing engine is um behind fever. So um tell us a little bit more about how that came about and the timing because I'm not was that something really from the beginning of the inception of fever? When did the secret part of the the group emerge?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Right. That's a very, very good question. So when we talk about fever, uh we've discussed a lot these um technology, ticketing technology and end-to-end live entertainment technology for access control, etc. But then creating and generating demand, it's another of the pillars of what we do. One of the things that we are very good at is at engaging local audiences or people who don't necessarily live here, but they're interested about what happens in the city. So I follow myself, um, Seagir and YC because I like the city and I want to know what's going on. And then the people who are thinking about traveling into Madrid, they already know that they like Madrid, and most of them follow Madrid Secreto, and we're already telling them what to do so they can start planning their cities, right? Their trips. Um so this is something that came from the very beginning. Um, so the fact that we developed the technology together with the super media was uh was uh one of the pillars of their success. And then we've also realized that through both of those um business sides or through those through both um angles, we get so much data points, we understand so much what people are engaging with. And now once that people are they are um interested in doing something that we taught we told them about using secret media, and now they get into the technology side and then they buy the ticket or they don't buy the ticket, then we we get so such a large database that we data data points, like actually a data cube, it's it's huge what we have. That then we said, hey, why don't we use all these information and data points to actually do our own marketing? So you said at the beginning that we're taking care of the marketing of the majority of the partners, and that's true. We have hundreds, and I'm saying hundreds of engineers doing marketing from a science perspective, not necessarily from a um creative perspective. We of course bring in the creative side, but only when we know science-backed that it's gonna work. So we only introduce changes, changes into the marketing because we know they're gonna be driven more sales. And this is part of what we do, like this organic side of the of the awareness of the event and this inorganic side.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned that because many of our listeners to the podcast work in the startup space. And one of the biggest mistakes that we certainly see, and I'll speak from my experience, and I know a lot of investors would say something similar, is that this concept of you, if you build it, they will come, which I uh I love the book Shoeless Joe, is written by a Canadian author, interestingly enough, and I would say I love the book, uh, not only the book, but the movie Field of Dreams. And that with Kevin Costner, most people would have seen that film and they become familiar with that line. If you build it, they will come, which is a very meaningful phrase in the book in the film, but it means something completely different in that context. And people often use it in business and to their own detriment. And one of the things I just wanted to highlight to what you just shared, Rocio, is that you know, if there was a great example, if you build it, they will come, is the events that Fever runs. But the reality is you don't just build great events and make them easy to book, you then go and tell the world about them and really effectively spar.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Indeed.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Yeah. And you have significant uh paid media efforts behind that. And I know one of the things you're very sophisticated about is your the algorithms to target people on paid social. And that's where you know it because it is incredibly effective. You've got a great ROI. So your investors are bullish on the

AI Personalization And Agentic Booking

SPEAKER_01 38:15

future of fever for a reason because you've you know you have a very sophisticated approach uh to marketing these experiences. And so I want to ask you a question along those lines when it comes to technology, since you guys very much are a technology company. And the question we have to ask every guest, I'm sure you get this all the time when you're on stage too, is AI and how you are leveraging AI, especially as it comes to personalization or even just being able to uh enhance the discovery process. So I'd love to hear if you wouldn't mind being able to share with us some of the ways that you have integrated AI into your, you know, the platform or to the marketing.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Sure. Um let me maybe um take a step back and and discuss a little bit on the travel side. And what we're seeing here is that um people are no longer looking at destinations based on landmarks, be people are choosing their destinations based on the experiences that they're gonna live there, right? So whenever you find experience, then you're gonna decide to go there. And uh the the one of the great uh greatest examples is on the musical side. Let's say, let's come back to Madrid. Um, we just have a 10-day residence show for Pappani. We're gonna have a 12-day residence show for Shakira, and we have hundreds of thousands of people coming in, flying to Madrid and choosing the city because they know that they're gonna have this experience, and then they're gonna they're gonna be living a 360 experience around immersive, around uh landmarks, around food, around cultural assets, about sports, you name it. But people know that they're gonna come in here and they're gonna live an end-to-end experience, right? And they're gonna be able to share it via social, um, social media, which by the way shares feelings and belongings way more than shares or more effectively than sharing just uh a destination. So this is one of the reasons why we're very good with travelers, right? And then um your question was around AI. So what we've seen is that AI has to be used more and more to understand what people like and then tell them or show them what they're gonna be liking in the city that they are discovering. And I think I said that before. Um, whenever we know that you're you've enjoyed because you've valued, you you've gone there and you've valued very positively an experience, and we know there's something similar happening in the city that you're you're traveling towards, um, well, we're gonna be using AI to understand, hey, these are the three, four things that the we need to be showing to Dan because we know he and his family are gonna be enjoying this. So AI for us is a um a means or a tool that we use to actually help you generate emotions through experiences.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

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SPEAKER_01 43:08

And now back to the show. For most uh travelers that are booking travel online, they may not be aware of how AI is being utilized to market, to position to them, and there's so there's what companies are using in the background. One of the things that has been a major topic of focus for us, even in this, you know, we did an agentic AI series in season seven. It was one of our most popular. We had nine speakers, and people keep asking about the agentic series. That's obviously going to continue. We're doing our summit later this year talking about beyond AI. But one of the things around agentic AI, so this is the thing that stands out to me as far as where fever can go. And keen to get your take on this is that if we're already utilizing AI within technology and marketing to better personalize and curate experiences and make recommendations, could we get to a point where utilizing agentic AI, that the fever app, Can make a recommendation for you and book it. So, you know, that um, you know, you're gonna be in Madrid this week. Did you know that this concert's happening? Or just to let you know, not an email. Not it's like literally just to prompt you to say, I've got a spot in the first row. I know you love these kind of tickets. Can I go ahead and book them for you this Friday? My answer to that would be yes. So it really changes the whole discovery to a recommendation engine that agencai AI via voice or this is what excites me for the future of travel. And I would think a company like Fever would be so well positioned to deliver on this. So not you have to give a future the future roadmap away, but I'm assuming you guys are working on agentic AI as part of the Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

We we believe at some point the AI is gonna be able to give you real-time uh suggestions. It's gonna help you or the consumer build a complete itinerary, it's gonna book the tickets for you, and it's gonna um change what what they're suggesting based on your preferences, on your location, on your context, on what you have thought before, or what you tell them in real time. So um, yeah, we believe it's gonna be a large disruptor, and we're working towards that.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Exciting, yeah. And I would imagine that you know AI agents would already be utilizing your website to make recommendations. So this is, you know, and I'm hearing so many examples even in Barcelona last week of how uh other travel executives are utilizing these tools, and it's only a matter of time between uh once travelers start to discover them. So, yeah, that's an exciting opportunity, one we can pick up again in the in the future. But to come back to the point you just shared, Rossio, about cities

Lessons For Tourism Boards

SPEAKER_01 45:35

and destinations and how they're changing. You mentioned something really important there around sightseeing. And I do see that. Like people, you know, they want to go to Europe. I'll use the example of North Americans, Canadians or um Americans traveling to Europe. You know, it's still a challenge for some of these uh European cities that people want to go to the Eiffel Tower, they want to see the Sagrada Familia, they want to go and see some of the main sites. So, like those are, you know, so we have challenges around over tourism that are real, and especially peak times of the year. And a lot of organizations, get your guide being a good example, are trying to encourage people to go further afield and explore um other uh neighborhoods and other unique places that uh will take them off the beaten path. One of the things that you highlighted there is that people are traveling more for experiences than they are for sightseeing. And I overwhelmingly, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, so people will still want to check things off on the list, they still want to see certain things, but by and large, they're looking for an experience, they're looking at how a destination makes them feel and how it connects to their passions and their interests. So, for tourism boards that listen to this, like that uh need to be rethinking of how they attract travelers, I'd love to get your a couple of suggestions from you. So, you know, how cities should be thinking differently about experiences as a way to attract travelers. What would what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 46:48

What I would say is that those destinations that understand what makes your um travelers stick and what makes them stay longer, maybe spend a uh a couple of nights longer in the in the in the place, um, are those who are gonna be winning over in the coming years. And to that, to do that, what you need is data. You need to understand what are people liking, what are people gonna be interested in buying, how do we change that experience that they know it's up there, but to adapt it to the local flavor so that more and more people, not only the local ones, but those wanting to experience the local um inside or the local life are interested in buying.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Very interesting. Well, and that's where I think there's the when you mentioned data, I think it's the one one of the most compelling uh elements that many people may miss. Or certain DMOs obviously have access to a lot of uh data, but even still with having an understanding of people searching for their destination as to why they would want to travel there, what you know, one thing that has come up in our DMO series that we did as well was um events and and and and specifically music and concerts as a reason for people to travel, or even the fact that if they've been featured in a television show, that's always one of the big hits, right? You know, like Emily in Paris and people want to go to Paris, but um or Game of Thrones or um Lord of the Rings, people love watching shows and then traveling to those destinations and being able to immerse in the experience themselves. Um, one last question on this one, and then I want to shift to the future to finish our conversation on where the industry is headed. But if when you look at the industry, I see fever is so far ahead of any of the competition. You know, there was a time when Cirque du Soleil was certainly that in the in-destination experience space, and their book Blue Ocean Strategy, I still remember I shared it with the CEO of G Adventures, where I was working at the time, and we went to Las Vegas and saw a number of shows and started to try and look at uh how is it that this one company has embraced this strategy that essentially doesn't have any competition. Every hotel in Las Vegas is competing to have their own Cirque du Soleil show. And you know, that to me is now, you know, uh I was just in Vegas again. I took my daughter and she got to experience her first Cirque du Soleil show. And it's still it's very real, it's it's still a great example. Um, but I see fever of kind of you know really leading in this space globally. Uh so you know, take away Las Vegas. You know, Cirque du Soleil does travel to other destinations, and it is a big business. Uh, but you guys have the potential to do circuses and music. Like it's just like it's a it's a whole other scale. And so indeed.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Actually, we just started working with Cirque de Soleil not month not not long ago. So a quarter or two quarters ago. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Okay. Well, I should have bought my tickets

Stop Treating Experiences As Ancillary

SPEAKER_01 49:30

for you rather than MGM uh when I got to the Bellagio. So uh but yeah, what the question I would love to ask you before we get into the future is what you see travel brands getting wrong. Since so many travel executives will be listening to this episode, they could be travel advisors, tour operators, and it's like, you know, you see what works, but you also see what is happening out there in the industry. And I'm not asking you to call anybody out specifically, but when it comes to in-destination experiences, what do you think a lot of travel brands are still getting wrong? That seems obvious to you from your experience with knowing what works.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Well, I would say that um some of the travel brands, and again, I'm we're not we're not um uh talking about anyone in particular. Yeah, we'll generalize here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um they're treating experiences as an anciliary. So they are not still trusting the power of experiences, right? Um, whereas for us, experiences are more of a strategic asset. So more and more people they increase their share of wallet of experiences rather on on uh any other physical uh possession. They like to share through social networks um the way they felt when they were doing something in particular, and then people are increasingly interested in do uh things that can talk to them from a person personalized, right? So um I can have this experience, but I feel it it was somehow personalized for me. Then there's a lot of people who have a lot of um who give that a lot of value. So uh to us, experiences are the strongest um emotional connection that you can create with a consumer. And you and you need to lead or at least take it into account when you when you're building the strategy for your travel brand, that this is something that has completely changed over the course of the past years. And uh we need to have it very clear. Experiences are at the core of what we do and at the core of what makes people tick and what makes people um spend their money on one thing or the other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

That's such an insightful point. And that's I I you're as soon as you said it, it just dawned on me the number of businesses that are looking to add experiences as ancillaries, especially hotels. That's a good example where you know they have partners that have convinced them to add activities as well. And so it's people book their hotel and then book their activity, and they're looking at it as a revenue driver. The interesting thing, there's a company called Turnio that uh focuses on this space. And one of the things that the CEO had shared with me is that actually they found it more successful to convince people to take hotels to get people to take an experience because they'll give a higher ranking and rating to the hotel after their stay. So it's not actually about the revenue, it's the likelihood of a guest having a great experience and coming back. And I thought similar to you what you shared, that's just actually it's quite insightful to know why you're actually doing this, what the big benefit is. And so um so I love that because uh when we did this artist series on looking at um resorts, and the number one driver for them is experiences. They're all trying to introduce amazing experiences. That's what draws people to a hotel, not the amenities or the pool or the having the spa. It's literally the fact that you can go and do horseback riding or um so very, very insightful point. And so on that note, let's let's project forward because I'm very keen to know where fever is headed and what you can share with us. But let's maybe start more broad because you certainly have uh an amazing vantage point in your role and great experience to be able to speak from about how the end destination experience uh will evolve in the next few years. So, what are some of the the trends that you're seeing in

Personalization And Fragmented Demand Ahead

SPEAKER_01 53:05

the industry? How how how is fever evolving now? And what what do you think the industry is gonna look like in the next few years?

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah, well, I wish I had this uh magic bowl, but we don't. But what we believe it's gonna happen is that personalization is gonna become a very, very important thing. So people, consumers are receiving um or are being impacted by a number of experiences, which is probably the the largest that it has ever been. But we need to make sure that we touch them with the right message at the right moment with the right angle, so that people tick with that. So personalization, understanding what people like, what people uh how people move, how people take decisions, it's gonna be more increasingly more important. And then I would also say um demand is also becoming more and more fragmented. So the fact that you have a a very large IP that's uh scaled globally doesn't mean that you don't need to adapt it to the local flavor and what are people gonna be looking at um from a local perspective. If you're able to understand what do people care about from a personalization perspective, and at the same time, you're able to adapt your experience, adapt your IP to what locals are demanding, then this is we believe this is gonna be the future of experiences. This is probably gonna um touch a lot on the future of travel also. So not necessarily we're not talking about necessarily larger or bigger experiences, but we're talking about more meaningful experiences to the people that are looking towards them.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

And one thing I I know you mentioned earlier, Roccio, that you don't think in terms of categories. I know there are, you know, when I was looking through the website and looking forward to our call, you know, the you know, there obviously no matter what, you we still think in categories or group certain things into categories, like if there are music events or uh food and drink. And where I'm going with this is because and speaking to Laura, I know culinary has really started to take off and arrival at their conferences are you know introduced a culinary track. So food has become that much more of a reason why people are travel as well. Um if you wouldn't mind sharing some of the kind of emerging uh experiences that you're seeing like like culinary, um, or if there's any other specific areas that you're seeing the the most growth.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Um well, we've seen a lot of growth in sports because more and more sports institutions are moving away from match day or from the event itself to actually what we have been discussing so far, to creating a culture, to creating a brand, to making sure that people feel part of something larger than um themselves. And that emotional connection, which doesn't necessarily happen only on match day, but that you can create that throughout the throughout several touch points with your audience. We know and we've seen that people are super interested in traveling because of sports, right? So that emotional connection brings a lot of people, and that to us that's something very important. And I will also say another category which is increasingly important in Fever, I would say wellness, for example. More and more people traveling and taking decisions based on wellness criteria, whichever uh whatever that means, right, for them. But that's also a very large or at least a growing category within Fever.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Very interesting. Yeah, sports. We did a sports episode, we did a one-off episode, and it was so popular. I feel like there's so much more to do with sports, and not only, you know, technically F1 is a sport, even though um it's not a traditional athlete, but I mean obviously car drivers are. Um, but the um uh World Cup, of course, which is happening now as we're releasing this episode. And so and I think so many more Americans are getting into soccer, football, and all of a sudden we'll be interested in following these experiences and being able to go and see the home field. So it's it's amazing to see the after effect of a major sporting event because it will still, even though it's a banner year for football, it's also going to lead to a lot more interest in you know, in the year or two ahead. So um, and then in terms of fever, let's talk about where you guys are headed because you keep going from strength to strength, and obviously you've got an all-star team and many amazing partnerships. And obviously, I say the F1 is like that's massive, especially at a time when the F1 is just um also growing so tremendously, their global audience. Uh, tell us a little bit about some of the other initiatives that you can share with us that you guys have on for the rest of 2026, or even what you're planning for 2027.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Well, I wish I could share some of the partners that we have lined up to announce, but I would be announcing them and they would kill me if I did that. No. Uh, but reality is um we are constantly growing. We're increasingly getting more and more talent, and this is actually one of our bottlenecks. So we need such a good talent to come come to fever, come here and just let us or help us develop all the good things that we want to put at the disposal of our partners. So um, I cannot say one single thing, but there's a lot upcoming

How To Connect With Fever

SPEAKER_02 58:05

in the in the next months.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Well, let's make sure all of our listeners, I know you mentioned the app, I mentioned the website. Obviously, I know people will be keen to connect with you uh on LinkedIn. I'd love to make sure that all of our listeners, you can direct them in the right way because many of them will be interested in partnering with you and also to Rocio, like a lot of travel advisors. I mean, there's a huge trade community out there that listens to our podcast, and it's where my career first started, and they're as relevant as ever. We look at companies like Fora as a the host-based agencies that sell travel, and there's no reason why they shouldn't also be including these experiences for their guests. So um, I'd love if you might highlight how our listeners can connect with you and the team to find out different opportunities to partner with you.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

Yeah, sure. So um, I mean, it's not only through me on LinkedIn, which I'll be gladly uh answering, but um th there's a lot explained already in the fever.com webpage. If you go to um the the category of fever for business, etc., there's a lot there on what they can do, and we'll be gladly talking to them and putting them in contact with the right person. Like Fever is a big, big thing. I mean, it's a big, big company, and there's a lot going on, but there's always gonna be a person willing to talk to you and understand how we can help um from a technology and demand generation perspective.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

That's wonderful. Well, muchos gracios, Rocio, thank you so much for joining us for this. It was a real pleasure to see you again. I look forward to seeing you at some of the conferences this fall. Congrats on your continued success. Best to you and the family and and to the team.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thanks to you, thanks to the audience, and I hope they they like the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

They definitely will. Thank you again. Really appreciate it.