Episode Summary and Highlights
Hosts Mike McCormick and Ed Silver kick off the show noting this is Season Three, Episode Three, of Travel Again Presents. They discuss how quickly the season is moving and preview a strong lineup of upcoming guests.
Industry News
Online Travel Marketing Spend
OTAs (e.g., Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia, Trip.com) spent $17.8B on marketing in 2024—up $1B from 2023.
Discussion on how AI could reshape customer acquisition strategies and possibly level the playing field for new entrants.
Expedia and Southwest Partnership
Southwest expands distribution by adding its entire network to Expedia.
Marked change for Southwest, which historically sold flights primarily through its own channels.
Travel Tech Acquisitions
Seventeen travel-tech acquisitions reported so far in the year, showcasing strong M&A activity.
Notable deals in travel payments, which is becoming a high-growth sector.
Travel Again Advisory & Phocuswright Partnership
Travel Again Advisory (the host group) has formed a strategic partnership with research firm Phocuswright, combining advisory services with deep industry data and insights.
Guest Interview: Ciaran Delaney, Founder & CEO of Hubli
Background & Evolution
Founded MeetingsBooker in 2009, rebranded as Hubli in 2021.
Specializes in “simple meetings technology” for corporate clients worldwide.
Key Market Changes
Digitalization: More corporations want self-serve, online solutions for meetings; 87% have a digitalization strategy.
Shift in Work Patterns: Hybrid and remote work environments heighten demand for collaborative in-person meetings.
What Hasn’t Changed: The fundamental need for people to gather in person for innovation, sales, and relationship-building.
Hubli’s Focus Areas
Integration with Hotels and Venues: Deepening partnerships to streamline bookings and expand inventory.
Distribution Partnerships: White-label solutions for major TMCs and travel platforms (e.g., Amex GBT, FCM, Amadeus).
Sustainability: Tools like “Where to Meet” help users choose lower-carbon destinations, remove single-use plastics, and highlight eco-certified venues.
AI Applications: Leveraging AI to enhance search results, automate customer service, and refine venue pricing.
Payments & Expense Management: Addressing a major pain point by enabling virtual card use, automated payment schedules, and quicker reconciliation.
Advice for Meeting Planners
Start small with technology adoption.
Bring internal stakeholders along early.
Learn from peer case studies (BP, ASML, Autodesk) to drive time and cost savings.
Post-Game Analysis with Linda McNairy
Linda, Head of Meetings and Events at Travel Again Advisory, underscores how far the industry has come—from manual processes to AI-driven booking and sustainable practices.
Emphasizes Hubli’s comprehensive approach to sustainability and the continued importance of in-person meetings.
Closing Thoughts
The hosts reiterate the importance of technology, efficiency, and sustainability in the evolving meetings landscape.
Listeners are invited to reach out to Travel Again Advisory for clarity and strategic guidance in the travel industry.
Full Transcript - Lightly Edited for readability (and created with ChatGPT)
Ed Silver:Welcome to Travel Again Presents, the weekly travel roundup covering the headwinds and tailwinds impacting the business of travel. Please welcome our hosts, Mike McCormick and Ed Silver.
Ed Silver:Hello, Mike. Welcome to the show. Wow. It's Season Three, as you know, but holy mackerel, we’re already at Episode Three. This season is just on fire. I almost said “en fuego,” but I don’t think I can pull that off.
Mike McCormick:We’re moving fast, Ed. And boy, I’ll tell you, not just today’s show, but the lineup ahead looks really good. We’re going to have an exciting spring. That’s the way we like it.
Ed Silver:All right, Mike. Unless there are any objections, I’m going to jump right into the news. Ready?
Mike McCormick:I’m ready if you are.
News Segment
Ed Silver:First article is from our friends at FocusWire: “Online travel giants spend $17.8 billion on marketing in 2024.” That’s up a cool billion from 2023’s figure. It’s an enormous amount of growth, Mike. What’s going on with online travel spending?
Mike McCormick:First, you have to step back and look at how the industry is constructed for the OTAs and how they acquire customers. They’re spending this massive amount of money and dominating search spend with the usual places to acquire customers. This makes it very difficult for new entrants to compete. They effectively bid up the primary keywords and search terms, which works for them at scale. It doesn’t work so well for smaller players.
They’re also competing against the hotel and airline brands themselves. To change this dynamic, we either need new ways of acquiring customers (like new search channels or AI-driven tools) that could level the playing field, or we’ll see the same cycle continue. But for now, AI might be that great hope to open up new channels for smaller players and smaller brands.
Ed Silver:AI is indeed discussed in the article. There’s a hope for efficiency through AI—it could democratize marketing to some extent. But only the biggest players can spend at that huge level. Always interesting to watch.
Second article: “Expedia Group and Southwest Airlines announce a partnership.” For the first time, Expedia will offer Southwest’s entire flight network. That’s a big turnaround for Southwest, which historically was never in GDS or OTAs. And now, bit by bit, they seem to be everywhere. Thoughts?
Mike McCormick:If you understand the history of Southwest, it’s meaningful. They were once the original “we sell direct only” model, which was the bane of corporate travel because you couldn’t book them through the usual channels. Over time, Southwest expanded its route network, started participating in the GDS for corporate travel, and now it’s doing this deal with Expedia for leisure travelers. It’s a huge moment for industry insiders, even if it feels a bit like a foregone conclusion by now.
Ed Silver:Yes, it struck me as well. It’s quite a turnaround. Thanks for that context.On to article three: “Seventeen travel tech acquisitions so far this year,” reported by Skift. A lot of them are small deals, but there’s a real surge in M&A activity. Firms have accumulated approximately $3 trillion to deploy, with about $300 billion earmarked for tech. One area with larger deals is travel payments—Shift4 is acquiring Global Blue, Flywire is acquiring Certifi, etc. It’s only March, and more deals are surely on the way.
Mike McCormick:We at Travel Again Advisory have been getting more involved in M&A, so it’s not surprising to see all this activity. Generally, there are two areas in travel that always see M&A action:
Smaller, earlier-stage travel tech businesses. They need a lot of funding to scale, or they get acquired by a larger entity that needs that innovation.
Travel agencies. There’s always been a continuous roll-up in the TMC space.
Payment is the other big area—there’s money to be made, and plenty of innovation needed around security and process. It should be a good year for M&A, despite broader uncertainties.
Ed Silver:Yeah, we see companies like Juniper Group and Mews continuing to acquire. Definitely ones to watch. All right, the last article is a bit self-serving (but I can’t help myself): “Travel Again Advisory and Phocuswright enter a strategic partnership.” Mike, what’s going on here?
Mike McCormick:It’s exciting. It’s like going home for us. I was COO of Phocuswright back in the day with the late Philip Wolf as a mentor and friend. Coming back around to partner with Phocuswright now is a great feeling. For our customers, combining their best-in-class research with our consulting expertise is very powerful.
Ed Silver:I agree. Focused, data-driven research brings tremendous value to what we can offer our clients.
Special Guest: Ciaran Delaney, CEO of Hubli
Ed Silver:Now, it’s time for our guest. Today, we’re interviewing Ciaran Delaney, founder and CEO of Hubli. He has 25 years of experience in travel and technology, working in five countries across destinations, hotels, TMCs, and online booking. As the founder of Hubli (formerly MeetingsBooker), he’s leading the way in simple meetings technology. Welcome, Ciaran.
Ciaran Delaney:Hi, guys. Great to join you today.
Mike McCormick:Nice to see you, Ciaran. And as a fellow Irishman, I have to say we should have done this in a Dublin pub! Right now you’re in Dublin?
Ciaran Delaney:Yes, indeed. We have offices in New York and Dublin. This week, I’m back in Dublin—plenty of pubs to choose from!
Mike McCormick:You originally founded what was MeetingsBooker in 2009, which then became Hubli in 2021. Stepping back, what are some notable changes you’ve seen in the meetings market over that time, and what’s stayed the same?
Ciaran Delaney:The two biggest changes have been:
Digitalization. Today, around 87% of large corporates have a digitalization strategy, which means more big corporations going to market for technology to self-serve meeting reservations.
How we work. Most people now regularly work from home, which massively impacts business travel. According to GBTA, nearly 70% of business travel is for meetings, and about 20% is for internal meetings. That shift means many companies want to make it easy and fast for employees to book and manage meetings.
What’s the same? The need to meet in-person to sell products, innovate, and collaborate. That hasn’t changed. Virtual can complement, but it can’t replace that human connection.
Mike McCormick:I can recall going back 15 years, people would say virtual would replace travel. Meanwhile, travel just kept growing. People still need that in-person connection. Now, especially post-pandemic, there’s hyper-focus on effectively managing meetings. Have you seen that?
Ciaran Delaney:Absolutely. Employees need to come together for collaboration, innovation, and sales. That’s what drives organizations. With today’s faster pace of business, large corporates must make it easy and quick to book meetings in a sustainable and cost-efficient way. Some of our clients have saved nine hours per booking by using Hubli—an enormous efficiency gain.
Mike McCormick:Where do you see your business investing next? What’s on the horizon for Hubli?
Ciaran Delaney:This year, we’re focused on two big areas:
Venue and hotel integrations. We see huge appetite from suppliers for deeper integration. We’ll increase our supply base by about 50% this year. For example, we have an integration with Radisson for AI-driven pricing, and we’re expanding.
Distribution. We have partnerships with Amex GBT and FCM for white-label booking solutions. In December, we launched a partnership with Amadeus for Cytric Easy, which combines flights, transient travel, and meetings. That’s a huge shift—booking all in one place.
The second half of the year, we’ll focus more on payments and AI, which will transform the search and booking experience, as well as customer service.
Ed Silver:Speaking of sustainability: we see it’s more emphasized in some parts of the world, less so in others. How do you see sustainability in your global client base?
Ciaran Delaney:We’re very global—bookings in nearly 100 countries last year. Sustainability is a big factor for many clients, though it varies by company and maturity of their program. Our goal is to help users make sustainable choices. We built a tool called “Where to Meet,” which suggests destinations based on lower carbon emissions to travel there. We also highlight sustainability accreditations for venues and allow users to remove high-waste items like single-use plastics. So it’s an end-to-end approach, from planning to execution.
Mike McCormick:Now let’s talk AI. Everyone’s buzzing about it. Where does AI meet meetings, in your view?
Ciaran Delaney:AI will transform everything, not just travel, but the way we work in general. In the meetings space specifically:
Search. The whole “search and book” experience will change as AI can personalize and optimize results.
Pricing. Hotel groups and venues are already using AI to refine pricing. Our integration with Radisson connects directly to their AI-driven system.
Customer service. Contracting, customer support, and overall servicing can be more efficient with AI.
Some larger corporates still have concerns about AI and data security, but overall, interest is growing. We already use machine learning for budgeting and price predictions, and we’ll keep developing that.
Ed Silver:Let’s switch to payments, historically a big pain point for meetings—still often handled manually. Where do we stand now?
Ciaran Delaney:It’s definitely a major pain point. We ran Hubli Labs to identify top pain points among corporate buyers. Payment and expense came out on top. Next month, we’re launching an integration with Conferma that allows clients to pay for the meeting using virtual cards—split payments, installments, and faster reconciliation. Hotels can get paid more quickly. On the corporate side, it streamlines the entire process and helps with visibility and compliance.
Mike McCormick:What advice would you give clients who want to optimize the value of their meetings?
Ciaran Delaney:We’re seeing more large enterprises take an innovative approach with new technologies. If you’re a travel manager or meetings manager:
Introduce these changes in small steps.
Involve internal stakeholders early and often.
Talk to peers; learn from their successes and challenges.
We publish case studies with clients like BP, ASML, and Autodesk, sharing how they saved time and costs. Learning from each other helps everyone advance.
Ed Silver:We’ll close with our Season Three wrap-up question: we’re all faced with real and perceived chaos in work and life. How do you personally cope with chaos?
Ciaran Delaney:Being a founder, I deal with a lot of challenges and constant chaos. I stay calm, weigh my options, and make decisions. Balance is also important—getting out for a round of golf, spending time with family, and putting work in perspective.
Ed Silver:Ciaran, thank you for joining us today. Ciaran Delaney is Founder and CEO of Hubli. It was wonderful having you on the show.
Mike McCormick:Yes, thank you, Ciaran. Terrific interview.
Post-Game Analysis with Linda McNairy
Ed Silver:We’re trying something new today—a post-game analysis. I’m bringing on our Head of Meetings and Events, Linda McNairy, who knows more about this area than either of us. Linda, what struck you most about the interview?
Linda McNairy:So many good points. First, I’ve known Ciaran for a while and followed MeetingsBooker’s evolution into Hubli. It’s clear he has a unique ability to read trends—digitalization and changing workplace models are the biggest transformations, while the need to meet in person remains. I also appreciate how thoughtfully Hubli has approached sustainability—from deciding where to meet based on carbon impact to reducing single-use plastics. That’s a serious, end-to-end mindset rather than just ticking a box.
Mike McCormick:I’m impressed how far the sector has come. Meetings used to be managed with paper, emails, and a lot of manual back-and-forth. Now, we’re talking about AI, automated payments, integrated processes, and deep data insights. Meetings are also more integrated with overall corporate travel strategies. It’s exciting for the industry.
Ed Silver:It really is. That’s our show today. If you have a challenge in your business or want to better understand the chaotic world of travel, reach out to us at Travel Again Advisory. We help bring clarity—now backed by Phocuswright data and research. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time!
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