Australian Nick Wayland from TravMedia
In the environmental and sustainability are here to stay and they’re never going to go away and we’re going to do everything we can to put the right foot forward because we have a Social and moral responsibility to look after the planet and keep it here for generations to come. Hello my
Name is Renee Leith- Manos welcome to this podcast where to from here featuring conversations about luxury travel and how it’s changing in every of the globe I am super excited today to finally be speaking to Nick Wayland who I’ve known for many years through the travel industry Nick runs
A number of very successful businesses he’s been in the travel industry for some 23 years and TravMedia is this very unique business that brings together people like me who are journalists and people who are public public relations people running some of the most exclusive
And best luxury travel and all sorts of travel experiences all over the world welcome Nick. Thanks Renae wonderful to see you I’m sorry I’ve been so elusive just last weekend I was probably the first you could possibly be away from Sydney I was in Puerto Rico for the Society of American
Travel writers annual conference uh flew from Puerto Rico that narrowly missed the hurricane into New York got 24 hours in New York spent night got changed and flew to Hong Kong landed at 5:00 a.m. in the morning in Hong Kong spent the day doing meetings and then did the rede to Australia
So an exhausting couple of days of traveling but I’m not going to complain because we’re very we are very lucky to be in this industry and to be able to fly all over the world for our work
100%. And if you lose concentration with all that traveling I’ll understand tell us how you started your business and how it’s flourished to be this Global Enterprise that’s just very inspiring yeah thank you that’s a good question well I used to be a journalist and I was working for the
Wentworth courier that then bought up all the local newspapers including the Sydney weekly and the City Weekly and I did the Sun Herald on the weekends so I had pretty much a 7-Day a week job
And then the internet came along and the idea was why don’t we publish press releases on a website. Because everybody seems to be traveling so often and then that’s sort of built bigger and bigger and bigger with the different things that we used to put onto it like now you can upload your
Stories as a journalist you can use journalist alerts to research your sub your next subject you can download photographs you can download videos you can download everything you need. It’s it’s the Linked In of the travel industry primarily for journalists then what we’ve also done is we’ve
Morphed into doing our own trade shows as well so we did seven trade shows around the world and I’ll give you some video footage for it where we we have a thing called speed dating for journalists it’s called trav media International media Marketplace and they are 15 minute appointments
That destinations hotels Airlines and cruise lines have with the Wall Street Journal the New York Times the Sydney Morning Herald the Sun Herald whatever might happen to be or Freelancers that contribute to all of those Publications magazines or uh or radio fantastic it’s a very it’s a very
Enterprising concept and it’s wonderful to see how it’s flourished and grown. Yeah well thank you I think now I think I know now we’re 11 countries we have about 3,852 clients I’m not not keeping tabs on exactly what that but importantly we have 50,000 journalists and PR members so it’s
Even it’s a niche it’s a very clicky niche and it probably knows everybody 50,000 people don’t know 50,000 people but within each country they do and it’s just a platform like LinkedIn that everybody uses post information. Yeah no it’s absolutely fantastic how has travel changed I mean we’ve
Had more changes in the last few years than ever in Industry before I’m sure you’d agree due to the everything that happened in the world I mean we talk a lot on my channel about you know more
The luxury end how have you seen things change I mean you’re literally at the forefront yeah that’s good questions well sustainability would have to be number one uh everybody now wants to have a sustainable product Airlines trying to be um car bring their carbon footprint down to
Zero by 2050 cruise ships are going for gas which is literally just a stepping stone to moving into electricity main thing that’s happened that we’ve seen is that because we were caught up during the
Pandemic for such a long period of time I call it the rubber band effect you pull it back for so long and bang Let It Go everybody wants to start traveling again so we’ve got that great
Analogy and it’s so true so true we’ve got got that coupled up with the fact that it’s not it hasn’t been easy to get the airline industry or for that matter get the hotels back into working order Pilots that have gone on to find other careers that they can pay their mortgages and
Now they they don’t necessarily want to come back to another airline job where they might be put in the same vulnerable position they were because of the pandemic now that said of course there are lots of airline pilots coming back and there are lots of Hotel staff coming back but the demanding
A lot more money as as as they need to supply and demand if you pay more people then you’ll get more you’ll get more pilots and I think also the new planes that we’ve got flying at the moment are
More the 787s that have got a carbon footprint per seat about 40% less than the bigger a380s we’ve lost that large number of airlift that we used to have prior to pre pandemic yes some of the a380s
Are coming back on board but more airlines are moving for the 787 and the um the a350 because they’re made out of carbon fiber we all know the carbon fiber is lighter and stronger they’ve got also massive engine improvements on those planes so the cost of operating those uh aircraft is so
Much less hopefully we’ll find in a few years time where prices start to come down but I just can’t see that happening anytime soon really it’s vastly more expensive though flying out of Australia I mean I was living in Asia the last couple of years and I mean flying from Jakarta to Italy
Or Milan compared to flying from Sydney Sydney you know it’s uh you know almost double the price how you by that well Justified I think is is is not really the right analogy put it this way in 1982
When I first went to Europe the airfare price was $2,000 yeah 2019 2020 prior just prior to the pandemic the airline price for air ticket to Europe was $2,000 you’re absolutely right the price of the flying for the past what’s that 40 years has not changed yet we’ve had inflation
$2,000 today it’s probably $10,000 in 1983 so of course prices are going to increase it’s about time the price caught up to what is reality the cost of running Airlines has always traditionally been a massive loss maker you know we’ve lost like tww and Panamerican and those sorts of um
Companies no longer exist because it was just such a competitive market it’s about time that the airlines has come back to making money and if that means there been a slight price rise I was looking on Cathay Pacific’s flights just yesterday and we’re back to to Europe for $1600
Now granted it is a little sales window but I can’t see us maintaining for years to come you know flights to to Europe at the 3,000 level that we’ve experienced for the last 6 months
That’s interesting but how how do you explain the fact that when you fly out of a lot of hubs in Asia it still is significantly cheaper than flying Sydney to a hub in Asia and then booking
Asia to Europe why is that the case is it I mean Asia is so much closer to Europe so it makes sense that if if you do but um qantas’ Monopoly on well doesn’t really have a monopoly but it has a very
Strong support Australian public to support the national airline and frequent fly systems that have been created from Qantas but I know they’ve had a very um difficult couple of months um it’s no no surprise to anybody I think they’ll get the Loyalty of the public back and I think we’ll be
Flying with our national airline. Now back to your question in terms of price well Asia is so much closer so that’s the obvious answer no no but what I’m saying is if I book a flight from
Sydney to a hub in Asia like Jakarta and pay for that then I book from Asia to to Europe the total cost is significantly sometimes half of what it cost to fly from Sydney to the same location
That’s what I’m saying just purely competition yeah this is why Qatar is so newsworthy at the moment because they were going to bring in you know several more flights a day and and that was
Just going to add so much more seats and of course with with with more Supply obviously the price is going to go down in Asia you know every airline in the world flies to Singapore and to Hong Kong
And some those other so the competition just so much greater you’ve even got airlines that fly into those hubs that don’t fly to Australia like I know Turkish Airlines starting here but they haven’t fly here for 20 years and then there’s Scandinavian Airlines that don’t fly here
There’s a lot of British Airways sorry a lot of British flights that British airlines that don’t fly here that’s a good point less people that’s one of the challenges isn’t it well it totally but also the Australian government have been very tight as you we know with Qatar on on on
What airlines they allow to fly fly here and it’s usually a reciprocal relationship where yes they want our qantas to fly to Scandinavia but Qantas doesn’t want to fly to Scandinavia because it just doesn’t have the numbers yeah it doesn’t make sense commercial sense interesting and hotels
How do hotels fit into this new world of travel that you’re talking about right well I think the change in the hotel industry at the moment is is certainly they’re becoming as sustainable as possible but it also bring in all sorts of new technology um and and that’s great in fact it’s
Become so complicated in some hotels that I’ve gone to stay and I haven’t been able to work the TV and I’m not Tech phobic I have a technology company when I can’t work it how on Earth the
General public going to be able to work some of these things I think it’s just important be to have that phone connection to be able to go into your phone watch YouTube or whatever it is might
Be as you’re connected to the internet and then be able to broadcast that on to on your television screen those are the sorts of things that that need happen but sustainability is one luxury is obviously booming um it’s surprising just how many people can afford these high prices because other
Hotels wouldn’t be charging them um but they’re getting it they’re getting bums in beds there’s no question about it no I mean Europe you know this summer was just exploding Ian a lot of the hotels are at 100% occupancy right throughout barley is another example so busy right what’s that rubber
Band effect that I was talking about earlier where you know P demand of everybody wanting to travel again we are natural migrators animals like to migrate we like to be in hot conditions for obviously summer we need to be like to be cold conditions for skiing winter um it’s just in our
DNA that we like to travel and I I just can’t see it ever ever stopping I can see it being more sustainable I can see people trains and and moving to more economic ships but um it’s just in
Our DNA we’re never we’re never going to not want to travel and how long do you think this rubber band effect will keep going that you describe goodness me um it’s so intense it can’t go on
At those levels forever well the demand at the moment is just a lot stronger than than there is in terms of hotels and in terms of of Air Lift so look I don’t know right it’s it’s it’s difficult
To tell um but it’s it’s certainly travel his back and bigger than better than ever yeah it’s amazing and talk to me about cruise liners I mean they probably had the biggest beating in terms of the pandemic and everything that happened and the numbers that I’m seeing I can’t believe it I mean
I was so ignorant I thought no one’s ever going to want to travel on a ship ever again and I’ve been proved very wrong right well the good thing about a sh a cruise ship unlike an airline is you
Can go it’s mainly you can go and park it in Asia and it’s mainly operated by the Philippine and and East Asian um crew members that that are obviously their the staff costs are very low
But what we found is a lot of the cruise ships that had build from the 80s and probably even the 90s um were more valuable as scrap metal than they were as as a cruise ship being off
Board so we got a lot of new cruise ships that are coming back um I’m not quite sure but we’ve got the world’s biggest cruise ship that’s at the moment in Europe that’s either in final weeks of construction cruising back people love cruising it takes the hassle out of packing and repacking
And taking yourself to the airport flying to the next destination and worrying about whether you’re going to Mi your next connection it’s just it’s so much easier to do particularly in Europe where you can wake up at a new destination every day go and explore so I’m very fond of cruising
Obviously not the um the environmental impact that they have but the the industry is changing you know I speak to here all the time which is the cruise lines industry Association and they’re talking about all sorts of new Concepts that they’re coming up with so even even going as
Far as resourcing their food from a local market rather than buying a cheaper product that has to be airlifted or flowing in from another country all sorts of um C Solutions correct because the customer are being the passenger really would prefer them the most climate sorry would really
Like to reduce their C footprint 100% nobody wants to know that they’re going there and creating you know it’s the guilt it’s like flight shaming you know you don’t want to feel guilty about going on holiday so if the airline Cruise Line can come up with more sustainable ways you’re GNA naturally
Migrate to those those cruise lines and airlines that are doing the right thing absolutely I mean I have run a travel Consulting business and a lot of the hotels that I work with the guests are actually wanting a full sustainability report on on the damage that they’re going to do to the
Environment during their stay and how the hotel is then going to you know change that and reduce the damage and what they can do as a guest before they commit to paying the money to going to the
Hotel I mean it’s you know this is sort of unheard of five years ago and look it’s not unique to just having clients like that um I’ve got s that are having hotels I’ve got corporate clients and their corporate policy is that I have to produce a environmental impact report for them
To get approval from their procurement Department I mean you ever thought of there was a procurement Department that basically has to vet them to make sure that all of their policies are being B and these are government clients of ours so it’s um look in the environmental and sustainability are
Here to stay and they’re never going to go away and we’re going to do everything we can to put the right foot forward because we have a Social and moral responsibility to look after the planet and keep it here for generations to come and that’s not just a throwaway nice line to say
We all want that we don’t want to the environment we want to leave with a negative carbon footprint absolutely and if you look at the climate the simple thing in the last month even here in Sydney we are experiencing unprecedented warm weather you know Europe had an unprecedentedly
Hot summer you know it is happening unless you’ve got your eyes closed in your you know living in a cave the climate is changing drastically all over the world we we’re not even at the end of
The year and the studies have come out this has been the hottest year for the world on record wow I did not know that yeah so we still got and look as you as as you just quite rightly pointed
Out you we’ve I’ve come back to 35 degree day after day after day and it’s still not finished yeah nuts anyway it’s really crazy and talk to me Nick about social media social media has you know really impacted the travel industry especially the luxury travel industry again the hotels I’m
Working with one of the biggest challenges is guest rocking up with the Instagram picture and saying why aren’t the green plant you know that I saw in the Instagram picture why isn’t that exact plant there why isn’t that exact croissant there that’s what I paid for and I’m not getting it so
What what do you think is a good question so when radio came out it was it’s the end of newspapers when television came out it was oh it’s going to be the end of radio and television and guess what
They’re all still here they all make impact there are more Publications today than there’s ever been so social media is just another Communication channel that we’re going to be using for the future and the beauty about social media as opposed to television radio or or newspapers what
Is that they photographs taken from people in real time almost instantane instantaneously and they’re your friends what do we like than Word of Mouth hey we went on a great trip to the Barrier Reef
We want a great trip to New Zealand or Sydney and here are the photographs that we took on a rainy day yes it’s authentic and authenticity is key and that’s why social media is doing so well so
Tik Tok we’ve got YouTube that’s blowing up at the moment we’ve got obviously Instagram and Facebook the only thing that’s it’s an issue is people’s privacy I’m sure that you know the big technology
Companies even Apple will get on top of this and and earn our trust back again but um you know it social media is here to stay and social media is so important to demonstrate to people that
It’s not always a great ski day it’s not always a beautiful sunburnt Beach it can quite often be a tropical cycle as I narrowly missed in Puerto Rico my goodness thank God for that but no I I think
To be honest social media is a real asset to the travel industry because it’s really enabled them as you say Ena guests to go inside a hotel room and really see what they’re getting before they
Get there whereas previously you you can’t quite get that across in a magazine the way that you can in perhaps just a simple video as you said taken by an amateur by friend and you go oh actually I
Don’t really like that or you know conversely that’s you know beautiful I really want to go there it’s all about so storytelling so it’s the dop there’s three stages of Storytelling and there’s three stages of dopamine drop there’s the fantasy which you see by looking at looking
At video newspapers magazines or social media there’s actual experience that’s another bit of doain and then there’s the third stage it’s coming back and telling everybody about how nice and wonderful your trip was so very into this you know three stage structure and um social media is
Is another way of telling people at the end of your trip just how much fun you had that’s it that’s it and also it’s the packing order let’s be honest in the chuard who got their first who
Who got the best table who got the best view keep me up with the Joneses huh all of that is still real especially in travel speaking of which where do you travel to where do you like going and do
You like traveling luxury or what’s your favorite well I’m I’ve been very blessed with a successful business so yes you know I’m not going to say money is no option but I I think for most part of
The year I am traveling for for business and fun yeah uh France is my favorite of all favorites too it can’t beat the Riviera south of France anywhere from Monaco down to santra just spectacular part of the world um whilst it’s not extremely cheap it doesn’t necessarily have to be terribly expensive
You can get there cheaply you can do it you know if you don’t live right on the coastal Edge and you don’t mind a 10-minute taxi ride you can get some fairly cheap accommodation corel’s up
There with being one favorite ski destination in the world I visit there at least once a year Vil is my other favorite ski destination Vil being a little easier for me because I’m in New York
Most of the year but trust me I do everything I can to save money you know I take the Epic Pass I don’t have to pay for you know the extremely expensive day rates that you have to pay there
And the other other destion I I love is I Bea foran Tera but for the last decade every year renter a yacht in Greece when he fought with eight friends and four crew and there’s nothing like
Paxu and he pxu it’s just a spectac spectacular part of the world yeah you know I have a saying there’s no better summer Des no better summer holiday than a Mediterranean holiday look I’m
Adopting that saying I could not agree with you more and tell me when you talk to all of you know your colleagues in the industry and everything when you look forward what destinations do you think are people going to gravitate to in the future particularly given you know this bent and
This obsession with sustainability and wellness I mean fresh air hiking all of those things have become much more a priority in recent years which destinations do you see as you know growing in the future oh that’s a very good question as not an e joke answer to that price is going to definitely
Be a strong denominator for people choosing where they want to go FG has been doing extremely well um and Fiji has been promoting their destination incredibly strongly uh they’re bringing all sorts of more all sorts of flights into Fiji that’s obviously helping New Zealand has always been
A very popular destination if not the most popular destination for Australians on a trip there in in about two weeks time obviously once we get around to peak season for Europe This destinations we all love going back to London old blimy um California definitely and Canada I think is also what might
Surprise you is I think there’ll be a lot of promotion for Hawaii you know terrible that they had their disas fires but there’ll be a lot of push back to bring people back to Hawaii yeah
Wow Nick do you ever get sick of traveling you must travel so much the the answer to that is no I love it it’s my business it’s in my blood I walk around most of the time with some carry-on or
Just my luggage and like they’re all the assets I have in my life for most of the year no I I don’t think jet lag is probably the only thing that really kills me particularly as I’m getting
Older have you some tips have you got some jet lag tips I mean with all of your travel you must have mastered it a little bit yes the tips okay so if worst probably the worst destination two
Destinations you can go to is uh well you should always be flying West you if you’re flying East it gets a lot harder because you got to go to bed earlier and you got to get up you got to get up
Earlier so um try and fly West as much as possible that’s tip number one if you do fly East have a a little afternoon 15 minute nap don’t make it much more than 15 minutes because otherwise you’ll fall
Into such deep REM sleep that you won’t be able to wake up the other thing is is meals meals are the other thing you really got to trick the blood brain into thinking that it’s on the right
Time zone and that’s incredibly that’s incredibly hard stay off the alcohol drink lots of water on the plane always help always helps out and yeah look even if you do wake up at 2 o’clock in the
Morning try not to get up try and roll over and get back to sleep but if you can’t keep off the phone right keep off the phone that’s good don’t make the mistake of looking at social media at
3:00 in the morning and replying it’s not not to go but if you do find yourself waking up at 3 o’ and not being able to get go back to sleep get up have an afternoon nap instead yes yes it’ll it’ll
See you through no makes sense makes sense and just before we go tell us about IMM I’m coming to my first one I’m so excited in Singapore have you never been oh my God it’s look well it’s called International media Marketplace because it’s a about a media marketplace where obviously
Destinations are trying to promote themselves to you you have you have 15 minutes with them and obviously they want to hear about you as much as you want to hear about them so it’s telling them
You know Renee Where Have You Been what have you doing what stories have you got coming up that are going to be useful for them why are you interested in their destination so I call it there threedimensional you know there’s there’s the telephone there’s two-dimensional which is
This threedimensional is seeing people in life so you can earn somebody’s trust by seeing them face to face and so much better than you can on the telephone via email or or via VIA Zoom call yeah
I’m really excited it’s just fantastic G already told me about it she’s like why haven’t you been I’m like okay okay should be fun right really fun thank you very much for having me on your show
Thank you so much really appreciate it and we ask all of our guests where to from here for you what are you doing today what’s your next trip I mean you sort of told us about New Zealand but what
Where to from here so I’m thing called ahist which is the Australian hotel and investment conference um it’s run by a colleague of mine who’s had great success of putting that together so as a I guess as a an influencing industry person I’m I’m I’m literally putting an editor’s panels
Together fantastic so that’s New Zealand and then I’m off to Singapore for IMM Singapore I’ll see you there great look forward to it awesome Nick thanks so much have a great day and Sydney all right bye for now bye everybody don’t forget to subscribe here and follow us on Instagram and
Facebook for regular travel updates you can also hear our episodes on Spotify and apple podcasts
Join travel tech and media innovator Nick Wayland and luxury hotel expert Renae Leith-Manos for a captivating conversation on the Where 2 From Here podcast.
Nick, a former journalist and travel editor and founder of TravMedia in 1999 and associated companies, delves into his extensive travel experience and insights.
Nick recognised the needs of busy travel writers and the importance of accessible research on the go. With a background as travel editor for Courier Newspapers and a ski contributor to major Australian publications, Nick’s expertise in media led him to create Travmedia, a company connecting the best travel writers and contributors and the Public Relations from the world’s best luxury hotel brands.
Together, Nick and Renae discuss the intricacies of luxury travel and the evolving landscape of the hotel industry. They delve into the world of opulent accommodations, discerning guest expectations, airlines and flight costs, cruising and the latest trends shaping the luxury travel industry.
Listen to this in-depth discussions on guest expectations and industry trends, as well as engaging conversation and valuable tips for discerning travelers.
Subscribe above for the best and latest regular luxury travel updates.
For collaborations, contact us at: renaemanos@mac.com
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Host & Executive Producer: Renae Leith-Manos
Editor: Muhammad Hamza
Graphic & Design: Yilin Xu
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