Katherine Airs Her View as WTM London Closes with Smile

The final day of WTM London 2024 saw comedian and travel show presenter Katherine Ryan delivering the closing keynote with a speech referencing resilience, risks and rawdogging.

Ryan’s speech ended the event on an upbeat note, which reflected the overall positive message across the stages on the last day, even on the topic of overtourism.

Pedro Homar from VisitPalma, told attendees he was optimistic that overtourism could be addressed through various technology-enabled practical measures, but the main driver is political. “Tourism has become the common enemy for inhabitants,” he said. “And when we solve issues around mobility, housing, schools, there won’t be as big an emphasis on overtourism.” He also admitted that attempts to address overtourism through pricing had failed.

Price was the focus of a session which speculated on whether we have reached the end of the era of low-cost travel. The consensus was that price is still a motivating factor for many travellers but perceived value for money is pivotal, and that personalisation was an effective way to create that perception.

Sarah Sheppard from tech giant Sabre noted: “The priority is more value than price sensitivity, that’s being driven by traveller expectations.”

Costs to businesses, rather the cost to customers, was a feature of a session about hospitality tech. Tim Hentschel from Hotelplanner talked about its new Hotel Assistant, a voice-enabled AI agent which can talk to travellers and book rooms.

“It costs about $2 a call compared with $6 for our human agents,” he said, “but it’s only converting at about a quarter the rate.” The product has only been live for a week or so, “and it will get better because AI is always learning, always getting better.”

Elsewhere, bloggers and influencers were also upbeat, within reason, about the current limitations that generative AI has. Filipe Morato Gomes, who set up Alma de Viajante 20 years ago, recently created a website exclusively using AI generated content. “I generated 30-40 posts,” he said, “and in the first few days, the articles ranked, but then they disappeared completely.”

TV travel shows are still a part of the marketing mix for travel companies. In her closing keynote, Katherine Ryan, who co-presented a Channel 4 travel show, also posts travel content onto her social channels. “I’m certainly not a travel influencer,” she said, “but I make myself into one. I love to document the trips I take.”

Ryan was perhaps the only person at the event to mention a travel trend which emerged on social media this year. Sitting in silence and without distractions - such as in-flight movies, reading, listening to podcasts on long flights - became a TikTok trend known as “rawdogging”.

“That’s something for the alpha males,” she said. “When I fly, I don’t drink, I don’t eat, I just sleep.”