Tech Tourism Catalonia Visit to Scotland Part 2

Day Two of our Traveltech for Scotland : Tech Tourism Catalonia Collaboration focused on the future: the future of travel, of technology, of customer journeys and as businesses, how we might approach this.

Our venue for Day 2 was CodeBase, the largest tech incubator in the UK and one of the fastest growing in Europe.

We kicked off with an introduction and welcome from Max Reiter, Community Manager, who offered an insight into how the tech incubator supports start-ups and how resident businesses benefit from being based there.

CodeBase Residents: Bookster & Unbaggaged

The Catalan group heard from two traveltech businesses based at Codebase: Bookster and Unbaggaged. Colin Guthrie of Bookster shared insights into the company’s products and services as well as their commitment to sustainable practices; and Janani Prabhakaran of Unbaggaged talked of the important support she’d received by basing her start-up at Codebase, as well as her ambitious plans for scaling the business in future.

Workshop: Traveltech Futures

Josh Ryan-Saha of Traveltech for Scotland led our workshop and got us all into Futures Thinking: what might these futures in a travel context be? How can we influence these futures? How can we ensure long-term sustainability in our travel and tourism practices, products and services? Working in groups and with a lot of really valuable discussion, we created visions of possible future travel scenarios for 2035 with new traveller personas. Each group then shared their respective visions - all agreed a really worthwhile exercise.

Traveltech & The Future of Travel: Hugh Aitken, Skyscanner

Our group was delighted to hear from Hugh Aitken, VP Flights, Skyscanner, and a member of the Traveltech for Scotland Advisory Panel. Hugh talked about the current challenges in the travel sector, both from a B2B perspective as well as how this is impacting on travel consumers.

Hugh also took us through Skyscanner’s journey as an organisation, highlighting some of its recent developments and activities. There were plenty of questions and discussion from the group, who were keen to know more about Skyscanner’s plans for the future, both in Scotland and abroad.

Exploring Edinburgh: Water & Beer

Day Two concluded with a journey from the future back into the past! We had a look at the history and evolution of Edinburgh as a city, with many dark tales on the city’s characters along the way, plus fascinating details on the city’s built heritage.

Our guests enjoyed a walking tour in and around Edinburgh’s Old Town with guide Ali, learning just how important water sources were to the city, and how this contributed to Edinburgh becoming a brewing powerhouse. We continued to enjoy water and beer in networking drinks at Cold Town House in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, where we raised a glass to celebrate the success of Tech Tourism Catalonia’s two-day visit and collaboration with Traveltech for Scotland.