Traveltech for Scotland at Turingfest: 10 Takeaways
Josh Ryan-Saha, Director of Traveltech for Scotland, went to Turing Fest 2022 for the first time. In his blog, he shares ten takeaways from the event.
1. Turingfest is doing events in the right way
Why was Turing Fest good? I have been to only a few events since we started opening up for in-person events again. The organisers had paid attention to the small details. It was carefully designed to enhance the benefits of meeting in person. Occasionally, I've been disappointed that some events simply replicated the tired pre-pandemic conference model. Turing Fest had a range of speakers that were engaging storytellers, exhibitors that focused on having fun, and overall exceptional production values. Kicking off the conference, Brian Corcoran, CEO of Turing Fest, described it as a learning party. It delivered on both the learning and the party.
2. Traveltech is a big draw
The two stand-out and perhaps most prominent tech companies at the event were Skyscanner and TravelPerk. Both are leading tech innovators in the travel sector. Both are growing and recruiting tech talent in Scotland. Both with offices also in Catalonia, cementing our strong partnership in the region. Sometimes we've felt that traveltech is ignored or not seen as a critical sub-sector of the tech industry, but Turing Fest put traveltech at the heart of the event. It wasn't just Skyscanner or TravelPerk. Throughout the event, I heard references to other Scottish traveltech success stories such as TravelNest, Holibob and QikServe. I also caught up with loads of members of our ever-growing Traveltech for Scotland community.
3. Traveltech knows what hospitality means
There were some great event parties with the TravelPerk folk leading the way. The parties aside, you couldn't help but get caught up in the positive and open culture of TravelPerk. Workplace culture should be a key criterion for software developers and engineers when choosing where to apply. So, if you're looking, have a look at TravelPerk.
4. Get Swurfing!
If you don't yet know Swurf, it is an app that connects remote or hybrid workers with welcoming spaces and hosts in hospitality venues. Everyone I mention Swurf to loves the idea, and I am now a proud swurfer, working from as many cafes and hotels as I can rack up in Edinburgh. Just before Turing Fest, Swurf announced it had secured significant funding from two investors. Skyscanner co-founder Gareth Williams and Anna Lagerqvist Christopherson, co-founder of the award-winning Boda Bar Group in Edinburgh. I don't think a traveltech startup could have a more tremendous vote of confidence than being backed by these two investors. Swurf was a visible presence at Turing Fest, and I think many of us will be swurfing before too long.
5. User Research & The Role of Traveltech for Scotland
As any good 'Learning Party' should, it got me thinking about how we should apply the experience and knowledge of others to our work at Traveltech for Scotland. Nyssa Packard’s talk on the critical role of user research at Skyscanner led me to reflect on how we can and should frame our imminent market intelligence research so that it is actionable for the diverse traveltech community. Nyssa's talk showed how critical user research is to creating the right tech to meet a genuine customer need. It is hard for start-ups, which make up the bulk of our community, to do this research. For tech companies selling into hospitality, it can be even harder to find and speak to users who are often on the ground running a complex operation seven days a week. So what can Traveltech for Scotland's market intelligence do to help these start-ups with user research?
Firstly, Nyssa's list of free tools will be very helpful for our businesses.
Secondly, for generative research (developing a deeper understanding of users to find opportunities for innovations and solutions) we will continue to create research reports that open up problem areas in travel, tourism and hospitality. One example is our report on the role of technology in alleviating staff shortages (Coming out soon!). We hope our traveltech companies will be able to use this to develop relevant new tech products.
Thirdly, for evaluative research (exploring a specific problem to ground the tech in the wants, needs, and desires of real people), we will be establishing our 'Technology Forum' of tourism, travel and hospitality industry people to help evaluate initial prototypes. We hope this will ease access to evaluative research processes for our businesses.
Finally, work with Universities to match research students with our startup community to help them do their own research!
6. Tech Scalers are coming: carving out our traveltech niche
Turing Fest took place hot on the heels of the massive announcement of the launch of the Tech Scalers delivered by Codebase. With such a fantastic opportunity on the horizon for Scottish tech (and traveltech), I was first in the queue to hear two talks about this. The first from Mark Logan, Scotland's first Chief Entrepreneur and the brains behind the Tech Scalers. The second was by Steven Drost, Chief Strategy Officer at CodeBase, about how they think about tech ecosystem development. Steven's talk used the graphic equaliser as an extended metaphor for the health of tech ecosystems. Each knob dial represents a different part: start-ups, government, academia, agencies, investors and big corporations. Codebase is seeking to ramp up the start-up dial. The tech scalers aren't the only game in town, but they'll be the ones that matter the most.
It is excellent that the Tech Scalers are being established at Codebase. £4.8bn has been invested in Codebase-hosted companies. You should back winners, and Codebase are proven winners in Scotland. We've always been a big fan of how Codebase has cultivated an open and friendly community. We like to host our events at Codebase because it's a space for play and experimentation as much as for hard graft.
The onus is now on us and all the other tech clusters and ecosystem players to work out how we can align with and enhance the tech scalers. My initial thoughts for Traveltech for Scotland are that we need to double-down on being the innovation broker in tourism travel and hospitality by focusing on:
1. Traveltech-specific Market Access - Use our unique network in Scottish tourism and hospitality to support new start-ups reaching the market
2. Traveltech-specific Market Intelligence - What I identified in Points 4 and 5: Collective research to surface problems to be solved and determine the "jobs to be done" in travel, tourism and hospitality - now and the future.
3. Inspire and instigate new Traveltech Startups - Communicating our understanding of travel, tourism and hospitality to inspire entrepreneurs and investors to get into traveltech.
7. ‘Indie funding’
One thing that comes up repeatedly in the Traveltech cluster is how our traveltech start-ups can get their hands on the first small batch of funding to build a decent prototype. They need the prototype so that they can start the business. They need to start the company to become eligible for other funds or to start selling. Honestly, we've struggled. Some significant government grants are out there, from Scotland's Digital Boost to Innovate UK's Smart Grants. Still, I see very little from the private sector at that very early stage (if anyone has any good ideas I'm missing here, please tell me!) I enjoyed the talk by Rob Walling from TinySeed as he went through the pros and cons of bootstrapping and VC funding. He also went into detail on the topic of 'indie-funding' - smaller scale private pots of money without the exit pressure of VC. These alternative funding pots don't seem to be in Scotland (or at least visible to me).
8. Success on their terms
The talks about indie funding and Scotland's Tech Scalers left me considering what success looks like for tech or traveltech companies in Scotland. Too often, it feels like every business is being pushed or pushing themselves to be the next unicorn, or their aspirations will be sold to one. We hope and will help Scotland to create future traveltech unicorns, but we also want traveltech businesses that aspire for something different. In our community, plenty of innovative solutions are being developed by small or medium-sized, profitable, sustainable companies. I'd also like to see new Scottish traveltech start-ups emerging from the 'Zebra' movement that seeks to support alternative models to the start-up status quo, moving to an outstanding balance of profit and purpose. One example is Fairbnb, the Cooperative platform for short-term rentals we helped launch in Moray and Speyside earlier this year.
9. Climate and Tech
Tech, like most sectors, hasn't even gotten close to grasping the nettle of the climate crisis. So I went along to the one talk at Turing Fest that focused on this from Guilhem Isaac Georges, the VP for Sustainability at Contentsquare. Guilhem shared some startling figures about the contribution of the tech industry to carbon emissions, and he articulated a framework for how to reduce the energy consumption of the tech we create. As we realise that we are already experiencing the vast negative consequences of climate change, we need to have frank and open discussions around climate responsible traveltech. Thinking through not only how we do our work in a sustainable way but also what we do in our work and whether our tech is enabling consumers or other industries to generate more emissions. This is going to be a particular challenge for traveltech.
10. Finally, Data & Football
As a football fan, I couldn't miss the session with Ian Graham, Director of Research, Liverpool Football Club, who shared the paradigm-shifting success story of using data analytics in player acquisition. The main thing that stood out for me was that only with the increase in accessible data and innovation in data capture could Liverpool pursue a data-led approach. Data in the tourism industry is still largely inaccessible, and we still need more innovation in data capture. Perhaps football can show us the way.
Side note: I was disappointed that the granularity of data required for this data analytics approach does not yet exist in the English Football League 2, so it may be a while before Grimsby Town can achieve data-led successes.
There was exciting, positive energy at Turing Fest, and I can't wait to see that energy focused on driving transformative innovation that can address the cluster of crises we are dealing with right now.
Check out more of the speaker decks from this year’s Turing Fest here.