Content is king: Will 2023 favour those who rule the travel content kingdom?

IN travel, we’ve always said content is king. But in the new world, this has been raised to a whole new level with the unleashing of the creator’s economy. How do you ensure your place in it? What new thinking do you have to embrace? How do you apply your skills and learnings to a new world where everything has blurred? We get the views of two Gen Y/Z executives, one of whom went from artist to entrepreneur to startup nurturer at Stripe and the other from film maker to luxury goods to technologist at SAP, and how they have blended art and technology to create their view of the future of experiences.

 

 

At WiT Singapore 2022, Gintare Zukauskaite (Innovation Lead, SAP/ Co-founder, Third Space) and Lily Wu (Startup Partner Lead, SEA, Stripe/ Co-founder, WOW Pixies NFT Founder, Third Space) took the stage to talk about content and the creative economy. 

We’ve heard those terms a lot lately – content and creative economy. In a recently published article, we covered how Trip.com seems to be enhancing engagement between travellers and partners through an expanded content offering on its channels. The Ctrip Community travel sharing space on Ctrip, and Star Hub, the Group’s enhanced marketing tool for suppliers to increase marketing activities, generated a total GMV of RMB 1 billion in the last 30 days. The Ctrip Livestream also generated a total GMV of RMB 10 billion.

While those are large-scale scenarios, the role of content in travel and hospitality is multifaceted and permeates all levels of marketing and distribution. Parthiven Shan, CEO and Founder of TripCarte, said during an interview with WiT, that his company would “work with the smaller attractions to provide content that is suitable to be used on platforms like TikTok and Shopee.” He added, “On TikTok, you’re probably looking at 15-to-30-second videos, and some people may not know how to go about creating that. So, we work with freelancers and video production teams to produce these videos for the resellers, and we get a small cut or revenue stream from the attractions for this particular service as well.”

Content drives awareness and traffic, and plays a big part in inspiring travel ideas. Have you noticed how a destination surges in popularity when a social media post about it goes viral? 

But, becoming travel content creators or even figuring out how to monetise travel content isn’t as easy as picking up a phone and just “winging it”. The creative economy, like any industry, requires thought, skill, and plenty of strategising. However, sometimes the easiest way to start is by just doing something.

 

Bridging the known with the unknown

Lily Wu says, “Be a doer”. “It doesn’t matter what you don’t know, it’s about your ability to learn new things and try. Be curious, be a beginner, be a self-starter. Just like my experience in learning Web3 and becoming an NFT founder.”

It’s important to note that Lily is echoing her own journey into a vastly different, rapidly changing industry. At 16, she started her own business out of necessity. During the financial crisis, she arbitraged a popular shoe design from the US and started selling them in Australia. Her “minimum viable product” was nothing more but an Excel sheet, a Word document, and a Facebook page. With half-a-million dollars in profits right out of highschool and with no previous interest in business, Lily’s pivot foray into entrepreneurship taught her valuable lessons on resourcefulness, absorbing new skills, and staying agile.

 

The art of curiosity 

Gintare’s path to the creative economy shares a similar trajectory to her co-founder’s. Starting out in film and production, Gintare says it didn’t take her long to realise that no matter how many hours she put into learning hard skills (scriptwriting, camera work, editing, etc), they didn’t help with her growth as a storyteller. “It was only when I started looking for [the reason] I wanted to become a filmmaker in the first place, was I able to let go of that title and just let my curiosity lead me.”

“Be a problem solver”, said Gintare during the duo’s panel. “There are a million unknowns in the world and anything can happen, so the best preparation for any challenge is your ability to adapt.”

 

Connecting the dots

In the most cliche of ways, it’s not hard to see that entering the creative economy requires creativity. That’s also not to say that this creativity has to be inherent – as proven by Lily and Gintare, one doesn’t need to start out in a creative space to also capitalise on the booming creative and content market. 

According to Lily, “Creativity comes from lateral thinking, which basically means how you can take something from an unrelated field, find commonalities, and apply it in a completely new way. It’s how innovation happens. Just like how we translated our skills from art to entrepreneurship, from filmmaking to technology, we’re always finding ways to connect the dots, and bringing things to life that never existed before.”

“Being a creator requires you to dare to start, even when there are many unknowns.”

We’ve uploaded WiT Singapore in its entirety on YouTube. Check out more panels here.

* This article was originally published here