David Shull, CEO & Co-Founder of Tern, is speaking on both days of the show. He spoke to the WTE Miami Daily about how Tern developed its all-in-one platform for travel advisors and how the industry can embrace new travel technology.

What problem did you originally set out to solve when you created Tern?
My in-laws use a travel advisor for every trip they take. After the pandemic, I had a run of travel mishaps as the world opened back up. I kept thinking those trips would have gone better with an advisor. I’ve spent my career building technology companies, so I started looking into the tools advisors use. I found a pile of disconnected systems.

In fall 2022, I called two colleagues, Katie and Brian. We flew to the ASTA conference and spent the week talking with industry professionals. One advisor walked me through the seven systems she used to run her business. I asked if she’d prefer one system that did all of it. “That would be a dream,” she said. “It’s not possible.” That’s when we knew.

The problem hasn’t changed since. We want technology to eliminate the invisible work advisors do. Every hour of admin we take away is an hour they can spend with clients.

Every hour of admin we take away is an hour advisors can spend with clients.

How do you avoid creating the complexity that all-in-one platforms are supposed to eliminate?
It takes intentional work. Travel is a complex industry. Our job is to keep complexity out of the advisor’s way. At Tern, we design the flow first. Plenty of systems today pile on features without thinking about how they connect.

Credit card authorization is a good example. It was a clunky experience for the traveler, and it didn’t protect the advisor from chargebacks. Travelers check out online everywhere else in their lives, so we built that into Tern. The advisor sets up the decisions the traveler needs to make. Tern calculates the exact amount to authorize and handles the rest.

Once that flow existed, we could plug in travel insurance and online checkout for supplier bookings. Designing around flows keeps the learning curve manageable.

How would you describe the current state of technology available to travel advisors?
It’s improved a lot. When we started Tern in 2023, the common wisdom was that no single system could do it all. Now nearly every platform in the market calls itself all-in-one. I take that as a sign we proved the point.

There’s still room to streamline, and booking is the biggest gap. Advisors, agencies and host agencies can run their businesses on Tern and connect to their consortia in the same place. Booking a hotel has historically meant 30 minutes outside the platform.

The next era is integrated booking. The system that runs your business should also be where you book. That’s how you eliminate invisible work for good.

How different do you think the advisor of the future will actually be from the advisor of today?
Very different. The advisor of the future spends almost all of their time serving clients. They’re on the phone with them. They’re texting to see how the vacation is going. They’re presenting next year’s group trip to Italy at the local Italian restaurant. They spend almost no time on admin.

They rarely book anything by hand. They don’t type data into a CRM or write reminder emails from scratch. AI agents handle that work on their behalf.

For advisors, that’s close to utopia. The best ones love sales and love being out in their community, whether that’s a Facebook Live or a Zoom call to understand a client’s dream trip. They want to spend their time making a trip unforgettable and planning the surprise their clients will talk about for years.

As agentic AI becomes more capable, should travel advisors be concerned about the future of their role?
Some should. A new generation of advisors came into the industry from Instagram ads promising you could plan travel from the beach and make good money. Many of them love the planning. Sales and client service don’t come naturally to them. If your value is admin, AI can do that work faster and better than you can. Human connection is the part it can’t touch.

ChatGPT will give a traveler a Lisbon itinerary that gets more personal every year. It can’t get the hotel manager to come out and say, “Luisa told me you have two golden retrievers at home. Let me introduce you to our hotel dog.” That’s the story the traveler tells for years.

I think AI will be the best thing to happen to this industry. Travel advising is about creating wanderlust and helping people feel comfortable taking trips they’d never plan alone. Managing fear and building excitement are human jobs.

If an advisor attending WTE Miami feels overwhelmed by the speed of technological change, where would you recommend they start?
Play with it. Download an app and ask it to do something. Sign up for one of these tools and type in a question. If you’re worried it will replace you, lean into the sting, as I like to say. Ask it to plan a trip. Be honest with yourself about what it does well and where it falls short.

There’s a huge amount of hype in AI right now. The only way to separate what’s real from the noise is to try things yourself and draw your own conclusions. I’m biased, but I’d start in Tern. Ask the AI agent to help plan a trip for one of your clients and count the time you’d save.

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CONFERENCES

Tuesday, October 27
AI Solutions For The Travel Industry
3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
Stage 1

Wednesday, October 28
The State of Travel Technology Solutions
What travel advisors need to know
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Stage 1