A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with Eric Thompson in downtown Salt Lake City, and a lot of interesting topics surfaced in our discussion. For starters – how refreshing was it to have a business conversation in person? #zoomfatigue. While most of our discussion was focused on reviewing the functions and features of the Ripe system for Visit Salt Lake… it was the direct human contact and mutual relief that it is time to start getting back together to get business done.
An interesting epiphany struck us both as we spoke that day, which only coincidentally happened to be on March 11, 2021, exactly 1 year after the official declaration of the Covid-19 “Pandemic.” Somewhere within the past year of virtual insanity lies a genuine truth of how and why all of this has actually worked for many of us. It is rather simple – without the previously established relationships forged over many years with in-person engagements, conferences, dinners, and nightcaps in the hotel lobby bar, none of this “zoomsday” electronic communication would have been remotely as successful as it has. When Eric verbalized that to me, I had to really scratch my head for a second because with 12 months of painful blue light stares at many of you through the screen, or perhaps only hearing your voice on the phone, it has actually been… not all that bad. That’s a long-winded way of saying, “it could have been worse – so be grateful.”
Because you know I work in the lodging technology space, you probably thought I baited you into a “hotel connectivity” lecture with the catchy title. Of course, I did, but you don’t need to read my post for that; just check out https://bookripe.com/platform/connectivity/, and you can see exactly how we do what we do. However, as a nice cliffhanger for you, stay tuned for big-time news on enhanced direct connectivity options coming very soon. #secrets
Meanwhile – PLEASE, get inoculated, book a flight, and get ready to make some real ‘direct connections’ once again. Welcome back, travel world, we got this. And please call me, let’s go have lunch!
