Five Questions: Have we made travel worse - even as it’s gotten easier?
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How has technology affected our travel experiences?
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics, and more. I'm Michael Thompson, and good morning, Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael. And good morning to you, Adam Lang. Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Sean. Now, today, I mean, our Sunday format is now well established. It is based upon five questions for each of you, and you have to give answers without a great deal of thought, which is pretty... Almost like the main show, really. I was just thinking, how do I avoid opening with criticism? So I just pause and let you criticize yourselves. So... And I was thinking, Adam, you're joining us today remotely, very remotely from China, from a hotel room in China.
You sent us – the thing that got me, right, is you sent us a photo of yourself from the plane mid-flight, which I loved, the fact that you're able to do that. And then you spent the next eight hours of your flight emailing from the plane. I kept getting these little messages come through from – Adam laying in the sky. And so I wanted to talk today about what makes a good travel experience these days. Because I know ages ago we talked about the things that bug you when you're flying. So I want to talk more broadly about what makes a good travel experience these days. Because seeing you flying and working on your emails and really kind of just... contacting us a lot from 39,000 feet just made me wonder, right?
Question number one, and I'll start with you, Adam. What is the one thing that most determines whether a trip feels good or bad? What's the one thing that really has the biggest impact on you? Is it the flight? Is it the hotel? Is it the people you're with? What really drives it?
I think first is that, you know, what the good experience is ahead of you. So are you going to be seeing people, places and doing things that genuinely excites you? So I know that that's very personal, but I think that gets you over a lot of the kind of inconveniences of travel. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. What about you, John?
Yeah, see, so Adamski, as he's pinging away yesterday or the day before, whenever it was, you know, he was pinging away from business class. The rest of us have been cattle class. The single thing that makes a good trip. is the distance between seats. So last year when Jack and I went overseas, we flew on a plane Sydney to Singapore. We're playing Singapore Airlines and then Singapore to Paris. And the Sydney-Singapore plane, there was like, it's probably only a matter of centimetres difference, extra room versus the second leg, and it made a huge difference. So the single thing I reckon... is the distance between the seats.
The need-to-seat ratio. Wow.
That's it.
So yours gets super niche. It's not the hotel that you're staying at or what you're going to do on the other end. It's how much room your knees have.
Oh, I thought you were talking about just the flight. Yeah, no, I thought you were talking specifically the flight.
Yeah, like double down. Just stick with that. I love that. Okay, question number two. Has convenience, do you think, become more important than experience, right? Do we care too much now about kind of direct flights, being able to get there super fast, fast check-in, be able to skip queues, Wi-Fi on flights, the convenience of that? Has it become more important than experience? And In optimizing all of these things, are we losing something along the way? Some of the wonder and the mystery and the fun of travel, Sean?
Yeah.
Yesterday's show we talked about the annoyance economy and we did it during the week. The annoyance economy, funnily enough, has its benefits because you really appreciate once you get through the annoyance even more. So when you've got a line up for queues getting onto the plane or a plane, customs, you love a good experience at customs, but when you're going into US ports in particular, you often end up in big lines. I kind of think it all adds to the experience. of the trip. And especially when you're taking your kids, mine are a bit older, but no younger.
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