Expedia’s Arthur Chapin on emerging tech: The good, the bad… and the blockchain
It's easy to get swept up in the promises of emerging technologies: You've heard it once, and you'll hear again how things like blockchain and Amazon's Alexa are disrupting the travel industry, fundamentally changing how trips will be bought and sold.
It's easy to get swept up in the promises of emerging technologies: You've heard it once, and you'll hear again how things like blockchain and Amazon's Alexa are disrupting the travel industry, fundamentally changing how trips will be bought and sold.
But when does the talk turn from promise and buzz to practical application in the travel space?
It's a bit tricky, to say the least, to develop and scale new technologies that truly improve the traveler experience.
Arthur Chapin, senior vice president of global product and design at Expedia Group, knows this first hand, having been with the company for nearly 20 years through investments in and experiments with a number of emerging technologies to varying degrees of success (Expedia's dalliance with Bitcoin, for example, failed to take off.)
Speaking with PhocusWire at Expedia Group's first Research Summit, Chapin shares his thoughts on new technologies - from the good, to the bad, to the blockchain - and their potential impact on the industry.