A new AI-powered platform has been created for the “new generation” of luxury travel advisors, promising to transform how they source and use partner content to promote themselves.
Alan Ball, who has worked in corporate roles for Six Senses and Soneva, says ‘Pixi’, the new platform he has co-founded with Emma Squire, will completely redefine how visual content is discovered and accessed within the global travel trade – and without it, you risk being left behind.
While the new AI platform is only weeks old, Ball says it’s already being used by the likes of Six Senses, The Beaumont Mayfair, Trump Hotels Global and The Lindis Group New Zealand (among others) and more than 200 luxury agencies globally.
“Pixi is ground-breaking technology that enables hotels and suppliers to become discoverable, giving travel advisors immediate, on-brand access to the content they need to inspire, quote, convert and market.
“It’s a cloud-based platform that functions as a visual command centre for luxury travel brands and there’s nothing like this in the world.
“Images and video are so powerful… we all see it and wish we were there, and we wanted to create something for hoteliers to provide quality content for advisors to use.”
It means advisors can quickly find content to satisfy even the most discerning traveller who is on the fence about their booking, and promote their own area of expertise with content otherwise not available to them.
Co-founder Emma Squire adds, “We have the most aspirational and sexy content of any industry, but it mostly sits in every hotel’s cloud or under lock and key in a media gallery”.
“It’s a totally outdated way of marketing your product. It’s like designing a haute couture dress just to leave it in a cupboard in your back room.
“Pixi is the catwalk of the industry, an opportunity for brands to tell their story, showcase their brand, and be discoverable by the global trade that sells them.”
Ball says they came up with the idea, which is free for advisors, after Squire was talking to a luxury travel agent who was finding it hard to get her hands on good visual content to promote what she could offer her clients.
“We started talking about a global hub, so if you’re looking for a camp in Africa or a hotel in Melbourne, you can find it all in one place to use in updating a newsletter, or updating a client, but the most powerful tool is using images and reels for social media,” Ball says.
He says with recent research showing 73 per cent of travellers say visuals influence where they book and 85 percent of Gen Z and Millennials booking trips based on video content, it’s even more important to get on board than ever – and, he says, it’ll be particularly useful for advisors who are independents.
“With the rise of independents, they’re working from home and don’t have a marketing team, so it’s spoon feeding them content to make it easy for them to promote themselves and the hotel partners they work with.
“We want this to be an industry standard tool, and now’s the time to do it because there’s a new generation of agents with a different mindset and hoteliers who understand the need to embrace technology.”
Pixi’s plans for the future are to include airlines, private jets, and tourism boards.
For more information and to sign up, visit PIXI.
