Live From ESTO: Crafting Your Social Presence with Beautiful Destinations' Jeremy Jauncey

Intro: Recorded live at ESTO in Columbus, Ohio, this is Brand USA Talks Travel. Get ready to take mental notes from the top minds and creative thinkers who are driving innovation in destination marketing, content research, public relations, policy, and more. Now, here's your host, Mark Lapidus. 

Mark Lapidus [0:18]: I heard it said that you're the king of creating FOMO. What's your secret sauce? 

Jeremy Jauncey [0:23]: That's a big title to live up to there, Mark. I guess with BD, we started really early on social. I mean, we started over ten years ago. The whole idea for what became the business started life as an Instagram account, without really any understanding of DMOs, of any tourism marketing. But we were really early. The big brands weren't on social. Certainly DMOs didn't have social media or content teams back then. And we just had this idea of trying to join people around the world through a community that celebrated the creation of travel content. And thankfully, we picked the right platforms, we invested in the right medium, and things sort of grew. But I'd say the main thing was starting early. 

Mark Lapidus [0:59]: I can't believe it's taken us this long to get to it, but finally, joining me today is Jeremy Jauncey, founder and CEO of Beautiful Destinations and co-founder and Chief Partnerships Officer of Ask Layla, which I've just learned is a free AI travel planner. He was formerly a co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at TickTrack. Welcome to Brand USA Talks Travel, Jeremy. 

Jeremy Jauncey [1:19]: Thank you, Mark. It's good to see you again. It's been a while. 

Mark Lapidus [1:22]: It's been too long. Let's go back to the beginning: what inspired you to start Beautiful Destinations? 

Jeremy Jauncey [1:27]: Well, I mean, I'd love to take credit myself, but to be honest, it was my brother. He's my best friend in the world, we do everything together, business and personal; we've been very close all of our lives. And he was the one that kind of stumbled upon social media. He was the one that stumbled upon Instagram, and I've always been an entrepreneur. I was actually doing a different business when the idea for Beautiful Destinations kind of came around. And he had come to me and said, "Look, I think there's something really exciting here. The world of content is changing. The world of communication is changing." And we started the Instagram account, yeah, 2012, so probably within the first six months of the app launching. 

Mark Lapidus [1:59]: How in the world did you get to 50 million followers? 

Jeremy Jauncey [2:02]: Being early was the big advantage, because we were able to build up a brand and a reputation for ourselves very early on when others weren't doing it. But we did also really focus quite heavily on how to adapt this idea that people wanted to see the world through these emerging platforms, and they wanted to see it through the lens of, what are now content creators and influencers and people who build digital communities - but back then, we just felt like the best storytellers in the world were finding new ways to practice their craft and show people what the world looked like from their perspective. And so we invested a lot of time and a lot of energy in building out relationships with these guys and girls all over the world, who were sending us their content, and our vision was always to be this kind of central place that would celebrate the beauty of the world and celebrate travel, but do it through the lens of real people and through a community which, now, has gotten to this 50 million number and continues to grow, and is this really vibrant and passionate and positive place, in a time when maybe there are parts of social, and certainly parts of the Internet, that aren't so friendly and so positive. So, you know, we've been very lucky with that. And to be able to parlay it into a business, it's been a dream come true. 

Mark Lapidus [3:02]: Were you already a photographer? 

Jeremy Jauncey [3:04]: No, not at all. So not only not a photographer, really not in the creative industries at all; definitely not in the travel industry. My brother didn't pick up a camera until he was in his late twenties. And if the story of the founding of BD is any inspiration to anybody at all, it is that you can come into an industry that you know nothing about, with no prior experience on any technology. People told me for the first three, four years, DMOs told me that they'd never work with us. They didn't see the value of social; they didn't really see it as anything other than just a kind of frivolous way for young people to spend their time. And now things have changed a lot. 

Mark Lapidus [3:35]: But do you think it's still possible to do that today? 

Jeremy Jauncey [3:38]: I don't, to be honest. I think it would be incredibly hard to build, certainly to the audience size that we're at. Because back then, remember, you didn't have to pay to play. You know, you could really build audience and community around great, high quality, organic content. And you can still do it today, but to the scale that we've done it, I think we had all the tailwinds behind us because we were early, and because the platforms themselves were figuring out how to monetize. So now, if you want to build a big audience, if you want to talk to your audience, you have to spend. They will be many more platforms in the future evolution of the media industry, but for ones that we're on right now, I think it would be hard. 

Mark Lapidus [4:08]: So I understand your session at ESTO was very nicely attended. It was called "Crafting your social presence strategies for standout content." We don't have the whole half an hour that you had at your session, but maybe you could give us two or three minutes of highlights. 

Jeremy Jauncey [4:22]: Yeah, of course. We talked a little bit about the fandom story of BD, as we just have done. We talked a lot about content trends, to be honest. And this idea that the way content is changing on social is a function of, one, how consumers use social - which I think, I think is fascinating, because there was certainly a time when people thought of it as very much kind of top of the funnel, just dreaming and inspiring content and sort of switching off and not really being a meaningful way to understand consumers and their behaviors. But now what we've seen is that search has become so prevalent on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, and people are now going into these platforms and they're typing in, we're in Columbus, "Top five things to do in Columbus, top ten restaurants, top places to go with my family." And they're doing it into these social networks because they want to see rich, short video of what to do. And that's a big consumer shift; you know, certainly I grew up, and I'm sure you did, too, in a world where we would turn to purely the written word to understand what we could do and where we could go and the experiences that we could have. But now consumers, not only do they want video, they expect video. And so we talked a lot about how DMOs need to step up their content creation in video, and understand the right kind of video that works on the right kind of platform. So we talked a lot about that. We also talked about this idea that social is a really meaningful driver of bookings. If you know how to harness the platform and you know how to join the dots. You know, I think it's estimated that as much as 90% of young travelers will turn to social media as the origin of their destination planning. And so if you're not there and you're not putting out the right kind of content, you're really missing out. We also had an amazing lady, Kristin from Wendy's, who are just unbelievable on social. They're fantastic. Very funny, very brand-relevant. They create content at the speed of culture. They're really a great example of a brand doing it right. So we had a bit of interplay between the two of us about how DMOs could do that. 

Mark Lapidus [6:05]: So you mentioned AI, and this is a great segue into your new company, which features Ask Layla. Give us details. It's brand new to me, I hadn't used it before I found out about it 15 minutes ago. 

Jeremy Jauncey [6:17]: So back in 2022, I was introduced to an amazing German entrepreneur, a guy called Saad Saeed, who had co-founded what became one of Europe's fastest growing unicorn companies. It was a food delivery business called Flink. He was one of the founders and the CTO, and that business raised a billion dollars from DoorDash, was very successful, scaled across Europe. This guy's an amazing entrepreneur and technology leader, and we were introduced by the leadership at Skift, who said, "Look, Jeremy's doing this exciting stuff in content and tourism and travel and social media. Saad has these ideas for technology and data and AI. Why didn't you guys meet?" And the long and short of it was, we saw the same future of the world. We had a lot of shared passions, we got on really well, and so we created this product that is an AI travel planner called Layla, with a few things that we think make it really powerful and unique. One is Layla has a real personality. She is almost a living, breathing person. She's very funny, witty, she's very engaging. She's designed to be sassy and have the kind of personality that you hoped you would get from a knowledgeable friend, giving you insight and where to travel. But she's designed in that way because when consumers interact with her through natural language, you know, the questions they ask - which they can do in text or elsewhere in voice - we're able to really deeply understand what their travel needs are. You can give so much more rich information in those kind of interactions than you do through a traditional search box or a traditional filter on an OTA, or maybe how we've done it in the past. And so it's the combination of all of that information with bridge video, so there's beautiful destinations, background. That's our DNA. We know video, we know creators, we know social. And so we were able to integrate a whole host of really powerful videos, so that instead of getting just text results, when you say, "Give me a three day itinerary for a Columbus," or "I want a romantic trip away with my wife or my husband," we're also able to serve really beautiful and inspiring video as a part of that result. And so the more video you see, the more video you watch, the better we understand what you're interested in; the better we understand what you're interested in, the more relevant the content we can show you and the offers we can make you. So we're very excited about supporting the company. It is a standalone business of which Beautiful Destinations is a shareholder and a huge supporter of, and we're just very proud to be getting into the space and supporting Saad and Layla, what they're doing. 

Mark Lapidus [8:28]: I noticed that you already have booking integrated. 

Jeremy Jauncey [8:31]: Yes. So we were very lucky in that when we started the company... I've met some amazing people in travel, we've had some really great friendships that have helped us think about launching new businesses, and we were able to bring in some really amazing investors. So the first was a guy called Brent Hoberman, his investment fund. Brent was the founder of Lastminute.com. We were able to bring a guy in called Barry Smith. He was one of the founders of Skyscanner. And then the third guy we brought in was a guy called Andy Phillipps. And Andy actually started Active Hotels, which became Booking.com. So between the three of them, we had this very, very privileged access to the big suppliers of travel. Booking.com became our integration partner for hotels. Skyscanner became our integration partner for flights. So when you use Layla, you have the comfort and security of knowing that you're actually ending up booking with very reputable partners that have been doing this for decades, and will kind of look after you in your travel booking experience. 

Mark Lapidus [9:22]: One of the biggest concerns that people have about AI is hallucinations. Have you had that issue with Layla? 

Jeremy Jauncey [9:27]: Yes, of course. I think everything comes with a caveat in this space. We're very, very early in the development of AI at large, and so there are a whole host of ways that we try to make the transaction and the experience as secure and accurate as possible. But, yes, we're still learning, we're still developing. Overall, consumers have been really understanding. They've been very supportive, they've been giving us lots and lots of great feedback. And at this stage of the evolution of not just our business, but of AI and travel, I think there's still a ton to learn and a ton for people to explore themselves. But ultimately, we did take the decision to partner up with big, reputable travel companies so that if a consumer ever uses us to make a transaction, they're fully covered, they're fully safe, they're transacting with someone that they know and they trust, and that can look after them if anything were to go wrong. 

Mark Lapidus [10:08]: So I downloaded Layla from the iOS store. Is it available on WhatsApp and Instagram and other platforms? 

Jeremy Jauncey [10:16]: Absolutely. So we built Layla, the thinking being that people will interact with AI and these services at different stages in the booking journey. So if you want to engage with Layla when you're on social media, you can literally direct message her on Instagram and have a chatbot experience that will fulfill a very, very similar function to what you experience on the app. Now, there's certain features that we can't integrate in the Meta ecosystem, but you can have a great experience and ask for recommendations, ask for itineraries. You'll be sent great videos from social media of the things you can do, and you can enjoy a travel planning experience in the way that it's supposed to be done on a social platform. But we often find that when people start to move a little bit further down the funnel into the comparing into the actual researching phase of things, they like to do that on desktop. So we have a really, really powerful desktop experience, which we encourage people to go and use when they get to that phase. And then ultimately, when you book, you can book really anywhere. You can book through social, you can book on the desktop, you can book on the app as well. And I think we'll probably develop new channels. We think about where else we want to meet consumers. 

Mark Lapidus [11:12]: I hesitate in asking this next question because you've got so much stuff going on, but what's next for Beautiful Destinations? 

Jeremy Jauncey [11:18]: Well, listen, you guys have been an amazing partner to us over the years, and building our partnership with Brand USA is something we're incredibly proud of. The work we did together when we built United Stories I think really helped put us on the map. We're incredibly proud of it, and appreciate the support that you've given us, so building that is more important for us in the future. Equally, being here at ESTO, building relationships with DMOs and other travel partners here in the States, we haven't done that as much as we could. We've been growing sort of globally and internationally, and we realize how exciting an opportunity it is to be doing more in the States. So investing more there is really, really important for us. So that was kind of the idea for me to come to ESTO and meet more people in the U.S. tourism industry and do more in the States. 

Mark Lapidus [11:57]: Where are you headquartered these days? 

Jeremy Jauncey [11:59]: The U.S. is still our base. You know, we started the business in London, we still have a presence in London. As we were really growing it, we moved to New York, we still have a big presence in New York. We also have a presence in Chicago. But that internationalization that I mentioned has taken us to Dubai. We have a base in Dubai. We have a base in Singapore. The U.S. is still the core, but we are now all over the world. 

Mark Lapidus [12:17]: Jeremy, you're not only a busy guy, you're a very popular guy, with 50 million followers. Very few people can come that close. Not even, like, to a million, or a half a million, or whatever the number is. And so I really appreciate you, being the celebrity you are, taking the time to spend with us here on Brand USA Talks Travel. 

Jeremy Jauncey [12:37]: Now, anytime, Mark, it's an absolute pleasure. We feel very indebted to you guys for the support you've given us over the years, and anything you need, anytime, just count us in. 

Mark Lapidus [12:44]: And that's it for Brand USA Talks Travel live from Columbus, Ohio. Lots more episodes coming. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening. 

Outro [12:52]: If you enjoyed this Live From ESTO episode, please share it with your friends in the travel industry. Production and music by Asher Meerovich. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins, Kat Pommer, and Antonio Tyler. Art by Mimi Jung. Special thanks to Alexis Adelson, Phil Dickieson, Peter Dodge, and Colleen Mangone. More Live From ESTO episodes coming soon. Safe travels!

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