If content is king, context is queen. That was the message from Livn CEO Mark Rizzuto at the recent EyeforTravel Summit Europe 2018.

He says timing is everything when it comes to selling travel, especially tours and activities, which are most often booked within 48 hours of the start time.

“There’s a truckload of content now,” he says. “Everyone’s got content, but often it’s very disorganised (and ineffective). So, if content is king, context is queen.”

He adds, “A lot of people at this conference have been talking about personalisation, AI and chatbots.

“But the thing that gets lost in my mind is that personalisation has to go one layer deeper to the ‘conscious of now’.”

By that he means sell to people when they are ready to buy.

“I think that the in-destination opportunity is the sweet spot right now,” says Rizzuto.

But he warns retailers to choose their tours and activities aggregator carefully because most do not offer live content, which means no opportunity sell in the last 48 hours.

“There is a lot of smoke and mirrors out there so when you’re teaming up with a partner make sure their products are live and instantly bookable,” Rizzuto advises.

Through a single API integration with Livn, travel retailers can connect to 15,000 tour operators with more than 700,000 instantly bookable tours and activities.