Technically Speaking - David Pavlik of Kiwi.com

What emerging technologies do you think will have the biggest impact on your business in the next decade?

Modes and means of transport - electric cars, drones, Musks tunnels and the disruption of current means of travel and how we can respond to that.

At Kiwi.com, we hope to have a holistic answer to this area, a seamless experience from A to B. We just launched our intermodal bookable ground transport options and we are building on that daily, adding new providers, and we will end up with everything from ride-hailing to ferries to bike hire, all linking up to cities without airports.

Eventually I hope that, as an individual, we won't have to deal with making decisions on routes and modes. I will gladly let the computers solve these issues for me!

I really hope our technology will be providing answers to, "Hey I want to get to Prague" with the best way based on your preference, budget and so on. We can achieve anything as long as the foundations are there. 

When you look at voice, blockchain, machine learning, AI - which do you see having the greatest impact on travel in the shortest time?

I would say machine learning and AI because that can have immediate impact such as recommendations, coordination of my travels.

Blockchain technology will have an impact, specifically in the travel arena in payments and chains of reservations.

It goes without saying voice is everywhere and should help to offer a seamless user experience. 

What are the greatest challenges of your role?

How to best support the enormous fast-paced growth of the company from the internal technical tooling perspective and information management. I'm constantly being approached by sales guys, and it really is not about buying all the software on the market but figuring out what's the best and most effective way for Kiwi.com, what should our teams be working on and finding out and customizing the tools for that.

We are we supporting teams operationally and technically. There are outsourced contractors, plus our global travel partners, and it's growing daily.

What's your view on big consumer brands (Apple, Amazon, Facebook) and their impact on travel going forward?

I see them as platforms where you can find and reach customers. We should look at how we can build systems like Amazon Web Services and Facebook for marketing and Apple devices for applications.

And, Instagram is making a big impact - what's the first thing you do in a new place? Check Instagram. It's making a big impact on travel. 

I'm actually surprised that Amazon is not big in the travel business yet. It is a huge company and exploring everything so maybe in time.

IPhones are platform for everything. I mean, who brings their cameras these days?

The impact of these platform can be direct or indirect, but I guess it will just get bigger and bigger.

Google is a great platform for us. We are running loads of our computing power through Google and it's really helping us.

I specifically like these big brands, but i don't see them in our space. But, I really hope there will be some new big brands emerging that we just don't know about yet.

Will there ever really be a seamless traveler experience? 

I believe there will be a seamless travel experience, but we will never be done. I hope the whole industry will move towards more and more of a seamless experience, and multimodal transport is a huge part of this.

I particularly come from a technical standpoint because travel is such a fascinating unstructured industry. It is unstructured in terms of how data is organized and stored, and I guess the winning formula is in combining all of those options together and making some sense technologically and financially for the clients and then provide better and better experiences. 

We will never be able to forecast hurricanes ages in advance, being stranded at the airport and being forced to meet new friends in adverse conditions! 

Do CTOs in travel companies now have the standing they should with the CEO, and do you see those partnerships working effectively generally in the industry?

I cant talk generally about the industry, but all the technical aspects of a company's management are essential these days. I was just talking to a group of college students about tech and travel. I guess any company that is not founded on technological principles cannot effectively compete in the future. It's all about the tech. I see all the CTOs/CIOs/etc. as an executive branch of the CEOs, making their vision happen.

If these guys are not working effectively in the industry then they are just setting themselves up for failure in the long term. 

As with companies I've previously worked at such as Amazon, Space X and Netflix, it's great to work with a founder who has a driving vision for the company and who personifies its mission, which is what Oliver Dlouhy does at Kiwi.com

What single bit of advice would you give an experienced technologist from another sector who is pondering a move into the travel industry?

I would totally recommend utilizing and leveraging the whole ecosystem that you have. You have the global platforms that will basically take your credit cards and start your own company, you can leverage some of the API's and start building your mash-up site.

My suggestion would be to make sure you understand your business goal and value proposition and what you plan to offer to your customer, and then just go and give it a shot. The technology is really cheap today.

From a personal level, really try to understand the fundamentals in travel, how it works, what are the distribution channels and how unstructured and complex it all is. Be ready for it; don't try to fight it and build!

How do you get the buy in of the board when you want to get more budget for technology or digital initiatives?

The business in Kiwi.com is not separated from the IT, so whenever we have a business plan we are able to turn our business idea into technological actions. So the budget is part of it, but there is a great understanding that the technology is essential to achieving these goals.

It has been said that airlines are currently going through their greatest wave of disruption to date and it's all about technology - would you agree and why?

Agree. I'm amazed myself at what kind of feature they are offering such as free tickets and making money from ancillaries.

The tech part really is an interesting one as I'm curious as to what will be the winning formula for airlines - are we going to cooperate or protect our market?

It's also interesting how the services are changing pre-, during and after the flight. The tech again is an essential part of it.

What technology development, in travel or otherwise, would you most like to have been involved with in the early stages and why?

Space travel! At SpaceX I was lucky enough to be involved with it, pushing so many frontiers. Going to the moon and Mars would broaden your horizons as to what is possible and bring space concepts into earth life.