🚫 OTAs Suck ✅ Building a Book Direct, Decentralized, Open-OTA ➜ 🚀 Operators Get Direct Bookings ✈️ Travelers Get Rewards for Booking Direct 💰 Anyone Who Refers Travelers Owns Them & the Revenue Stream They Generate.

🐥 I'm a startup founder, launching a direct booking travel platform for the AI agent era.

Why? Today, Online Travel Agent (OTA) commissions are draining 10's of billions of dollars out of the travel ecosystem. They enrich "Big Tech" and "Big Travel", at the expense of everyone else. I know because I helped them do it. For years I was a super-affiliate of Expedia and other big OTAs. I fed $100m+ in hotel bookings to the OTAs, generating $10m in commissions, but adding little of value to the ecosystem.

Now, I'm building a new travel distribution platform and protocol that enables travelers and their AI agents bypass the OTA middlemen and book direct.

👇 Want to be notified when we launch? Leave a comment in the featured post below titled "AI-powered community", or reach out and connect! 

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Previously...

🐣 I co-founded a venture studio. We launched 3 notable ventures:
 
1️⃣ 3Genius International. Network of travel booking websites. $100M+ in bookings and $10M+ in gross profit.

2️⃣ Moola.com. Multiplayer game. Grew virally to 450k community members, $7.6M economy. PCWorld's “Best Places to Waste Time on the Web”.
 
3️⃣ Locationary. Local data and community platform. Rewarded users for crowdsourcing local business data (eg. like for Apple Maps). $4.5M in funding. Acquired by Apple.

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🧠 Current Interests: AI, community, machine learning, travel, fintech, loyalty rewards, web3 / tokens / blockchain, creator & influencer economy, social commerce, marketplaces, network effects.

Arlen Ritchie

frog

Senior Generative AI Consultant 

BCG Platinion

At BCG Platinion, I supported in the definition of a Cloud Strategy and RFP initiative for a leading Italian bank, focusing on architectural design, cost and timeline estimation, and provider selection. Additionally, I played a pivotal role in a Business Intelligence project for a pharmaceutical company, streamlining data architecture and incorporating market intelligence to enhance sales efficiency and minimize errors. My contributions to these projects were instrumental in securing a significant banking contract and facilitated engagement with BCG Italy's most prominent client

Consulente

Business Transformation - Enterprise Architect

Support as Enterprise Architect to Business Transformation program to define a strategy for IT architecture evolution in coherence with business and technology needs of one of the major Telecomunication player in Europe. Trying to achieve an overall business processes simplification, improvement of customer experience, better adherence to standards  and best practices, resolution of technological obsolescence issues, assuring consistency with the end-to-end process and alignment with business as usual projects.

Enterprise Architect Analyst

Consulting in IT Enterprise Architecture, IT Digital Transformation, IT Business Innovation, IT Strategy.
Business Area: Telco, Media & Digital Insurance

Enterprise Architect

Entrepreniston

Investment Analyst 

Ho iniziato i miei studi conseguendo una laurea in Electrical Engineering al Politecnico di Milano, in esami come Fisica Tecnica, Macchine Elettriche e Modellazione degli impianti o meccanica Razionale ho potuto sviluppare le mie skills di Problem Solving. In magistrale sono passato a Management Engineering con specializzazione in Finance, ho acquisito delle solide basi di Financial Analysis integrando con diversi corsi sul mondo digitale. Ho conseguito diverse certificazioni, partecipando a diversi corsi e workshops dal mondo Fintech al mondo della Blockchain. Nell'ultimo anno ho anche lavorato in un VC, occupandomi di analizzare possibili investimenti in startup Italiane e internazionali. Ho aiutato queste compagnie a ottenere fondi tramite bandi nazionali e a sviluppare pitch e business plan strutturati e basati su analisi di mercato. Ho lavorato come Enterprise Architect in Bip dove ho acquisito competenze tecniche e gestionali sulla gestione dei sistemi aziendali e delle loro interazioni, e ho aiutato a mappare e stimare l'impatti di nuove iniziative business sull'infrastruttura IT dell'azienda cliente. Attualmente ricopro una posizione come Visiting Associate in BCG Platinion

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