🚫 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! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Arlen Ritchie

8 Seconds 2 Connect

When C-Suite communicate, they need to send a message that is:

Simple
Impactful
Emotional
Resilient
Relateable
Actionable 
Motivating
Strategic
Risk-free
Scalable
Transferable

Most verbal communication, a presentation, a pitch, and public speaking are none of the above.

Yet, when leaders communicate with a combination 
visual + verbal.

The complex becomes simple without losing its power.



If you support your C-Suite with their public speaking. And your goal is to save time and increase impact, let's have a call.


I can share how I supported the C-Suite at 2 of the 3 BIG German car brands, 2 of the major luxury fashion brands and one of the BIG social media platforms.

Founder

ThisCityArt (TCA)

Ongoing art projects that are designed to create new work, host pop up shows and use social media to share ideas. #InvisibleExhibition

Graphic Artist

Mountains of Imagination (MoI)

Startup Pitch Training 1000’s of startups in China.
Chinaccelerator
Plug And Play China
Startup Grind Beijing
AngelHack 
Dulwich College Beijing Launchpad Entrepreneurship Competition

Pitch Consulting, content creation, content management & slide design for senior leadership.
Yodo1 Mobile Games C-Round Raise Deck
Ofo CEO conference speech
VW CMO conference talk.
Cartier China CEO
Dior China CEO
The VW Group board of directors
Audi A.I.R China 
Mercedes China HR C-Suite
Amazon China 
CTVS 
Dulwich College Beijing
Ivy Education Group 
Daystar Academy

Corporate presentation training how to restructure and simplify slide content and refine the message.
The NBA China
The VW Group China
Google SH
BMW
British Embassy Beijing
Districom
Brunswick PR

Higher education pitch training.
EF Education first
NYU Shanghai 
Tsinghua University Beijing
Schwarzman Scholar

Conferences & events speaker.
WeWork
British Chamber of Commerce Beijing
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
SDC The University Partnership Denmark & China

WheelsPlusWings

I am lucky enough to be in the founding group of awesome people who set up wheelspluswings and continue to help give children and their families improved access to mobility. 

Spend 2 mins and like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WheelsplusWings

Creative Director & Founding Member

 BACA / UAL

Teaching Chinese students graphic design & communication skills with group and individual projects using paper-pencil and smartphones

Lecturer Visual Communications Graphic Design

PAE Media

Branded Content Creative Director
VW Group Brand integration in Man Of Tai Chi feature film. 
VW group car placement and integration into Hollywood movie, pitching to movie executive producer and VW brand managers.

A Century with Cars.
Mercedes Benz branded content 12 episodes China TV show. Leading the research team and managing the regular client presentation updates.

VW lifestyle TV show, developing the concept and managing the regular client presentation updates.

Creative Director

BCTT

Gung Ho Pizza 
Pre-launch brand story presentation, working with co-founders to develop brand message and vision.

TEDxBeijing Speaker & Speaker coach
Coaching TedxBeijing speakers with the performance and story structure.

Pecha Kucha Speaker x2 

Be Open
Creative director and co-director of eight band-content online films for Peugeot China, for the car launch of the Peugeot 208cc, working with blind photographers.

Freelance Creative Director

Advertising creative director, within two months of working in advertising, I came up with the concept for a NIKE Olympic event, and I was leading the launch of a car. China provides wild opportunities.

Mercedes A Symphony of Ice and Snow, head of the post-production.

NIKE Basketball Beijing Olympics 2008, creative director, concept development and strategical alignment.

Peugeot 207 China launch creative director, concept development.

VW beetle ATL ad campaign creative director.

Creative director

Raffles Design Institute

Is how I arrived in Beijing and how I met and taught young Chinese students new design skills and creative approaches. 

I now know some of those students have gone on to own restaurant brands, become DJ/Promoters and work as part of the design teams at international schools, which is really exciting for China and world's future.

Teaching Graphic Design and Animation

Spiral Productions

Illustrator and animator, concept development, client pitches. 
Science museum London
Explore @Britisol 
Dubai Children's City
Singapore science centre
Imperial War Museum London

Designer / Illustrator / Animator

Is public speaking part of your BD strategy? I will make sure you are the best speaker at the event 🐊 More influence = more opportunities = more revenue 🤼‍♀️ Intentional communication 🐊 Certified Crocodile Wrestler

The CEO walked into the meeting room and stopped at the doorway.

He looked surprised

"This looks...different," he said.

He walked over to the whiteboard covered with bits of paper.

20 minutes before, I printed out six pages of the first version of his script. 

I cut out the paragraphs and shuffled them like a magician doing a magic trick. 

I then stuck them to the whiteboard.

He was now reading some of them out.

"I like this", he repeated. "I like this a lot."

Within a few minutes, he had 8-10 paper strips in his hand.

We sat down, and I made a new document.

I copied and pasted the sections he had selected into a second script version.

We then made this version 02 script flow in his words. 

In less than 30 minutes, we were done.

He leaned back and read the script out.

He smiled, satisfied.

"Email me a copy." 

He stood and headed to the door.

He paused on the way out, turned and said, "This was good; I've never worked like this before. Nice job"

________________

Common problem = C-Suite keynotes have too much education and not enough inspiration

Solution = Stories with emotion, stakes, drama and success 

________________

How to do this?

Trust the process
Bring a fresh perspective 
Make the time 

________________

I have written presentions for the head of HR at Mercedes China when they spoke to 2000 people 

Visualized the keynote for The VW China CMO when they spoke at a non-automotive conference 

Managed the presentation build for the Cartier CEO China when the management team headed to a global annual update meeting 

I have pitched creative to Hollywood A-listers 

Written the talks for Chinese tech CEOs speaking at APEC

Coached Tech CEOs on their product launches

Coached Tech CFOs on how to deal with different speaking opportunities

________________

The key to success starts with mindset 

🟥 Do you have a growth mindset?

🟧 What are your goals?

🟨 What message / story will reach the goals?

🟦 How do you perform?

🟩 Do you even need slides? 

________________

🟩

🟦 🟦

🟨 🟨 🟨

🟧 🟧 🟧 🟧

🟥 🟥 🟥 🟥 🟥

________________


Start with red not green.

 If you want public speaking to be your executive strength I can share more case studies on a call.







taplio

The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Martin Barnes

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