Business Travel Rockstar Interview - Daniel Price

Daniel Price - CEO and Founder at Jyrney

How did you start your career, and how did you get into travel?

My career started as a graduate on Enterprise Rent a Car’s management trainee programme over 20 years ago.  So my first role was in Travel, although with cleaning and delivering so many cars, I don’t think I really knew it at that point!

Is there anything that fascinates you about this industry?

The most fascinating thing about Travel for me is its resilience. Whether it’s a financial crisis or a global pandemic, the industry always comes back stronger than ever.

Who inspired you?

My first-ever branch manager at Enterprise Rent a Car, Sebastian Delecour, taught me so much about leadership and customer service. To this day, in certain situations, I still find myself thinking, what would Seb do?

What was your most memorable experience during your career?

Working in Travel, we get the opportunity to meet many amazing people in fabulous locations, so we have a lot of memorable experiences to choose from.  However, nothing will ever beat the first time a booking was made on the Jyrney platform.  It all happened by accident; the system was live for testing, and one of our customers’ travellers placed a booking, for a pick up in Luton.  It was only a short trip for around £5.50, but something that was just an idea in my mind a couple of years earlier was now a reality.

In your view, what is the greatest achievement in travel technology since the millennium shift?

For me it is the mainstream adoption of the online booking tool.  While they still have a long way to go to catch up to the leisure OTAs, OBTs have changed Travel for the better.
Truly adopting mobile can greatly improve the traveller’s experience.

Your favourite piece of technology created for the travel industry ever? (Except Midoco/Umbrella, of course)

I am a big fan of Skyscanner. The filters provide such flexibility to build a trip, I nearly always use it to find my flights. 

What would you recommend travel newbies to do in terms of technology?

Attend the trade shows, like Business Travel Show, the new product launches and tech demonstrations give a great insight into the industry.

At present, what are the hottest and most relevant challenges in the industry?

Most people might think that it is AI, how do we best integrate it into our industry.  However, I think it is far more simple than that.  I am still surprised when I meet travel agencies and hear that their teams are surfing multiple platforms to make and record bookings. Delivering a connected end-to-end journey for travellers all booked in the same platform, seamlessly within policy, would be game-changing for our industry.

Quick-fire questions

Who's the next Business Travel Rockstar we should interview?

I nominate Mark Corbett CEO of the award winning climate compliance and reporting start-up Thrust Carbon.