Venture Capital And The Path Ahead For Hospitality and Travel
Once thriving industries, those once focused on Hospitality and Travel found themselves having to rethink and reposition their businesses almost overnight due to the global pandemic — unsure of the lasting impact it could have going forward. When analyzing these industries many tend to point back to the 2008 financial crisis on how it gave way to the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Venmo, Square, Cloudera, etc. each who played a foundational role in their exponential growth. However, as we come to cross the halfway point for 2020, I find myself asking, will this happen again or will there be new opportunities that rise above not yet thought about driving new business models to transform the once-thriving industries into multifunctional platforms?
Who better to discuss this with than other investors/VCs who are also focus on the industries themselves and those orbiting around them. During our discussion, we spoke about:
- New York City (NYC) hotels are reshaping to become temporary dormitories for local universities, shelters, patient centers, and more.
- Innovations like e-commerce, robotics, automation, and simplify SKUs/menus will open new marketplaces to support these industries.
- Office working will undoubtedly change. Real estate assets will need to be repositioned to service the new office environment — as well as new business offerings (ghost kitchens, hyper-local logistics centers, data process/storage centers, and more.
- Market opportunities such as higher-end hotels, vertical or in-door farming, staycations, automation, contactless everything, and more.
For more and the full discussion, tune-in below or on YouTube to our discussion on VCTV with special guests: Peter Plaut (Wimmer Family Office), Brian Halweil (Almanac Insights), and Ran Eliasaf (Northwind Group).
For more from Peter on his overall outlook on 2020,
July 7, 2020
