Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Kyler Canastra and Carlo Speth, chief editor at HolidayPirates, on storytelling in travel marketing:

Kyler Canastra 0:00
Hi, everyone. I’m Kyler from The Content Mix. And I’m excited to be here with Carlo Speth, chief editor of the DACH region for the HolidayPirates one of Europe’s fastest growing travel search platforms. With headquarters in Berlin HolidayPirates has successfully line services in 10 countries including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the UK and the United States. They also have services in seven different languages. Carlo is responsible for all content production for the DACH region, which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He also leads a team of passionate pirates, as they like to call themselves. So without much further ado, I want to welcome Carlo to the show who’s joining us today from Austria. It’s a pleasure to have you on the

Unknown Speaker 0:43
Content Mix.

Carlo Speth 0:45
Hello, Carla, good to meet you. And good to talk to you today.

Kyler Canastra 0:48
It’s nice to meet you. Actually, we were just talking before I’m connecting from the US and he’s in Austria. So you know, the podcast is very international, which is great. And so you kind of the world of remote work that we’re just talking about before we started the interview, the how flexible you know, things are? Now with the introduction, you know, that’s based on my research and what I could get from you. But I’d love to have you introduce yourself in your own words and just tell us know a bit more about where you’re from? And what’s your connection to content marketing in Europe?

Carlo Speth 1:15
Yeah, Originally, I’m from a village close to Frankfurt, and right now a Berlin resident startup scene and like for a while already living there, like and working for HolidayPirates since nearly six years now what you said so like, I’m kind of the dinosaurs already in our company. So like, We exist a bit longer longer already. 10 years now. And yeah, yeah, not too many people still there after six years. The company like is focusing on good travel deals so good. Where you for money, but humans are so means all product decisions like products, we promote our recommendations by by real humans finally by all travel addicts, and so we a lot into content and publication. So right now I’m leading a team of 12 persons, including me and two students, working students. And yeah, that’s what it is right now. For sure. Like Corona changed anything a lot in our industry, but it’s interesting and challenging times and holiday pirates is Yeah, on track again, after.

Kyler Canastra 2:36
That’s good to hear. It’s very encouraging, because it’s definitely you know, something I love is travel. And that was one impact, you know, that of the pandemic that I did not like, weren’t able to travel, but it seems like things are getting back to normal. That’s great for the industry as well. But I wanted to know if you like it was your background, always in marketing? Were you interested in marketing, like, you know, when you decided to go into the world of work?

Carlo Speth 2:57
I’m coming from a completely different sector, honestly. So I studied law, Ensign to Valencia. So I was staying in Spain for a while, Valencia and Barcelona. And yeah, but always I was kind of interested in marketing and content marketing, social media marketing, as well. So starting a little bit while I was traveling, in Bekins, study times in university, with a with a small blog, really small blog not existing anymore for friends and family and home and playing a bit with WordPress around. And that what it was while being in Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia. And so I was always into the topic. But yeah, doing something completely different before and I would really answer. It was passionate finally. So it was the combination of being so interested in the product and travel. And then like, yeah, having this kind of skill set. And that’s how I started it. Holiday pirates finally. So I would really answer passion. So

Kyler Canastra 4:06
yeah. So So you’re in Spain. And then when you finish your degree, did you go back to Germany and then started looking for a job and ended up working holiday pirates?

Carlo Speth 4:16
Correct. Like I was, at the beginning, I was applying for a job at the Spanish market because I wanted to stay in Spain. So first of all, I applied for that, but they didn’t really have a look for somebody who works in the Spanish market. So they offered me like as you’re interested in starting as a editor as a content marketing manager. Back then it was a blogger. So six years ago, we still call this blogger and our company. And that’s how I started and I really thought okay, I need to kind of change like after law studies and I want to do something, something else and that’s I started in Berlin,

Kyler Canastra 5:01
that’s really cool to see how like, they gave me the opportunity now to, you know, do something totally different kind of follow your passion. And you’re still there six years later. So you started off as a blogger, but what other roles did you have? At holiday pirates have you had during your time

Unknown Speaker 5:16
there? Yeah,

Carlo Speth 5:18
I really started in contents doing this product decisions and like travel recommendations. So writing mainly, and back then it was still kind of separated. So it was then just writing and normally not doing the social media posts. So just the product session, and then afterwards, like publishing it on our blog. And yeah, and afterwards, like, I get more and more responsibilities. So I became a senior pretty quick, so having already like, some project leads, and yeah, then in a really short timeframe, you’re getting already getting already first responsibility in leading a team. So as a deputy chief editor, and yeah, then like, I became chief editor having the full responsibility. And we changed a lot. structure over the years, and like working now cross functional, so having several departments included into my team, so which is, yeah, content marketing, obviously, and all disciplines, so means SEO, and social media marketing. And, like, we are really linked to the commercial part as well. Doing this together with another colleague, which is bigger the cause. And we are kind of CO leading this together.

Kyler Canastra 6:53
That’s awesome. And, you know, now it makes sense, because I was like, wow, you’re at a place for six years, but it seems like you know, it’s very dynamic. And you’ve had a lot of experiences to like, try new things and you know, move around and work with different people. Now, I want to ask you to play for like a question and someone that I work, you know, for a multicolor multilingual Content Agency, I always have to ask like, do you manage all your content production in house? Are you working with a team of freelancers? Or how does that work in terms of production of the content?

Carlo Speth 7:21
We’re producing everything in house? So with this team of editors, content, marketing managers? Yeah. Well, all the content from the blog post up to the pushes, so CRM and social media marketing? Yeah, we do all together with a great team of marketers.

Kyler Canastra 7:46
Yeah, that’s awesome. Now, I need to ask, too, because, you know, a lot of people, I think, from an outside perspective, right, you think of the doc region using Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it’s like, oh, they all speak German. Right, quote, unquote. I know, there’s a lot of different varieties, and the cultures are very different once each other. So how do you make your content resonate in the different geographies within the region, and what’s so unique about working in this region, and its region that you’re from.

Carlo Speth 8:11
And that’s true. So like, it’s pretty unique. And that’s why you really need to, especially if there’s a travel book, you need to find a certain term tone of voice, right? So people are still different, and they want that you still accept this and you speak in a certain way with them. So like, it’s really basic things as well, like Switzerland’s, I don’t have a set, which is this strange German letter, which is a double S as well. And like, yeah, just like for people, when we get this feedback, it’s really important that you that you take this into consideration in your, in your posts, and certain words are just different in their language. And we have a pretty close connection to our users. So that’s why we get a lot of feedback and we just execute developer obviously. And yeah, people really care about this if you if they are from from a region and we have the possibility to really interact with them and to talk to them and give them a real recommendations family. Yeah. And for sure, market is pretty different. So like, for example, the purchasing power and demand generated for example, Switzerland is a market where you have higher basket values generally so people spend more money for the vacation as well. They’re more into luxury travel. And for sure, we try to like analyze these different personas target groups and yeah having Yeah, view on the region even in Germany so separating this and do target our content and working there with different captions as well to be really have a certain offer for Yeah, for for type of person. So yeah, even regions in Germany, and

Kyler Canastra 9:57
it’s awesome. It’s not just like, you know, different In terms of like language, but also in the socio economic, you know, buying power that people have and stuff like that. It’s really fascinating. And it’s also really cool. Like the importance of localization, even in such small regions. I think that’s one of the reasons why I love content marketing in Europe, because I love languages, and I love learning from different backgrounds. And there’s so much diversity in such a small place, which is Europe, there’s so many different things you have to keep in mind. So it’s definitely really cool to hear how you guys are using localization to better connect, you know, with the people that are using your platform. Now,

Carlo Speth 10:30
he mentioned really creator creates a strong relationship with us with a few small things into consideration. It’s just not selling a product, right? You we really work on relationships wildly,

Kyler Canastra 10:42
is actually something that like travel, you know, travel is all about the experience you have, and it’s a human experience. So I think, you know, a platform like yours, it’s like, it’s so important to have that human side to connect really, with the users, because that’s what travel is all about, at the end of the day. Now, I wanted to touch on because you talked about the about the pandemic, which we know, yeah, we’ve mentioned before, really through our travel plans out the window. So I wanted to know to like, what did you guys do during the pandemic to like, keep yourself afloat? I guess you could say. And then how do you like, in your opinion, how is the industry picking up again? Like, we’re I don’t, I think we’re still in a pandemic, but I guess, post pandemic, I don’t know what’s going on. We’re in this weird phase. Now.

Carlo Speth 11:27
I’m using this word many times as well post COVID, or something like this? Yeah, it’s kind of difficult to really say this right now. Incidences growing again, everywhere in Europe. And like, it’s, it seems like the same story is picking up again. So like, let’s not say post COVID. So, anyways, like, it was, like, for sure, it was tough times working in the travel industry generally. So like, we had to adapt strategies and approaches pretty quickly saying and changing this even like in really short timeframes. So I was lucky that I’m working with a great team. So we, they were able to do this and like, really be part of this transition as well. So we changed nearly everything I would say. And what was important before was not important anymore. So our content strategy went into really deeply into trust building. So giving people all the informations they really need to travel, you never had to fill out so many papers before, when you were after the first lockdown when you were able to travel again, there were so many question marks and people had, and we needed to transform being like kind of a news agency combined with a with a product. Yeah, and giving being the helping hand for people to, to travel again. So this was really like exciting times, because like, that was not our focus before. And we went into news, we were even picking up news from, from the embassy and stuff quicker than some of the news channels. So we’re really like, completely into this. And we had people just like doing and focusing on these on this kind of informations. And for sure what was really helpful we because we have this strong relations with this group, we got a lot of feedback by by analyzing this, and then having the option to always like focus on different things and have a discussion in the team. And yeah, that’s what we created really agile pros process finally, so really, week after week, like from time to time really changing completely our our products, because for sure, if infection risk in some countries were way higher, we couldn’t recommend this anymore. And this was kind of the change like in huge in in really short timeframes. So And what was really important as well, from our perspective was even more getting into personalization of our content. People follow people, and they follow travel experts in this case, and people will really give them this kind of flexible recommendations and where they have this just feeling finally that it’s they get all the information they need and that we just recommend some something

Unknown Speaker 14:20
what we buy ourselves would book

Carlo Speth 14:26
as a good friend, I would say

Kyler Canastra 14:27
yeah, it seems like you have a very honest approach to your your content and what you’re recommending and experiences that you want to share with your users as well.

Carlo Speth 14:35
And like picking up how was it picking up picking up again, like I would say travel is a basic need. It’s like all of us after the first lockdown going back to restaurants and having to first beer in your garden again, back in sunshine when this was possible. Again, everybody was wow, I need to do this. Right. Right. And I would really say travel is the same thing. We really need this, we need to experience something new. As you said before, it’s all about experience. Like finally we say, sell like the hard thing, right? So I will travel, like going with an airplane, for example. It’s just like to get somewhere, but afterwards it’s like, exploring a new culture. And yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:22
yeah, really basically. Yeah, it definitely.

Carlo Speth 15:25
And, and after this picking up again, I would say we as HolidayPirates. ajia are there to inspire people to to feel safe about traveling again.

Kyler Canastra 15:38
Yeah, it’s really cool that you guys were like, on the forefront of, you know, obviously, the news, right, when it came to traveling and the restriction because honestly, that’s the most stressful part. I think, you know, I think traveling itself, it’s kind of not, it didn’t have to be stressful, I think the more you do it, it’s not. But now you have this added level of like, all these restrictions, even like, I feel like in Portugal, for example, where I’m living every two weeks, it changes. So it’s like, I didn’t even know like, you know, people were asking me do I have to get a test to go back and I don’t, I don’t think I do now. But it just changes all the time. So it’s so hard to stay on top of it. So it’s so nice that you guys are doing that, and helping you know, this travel community and bringing awareness on the different restrictions. Now, I wanted to ask you to like what’s the typical day like for you now at work?

Carlo Speth 16:21
I would say I’m a really lucky person, I don’t have that typical day. My days are really kind of different. So for sure, I’ve kind of a daily routine, I would say. So as I said, like, being into different topics. And yeah, for example, this news topic for sure, I need to check sales performance and all the data I have on a on a daily basis, we are the company as well. So all our product decisions need to be based on on something right. So we have different KPIs. And that something the holiday starts, like having a look on what’s going on in tourism in the travel industry. And then like, yeah, adapting this, like to the to the daily performance, which we have. And afterwards. Yeah, working, working a lot with a team, I see myself. Yes. supportive leadership style. So from my perspective, it’s really, really important to be there for people to discuss topics with them. And genuinely, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a lot about trust and developing ideas together. Content marketing is like, yeah, you need to have her approach you to always inventing something new, from my perspective, that’s so important about marketing generally, and to surprise people to surprise the audience. And that’s why we really need to just discuss a lot, I have a lot of one on ones with my team members, and we have to stand ups. And that’s, that’s a really important part of my job to make them feeling comfortable, and being able to perform.

Kyler Canastra 18:11
That’s awesome. And it’s so true, like we talked about this a lot on this show is how important it is to like constantly learn and to challenge ourselves because everything is changing so much. So it’s so important to you know, be creative, be innovative, but also like keep up with the trends because especially now with marketing and he’s doing content marketing on like social media channels, it’s everything’s changing all the time. So I think it’s an important skill right to have as a marketer to be you know, constantly learning and constantly learning from not just from you know, books and all the stuff that we have information we have online and but also just from your, your coach your team members, and it seems like you really invest your time in the one on ones with your team members to you know, brainstorm and keep yourself creative.

Carlo Speth 18:52
And the things creating this environment is one of the most important tasks in modern leadership. Because people if you give them the space to perform and the trust and the responsibility people are absolutely going to do this at least if you have the right people and I definitely have the right people in my team and so is the interpretation for my

Kyler Canastra 19:17
love that approach you know, I think it’s so important to give people the space and the ability to not propose their ideas and know maybe they’re not right but still you’re giving them the space to do so and you can maybe take something from you know, a proposal they have and make your work and kind of you know, bring all these different minds together

Carlo Speth 19:34
as well having an environment where it’s possible to to try things out being out of the box and doing mistakes as well.

Kyler Canastra 19:42
Really important getting higher comfort zone I think it’s on for anyways

Carlo Speth 19:45
analyzing them afterwards and try to avoid them the next time the important thing as well. Right. And

Kyler Canastra 19:52
that’s something that you see with travel where you guys do like we go on trips and stuff and yeah, we might do things wrong. You may have some negative experiences, but that’s part of the journey is putting yourself out there and going into a new environment and kind of learning from that environment as well. So it’s really cool how those things tie together. Now you have plenty of experience at HolidayPirates, you know, with content. So I want to know if give an example of a campaign or a piece of content that’s really worked well for you.

Carlo Speth 20:17
Yeah, we something we just launched. So we recognize that the demand of this personalization was heavily increasing again, after docking with Corona after Corona again, I’m doing this all the time. Like, with Corona, let’s say then, like, as I said, Before, people follow people. Yeah, we, you want to have a person behind who gives you this kind of recommendation. That’s why we launched Pirates on Tour now. People, like doing certain campaigns, like lately, we did Mauritius, for example, they just open the borders again. And two of my colleagues just went there with a new airline. And like, we have we promoted this like content on our blog, and afterwards, like mainly on Instagram. And, yeah, we shared the whole experience with our users. And this worked out pretty good. We did this in the past before anyways, like it picked really up. And we have many, many campaigns now with tourism boards as well. To promote this in this in this new way. And it’s, we have we get really good feedback by users and giving them a specialty of like, why traveling and yeah, feeling as well, the product and showing face. And this is really important, I think, like, like a dream

Kyler Canastra 21:47
job to be able to fly these places and write about it and learn more about that and have those experiences sounds really, really cool.

Carlo Speth 21:54
Yeah, it is it is like the first soon, like, there will be some more like long distance where still there’s a lot of insecurity. Now the weather is getting worse in Central Europe means people want to get out. And yeah, so as I said before, we want to be the helping hand to get people back in the word many good news coming up like countries opening again. And anyways, still a lot of question marks for everybody who wants to travel. And so we do the first step. And we do it before and showing people that it’s

Kyler Canastra 22:28
possible. Now, I have to ask you, because we’re talking about, you know, successful campaigns you’ve done and like what you your approach at HolidayPirates to content. What do you think some companies get wrong when it comes to content marketing in the travel industry?

Carlo Speth 22:44
Think it’s not really black and white. So it’s about mainly about trying new things, right. So I wouldn’t really point something out, which is, which is generally wrong. Anyways. Anyway,

Unknown Speaker 22:59
I would say like, stories

Carlo Speth 23:04
went always more important, right? So five years ago, it was still like, way more direct sales, I could promote something somewhere. And the story was already important, but it was still a different different thing. Right now. Like I need even to combine the whole thing, right? It’s not about one certain product, the one thing must be around story. And that’s something like, what really changed and having retention Finally, on your, on your homepage in your in your app. Like it’s really about having a purpose as well. And like we are solving this problem, but as well, telling people, yeah, what’s behind finally and why you are doing this and having?

Unknown Speaker 23:51
Yeah, kind of.

Carlo Speth 23:54
Yeah, different marketing approach, business loan, not direct sales in your face and just buy it people want to have more

Kyler Canastra 24:01
is they want a full experience as well. Yep, just like that they do their travels. But it’s also like being honest and transparent, which I say you guys seem to do that, you know, you’re sending your own people to do these trips and report on them. And it’s all firsthand experience. I think that people really appreciate that. And they’re just not you know, they’re using your tool, obviously, but then they’re also getting this added value from the content that you’re sharing, which is great.

Carlo Speth 24:25
But need to feel this experience. Yeah. I need to feel experience and it’s way easier to to to finally decide as well so that it’s like an interesting product for me as well to be the source of inspiration and then having a product which which really fits your needs. Travel is such an important time. Holidays is such an important time. You don’t want to make a mistake. You’re right.

Kyler Canastra 24:52
Exactly. And it’s such an important like, the same time you know, people are spending money traveling cost money and so it’s good to like you know, feel assured Like if they feel inspired to the trip, it makes the decision for them much easier. And they’re like, Oh yeah, I feel good about this. And I want to book it, let’s go. So it’s cool that you guys are inspiring in that way, as well. Um, now I want to also ask you because you have an experience and you work with marketers, what are some skills you think that are super important for marketers to have nowadays?

Unknown Speaker 25:21
Listening?

Carlo Speth 25:22
Listen to your audience. Really look at what they care for. What are their problems? What is their critique as well? If you don’t listen to your audience, it’s going to be really difficult these days. Openness is really important from my perspective. So, try something new. Have a look at a new channels, have a look at development or what’s really going on in your market. You need to care about all the topics. For us, it’s not just about travel, I look at all lifestyle and more disciplines because it doesn’t need to be your own branch to have inspiring good ideas, right? And to adapt this. Agility, I would say, you need to adapt so quickly, trends are changing heavily in times of TikTok and Reels and really fast development generally and snacking information everywhere. Yeah, and creativity and innovation. I said out of the box before, and I really like this approach. I want to start my day with inventing something new, like which people didn’t see before. And if I have this need kinda off, it’s not working everyday you, I think you’re better days. And you’re worse, obviously. But that should be your approach, I would say. And it’s really important as a marketer. And I really believe like, in cross functional teams. So having more than one process in one hand can be really motivating can be like, you ever look in different sectors as well of a company, I really believe that this can be heavily skill, which is really important for the future generally. And being an actor’s being all around talent, I would say kind

Kyler Canastra 27:25
of, exactly. And I feel like that’s important to you to know what other people do at your, your company as well learn from them. And you kind of get more invested that way, by just understanding the whole thing works and how the whole operation goes. And you also mentioned a lot to like this idea of, I’ll even say something. Yeah,

Carlo Speth 27:41
I forgot. I forgot that. Oh, yeah. Finally, as well, like, you need data. Yeah, that just the development, right. So data driven decisions are

Kyler Canastra 27:52
super important, just to know how the company is going for sure. And have a better understanding of things are working? Are they not working? And what can we do to change them? Now just gonna say to like, you mentioned a lot, this idea of, you know, creative risk, like thinking outside the box and being willing to do that. And I think, you know, when people also start that our listeners are, you know, people from all different backgrounds, and different levels of, you know, experience. And I think a lot of people when they start, you know, their careers in marketing, it is a risk, you know, you’re trying something new. And something that you did you kind of saw your passion and said, I want to do this, and here I go. So I wanted to know a bit more, in your opinion, what advice would you give to somebody just starting out now? Or what advice would you tell yourself? If you could go back in time?

Carlo Speth 28:35
Yeah, it can just say, follow your passion, right? Have a look, and really, what metric motivates you? And then get things done, like, just do it, right. So like, if you, if you want to be successful in something, you you from time to time, you need to make tough decisions as well. Maybe not even, like generally like the right way for many persons around your society. But if it’s really your passion, you will be successful. And I really like I believe, in this, like I was saying, that’s really important

Kyler Canastra 29:14
is important. Now, I want to ask you to because from the research that I’ve done, I’m HolidayPirates adopted remote first policy last year, but now you’ve moved your headquarters to a co working space. So how have you found the transition to a co working space? And how are you finding the hybrid work model?

Carlo Speth 29:31
We still have the flexibility in working like fully remote as well. So like it’s kind of the campfire I would say, you know, like getting together from time to time and having a place where you have the possibility in doing that. And what is really cool about this hybrid model and working in a co working space is like you get to know so many other people and other Companies different phases. And you need to get used to it at the beginning I would really say as well so because it’s kind of overwhelming after like, yeah, many different lockdowns already. And yeah. And what it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really interesting to meet people, and we’re working in completely different sectors as well at the coffee machine and to have a quick chat with them. So it’s, it’s really possible in a co working space to find out, so and that’s cool. If you like, half the openness, which was sad before then you can make a lot of it and having like, the, the possibilities to create this moment where you see the colleagues again, like, that’s really that’s really that’s really cool. ideas. And yeah, that’s campfire, can Yeah,

Kyler Canastra 30:53
is that concept of against iron, like I really liked, I always like working from home. And it’s something that I’ve, like, I’ve sworn not really to go back to the conventional office, but it’s something that, you know, when I moved to Lisbon, that was a big part of it was that the co working environment there, it’s super important. And it’s like, really, you know, a lot of people are going there to work. So I thought it would be really cool to go away to meet other people and, and the idea of the campfire to something that we’re doing in our own, like, we’re all not based in Madrid anymore, but we’re still trying to go back there and, you know, go to co working kind of have, like, you know, quarterly times that we can go and meet each other. So it’s really cool. And I think the flexibility really makes you know, employees happier as well. Now, I wanted to know, too, about you personally, I always ask people like, Do you have any like daily habits that you attribute to your success that you could share with us? You know, a lot of people will say, like to do list or I do yoga in the morning, and I’m always fascinated to hear like what people do. So what do you do on a daily basis that helps you

Carlo Speth 31:51
can start with things I shouldn’t do. That’s my first litter litter of coffee. Drinking too much of this anyways, like I kind of need to start my day was a lot of coffee, I would say. Afterwards, like, yeah, my personal kind of meditation is like stand up pedaling stand up paddling on display. Like for me, that’s my and at least if the weather is nice and Guerlain we have some good ones as well, that I really try to do this really frequently, frequently. And that’s a pretty good part of hybrid and remote work in general, is that right? Lunch break from time to time, if I don’t have any meeting as this time, then for sure, I have the option to make a small round on prayer on the river. And yes, like a moment, like this can just kind of inspiring again, and which is a possibility to disconnect in between. And this is really, really, really important from my perspective as well and really helps me and like, during pandemic as well. And structuring my day in ways smaller pieces. Yeah, before like, I really try to have like 2030 minutes frame while I’m working. Why even in my personal life to to to have like, Okay, this is now I’m 30 minutes doing like language class bubble or something like this. And kind of structuring my day in a different way.

Kyler Canastra 33:21
I would say, No, it’s important, especially when it was locked down, it was important to make sure we’re like taking it piece by piece. But I do think another thing that you pointed out, it’s just like being able to take a break, you know, during the day going out to do exercise or even just go for a walk or two, I don’t know, disconnect for a bit. It’s so important. I think something that we always have it that we should incorporate, you know, moving forward is that we have to make sure we give ourselves breaks. Because mental health

Carlo Speth 33:46
is more and motivate your team of doing that as well. Like we’re from time to time and our team chat. Like I’m just riding like a it’s in a winter like during lockdowns or whatever. Like it’s so sunny right now just getting out right. It’s the best thing you can do right now have just rest and enjoy the sun for a couple of minutes an hour or something, have your lunch break. So right now it’s sunny, it will be not in one day, the day after. So go for it.

Kyler Canastra 34:18
But definitely important, essentially, your shoes make sure you take advantage of the sun when

Carlo Speth 34:24
you’re in Lisbon right now, way better.

Kyler Canastra 34:27
I know. That’s one of the sunniest cities in the world and Europe at least so I can’t complain. Now, I want to ask you to like do you ever professional role model or source of inspiration which motivates you?

Carlo Speth 34:38
In this case, I grew up as a source of inspiration for sure. My source of inspiration definitely is travel. So yeah, like in, in all matters, I would say like getting something getting to do something new, like be like have this openness for new culture food, the meeting the people like So many times I came back from whatever journey which was impactful for me, seems something completely different. And I think

Unknown Speaker 35:10
after that I had, like, most

Carlo Speth 35:13
interesting ideas and most interesting changes in mindset.

Kyler Canastra 35:19
Like, yeah, it’s so true in meeting other people and having them, you know, tell their stories to you, and you learn from them. I think that’s like one reason why I love to travel and reason why I love to learn languages, it’s because of that, like bridge you make with other people from different parts of the world. I think it’s really something that’s beautiful. And I wanted to ask you to this before the pandemic, how often did you travel? Because I feel like a lot of people who work in it, we want to know, like people in the travel industry, do they travel all the time? Like? I want to know a bit more about that.

Carlo Speth 35:48
Yeah, can I really say this in times of sustainability and climate change? I would say I had some crazy times. So which I wouldn’t do any more like I had like, as well, especially, we had some outstanding travel offers, obviously. So I did crazy things like having a few days in Japan, Tokyo. But just like, for a couple of days, right, because the offer was just that nice. And we had such flexibility already in the company. So it was just like, kind of a addiction, I would say, as I said, passion before. Right now I change this behavior. I saw a lot I would say in the last couple of years. So I think I visited way more than 50 countries already. And saw a lot and many, many countries more than one time. And I think I got way more into slow travel. So I I really like to, to enjoy things a bit longer time. Yeah, detailed taking my time line, and then having the full experience. That’s like, really cool. And I love Europe as well. I don’t have to go that far. Anyways, I’m planning to go to Thailand, soon, some remote work as well. So

Kyler Canastra 37:08
that’s great. Why not? And it’s good that you think one thing the pandemic did teach us it was like we had the opportunity to slow down but also like what you said with like climate change and all these things like we kind of took a it’s time to reflect I think a lot of people will change their mindsets when it comes to travel. I do want to ask you to though What’s your Do you have like a go to place to visit? What’s your favorite place to travel to? It’s a hard question for someone that’s been to 50 countries, but

Carlo Speth 37:36
I would say like what was really impactful for me then again, like I would definitely say Vietnam. I stayed longer in Vietnam, I

Unknown Speaker 37:44
worked for a

Carlo Speth 37:46
political foundation there. I did an internship there like for project while studying rule of law and like, I had so many great impressions there. I met so many interesting people and like, I love Southeast Asia generally, it’s so interesting. Countries are so different. And Vietnam was great food, great people and just so different to live there several months. It was I lived in Hanoi, it was just a great opportunity. So I would always go there again. And it’s just amazing.

Kyler Canastra 38:22
So yeah, I haven’t been so I’m going to add to my list. It was already on my list so many places on my list. To like, Do you have any, like apps or tools or platforms or books that you’d recommend for people interested in marketing?

Unknown Speaker 38:39
Yeah, I would say

Carlo Speth 38:40
like, what, what? My own behavior like lately, a bigger change is the development of TikTok, honestly. So like, okay, like, I know, many people might say right now okay, that’s still like, like, crazy things, slow dance, whatever. But I really think during pandemic, it changed a lot. So you get a lot of valuable information like, even for marketers, like, if you follow some of the influences they’re like they are into Yeah, interesting topics and you’ll get this information snack wise even like being in the metro or something. Like it’s kind of interesting that they are new tools or things like this. So I can recommend this. The algorithm is really, really good from my perspective as well. So like, you get valuable information say as well so it’s cool. And I would really say what is recommended, recommendable January like is all marketing podcasts. I’m listening a lot to to podcasts like browsing around just having a look many German ones as well. Anyways, like I think that’s something you can you can do a part as well and that makes my like, mix kind of productive as well, from my perspective,

Kyler Canastra 40:02
awesome. Now you’re going to be on a podcast, you can listen to yourself. That’s pretty funny. Let’s turn right.

Carlo Speth 40:12
That’s why I’m here.

Kyler Canastra 40:15
That’s awesome. Well, thank you again for coming. And we come to the end of our interview. Unfortunately, I feel like we could dive into many more topics. It was very interesting and fascinating to learn more about what you do and your experience and your love for travel, which is something that we both have in common. But do you have any final takeaways or a piece of parting advice you’d like to give our audience

Unknown Speaker 40:36
I would say, seeing these

Carlo Speth 40:39
interesting times, like, and I’m talking about the pandemic as well. So it was challenging somehow. But I always pointed out as well as interesting times, because there’s so much change going on, and take something out of it as well for your for your business, like, and really try to make this in for you, for your team for your company in a sustainable way. Right? You really challenge challenge things, yet, try new things and really say with some of these things, as well Don’t fall, don’t fall back into old habits, and self reflection as well about these kind of things. It’s really important for

Kyler Canastra 41:19
me, it’s like rather than seeing things as a challenge, seeing them as opportunity to grow and opportunity to try new things. So it’s really important to have because sometimes, you know, these things are hard, meaning some people might shut down on that rather than, you know, stick with an old habit rather than changing. So it’s really good advice. Now, we got in touch with you on LinkedIn. So you’re active on LinkedIn, but I want to ask for audience anyone wanting to get in touch with you and ask you more questions. Or if people are interested in working in the travel industry, where can they reach out to you?

Carlo Speth 41:48
Know, it’s getting boring. So I would say use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a really good way to approach people finally and to get to know new people for podcasts for work for I think it’s good. Yeah, yeah, like, okay, email address like this. See, point space, my not my surname, so holiday pilots, dot d. So if you’re looking for a corporation or something, or any questions like feel free

Kyler Canastra 42:20
to ask them. Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. And thank you again, Carlo for joining us today on the content mix. And I also want to thank everyone for listening in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out Vera content.com/mix and keep tuning into the podcast for more interviews with content experts. We’ll see you next time. Thank you again, Carlo.

Carlo Speth 42:41
Pleasure.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai