Podcasts - Part 1

Podcasts have been experiencing a growing boom for years. In this article, we take a look at which tourism-related podcasts could be exciting for you.

Around 69,000 podcasts were produced worldwide in 2019, with a strong upward trend(Libsyn, 2019). According to a Reuters study from 2019, these are primarily listened to in South Korea (53%), Spain (39%), Ireland (37%), Sweden and the USA (35% each). Austria is just below the EU average of 28%. However, according to a survey , only 1% in Austria are regular podcast listeners, 16% consume them occasionally and the remaining 83% never (including no response). Figures from Germany show that these audio formats are particularly popular with younger people: 40% of 16- to 29-year-olds are among the listeners. The demand for podcasts seems to be particularly high in times of Covid-19. In a study by Bitkom, 83% of respondents said they listened to podcasts about the coronavirus, followed by news (53%), comedy (44%) and sport and leisure (43%). This is also shown, for example, by the success of the NDR Corona Virus Update podcast with virologist Christian Drosten. Read here why podcasts are booming.

But which B2B podcasts are relevant for tourism?

While it was initially difficult to get good content via podcasts, more and more formats are now popping up, while others are disappearing from the scene quite quickly.

I would like to briefly introduce you to some of them here:

• Reisevor9 was originally a very short podcast that summarized daily news from the tourism and leisure industry in just a few minutes. Since the beginning of 2021, the format has changed to a weekly one. Every Friday, tourism-related news is collected, evaluated and organized. The podcast has a strong focus on Germany and tour operators.
• Radio Tourism from the Munich-based audio agency of the same name, which sees itself as an industry podcast, appears rather irregularly 1-2 times a month and provides information on current trends and challenges, currently of course a lot about Covid-19 and its impact on the industry.
• Travelholics has been around since 2018 and is a fairly regular podcast about digitalization, distribution and trends in marketing.
• The podcast by Markus Redl under the name"Pistenkilometer - There's No Business Like Snow Business" is brand new. It is published every 14 days and focuses on mountain tourism topics. At the time of writing, 4 episodes are already online.
• Upgrade Hospitality is a German podcast for the hotel and tourism industry. Peter von Stamm conducts interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, tourism officials and tour operators.
• #Umdenken im Tourismus is a podcast by students of the IUBH (International University Bad Honnef), which presented innovative solutions during the Covid-19 crisis.
• The podcast"ÖW Global Insights" by Österreich Werbung was created at the beginning of the pandemic, but has not been recorded since fall 2020.

We have now finished with the German-language podcasts and are concentrating on the English-language ones. These are mostly more international.

• Since March 2020 there is the x. Destination Unkown podcast from the Digital Tourism Think Tank.
• Travel Massive has been around since 2015 and is a series of interviews on the topic of "Change-makers and pioneers in the travel and tech industry".
• The PundIT Show by PhocusWire has been focusing on the travel industry and technology/digitalization since 2018.
• The Skift Daily Briefing is a 4-minute format that has been published since January 2020, similar to the Reisevor9 podcast, but in English and therefore with an international focus. There is also a weekly format for the aviation industry, the Skift Airline Weekly Lounge.
• Destination on the Left has been around since 2016 and the podcast has a very broad and global focus.
• The Future of Tourism started in 2020 and also has quite a broad spectrum. The podcast is available as both an audio and video podcast.

And as you may have already read, Innsbruck Tourism has also been running the podcast"Wie wird man"(How to become) for some time now, in which Innsbruck personalities are interviewed.

As always, we make no claim to completeness, but would be delighted to hear from you about other exciting podcasts that we would like to add to the list.

You will soon find another episode on special podcasts for the hotel & catering industry here on TTR. With this in mind, listen on!