Guest Bio
Martin Rosenberg is the founder and CEO of OverseasInfo.tv, a pioneering video-based travel platform that connects travelers directly with tourism operators. With a background in international sales and procurement, Martin has spent decades building relationships across Europe and Asia. Originally from Glasgow, Scotland, he moved to London in 1985 before settling in Antalya, Türkiye, where he now balances semi-retirement with entrepreneurial passion.
Known for his creative vision, sharp eye for detail, and love of networking, Martin continues to drive innovation in the travel space. His platform, OverseasInfo.tv, recently earned two industry awards for its unique approach to showcasing destinations through immersive video. When he’s not developing new ideas, you can find him on the golf course enjoying the Mediterranean sun.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Martin about his journey from international business executive to founder of an award-winning tourism platform. They explore how OverseasInfo.tv offers an alternative to major booking engines by promoting direct relationships between travelers and local operators through engaging video content.
Martin shares insights into how technology — particularly AI — is reshaping customer service in the travel industry, and why authentic experiences matter more than ever. The episode takes listeners behind the scenes of the travel tech world, offering a glimpse into how personal passion and global insight can spark meaningful innovation.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ How Martin’s global business background inspired a new approach to tourism
- ✓ The story behind launching OverseasInfo.tv as a video-first platform
- ✓ Why direct booking empowers both travelers and tour operators
- ✓ The role of storytelling in building traveler trust
- ✓ How AI is improving — and complicating — customer service in tourism
- ✓ Challenges independent travel businesses face in a platform-dominated market
- ✓ The importance of visual content in the discovery phase of travel planning
- ✓ Why authenticity and human connection are key to meaningful travel
- ✓ Martin’s perspective on semi-retirement as a time for reinvention
- ✓ How networking remains central to his success — both online and off
What You’ll Find on OverseasInfo.tv
- ✓ Immersive video tours of travel destinations and experiences
- ✓ Direct booking opportunities with local tourism providers
- ✓ A platform built for travelers seeking authentic, on-the-ground insight
- ✓ Tools that help tour operators showcase their offerings visually
- ✓ A growing global network of destinations and tourism partners
- ✓ Award-winning innovation in travel media and content delivery
Learn more about Overseasinfo.tv Ltd and connect with Martin at:
https://overseasinfo.tv
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:01.053)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back today and also super excited to have our guest. Today we’ve got Martin Rosenberg. Martin is the founder and CEO of OverseasInfo.tv. Martin, welcome to the Big World Made Small podcast. Happy to have you here.
Martin Rosenberg (00:22.574)
Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me, Jason. I’ve been looking forward to this, having seen some of your podcasts. it’s, yeah, thrilled to be here.
Jason Elkins (00:30.745)
So am I. we, yeah, we chatted a while ago and you were actually referred, connected with me through another person that we had on the podcast. And we were discussing that a little bit before I hit the record button. So you kind of know what to expect. And our listeners probably already kind of know what to expect. It’s just a conversation. I have no pre-planned questions, no script, no nothing really, no plan at all. So I think that’s kind of the adventure, right? Perfect.
Martin Rosenberg (00:55.364)
Fitting up.
Jason Elkins (00:58.249)
So welcome. Hang on tight. Martin, let’s before we get before we get into your story, because I think that’s the fascinating part is give our listeners a real quick idea of what is overseas info dot TV, just kind of the summary so they know what it is. And then we’re going to figure out how you came up with it a little bit later on.
Martin Rosenberg (01:02.03)
Thank you.
Martin Rosenberg (01:23.054)
Okay, what we’ve positioned overseasinfo.tv as an alternative to the big booking platforms like Booking Expedia, TripAdvisor, and allowing people to give reviews of holidays that they’ve seen, to make recommendations.
And one of the key points on it is being able to upload video and photographs so that others can actually see what the benefits are, what the advantages of going to the places that they’ve been to. We’ve also, through this, encouraging hotels and tour operators who are paying huge amounts of commission into the OTAs, which is the online travel agents, which is the booking Expedia companies.
They’re paying anything from between 15%, which is very, very low nowadays, anything up to 40, 45%, which is a huge sum of money. And what we are trying to do, or what we’re doing, is directing people to the providers to book direct, which means the providers potentially can make more income and if they want to, can give other benefits back to their own guests.
Some hotels, for example, will give up grades, know, room upgrades or a free dinner or something like that. People book direct to operators or maybe give a transfer, you know, to or from the hotel to start the tour. But there’s some kind of benefit, you know, for both sides because at the moment, as I say, the percentage of commissions that are going to the OTAs, it’s
If I’m spending £5,000 on a holiday and £1,250 of that is going to an OTA, that’s a lot of money. Even if it’s split 50-50 between me and the provider, I can save £600 and they can make £600, I think everybody’s going to be happy. They’ve become very powerful and I don’t disrespect them when they’ve worked hard to get to where they are, but I think they’ve just taken too much advantage.
Jason Elkins (03:13.543)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Jason Elkins (03:24.348)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (03:33.83)
of the positioning of the travel industry and in fairness they’ve made it easy for people to book and people have just become generic you know I’m going to book with booking airbnbs another one which has now become a huge online travel to a travel agent and this makes it easy for people but they don’t necessarily understand
you know, the problems that this is causing in terms of the financial aspect, you know, both for them, for the providers, whether it be hotels or tours, and even for themselves, because they’re having to pay, you know, for the, you know, the commissions one way or another. So.
Jason Elkins (04:12.905)
So yeah, it’s not always just the operators, it’s also the consumers because if the operator has to pay it, guess what? They’re gonna charge more higher rates in order to offset the commission. And what I hear you saying is that if the customer can go directly to the hotel, yeah, I get that. But there’s two sides to it. There’s the consumer and then there’s the tour operator.
Martin Rosenberg (04:20.245)
absolutely. Absolutely.
Martin Rosenberg (04:27.715)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (04:33.838)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (04:42.523)
So from the consumer standpoint, that somebody that’s looking to book up maybe a hotel, let’s just say hotel. they come to your website, walk us through what does the consumer experience on your website or what’s the consumer path to get them from? They just landed on your website to now they’ve booked a hotel directly with the operator.
Martin Rosenberg (05:05.623)
Right. Well, they land on the website. There’s different ways that they can operate your work through the website. I’m in the home page. We’ve got a search facility. So for example, and I’m just going to use your random things here. I want to go on holiday to Turkey. You can type in Turkey into the search bar and it will show up everything that’s in Turkey. It can be refined because if you’re looking for hotels in the category section just to the left of that.
You can refine it down to hotels or tours or points of interest or something like that. And then obviously refine what is actually being shown to people. But if we keep it as hotels, let’s see, we want to go to hotels in Istanbul. Okay, Istanbul is a huge city. Hopefully we’ll end up with lots of hotels in there. But if you’ve got an idea what city center hotels or central hotels
type it into the search bar, it will bring up the options that are already there on the platform. Then it’s just a case of scrolling through, you know, to see what the options are available. You click on one of the ones that you’re looking at or that may be of interest. The page of the hotel actually opens on our platform and you’ve got an opt, you’ve got choices of videos that you can watch. Some may be from the hotel itself. Some may be from the
Jason Elkins (06:08.744)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (06:32.462)
past guests that have uploaded onto the platform. There’s photographs, the same thing. The hotel will likely have written a whole story about itself, you at the top of the page. So you’ve got some text content, you know, that if you want to go, if you, if it’s of interest. And on the last part, we’ve got the videos, photos, and there’s also comments. People may write their own reviews of what they’ve seen or what there is to do there.
Jason Elkins (07:01.512)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (07:01.634)
But from a hotel’s point of view, if they’re advertising with us, paid advertising that is, all pieces of content that they upload will be at the top of their page. And we always suggest to them, don’t make it too crowded. Four, five, six videos, four, five, six photographs, change them regularly. They will always be at the top of the page. And all the content that the hotels upload, I will have a link on.
their photo on their video or photograph or if they’ve made a sales message on a visit website. And people can click through from our platform straight through to the website of the hotel and take it from there with a booking.
Jason Elkins (07:34.686)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (07:42.793)
Okay, and from the perspective of the operator, because I know that there’s a lot of operators that listen to this show. Let’s say I’ve got my property featured on your website, somebody clicks the link, they end up on my website. Are most of the operators using some sort of referral links or something so they can figure out where that traffic is coming from? Or is that a challenge for you to have those conversations with them, I bet, right?
Martin Rosenberg (07:44.491)
out.
Martin Rosenberg (07:56.408)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (08:08.398)
That’s a challenge for us. can actually see the link to the click throughs. We can see how many people have viewed a particular property. We can also see the click through. What we don’t see after that is the booking. That obviously goes down through to the hotel’s website. The problem we have, and a few people have said this to us, but we don’t know if we’re getting value for money. Well, I can only take the people.
Jason Elkins (08:19.945)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (08:24.145)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Martin Rosenberg (08:36.47)
As I say, can only lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink it. And if you’ve not got tasty water, the horse ain’t gonna drink it.
Jason Elkins (08:46.309)
Right. Because once the client gets to the operator’s website, if there’s something in the way there that’s causing it not to go to the booking level, or if it’s just a tech thing where the operator isn’t keeping track, isn’t doing a great job with the tech part of it.
Martin Rosenberg (08:52.974)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (09:06.025)
And don’t know where that person came through. They’re not able to follow it through the process and say, okay, well, this person came in from overseas info.tv and then, you know, three weeks later booked, uh, you know, a $7,000 package. If they’re not able to keep that, follow that path through there, then yeah, that, that’s, that’s been a challenge for awhile. I mean, that’s a, are you able to, to help them with that tech part or what? I’m just curious.
Martin Rosenberg (09:26.242)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (09:34.924)
I think probably not. It would be very difficult to… I can’t even think how we would possibly do that. I mean… Yeah, and the other problem, and I’ll be very blunt with you here, is many of the hotels, and certainly it’s a lot the smaller tour operators, their software or their booking systems are so antiquated. And for that matter, even websites. know, even some of the bigger hotel chains, know, they’ve got such antiquated websites.
Jason Elkins (09:40.681)
Because every operator has got a different system and a different yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (10:04.492)
that people get, they go onto the website and think, well where do I go from here? It should be simple and easy, but the hotel is not necessarily leading the guests through either. This is another problem. Well, I can’t solve every problem for you, I’m sorry. I can only put the guest in front of you or the customer in front of you. How you sell to them afterwards is up to you.
Jason Elkins (10:27.785)
Well, and it’s really, it’s a big part of why the OTAs are so successful. And, and honestly, they kind of, in a sense, you could say, well, they, in many cases, they deserve those commissions because
Martin Rosenberg (10:34.124)
You’re absolutely right.
Jason Elkins (10:46.255)
If the client went directly to the hotel, the hotel is not going to get anything because their websites sucks. my French. But it’s like, you know, you could say 60 % of something is better than, than a hundred percent of nothing. Right. So there’s a, there’s a case to be made, but yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (10:51.958)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna…
Martin Rosenberg (11:01.686)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. I’m going to give you a classic example. mean, it was last Christmas, I went, I wanted to go to Northern Cyprus. I’d never been in my life. And it’s only a 40 minute flight from where I live. And I thought, OK, like all my life, I always try, I’ve always tried to book directly with hotels. I don’t want to go through middlemen. You know, OK, I didn’t mind in the old days, you know, when it was a travel agent and they were taking 10 percent, but they were giving
what I felt was value for money. They were giving me some advice. And you know, think travel travel advisors are actually making a resurgence nowadays. You know, because they are. OK, you get the bad ones, but there are professionals within the marketplace who have the experience and have the background. But going back to the story about this, you know, going to Cyprus and I have found a hotel which looked really, really good. And I thought, OK, I want to book.
Jason Elkins (11:32.295)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (11:58.638)
I went online onto their website, sorry, no rooms available. Okay. In the meantime, I’m checking on booking, rooms available, you can have the room for this money. All right. So I’ll phone them, I won’t have a problem. So I’ll phone the number, it’s unobtainable. And I was like, what do you do? I ended up going to this hotel because I had been recommended, you know, to be honest with you.
And it was fabulous, great location, everything about it, it quite quirky, the hotel. But I said to the manager when I arrived, I said, I wanted to book direct with you. why didn’t you? I says, firstly, your website wouldn’t let me. yeah, we’re upgrading it just now. And secondly, the phone number you’ve got on your website and your current website is unobtainable. OK, I’ll need to check that.
Jason Elkins (12:55.005)
then, and then, know what his maybe, okay, he’s the front desk manager or something, the owner of the hotel or the somebody is on a Facebook group, probably right now typing something about how horrible the OTAs are and how they want all of his money and they want the more commissions and, complaining about people using OTAs saying people should book direct, da da da da da. How do we, how do we take control of this? And the answer is
Martin Rosenberg (13:01.283)
Hmm
Martin Rosenberg (13:22.968)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (13:23.623)
his website is a good place to start. I’m not saying it’s the only thing, but it’s hard to complain about people booking through an OTA when you’ve made it so difficult for them to book with you directly, especially somebody like you.
Martin Rosenberg (13:25.592)
Yeah, yeah. Pure and simple. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (13:36.238)
Well no, I mean that’s what I’m saying, the OTAs have, they satisfy a need and they satisfy a need by the customer at the end of the day. They’re not necessarily, I suppose they are satisfying a need for the hotel because the hotel needs occupancy, but the hotel doesn’t seem to be doing anything about its own occupancy. know, the OTAs serve a purpose, there is no question, but they should only be a small percentage.
Jason Elkins (13:52.169)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (13:59.72)
Hmm
Martin Rosenberg (14:03.584)
know, hotels should be trying to build their own direct bookings because that’s where the profit is ultimately.
Jason Elkins (14:10.953)
Mm hmm. It’s where the profit is. And there’s there’s there are people like yourself that want to book directly for whatever reason, you know, whether they think they’re going to get a better price or just have just like when they show up to check in, feel like, you know, they’re not walking in saying, Oh, yeah, I’ve got a reservation. Okay, who’d you book it through booking? Oh, I don’t see it in the system. It’s like, I’ve had that, you know, it’s like, I would rather just
Martin Rosenberg (14:18.52)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (14:35.522)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (14:38.793)
Like, no, I, I booked with you guys a week ago. I know I’ve got a room here. Here’s the receipt that has not just the name of the hotel, but it’s like your reservation. It just feels better for a lot of people just from a logistic standpoint. Um, cause they’ve, they’ve had systems drop the ball in the past and they sometimes just want to go to record.
Martin Rosenberg (14:43.192)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (14:52.162)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (14:59.598)
Sure, sure. And the other very important thing, because I was listening to podcast, it was only a couple of minutes ago, maybe just before Christmas, and somebody was, he’s actually disabled. And he was saying that obviously they have needs, you know, there’s a huge market, know, there’s a huge market for people now with disabilities. And I think in general hotels and tour operators and tour companies, they want to accommodate whichever way they can.
Jason Elkins (15:14.121)
Mmm.
Martin Rosenberg (15:28.28)
But it’s not easy for somebody who has a disability to be able to communicate with a hotel, for example, through a third party. Everything is question, wait, answer. It’s not question, answer, question, answer, know, tick, tick, tick, tick, or crosses as the case may be, you know. So it becomes a long process. And that’s silly, you know. Hotels need to be able to interact with potential guests that are coming, in my opinion.
Jason Elkins (15:41.811)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (15:50.121)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (15:58.089)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (15:58.766)
you know, I need to have a ground floor because I’ve got a wheelchair or I need to have this or whatever else it happens to be. Yes, can you do it? Is it close to this? Is it close to that? Can I get in and out of the pool, for example? You know, these are simple questions that the OTAs have got no idea. And why should they at the end of the day, they’re only there to take a booking?
Jason Elkins (16:17.799)
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think of the last time I would book something through something maybe like booking.com. I don’t remember what it was, but it’s very clearly like any special requests are kind of like here, give us your money and here’s a little box you can put in your special request and hopefully the hotel will be able to honor it. But, but pay us first. And if you, if you need a ground floor or you need an accessible bathroom or you need
Martin Rosenberg (16:38.38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (16:47.345)
an extra bed in the room or you need an early arrival, late departure, whatever it’s with the third party. It’s just like, give us your money. We’ll, let the hotel know that you asked for it, but it’s completely up to them to, to respond or honor it. They may or may not. So that’s, that’s a, you bring up a good point there. That’s a Mark.
Martin Rosenberg (16:57.966)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (17:05.656)
Yeah, and a lot of hotels, funnily enough, when I read some of the stories that are online, know, a lot of hotels, say, let’s say they’re doing the job properly, you in terms of trying to get direct bookings, you know, they’ll have people arrive through booking or through the OTAs and they’ll say to them, they’ll say, yeah, can I get an upgrade or can I have an early check-in? sorry, or I don’t want to be near the elevator. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s already booked by our customers who have come directly to us.
The hotels will probably work better with guests who are book direct, but in saying that, they’ve got to be able to make it easy for them to book direct.
Jason Elkins (17:39.677)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (17:48.017)
Yeah, I’m sure there’s somebody listening to this right now thinking, yeah, we probably ought to go back and take another look at our website. What are we, how are we getting in our own way, right? And I know it’s a big conversation in a lot of the communities that you and I are involved in and your voice is definitely one of those voices that rings true in those communities as well. Martin, I want to hear the story.
Martin Rosenberg (17:55.83)
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
Martin Rosenberg (18:07.736)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (18:14.139)
I want to know like how the heck did you get into this? I don’t know how far back we need to go. I’m sitting here in the US. you? You’re in Turkey right now, right? You live in Turkey. OK, and I don’t know if. I don’t know enough to know if your accent is Turkish. I don’t think so. I don’t know. So what? What’s the story? How far? How far back do we need to go to to understand how you and I came to having this conversation?
Martin Rosenberg (18:19.406)
I’m so.
I’m in Turkey, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (18:31.978)
No, it’s not. It is not.
Martin Rosenberg (18:37.23)
Well, can skip back a lot of years. Bearing in mind I’m almost 70 now, so I’ve got lot of years behind me. But I was brought… Yeah, okay. No, the back end stories. It’s almost confined to the annals of history. No, was born and brought up in Scotland, in Glasgow in Scotland. And a city which I still like.
Jason Elkins (18:45.869)
All right. Well, we got we got another half hour or so. Let’s see how much we can cover.
Jason Elkins (18:57.981)
yeah, me too.
Martin Rosenberg (19:05.806)
I suppose I actually love it and I do enjoy going back to it. But yeah, I visited London when I was 18 years old. just two weeks there. Probably the second time I think I had been there, been as a kid. In fact, is way of just to bore you with the story. It was the first time we had ever been to London. We went for a family wedding. We were staying in a hotel at Marble Arch.
And I remember in those days walking along Oxford Street which didn’t mean anything to me. Walking past Selfridges and in the window of Selfridges, in those days, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the program Thunderbirds.
Jason Elkins (19:49.427)
doesn’t it’s not ringing a bell yet keep going I might I might recall it Thunderbirds
Martin Rosenberg (19:52.948)
Okay. In the the window of Selfridges, which is a major department store, there was a huge pink car, Rolls Royce car, which was Lady Penelope’s car from Thunderbirds. And that was that’s my only memory from that time in London, when I must have been about nine or 10 years old. And it was like, wow, because I was a huge Thunderbirds fan in those days. Fast forward to 18.
Jason Elkins (20:07.058)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (20:19.045)
huh. So was the Martin, was it the full on full size car or is this a, did you say it was a replica toy?
Martin Rosenberg (20:27.574)
It was nearing that, I would say it was probably, wasn’t full size but it certainly, it had to be at least half if not three quarter size. I mean it took up the whole window. I mean as a kid of nine years old, wow, you know, this is it. know, could, probably I could have sat in it myself whether, you know, it wouldn’t have been road worthy obviously and it certainly probably wouldn’t have been big enough for an atio for, well, for a big grown adult, you know, as I am nowadays. Although still with childish thoughts of Thunderbirds.
Jason Elkins (20:34.875)
OK. All right, cool.
Jason Elkins (20:50.021)
You
Martin Rosenberg (20:56.59)
But no, it was the one big memory. And there was other things as well, but that was the one big one. But it was a thrill and it was an excitement. And then I didn’t get the chance to return to London again until I was 18 years old. And I went with a friend. We went for a couple of weeks. And we did some of the sightseeing things, which was fun. I thoroughly enjoyed that. And I thought, this place is buzzing. I just love it.
another story sorry if I can bore you with stories if I’m going on too long please tell me. But in those days, 18’s got to be, this must be 50 years ago, in Oxford Street there used to be auction houses, let’s call them auction houses, and there were scams, you know where they were, who will bid a pound for this and they’re holding up some
Jason Elkins (21:27.419)
No, that’s what this show is all about. This is a story show. Please. You’re making it easy for me. You just keep going.
Jason Elkins (21:38.601)
you
Martin Rosenberg (21:52.142)
let’s say a cassette recorder, you know, will anybody give me a pound for this? And somebody’s hand shoots up, boom. And you see them handing over the pound and they get the cassette recorder. And now I’m going back again, it was probably a tape recorder anyway. And then there was something else, was a radio, a watch, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was all for nothing. the prices are slowly starting to creep up, four, five, six pound for this, but it was still dirt cheap. Then all of a sudden,
Yeah, I’m going to put in a radio, a cassette player, a watch, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who will give me £30 for the lot? Will all the hands start going up? You know, people have been sucked in. Muggins here got sucked in as well. Paid my £30, which was a lot of money in those days as well. Got the stuff, took it home and I thought, this stuff’s due for the bin. It’s absolute crap. But it was an experience, again, one that you remember.
Jason Elkins (22:32.169)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (22:37.224)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (22:50.252)
And was an education process, you know, to be careful in future. There’s nothing free in this life.
Jason Elkins (22:52.775)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (22:58.633)
It’s probably good to get scammed at 18 for $30 or 30 pounds or whatever. Cause it’s, cause otherwise you’re 60, 70 getting scammed for your retirement, your retirement money, you know, your whole 401k or all your life savings. It’s good to learn that lesson early.
Martin Rosenberg (23:04.086)
Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you.
Martin Rosenberg (23:12.138)
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, Yeah. But I mean, it didn’t put me off. mean, actually, if anything, the whole trip, including the scamming, actually made me realise I want to live in London. How I was going to do it, when I was going to do it, I didn’t though. And it took another three… Yes, I have. Yeah, well.
Jason Elkins (23:29.981)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (23:33.405)
You could sell radios and cassette players on the street. Apparently that’s one way to make it work.
Martin Rosenberg (23:44.143)
So anyway, I started my career, know, we’re not talking about my early career is not important. But at 23, I moved into packaging at 21, 21 years old, I into the packaging materials, know, paper bags, plastic bags, wrapping materials, the whole lot. And that was really my first 40 into the commercial world. I was just working as a sales representative for the, you know, for a company. And I was actually doing OK out of it.
sorry, they were doing very well out of me and I wasn’t doing so well out of them. Anyway, I decided to see all the set up on my own, which I did about three, four years later. And this fuel started to build up quite a business for myself, but still in the back of my mind, I wanted to move to London. And I just, it was just something that we wanted to do. And fortunately, a friend of mine, also funnily enough from Scotland had one of the, it was one of the biggest sales.
sellers of, in those days, polythene carrier bags which were printed with the company logo on it. And they asked me if I would join them. Anyway, I bit their hand off and I said, okay, we agreed on how we all operate. And I sold my business in Scotland and moved down, and that was my move down to London.
which I never ever regretted. I I loved London. I mean, I was there in this, I arrived in London in the mid eighties, which was boom time. You know, it was the yuppie time and everything like that. And I even remember after two, I think it was there for two months and I used to hand in the expenses that I’d spent for, you know, at the end of each month. And the father of the business who actually became my business mentor, you know, over the years and afterwards.
said Martin, we have a problem with you. What? only been here two months, I’ve already managed to bring in a little bit of business and you said to me it would probably take a year or two. What’s the problem? You’re not spending enough on entertaining clients. okay.
Jason Elkins (25:46.099)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (25:54.825)
Okay, problem solved. I can fix that.
Martin Rosenberg (25:59.66)
Yeah, so that was that. So I joined the Yuppie Boom and I had a great time. But no, I you know, I enjoyed my time with them. We eventually agreed, you know, after a number of years that we would separate, you know, now because they wanted out of that business. So I kind of took it over and ran it for myself. And we had some good clients. I mean, I was dealing with all the major high street multiples, know, Marks and Spencers, British or British Home Stores, which is no longer there, Sainsbury’s, Tesco.
all the big companies and used to travel up and down the country. And yeah, had a good time. And that was also the first foray into my traveling overseas because a lot of the products coming from at that time Europe. So I used to go to Europe to source the product to make sure that it was being printed correctly. We take the clients with us as well, still spending money from them, know, learn that lesson.
Jason Elkins (26:30.717)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (26:55.239)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (26:56.006)
And so that we would have jollies off to Belgium, Holland, Germany, you know, for a day or two, just for them to say, yep, that looks good and they’d sign it off and that was the end of the story. Yeah, that was it. I I thoroughly enjoyed that time. I mean, I still got very fond memories. But it was, think, from, from that time, because I I started going to Europe a lot. Day trips to Europe were quite common.
In those days it was very easy, know, get up at five o’clock in the morning, you get in the seven o’clock flight out of Heathrow to Antwerp or where are Brussels. There was no security checks the way we are now, so you can arrive half an hour, 40 minutes before the flight. That was an absolute pleasure. But people used to say to me, oh, you’re so lucky you get to see these places. Yep, I got to see.
Jason Elkins (27:42.62)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (27:48.462)
I arrived at the airport, I got whisked off to the factory, we went out for lunch afterwards, I got back in the plane and I came home. Yeah, I saw a lot.
Jason Elkins (27:56.521)
Well, were there any, were there any places or particular trips that you had that you just kind of felt like profoundly were like, wow, this, this travel thing is pretty cool or that that caused you to change path. I’m trying to figure out how did you get that? Yeah, let’s keep moving.
Martin Rosenberg (28:14.798)
There was a lot of them in Spain. There was a lot of them. I spent a lot of time in Belgium, Germany, Holland, also some time in Spain. Then laterally, in the latter years, I started going to Hong Kong and China, because that’s where the product was coming from. I just, I don’t know, I just enjoyed the whole point, the whole principle of it.
sitting in a restaurant, even if it was only sitting in a restaurant and eating Belgian mussels or Dutch croquettes or Dutch pancakes, I loved it. I remember one trip down to Spain, that was quite funny, I down to Spain, I didn’t know how long I was going to be there, I was into Barcelona and I arranged, I can’t remember exactly the time scale but…
Jason Elkins (28:56.125)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (29:09.528)
We had a meeting with the factory owners on the first day of arrival. We did what we had to do, think, the second day, with the second morning meeting. And that was the first time I had actually tasted real Catalan food because it was… They took me to the local restaurant that they would go to and they obviously wanted to make an impression, which I understood as well.
Anyway, that trip was great, but the time we’d finished, I still had another day to go and I thought, what am going to do? I think I’ll go and lie on the beach. So I did. Yeah, but why not? But I think if I’m honest looking back, I probably I saw some historical sites. I had some experiences. I remember going to Germany and we actually went by car and we drove through
Jason Elkins (29:47.259)
Hmm. Hmm. Very cool. Now. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (30:07.256)
remember, there’s another funny story there as well. We went through the wine region, know, god I can’t remember what it’s called, and we were actually, there was two sides, you forget, I don’t remember, it’s quite a famous wine region as well, where they make liqueur milk and where they produce liqueur milk, and that was fun. But again another funny story was, we stayed, overnight over here because I went with a colleague.
We stayed overnight in a hotel in Shreer.
which I don’t remember exactly where it is but anyway it’s in the north part of Germany. we went down to, it was a holiday inn, went down to the pool because of the swimming pool. Yeah, okay, I had a swim. And I came out of the pool and I hear this noise. I was laughing and giggling and, okay, being nosy. I ventured round the corner and it was a sauna. Okay, that’s nice. They’re all sitting there butt naked. right.
Jason Elkins (30:58.908)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (31:03.431)
Hmm.
Jason Elkins (31:07.721)
Yeah. I have not spent any time in Germany, but I’ve heard that. Yeah, OK.
Martin Rosenberg (31:09.294)
Men and women. For a British person this was like, uh, shock horrors. Yeah, okay, I can join in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s little stories like this which, you know, they whet the appetite, you know, for other things. And being an inquisitive person, not nosy, inquisitive, I’m always inquiring, you know, what there is, what’s to do, blah, blah, blah.
Jason Elkins (31:24.53)
Jason Elkins (31:30.839)
huh.
Martin Rosenberg (31:37.218)
And the other thing which I do thoroughly enjoy is my food. And experiencing new tastes and new cultures, you know, for eating. Love it. Absolutely love it. I mean, again, it reminds me when I used to go to Hong Kong, I had a colleague over there, you know, who used to show me around and was my translator and everything. His name was Eric, probably his real name. And we went to, he says, we’re going to eat, this is in China itself. And
went to the restaurant and he said to me, says, what do you want to eat? I said, well, I’ll have what you’re having. No, you won’t like that. Why do you, how do you know? Well, we’re going to be eating sea urchins and this and that. said, Eric, I’ll have what you’re having. If I don’t like it, I’ll have something else. You know, these are experiences you can’t get, you know, sitting in your home, going to a Chinese restaurant in the local area, because it’s totally different food.
Jason Elkins (32:21.948)
You
Jason Elkins (32:35.944)
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (32:37.774)
And you know, the further I started to travel, the more I used to try and take a day for myself as well. First time I went to Hong Kong, you know, I was champion at the bit. I was there for a week. Six days was pure work. And believe me, I’d, you know, I put in the hours. But the seventh day, it wasn’t a day of rest. That was a day of touring and sightseeing, you know, because I’m not going to come this far, you know, not do it. And every time I went or if I went to China, it was what else is there? I want to see something. I want to experience it.
Jason Elkins (32:57.384)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (33:07.404)
And that to me is what travel is all about. It’s discovering. You’re learning.
Jason Elkins (33:14.023)
Absolutely. And what I hear as you share these stories is, is I hear a, I don’t know if I would say a business travel. It’s yes, business traveler, but at the same time, a business traveler that really sounds like he enjoyed himself. And it was kind of a, you know, a way to go see these places and visit these places where there’s, I’m sure you knew, I’m sure you know them still. There are other business travelers that don’t really want to go to Hong Kong or China.
Martin Rosenberg (33:30.86)
absolutely.
Martin Rosenberg (33:36.184)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (33:44.189)
or any of these places but you sound a little different and I’m curious was there during this time when you were doing all this business travel what were there one or two or maybe three things that you did not like that maybe the listeners wouldn’t occur to them to think of I mean what’s the downside of a lifestyle like that or was there a downside there doesn’t have to be I’m just curious
Martin Rosenberg (34:07.458)
which was.
I don’t know that there was a downside, not in those days. Would I like to do it today? And I think that the same way, I think the answer is probably not. Why would I say that? Why do I say that? Because airports are no longer what I consider to be a pleasure, a fun place to be. Were they fun before? To some extent. You know, it was a procedure that you went through, but it was an easy, simple procedure. Nowadays, standing in line for an hour.
you know, to come through immigration or two hours in some cases, you have to go into a country is a pain in the neck. Going out of the country has become a pain in the neck, which never used to be. You know, I came back from London last Friday. I was there for Christmas. And going out to London pre-Christmas from my own local airport, from getting
Jason Elkins (34:42.302)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (35:08.014)
arriving at the front door of the airport to being airside was 20 minutes. That’s fine. That’s absolutely perfect. Now, in fairness, I don’t want to be there two and a half, three hours before, you know, standing in the queue, I’m sort of working it, you know, to the back end. Plus I don’t have luggage. I’ve usually got hand luggage. But to actually be through airside within 20 minutes is a pleasure. I came back from London on Friday.
Jason Elkins (35:14.382)
Mm hmm. Yep, that’s great.
Jason Elkins (35:33.833)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (35:37.934)
London Luton Airport, which is a relatively small-ish airport compared to say Heathrow or Gatwick. And it was the best part of an hour from getting to the front, you know, arriving at the front door to actually being airside. It was an hour, in my opinion, it’s an hour wasted. You know, I’m standing in a queue, it’s like the Disneyland queue system, you know, you’re up and down and up and down the aisles, you know.
Jason Elkins (35:58.536)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (36:06.446)
Give me a break, you know, this isn’t exciting. I just want to get through. There’s four lanes open, you know, for security checks. There’s 20 lanes that are closed. Why aren’t more open? Why aren’t we being shuffled through? The more we’re shuffled through, the more chance we’ve got of spending money at the airport. Surely the shops are demanding it, but no, nobody’s thinking about this.
Jason Elkins (36:22.717)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (36:26.813)
Yeah. Cause they say you should arrive two to two to three hours. I was going to say they, you know, they encourage you to arrive two or three hours. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (36:28.108)
and as it comes back to your…
Martin Rosenberg (36:33.198)
Yeah, I mean, comes back to your original question. So, yeah. But why do I want to, you know, it’s a process of going through. But you asked what’s the down, you know, what my downside was. I don’t remember any bad experiences that I had in traveling. Yeah, OK, I’ve lost luggage. Big deal. You know, it’s not the end of the world. It’s a nuisance, but it’s not, it’s not bad.
I’m sure you have as well, know, in your travels. It’s, think, anybody who travels regularly loses it at some point. But to me, it’s the airport process which is killing travel.
Jason Elkins (37:02.802)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (37:08.221)
I-
Jason Elkins (37:12.179)
Yeah. I don’t know. I think it seems like maybe they’re actually getting better about luggage. don’t know. I would love to know if it’s just story in my head, but it seems like back in the day I’ve traveled quite a bit throughout my course of my life, but I’m afraid to even say this. I’m sitting here thinking, I haven’t had anything lost in a long time. I’m at, as I’m getting ready to say that I’m like, Jason, do you really want to, do you really want to put that out into the universe?
So nevermind, let’s touch wood. don’t know if that’s a thing.
Martin Rosenberg (37:44.088)
Well, my niece, for example, she’s just had twins. She’s got a little boy and she’s just had twins and her and her husband decided to escape with the babies. They’re only four months old and the older ones, I think four years old. And they arrived in Tenerife to find out the baby’s luggage did not arrive.
Martin Rosenberg (38:04.778)
Okay, their luggage fine, but the baby’s, that’s a nightmare.
Jason Elkins (38:10.535)
Yeah, that’s that’s on a whole nother level. Maybe that’s why I haven’t had any problems because I haven’t had anything I really needed that much. It seems like the more you need something, the more likely it is to go missing. But now that I’m so minimalist, I have one suitcase. Everything I own is in that one suitcase, but there’s nothing in that suitcase that can’t be replaced easily. That’s the nice thing. You know, a few pairs of jeans, few polo shirts. It’s about it. But anyway.
Martin Rosenberg (38:14.35)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (38:18.732)
Yeah.
It’s to go.
Martin Rosenberg (38:36.204)
Yeah, that’s me. I’m the same.
Jason Elkins (38:39.837)
Hey, Martin, I am curious about this though, because one thing I do know, or I think I know about traveling consistently, like it sounds like you did for quite a while, is it can be challenging, can be challenging to maintain relationships. We don’t need to go into too much personal details, but I’m just curious, did you, you know, were people in your life thought it was cool that you were traveling? Did that create conflicts for you?
Were you able to share experiences with other people as you traveled? I’m kind of curious about that part of it. So I guess the question is how did other people around you respond to you traveling like that?
Martin Rosenberg (39:08.195)
No,
Martin Rosenberg (39:19.022)
Yeah, mean, I a few years said to, you know, I to be, I to say jealous. I was like, you know, maybe they’ve got office jobs and they saw as me, you know, living the high life. No, I wasn’t living the high life because I worked bloody hard for it, you know, to do it, you know, and while I was doing it. In terms of friendships and relationships, no, it was absolutely fine. I mean, I’ve been married nearly enough, sorry, have to count, 45 years.
Jason Elkins (39:42.053)
Yeah, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Tell me later if we need to go edit that part out. Just kidding.
Martin Rosenberg (39:48.43)
No, no, no, no, it’s okay. I mean, my wife and I have a very, very strong bond and relationship with one another. I I traveled a lot, you know, in the earlier years. Later on, she started to travel or certainly be away from home for considerable periods of time. And it’s never bothered us. We never had kids. you know, from that side, it was okay. But we had a strong bond that kept us together.
We still, even to this day, we don’t actually live permanently with one another. She’s primarily in London, I’m primarily in Turkey. But we speak every single day, at least once, if not three, four, five times. WhatsApp’s been a godsend because we can physically see each other. No, we can’t have a kiss and a cuddle, but when we do get together, we make up for it.
Jason Elkins (40:36.979)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (40:40.905)
Yeah. I guess I could ask you what’s your secret to success Martin? Forty five years. And then you started to say, well, she lives in London and I live in Turkey. I’m like, Might explain a lot for some people.
Martin Rosenberg (40:51.278)
45 years here.
Martin Rosenberg (40:56.622)
Yeah, I know. I mean, a lot of people have said this, know, well, no, some people have said, how can you do it? You know, it’s not right. Others have said, you know, you’re so lucky. For us, it works. It works very, very well. She actually came over, we both came over to Turkey, you know, in the beginning. She couldn’t find anything to do. I was 48 when I came. She was 45 or 46.
I, being an entrepreneur, I was always looking around, you know, for ideas, things to do. Plus I play golf and I’m in the area of Turkey where the golf courses are. So I had already, you already made something there, plus whatever I can find and build for myself if that’s what I want to do. She tried and she tried very hard to find, you know, to settle in, but she also…
Jason Elkins (41:39.945)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (41:54.284)
If you’ve ever lived in an ex-PAC community, it’s very different to living in your sort of, I guess, your home society community. In your home society, I would suggest you have very long-term friends that go back that you see quite regularly. In an ex-PAC community, I would say it’s a lot more transient. You associate with people you wouldn’t necessarily associate with at home, and I don’t mean this in a bad sense, it’s just not your… but you’re kind of thrown together, and she just couldn’t adjust to that.
Jason Elkins (42:19.027)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (42:23.886)
She needed to have her very close friends on her doorstep basically. Plus she ended up going back to work as well simply because she could and she had something more to give and she’s done incredibly well in the last 15ish and a bit working full time probably 12 to 15 years and it’s done very well and I’m very proud of her. And yeah, we’ll see what the futures we’ve got for us but I can’t see us.
I can’t see her living here in Turkey. Would I go and live in London? I can’t say no, but can’t say yes either at this moment.
Jason Elkins (43:01.737)
Yeah, I don’t want to, I’m not going to pin you down to that. I’m actually hoping that you’ll encourage your one. Well.
Martin Rosenberg (43:05.037)
No, no, no, I’m just being open and honest with you. Yeah, I’m being open and honest with you because I’ve got nothing to hide. There’s no secrets, know, this is the way it is. But we’re off again, we’re traveling again, we’re off to Lanzarote next week for she wants some winter sunshine and some warmth. I’m not complaining because it’s got a little bit cooler here as well. So, you know, it’s a trip together, it’s a holiday.
Jason Elkins (43:15.258)
Very, cool. I love that.
Jason Elkins (43:30.099)
Where’d you, where’d you say you’re going?
Martin Rosenberg (43:33.346)
Lanzarote. It’s one of the Canary Islands, like Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fortaventura. They’re just off the coast of North, North West Africa, but they’re owned by Spain. And because of where they’re situated,
Jason Elkins (43:37.232)
okay. Okay.
Jason Elkins (43:46.365)
Mm-hmm. Right, very cool. It sounds like you’ve spent time there before, it sounds like. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (43:54.124)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been to all the islands except Fortaventura, so we’re actually going to have a day trip to Fortaventura this time when we go. And I’ll post my videos and photographs and overseas info like any regular person that would want to do it.
Jason Elkins (44:07.367)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s what I was, guess that’s what I wanted to ask you is when you travel now, because obviously with OverseasInfo.tv, I would call that a travel job. So do you go to places, do you go on work trips still, or do you just kind of go where you wanna go and of course while you’re there, I’m sure you’re doing things.
Martin Rosenberg (44:21.728)
Yeah is and it’s not.
Martin Rosenberg (44:29.038)
tend to go where I want to go. Well, I’m saying that I mean, next weekend, I’m going to, I’m actually going to a town called or city called Cusha Dassey. There’s a guy that I want to, we’ve been communicating regularly through LinkedIn. He’s very interested, you know, what we’re doing. I’m very interested in what he’s got. You know, we’ve agreed to have a sit down meeting together. But that’s on the Saturday, but near to him.
There is a very, very old Roman ruins which is being unearthed. I think there’s a reckon about 25 or 30 % of it’s being unearthed It’s called Ephesus. And I have, again, like normal travel times, okay, I’m going to this town or this city, but I want a date to myself because I want to go and see Ephesus.
Jason Elkins (45:22.471)
Mm-hmm. Very, cool.
Martin Rosenberg (45:26.04)
So again, combining business with travel, sightseeing, travel,
Jason Elkins (45:31.079)
Yeah, it makes sense. How did you get, let’s discuss this, because I do want to make sure we cover this. How did you get from kind of working in the selling the packaging materials? I don’t remember the exact terminology used, but how did you get from that to OverseasInfo.tv? There’s something that happened in between.
Martin Rosenberg (45:47.18)
Yeah, it’s okay.
Martin Rosenberg (45:52.75)
It was retirement. retired. mean, it was in 2004. were looking, my wife and I were looking to buy a holiday home. And we were the standard, you know, for most Brits is Spain, Portugal, were the first options, but the prices were absolutely horrific. I mean, the prices for a small bed, your two bedroom apartment in those days was something about, that’s probably about 150, 200,000 pound.
You know, which is a lot, you know, for what was essentially going to be a holiday home. Anyway, through Conti Connections, I was very friendly with a guy from what is now Tuhoe. He was one of the directors and he suggested, why don’t you go and have a look at Turkey? I’d never, ever been. I got off the plane and fell in love with the place. We both did, in fact, and we bought our first holiday home here. We bought a four-bedroom villa. This has put the Spanish prices into context.
Jason Elkins (46:28.104)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (46:50.956)
bought a four-bedroom villa for 68,000 pounds with a private pool. So this kind of poos… Yeah, exactly, twice the size and half the quarter, yeah, half the price, a third of the price. Anyway, we put our names down for we paid the deposit, we got back to the UK, my wife said to me, she says, you know, why don’t we just chuck it all in and retire? And I went, hang on a second, I’m the stupid one in this relationship, not you. Anyway, long story short.
Jason Elkins (46:57.256)
Twice, twice the size and.
Jason Elkins (47:02.921)
That’s cool.
Jason Elkins (47:18.877)
You
Martin Rosenberg (47:20.162)
we ended up coming to move to Turkey and I don’t regret it at all. I love it. I absolutely love it here. And where I’m living, said to you, is all the golf courses. It’s a town called Belek in the Antalya region on the Mediterranean coast. So it’s very much a touristic area. And I used to look at the websites in their early days, the catalogues that most of them produced, the most expensive paper.
Jason Elkins (47:23.187)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (47:50.05)
the worst photograph you could imagine and text, which was indecipherable, you know, in English. Never mind in their own language, fair enough. OK, maybe it was good, but it just didn’t work. And I thought there has to be a market here for help, you know, for promoting the region that I’m living in. And it was kind of that, it was the catalyst for taking some of the experiences I had from travel.
Jason Elkins (47:56.165)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (48:18.51)
trying to bring it into something, make it something. And we built the first website 2008-2009 I think it was and we featured eight countries if I remember rightly. I was trying to think about this earlier on today, I don’t remember them all, but we had Libya which was starting to, Libya with pre-Gaddafi being kicked out, Lebanon, Israel,
Jason Elkins (48:21.757)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (48:42.525)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (48:47.79)
I went for four strange countries, Turkey obviously, and Spain, France, Italy and say Britain for example, they were the first eight countries that we had on the site. Then we had to change it all because everybody was going to war, you know, in the Middle East at that point, so we put in four different countries. And it sort of ticked along quite nicely, it wasn’t doing any, you know, it wasn’t doing much, but the whole thing, it was reliant on me or somebody uploading all the content.
Jason Elkins (49:03.271)
Yeah, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (49:17.838)
And it just wasn’t sustainable or scalable, which was the main thing. And in 2012, I thought, you know, I’ve already, you know, just enjoy yourself. So I did. But I kept the company live, you know, intervening years, because I just had a feeling about it. And it was through a chance conversation with, again, a colleague or a friend, let’s say.
who was in the golf industry and the hotel industry and I happened to mention it to him and what we tried to do. In fairness to him, he’s 20 years younger than me and so a bit more savvy of what’s going on in the tech world. Anyway, long story short, what you see now up online is essentially what was built and it’s now a scalable proposition. We can monetize it. It’s not reliant on one person.
Jason Elkins (49:57.193)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (50:13.87)
That’s how it all started and that’s how it all has evolved. But now we’re adding in more more new product into the actual site itself, know, with artificial intelligence. And that’s become a very, very important part for us. And, yeah, that’s brought us up to date, I suppose.
Jason Elkins (50:32.402)
Yeah. So what do
Well, I was going to ask kind of what’s next, but you mentioned you mentioned artificial intelligence is something that’s that’s what’s next for everybody. We’re all kind of figuring out now we how we incorporate that. Probably adding new properties, new partners, stuff like that. there. What’s what’s the biggest? Is that the biggest thing right now is just.
Martin Rosenberg (50:41.454)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (50:44.898)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (50:53.659)
absolutely, absolutely, all the time.
Jason Elkins (50:59.555)
Add more properties to, kind of round it out, make it more useful for, or you tell me what’s, what’s your biggest.
Martin Rosenberg (51:05.438)
We definitely need, we’re unfortunately chicken and egg situation here. We need more properties, but we also need more consumers coming to the site or potential consumers. Our visitor numbers on the Google Analytics are now running at about 200,000 a month, which everybody, people who know these things say, you’re actually doing quite well then. Yes, but it’s not enough.
Jason Elkins (51:14.579)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (51:25.221)
okay. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (51:34.432)
And then we need to get the hotels and we need to get the tour companies to buy into the idea of what we’re doing, you know, to be able to push it. And this is why we’ve now taken a big leap forward, you know, with the artificial intelligence and we’re working with a company and a guy in Switzerland who’s actually ex-Google. And when they’ve developed this artificial intelligence, which will, it’s easily trainable.
Jason Elkins (51:34.835)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (52:02.936)
We’ve now got it on our platform or our site. We’ve only got it for two places so far. One’s a hotel in Prague and the other one is a tour company in Wales. But it means if you land on those pages, you can actually converse with the company through the artificial intelligence. And they have fully trained, say fully, they’ve trained the artificial intelligence to be able to…
deal with most of the questions that you would have about making a booking or what you’re that would encourage you to make a booking.
Jason Elkins (52:38.693)
Okay, so it’s their AI agent is popping up on their listing on your website. So they’re on your website. That’s cool. Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (52:43.054)
Correct.
Martin Rosenberg (52:47.17)
Correct. they’re also, yeah. I they’re also, I’ll tell you the name of the company, the company which we’ve done it because we’ve just launched it for the tours industry and the tours and experiences. It just launched today in fact. Although the work was done over the Christmas period. And the company, Wales Outdoors, has got eight different listings or nine different listings on our platform. And they’re…
Their AI agent is on each of those listings. So if you actually go onto the page and you’ve got questions, you can ask the agent and it will answer if it was the owner giving a manner that they want. The first hotel that did it was, as say, is a hotel in Prague, the Hermitage Hotel. I mean, I played around with this when it was first done.
Jason Elkins (53:20.35)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (53:30.515)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (53:41.71)
do you have a pillow menu? And they gave me a whole screen of menus for pillows. I was partly joking. How much is it to eat in the restaurant? They tell me. What else is there? Well, there’s these restaurants nearby. It’s giving me a whole reason why would I want to stay at this hotel? Because it’s giving me all the information that I want. If you stay in a hotel, it’s only ultimately, especially a city hotel,
Jason Elkins (53:47.635)
You
Jason Elkins (53:57.832)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (54:03.542)
huh. Yeah. And.
Martin Rosenberg (54:09.738)
ultimately is a place to sleep and shower and dress in the morning. That’s all it is. So you want to know what else there is. Yes, you might want breakfast. Yes, you might want dinner if you’ve had a hard day, but you also might want to go out, you likely want to go out during the day unless it’s a business thing.
Jason Elkins (54:15.89)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (54:26.513)
Yeah, you know, and it’s one of the interesting things I think about the AI agents is that people sometimes are reluctant to, they don’t want to bother anybody, right? So like, if you give me the, if you give me the choice between chatting with Mary, who’s sitting at the front desk, trying to check people in and out at the same time, she’s trying to chat a conversation with me, or you give me the option of
having a conversation with a good AI agent that represents the same hotel. I don’t feel bad. I don’t feel like I’m wasting anybody’s time. I don’t feel like I’m asking stupid questions. I don’t feel I’m not going to get embarrassed. If I, if I say, you know what I’ve got, I have to wake up three times at night to go pee because I’ve got a swollen prostate. And so I want to make sure that, that it’s easy to like, that’s a ridiculous example, but
Martin Rosenberg (55:07.512)
Right, right.
Jason Elkins (55:25.425)
It’s something that I might actually have a conversation with the AI where I don’t want to do it with Maria who’s sitting at the front desk checking people in and out. And it’s so I’m more like I’ll ask more questions. I don’t worry about asking dumb questions. So there’s a value in that for me if you’ve got an agent like that.
Martin Rosenberg (55:25.71)
Yeah, no, but I get the message.
Martin Rosenberg (55:33.666)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (55:42.37)
absolutely, absolutely. And the beauty about it is the agent is available 24-7. So it’s not like you wake up in the middle of the night, you think, you know, is my bathroom going to be near, you know, wherever, you know, there’s a hotel, blah, blah, blah. No, you go on, you ask the agent and you’ve got instant answer. It’s there and then. And this actually, it solves a big, big pain point, you know, for hotels and the tours industry, because if they want to go down the route of direct bookings,
Jason Elkins (55:49.899)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (55:54.717)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (55:59.56)
Yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (56:08.974)
I think a lot of them have still got the mindset, well I need to answer emails, I need to answer phone calls, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That requires time and effort and that obviously is money as well. And it has to be dealt with by somebody who’s in the right frame of mind to be able to do it at that particular point. At least with a trained AI agent, you’ve got it there dealing with it all the time. So okay, you may still get the odd email or you may still get the odd phone call.
Jason Elkins (56:19.049)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (56:28.457)
You
Martin Rosenberg (56:38.638)
But there should be very few far between. Because if you’ve trained the AI agent properly, in much the same way as would have to train a human being, then the answers are there, ready for the guests to be able to look at.
Jason Elkins (56:49.736)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (56:53.812)
And.
and they’re not taking vacation, they’re not out on sick call, you don’t have to replace them because they’re not gonna quit, they don’t get depressed, but even better in the hospitality business, and I think a few people can relate to this, is it’s stressful dealing with people all the time, all day, every day, and at least the AI agents can, that little smart ass like.
Martin Rosenberg (57:00.972)
No. Nope. They don’t get depressed. Aha, yeah.
Martin Rosenberg (57:18.648)
Yep. Yep.
Jason Elkins (57:23.397)
attitude that sometimes can develop after you’ve been asked the same question by 15 people in a row. The AI agent doesn’t care. Whatever.
Martin Rosenberg (57:30.69)
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is the thing, because most people have probably got the exact same questions. And yes, you can put an FAQ section in the website. Does anybody bother? Or it doesn’t exactly answer the question the way that they wanted to ask it. You so it says it’s not available. At least for the agent, it’s got some intelligence to be able to assimilate, you know, with what is actually being asked to what the answer is.
Jason Elkins (57:36.722)
Yes.
Jason Elkins (57:46.75)
Ugh.
Jason Elkins (57:55.332)
And, you know, from a tech standpoint, I don’t know if anybody listening to this cares about this, but I just actually put an agent on my website for the podcast. And what I, big, big part of my realization was I’ve been, I’ve spent the last two years building content on the website. We’ve got all these interviews. We’ve got transcripts of all the conversations. We’ve got all the stuff on the websites there, including FAQs and that type of thing.
So that means I can train the agent on all the stuff that I’ve been building over last two years. you know, so if you’ve got FAQ sections on your website, great, your agent will be able to read those and interpret those and be trained on those FAQs. So don’t, you you don’t say, wow, we’ve got FAQs, we’ve got everything you could possibly need on the website. Great, that’ll make it easier to train your agent. And.
People don’t always want to go look for things and they don’t always find things you can, you know, you spend a lot of time looking at your website, you know exactly where the FAQs are. Somebody at the first time there.
Martin Rosenberg (58:58.816)
A of mine here always used to laugh. A friend of mine here used to always make the joke, you know, if you want to keep a secret, publish it.
Jason Elkins (59:07.635)
Yeah. Yeah. There’s not a tour operator listening to this right now that hasn’t answered questions repeatedly that are on their website. Maybe even on the homepage, maybe even in the hero section of their homepage, you know, and somebody sitting, you know, in their underwear at two in the morning, thinking up the questions they want to ask you.
Martin Rosenberg (59:09.418)
you
Martin Rosenberg (59:15.214)
Thank you.
Martin Rosenberg (59:26.934)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (59:37.607)
that can’t seem to find it on the website, they may actually, if they can just find the AI agent, they may actually just ask the AI agent and get an answer right away. yeah, so anyway.
Martin Rosenberg (59:47.011)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course there’s going to be people object to it, know, that’s, know, say the older generation, I mean, I’m part of that generation. You know, I’d much rather go through this process, you know, like an instant answers, you know, we’re an instant society. You know, if I think of something now, want it now, I want it now, or I want the answer now, end of.
Jason Elkins (01:00:05.981)
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I just had this idea. I’ll announce it here on the show. You know, I’ve interviewed a lot of guests and I’ve got my agent now that’s able to go through all those episodes and all that. But what’s occurring to me is like several of the guests like, you know, maybe like yourself or someone else that’s been on the show may have an agent for their business.
So maybe we can put their agent on their page on my website. So we’ve got their conversation, their interview, all their, you know, what do you, you know, what do they do and what did we talk about? And then maybe they could have their agent right on that page. So somebody listening to their episode could then engage with them through their agent. might be pretty cool. So it gave me some ideas.
Martin Rosenberg (01:00:54.19)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s actually a good idea because I’ve got my own agent as well. We developed our own, you know, for me, stroke, overseasinfo.tv. And, you know, quite often now when I’m sending out emails, know, or messages, you know, I’ll put my agent’s link on it. If people want to ask more questions, they can ask.
Jason Elkins (01:01:11.165)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:01:14.823)
We should do that. Maybe you and I will do a test case. We’ll try that out and embed your agent right on that page on my website or something. We can do something like that. So let’s put our heads together at some point and figure out how to do that. If nothing else, put a link to your agent on the page. So yeah, I like it.
Martin Rosenberg (01:01:26.198)
Yeah,
Martin Rosenberg (01:01:31.906)
Yeah, that’d be quite a cool idea actually, it’s still all very new, know, people are still learning, a lot of people obviously still don’t know about it, but the more that we all talk about it, the more people learn and understand these things.
Jason Elkins (01:01:46.666)
I mean, wouldn’t it be, it’d be pretty cool if someone’s sitting here listening to this episode. You maybe you posted it on LinkedIn, you said, hey, I was on Jason’s show. There’s a link to the page on my website where the episode’s embedded. They’re sitting there listening to this conversation right now. And then when they’re done with the conversation, they scroll down, there’s Martin’s, you know, agent right there.
And you, and, and they can say, Hey, I heard Martin say something about this. was a little confused. I’m curious about that. Can you help me understand what exactly do they do or how do we connect or whatever, whatever. And it’s you’ve got an agent right there that knows you better than any other agent out there and can, and this can facilitate that conversation. If I’m a podcast listener, I’m thinking that’s pretty cool. I can listen to podcasts.
Martin Rosenberg (01:02:29.826)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:02:36.731)
and then have a conversation with an agent that knows the person that was just interviewed. That’s pretty cool. All right.
Martin Rosenberg (01:02:37.518)
Yeah, absolutely.
Martin Rosenberg (01:02:42.062)
huh, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m thinking also, after we let you as well, you know, there’s nothing to stop me putting on, you know, with my agent, your podcasts or on our platform, you know, if you want more information that’s not here, it’s very possible that Jason has spoken to somebody who is able to give you some more information and put the link to it. Yeah, there you go. And then everybody’s happy. Everybody’s happy. Sure, sure.
Jason Elkins (01:02:59.559)
Yeah. It’s cool. Isn’t it? There’s so many possibilities. Yeah. All right. That’s fun. Martin, we’ve discussed, we’ve discussed many, many things. We’ve come up with some, I’ve definitely come up with some new ideas that we can work on to collaborate with. And I’m curious though, what else, is there anything else you wish I’d asked you or that you want to make sure that our listeners know before we wrap up this conversation?
Martin Rosenberg (01:03:12.91)
Okay.
Martin Rosenberg (01:03:26.638)
I guess the most important thing, going back to the early part of the conversation here when I was saying why we set it up and what we would know about the principles. The other thing which we’re very, very strong about, we want to retain independence. Independence for everybody. We don’t have algorithms, so nobody ever see all using the platform as being
you know, played by an algorithm. This is very important. We don’t put precedents, you know, somebody said to me, why don’t you have a star ratings, you know, for all the different properties? No, absolutely not. Because what you think is five star, I might not agree with or think is three star or vice versa. You know, why should a property suffer based upon one person’s view? And the Airbnb thing is absolutely classic because I understand that if
Airbnbs ratings drop below 4.8 % or 4.8 stars or whatever it is that they call them, you know, that they’ll be kicked off the platform. That’s not fair. That really isn’t fair.
Jason Elkins (01:04:37.481)
Yeah.
Mm hmm. Yeah, because and what I hear you saying is on your platform, it’s like, hey, this is your experience. Take some video, take some video, take some pictures, talk about it instead of.
Martin Rosenberg (01:04:47.746)
No, it’s there, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s almost like social media for travel. Ultimately, it’s like social media for travel where everything is in the one place. You don’t have to go and check YouTube. You don’t have to check, you know, social media, TikTok or whatever else it happens to be. If we build it the way the vision is, and that’s a dream, believe me, that is a huge, huge, huge dream, then everybody…
Jason Elkins (01:04:58.025)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Elkins (01:05:01.587)
you
Jason Elkins (01:05:14.204)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (01:05:15.17)
would be able to find everything they’re looking for through the one platform and everybody would be able to book direct. That’s, but as I say, it’ll never happen. Not in my lifetime anyway.
Jason Elkins (01:05:27.9)
Well, we got it. Don’t say never things are a change in Martin and you’re part of that and you’re bringing change as well. I, and I knew that’s why actually the reason we connected.
Martin Rosenberg (01:05:34.402)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m enjoying doing… Yeah, I enjoy doing what I’m doing, you know. And I’m hoping to make a difference somewhere, somehow. That’s all I can reasonably expect. Reasonably expect. Forget the dream, but the reasonable expectation.
Jason Elkins (01:06:00.999)
Yes, I think that’s important because sometimes people just, the dream’s too big, so I’m just not gonna take any action. And it’s like, do what you can do to, you yeah, so you’re doing it. And you and I connected because someone else that I was having a conversation with, we started talking about reviews and ratings and video and how that plays into it and all that stuff. And it was Richard.
Martin Rosenberg (01:06:08.771)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Rosenberg (01:06:22.505)
Yeah
Jason Elkins (01:06:29.031)
Richard said, you got to talk to Martin, you know, because Martin’s doing this really cool thing with the videos and all this stuff. And, and that’s just how, you know, so we’re just creating connections and I appreciate you coming on and sharing your time with us.
Martin Rosenberg (01:06:31.586)
Yep.
Martin Rosenberg (01:06:41.742)
Yeah, no, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been lovely talking to you. Yeah, I’ve done most of talking, but maybe that’s my job today. don’t know. Yeah, but it’s actually been fun. It’s been fun as well because you’ve actually got me to relive some of the good, the special moments that have filled on my journey. So that’s been great.
Jason Elkins (01:06:49.289)
How was your job today? I think we both did a bit.
Jason Elkins (01:06:59.625)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:07:03.517)
That’s why I do this. This is very selfish for our listeners. I don’t mind them hearing it. I do this because I want to hear the stories and I want to engage with people that have similar, you know, stories and experiences and desires and stuff like that. So this is completely selfish. I just asked you to come on here so I could enjoy the conversation. Hopefully you enjoyed it as well. And for our listeners, I trust that if we’re having fun, they’ll have fun listening and
Martin Rosenberg (01:07:24.308)
I’ve loved it.
Jason Elkins (01:07:30.779)
If they’re not having fun listening, they’re not listening right now anymore anyway. Martin, thank you so much. Let’s do it again. Let’s do it again sometime soon.
Martin Rosenberg (01:07:34.702)
That’s a good question.
Martin Rosenberg (01:07:40.299)
I look forward to it. Thanks, Jason.
Jason Elkins (01:07:42.793)
All right, thanks, Martin. Bye bye.
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