SOUTH SUMMIT 2017- Dana Dunne- Innovation through travel

Hello, and it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Alex, and the great band. Let me start with a question. After lunch here in Spain, who knows Charles Duell? Charles Duell was head of the US Patent Office in the early 1900s, and he said everything that can be invented has been invented. He actually proposed shutting down the Patent Office. We are fortunate he was 100% wrong. Innovation is alive and thriving 116 years later. Innovation is not a right or a decree; it's a way of living, a mindset. I want to tell you about our company and how we do innovation. We started just over 15 years ago and are now one of the world's largest in our segment. Innovation and execution have been core to our growth from startup to industry leader. We have about 4.6 billion euros in gross sales, 100 million euros in profits, and grow at 10% per annum. We are number one in flights in Europe, one of the largest in the world, and number one or two in most European countries. We are also one of the largest e-commerce companies in Europe and rated number one in customer satisfaction. We manage 325 million keywords, 34 bids per second on Google, 1 billion monthly searches, 7 billion pricing calculations per hour, and 120,000 peak searches per second. We run 3,600 A/B tests simultaneously. On average, a passenger saves 134 euros per return flight versus buying from an airline website. We offer more choice—average eight flights per route versus one to three. From search to click takes less than 100 seconds, and we are 400% faster than competitors. Innovation is a mindset. We were founded in Silicon Valley but moved to Barcelona, where we have 65 nationalities. Three lessons: First, ideas—BASTA: Big or Small Test Always. We test everything; data decides, not opinions. Second, the summation of small things—minimal viable products, not one big idea. Third, everyone must participate in innovation—HR, finance, all departments. We have hackathons for everyone. FBLQ: Fail But Learn Quickly. Failure is okay if you learn fast. We have a state-of-the-art customer research lab in Barcelona with 300–400 people per month. We benchmark with Amazon. Our platform allows us to develop once and push to five brands, 44 countries, 130 websites, 20 languages, and 30 currencies instantly. We reduced time to market by 70% and have over 1,000 releases per year, each with 4–5 product changes. Examples include heat maps for hotels, recent searches, and flight notifications for baggage belts. We use self-learning AI in many parts of our business, reducing costs by 75% and growing revenues. Innovation is a day-to-day mindset. Thank you and all the best.