What led you to believe that business travel would return?

Our first priority during the pandemic was to survive. As a startup, that’s obviously crucial. Our second was to emerge stronger. That came from my deep belief in our mission, which is connecting people in real life. Humans are social animals. We’re not meant to be so disconnected from friends, family, hobbies. During the pandemic, well-meaning people would send me articles predicting that 50% of business travel would never come back. I strongly disagreed. Not because my financial future was tied to it, but because I tied my financial future to something I believe in: the power of human connection. That meant I had to think about life after the pandemic. It was challenging then because we didn’t know when it would come. But I wanted us to be ready. Our last priority was to turn lemons into lemonade. That meant not overlooking opportunities due to the collective shock we were experiencing. For example, we acquired four companies during this time. If you ask anyone in the company today what we did in last week’s all-hands, few could remember. But if you ask anyone about those three priorities, they’ll immediately tell you. I believe that having these clear priorities saved us.

Expressing and embodying values are very different. How do you stay the course, even amid crisis?

Our first value is providing a seven-star experience for our customers and our team. And notice that it’s “our customers and our team.” It’s obvious why the customers are there. We’re in the service industry. So why our team too? You can’t ask people to provide great service if they’re not getting treated well themselves. On a personal level, I don’t ever want to be a hypocrite. And it’s good for business too. Now you could have this or that value, but when a crisis comes along, it flies out the window. But not here. The travel industry went through massive layoffs during the pandemic. Not us. We had about 450 people in 2020, and roughly 300 were in jobs not needed at the time: customer support and travel agents. But these were people, many with kids or other dependents. So we became the only company in the industry that didn’t do layoffs at scale. Instead, we moved people around. Customer service reps helped with sales, for example. I had to go to our board and explain why we weren’t doing layoffs. Eventually I said, “If the company fails because of that, at least we tried, and we stuck with our values.” It was a tough act, but I’m happy we got through it.

You’ve said that your investment in AI is part of your belief in people. How so?

Business travelers change their plans all the time: flights, hotels, car rentals, rail reservations. Today that’s done by travel agents using the Global Distribution System (GDS), a specific industry language. So you have human language on one side as the customer speaks to our agent in English, Spanish, German. Then the agent translates that into GDS. This example is perfect for AI: a lot of manual work combined with high language dependency. But my goal isn’t to replace agents with bots. It’s to have AI help the humans. My ultimate goal is agents who provide a seven-star customer experience, with an AI assist, turning our agents into superagents. I’m excited because this will help us scale. As a travel company with volume, we’re well-positioned to use AI because you need volume to train the AI models. And because we’re also a software company, we can quickly build the software we need. This is the right moment for us to use AI. I’m really excited by it.

As a CEO, you’re very involved in the day-to-day operations and culture of TravelPerk. What drives that?

We’re a hybrid company. That’s now a common way of working, with many benefits. It also creates the important challenge of bringing people together in real life. One of the big ways that we connect is at an annual summer party. Everyone flies in, from across the world. I invested in that event early on. To me, it’s an artifact of our culture. In these moments, our culture becomes physical. You can touch it, see it. You convey so much through simple things like the party theme. Last year’s was Peace and Love. We also have a pretty strict code of conduct for these so that the vibe stays good. Team events are one of our best investments because they are about connection. That’s also why I show up as visibly as I do. I want to keep demonstrating our values and investment in people.

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Q&A

Avi Meir: Why a bet on the power of human connection was key to success

Even at the height of the pandemic, the CEO of TravelPerk knew business travel would bounce back. Now, his values-driven startup is expanding and growing — on its own terms

I believe in the inherent worth of humans. And because of that, I care about culture.Avi Meir, CEO, TravelPerk

Why do you prioritize the concept of the “individual”? How does that principle manifest at TravelPerk?

I believe in the inherent worth of humans. And because of that, I care about culture. Beyond rules and processes, how do you make decisions? How do you trust that your people are making the right decisions? For me, it’s through culture and core values.

Every single hire gets a culture interview. And if we find that we’ve mis-assessed a hire’s culture, we let them go, even if their performance is high. It’s tempting to ignore a high performer who’s a poor culture fit because you want numbers, growth, validation. But for me, I’m willing to give those up. I trust that things will work out. And they often do when I stick to those values.

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