Jerne reaches 11,000 curators, appoints Chief Technology Officer

Jerne, leading platform connecting digital-focused travel curators with experience providers, has reached 11,000 registered curators (content creators, social media influencers, and travel advisor multi-hyphenates) alongside announcing the appointment of Jeremy Sikkema as the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective immediately.

“We’re incredibly proud to have reached the milestone of 11,000 registered curators in 114 countries,” said Tim Morgan, Chief Executive Officer, Jerne. “While an impressive number, our technology focus continues to hone in on helping our partners understand specifically which curators will truly move the needle for their business.”

To lead the company’s matchmaking efforts between its curators and experience provider partners, Jerne has appointed Jeremy Sikkema as Chief Technology Officer. Sikkema has over 20 years of experience developing technology platforms for the loss control, risk assessment, insurance, and wellness industries, including the last 4 years with Jerne.

“Ensuring Jerne’s platform amplifies the relationship of travel marketing and sales value is paramount to my team’s focus at Jerne,” said Jeremy Sikkema, Chief Technology Office, Jerne. “I look forward to continuing to develop industry-leading technology to ensure Jerne’s stakeholders are fully prepared to take advantage of the future of travel distribution.”

Sikkema most recently oversaw the development and launch of Jerne’s industry-first rating system across its network of 11,000 curators in 114 countries (62% USA, 12% UK, 6% Canada) with a cumulative reach of over 3 billion consumers. The rating system simplifies decision-making to one simple percentage based on each curator’s likelihood to be successful across a combination of three key functions:

• Inspiration: the likelihood of producing inspirational travel content,
• Awareness: the likelihood of building travel product awareness, and
• Influence: the likelihood of having a successful call-to-action for travel bookings.

In addition to an overall percentage, curator profiles are also given individual percentages in each key function, allowing experience providers to adjust the profiles and communities they engage with as their sales and marketing needs ebb and flow.

Jerne’s simplified rating system analyzes 55 data points from the curator’s private Jerne and public social media profiles and displays the results alongside 18 data points from the experience provider’s brand profile. These 73 data points are weighted according to Jerne’s proprietary formula that is built on the culmination of 3 years of ongoing research across thousands of curators and hundreds of ocean and river cruise, hotel and resort, food and beverage, tour, short-term rental, spa and wellness, and insurance companies.

The article Jerne reaches 11,000 curators, appoints Chief Technology Officer first appeared in TravelDailyNews International.