The Travel Innovation Summit Finalists PhoCusWright 2008

Attendees to the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit 2008 voted and the six top etravel innovators were announced at a very well attended luncheon this afternoon. "The Travel Innovation Summit demonstrators afforded attendees a sneak preview of the next big wave of ideas that will shape the travel marketplace over the next 12 to 18 months," noted Philip Wolf, PhoCusWright president and CEO. The finalists will have an opportunity to pitch their companies to a panel of judges at PhoCusWright premier event Center Stage. One will be chosen as the 2008 winner.
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Home&Abroad: Fogglight—a free platform that enables travel businesses to integrate trip planning and booking tools into their online service offerings. It allows users to create a travel Web site from scratch. www.fogglight.com
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Interactive Mobile @dvertising LLC: iM@ (I'm at) —a geographically-aware content management platform providing travelers on-demand access to destination-specific information on accommodations, transportation and entertainment on a variety of mobile devices. www.imatnow.com

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TripIt: An online platform that builds a travel itinerary from various booking confirmation emails and integrates travel information, weather, maps, and city guides to an itinerary that can be shared via social networking. www.tripit.com

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Triporati: Offers an online platform which assists customers in selecting a travel destination by matching the needs and affinities of the traveler with the unique character of over 1,000 global destinations. www.triporati.com

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Wandrian Inc.: Wandrian API—integrates global rail booking systems and allow travelers to search, shop and book global rail travel from a single platform. www.wandrian.com

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Yapta.com: Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant—a travel shopping Web site delivering a unique combination of price assurance and transparency to consumers who have purchased air travel online. It also alerts customers of price changes and changes to rewards redemption values. www.yapta.com

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While I didn't expect all these companies to make it, I did think that FoggLight, Triporati and I'm@ would. I also wanted RezGo (www.rezgo.com) to make the finals, not only because they're my friends and Canadian, but also because I think they are very innovative in terms of bringing powerful eCommerce tools to the long tail of travel, the small businesses that make up the majority of tourism businesses around the world. In addition to RezGo I also had Nile Guide, Clairvoyix and TravelMuse as favourites. I like NileGuide because you can plan a trip build an itinerary and at the end of the process print your own neat personalized travel guide to carry with you. Clairvoyix is direct marketing on steroids, a good example of what companies can do with data. Many Marketing professors and business pundits have said it again and again, many companies collect reams of data but don't really take advantage of this information. Clairvoyix offers solutions to take advantage of the data. And TravelMuse I liked because of an innovative way of looking at trip planning in a well good looking site.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

DigiMarketer