Phocuswright Conference Recap

Innovators, disruptors, and leaders converged on Hollywood, Florida for one of the leading events of the year in the travel industry—Phocuswright Conference 2015. Held at the Diplomat resort and Spa, Phocuswright Conference 2015 brought together thousands of travel executives and dozens of sponsors for this unique travel technology event featuring speakers, funding, awards, and insights.

WEX Travel is a proud sponsor of this event, and would like to share some of the key takeaways shared at the conference.

Key Takeaways: Phocuswright Conference 2015

Flight Search Engine Hipmunk Launches Air and Hotel Aggregator: Hipmunk, established innovator in the flight and hotel field, introduced Hello Hipmunk, which provides two services, Hello Email and Hello Calendar.

• Hello Email enables users to perform flight, rental car and hotel searches directly from their email boxes. So, if a group is emailing about a potential trip, for example, one person in the conversation can simply add hello@hipmunk to the email chain, then ask it in plain language to look for flights and rooms on the desired days. Hello Email will then respond with potential itineraries, copied to everyone in the conversation.
• Hello Calendar will make itinerary suggestions on upcoming trips without even being asked. To use it, travelers must enable a connection with Google Calendars.  Hello Calendars will then see calendar entries about upcoming trips and make suggestions.

Vacatia Launches as Instant-Book Resort Rental Marketplace: The San Francisco-based firm, which secured $8.8 million in series A funding in April, is forging partnerships with select resorts in destinations globally to feature their properties. Test destinations already live include Myrtle Beach, in South Carolina, Maui and Orlando, with many more due to be added in the USA and Europe, including Marbella, Spain. The properties featured have been only available historically through some form of ownership, whether full purchase, timeshare or fractional. See more at Travolution.

The ‘Last Experience’ Serves as Comparison for Future Trips: Younger generation’s expectations about their online experience are set by their last best experience, particularly on mobile. To fit these consumers’ needs, personalization, testing, and perfection (prior to launch) are key factors for success. Read more at Travolution.

Collaboration is Key: Compromise helped bring Booking.com on to TripAdvisor’s Instant Book platform, president and chief executive of the review giant Steve Kaufer told the Phocuswright conference. “In the world of technology you can have multiple winners,” said Chief executive of Booking.com, Darren Huston. “If you are not comfortable with competition you cannot be in the business.”

Machine Learning Key for Travel Firms: Humphrey Sheil, chief executive of Eysys, said it was using this form of modern technology to help the likes of cruise.co.uk and Travelbag to increase conversion levels. Recommendations based on other travel can be targeted to individual travelers, and since going live with cruise.co.uk, Sheil said it has been able to increase conversion rates by 50%, identifying the specialist retailers’ 0.25% of its best customers.

Facebook Touts Mobile: Travel firms must engage with customers on mobile, deliver more efficient and dynamic marketing campaigns and curate brands that inspire, Facebook told Phocuswright delegates this week. Customers have developed a stronger connection with their mobile devices than with any other form of media and that must be respected.

Google Continues to Improve Travel Booking Experience: While avoiding the terminology OTA, Google showcased a new destination mobile interface that will take it another step closer to owning the entire customer journey. Google’s move to helping travelers is based on the idea that customers searching for travel are not appeased by ten blue links.

Last Mile Needs Personalization: “The sad truth is personalization is really the exception rather than the rule, despite the fact hotels really should know about you,” said Josh Steinitz, vice president of global business development at Revinate.

Top Innovators in Travel:

What up and coming, established, and other companies topped the list of innovators? Announced on November 18, winners were chosen by a panel of “Dragons” comprised of travel and technology experts, who determine the top innovation in three categories — Startup, Emerging and Established. One company was selected to win the Brand USA Award for Travel Marketing Innovation and one company was awarded the General Catalyst Award for Travel Innovation, which comes with a $100,000 convertible note.

Winners

• The General Catalyst Award for Travel Innovation: Tansler Inc.
• The Brand USA Award for Travel Marketing Innovation: Travefy
• 33entrepreneurs Best Team Award: Trekkable
• The Most Innovative Startup Company: Proxce
• The Most Innovative Emerging Company: Tansler Inc.
• The Most Innovative Established Company: Revinate

Runners-Up

• Innovative Startup Company: Zizoo
• Innovative Emerging Company: AirHelp
• Innovative Established Company: Hipmunk.

See You in 2016: Los Angeles, California

Phocuswright announced its upcoming 2016 conference, scheduled November 15-17, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Learn more at http://phocuswrightconference.com/