The Travel Innovation Summit At The PhoCusWright Conference
NEW IDEAS. NEW PRODUCTS. NEW COMPANIES.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel
Hollywood, CA United States
The Travel Innovation Summit showcased 32 of the travel industry’s hottest, most innovative Web and mobile-based applications at its sold-out inaugural event.
Read Philip Wolf's Opening Monologue from Monday, November 17.
Travel, tourism and hospitality is the world’s largest industry, responsible for 8% of global employment, 9% of invested capital and 10% of global GDP. Millions of citizens will leave their borders for the first time this year; international tourism actually grew year-over-year about 5 per cent in the first four months of 2008 (UN World Tourism Organization).
The marketplace is enormously fragmented because of the terrestrial nature of travel itself. Companies and infrastructure are required to be located all over the world, one destination at a time. However, the travel researching, planning, sharing and purchasing process is wholly digital, which is why travel is an e-commerce category killer. Technology-based innovation that improves customer travel planning experiences are therefore enormously important to the overall industry.
TRAVEL + INNOVATION + TECHNOLOGY + FUTURE…INTERSECT HERE
The Travel Innovation Summit represents the next big wave of innovation in the travel industry and the ensuing impact on your business. Benefits of demonstrating include marketing and promotion, business development, on-site meetings, audience feedback, a chance to address the Center Stage audience later in the week, and more. Thirty-two innovators from around the world demonstrated sites and solutions that significantly impact travel planning, purchasing and trending on Monday, November 17, 2008.
The influential audience of professionals focused on travel judged the innovators real-time, sending six finalists to fill the Five Minutes of Fame slots during Center Stage on Wednesday and Thursday. See the six winning companies HERE. One company was chosen as "Best in Show" at the close of Center Stage—Interactive MOBILE @dvertising LLC.
Early-stage, emerging and established companies were invited to apply based purely on their innovative accomplishments, regardless of organizational size, age, sector or location. PhoCusWright’s experienced analyst team carefully screens each candidate to find the best and eliminate the hype. Applicants came from all over the world with ideas in almost every area of the travel value chain. Each was carefully screened by PhoCusWright analysts, using detailed questionnaires, 30-minute interviews and scruitiny of the various technology applications. Only the most innovative and exciting made the cut.
Applications are now being taken for The Travel Innovation Summit in 2009.
