Travel Technology Show Innovation Awards
The Travel Technology Show is excited to launch the first Travel Technology Show
Innovation Award. Designed to recognise innovation, ingenuity and true leadership
in the travel technology industry.
Following discussions of the nominated entries by a panel of industry experts and journalists, the shortlist of six to be voted for is shown below.
The winner will be announced at the Show!
Shortlist
1. Name of Entry: @com - a pioneering solution
Why this innovation deserves to win: Anite has created a scalable and proven new technology product.
@comRes is a pioneering solution which includes not only a reservations engine, but integrated content management, customer relationship management and operational financials. This unique solution enables travel operators to support both the traditional and new market models - such as dynamic packaging and flexible packages - all from a single platform.
Surrounding @comRes is the @com eBusiness suite - a set of innovative tools designed to reduce costs, including contracting modules, online booking tools and supplier gateways which provide out of the box connectivity to third party suppliers.
Exhibitor: Anite Travel Systems
2. Name of Entry: Re-defining Distribution - Total Car Expertise
Why this innovation deserves to win: There is no doubt that CarTrawler is creating waves in the travel industry. Combining total car rental knowledge (entrepreneur Greg Turley) with cutting edge technology (distribution whizz Bobby Healy) no other technology system can match CarTrawler's distribution reach or capability.
The company enables 95 airlines and over 1,500 online partners to access real-time pricing, availability and bookings from 450 car rental suppliers in 134 countries (translated!) from within their existing sites. CarTrawler technology can integrate into booking engines, facilitating dynamic cross-selling of car rental, tapping into a high-yield ancillary revenue product - critical to the growth of today's travel providers.
Exhibitor: CarTrawler
3. Name of Entry: iSys CRM - Affordable CRM dedicated to the Travel Industry
Why this innovation deserves to win: iSys CRM is the only windows and web based solution specifically developed for the Travel Industry. Having recently deployed the system for the Thomas Cook and MyTravel Merger in the past three months we have sold the system to First Choice,Cadogan Holidays,Mark Warner,Esprit & Total.
Why iSys CRM is so unique and innovative is that it provides the Travel Business with a single customer view enabling them to see all their customer activities within one core application. Every touch point is stored against the customer including: call centre phone calls, marketing mailings and email clicks, bookings, options and quotes, brochure requests, social networking and Skype.
Exhibitor: Pro EQ Limited
4. Name of Entry: First integrated Reservation - and Shipboard Management System
Why this innovation deserves to win: The close cooperation of Rescompany Systems Ltd and IisiI Cruise Software GmbH gives cruise companies - for the first time - the opportunity to acquire a fully integrated Reservation- and Shipboard Management System. It has been a long time goal of Rescompany to bring the extremely valuable customer data which is gathered onboard ships back into the CRM profile of that guest. With IisiI's years of experience in the Cruise Industry and their concept of �One Platform, One Database, One System' Rescompany is now able to offer Cruise Lines an �All-Inclusive' software package which ensures that available marketing data gathered onboard ships is transferred back to the CRM part of the reservation package.
Exhibitor: Rescompany Systems
5. Name of Entry: trailstream VIEW - Hotel Video Library
Why this innovation deserves to win: Tomorrow's video content, web-ready today. trailstream have filmed over 1000 of the most popular hotels around the Mediterranean in high definition using professional film crews. This unique video library, complete with music and professional voiceovers can be easily incorporated into any website or retail network - without the expense of creating and maintaining it.
Until now this had been the preserve of only the largest tour operators, but with trailstream VIEW, anyone selling holidays can now exploit compelling video content which can truly convey the experience of a holiday. trailstream are making video content easily available for today's travel websites.
Exhibitor: trailstream Ltd
6. Name of Entry: TravelTainment IBE (Internet Booking Engine) - Superior and Innovative Technology
Why this innovation deserves to win: The TT-IBE is a market leading product in Germany (over 70% of all online bookings are transacted through the IBE) and was launched in the UK in November 06. UK customers including Expedia and Opodo use the engine to sell packages and (from March 08) auto compiled Dynamic Packages. The technology works on a data cache system and �direct connects' to operators to check and make bookings. The IBE is unique, and super fast as results are delivered in under a second, whilst boasting fuzzy logic functionality so offers are shown as either a direct matches or alternatives. The data caches are populated with operators offers and prices are pre calculated to include supplements. Supporting content on Destinations and Regions is included within the booking path providing detailed information (text, images and panoramas). Hotels and points of interest locations are geo-referenced so exact distances between a hotel and say a beach are calculated.
TravelTainment is an Amadeus owned business.
Exhibitor: TravelTainment (UK) Ltd.
Other Nominations
Name of Entry: GatorMail Wizard - a step-by-step email campaign tool
Market research, and feedback from attendees of CommuniGator's popular best practice seminars, shows that marketers from all industries approaching email marketing for the first time are looking for a step-by-step email campaign tool. CommuniGator have created a wizard to satisfy this need. A campaign can be created and sent within minutes and provides an ideal introduction to all the principles of an email marketing campaign. Preformatted templates, e.g. newsletter, event invitation or special offers take away the pain of HTML design and remove the cost of outsourcing creative. The campaign wizard ensures that those on a tight deadline do not omit important information such as �subject line' or �sender alias' in their haste to get a campaign out the door.
Exhibitor: CommuniGator Ltd
Name of Entry: Travelberry Pro - a total solution both online and offline
Travelberry, CSI Media's dynamic packaging system, has a new Tour Op element which allows for stock control management. The system will allow Tour Operators to upload their own stock i.e. flights, and merge them with third party product via XML, API and GDS's. This stock can then be sold on their own website as well as external websites, through an agent system and via the XML outputs that come as standard.
The system allows for custom pricing, including mark-ups and discounts on the clients own and third party stock. The operators can also distribute their own product via XML at Nett or Gross rates.
The Tour Op system also features a CRM/call centre solution, finance reporting and an email marketing suite as standard. The system can also offer "Web 2.0� features such as Google mapping, Content mapping, Video, 360 tours, etc.
In essence, a travel company can use the system as a total solution for their on and off line business.
Exhibitor: CSI Media
Name of Entry: AirScan - the first commercially available viewdata scanning system
Airscan, the first commercially available viewdata scanning system in 1992, is presently is the only such system with second level availability of resorts, hotels, and occupancies in addition to comprehensive flight information from the top 50 tour operators in the UK. The system provides data in predesigned databases or streaming formats like SQL and XML and is so resilient, with a network of servers from Las Vegas to New York and London, that we can proudly claim zero down time. As used by all the top tour operators!
Exhibitor: Data World
Name of Entry: Dolphin TravelScanner - a unique fully integrated single database solution
Dolphin TravelScanner has been developed using leading edge technology and is a unique fully integrated single database solution. The introduction of our new ground product database enables users to search, compare and combine locally contracted rates with dynamic content from a range of suppliers of hotel inventory as well as low cost carriers, scheduled flights and other ground products. Tour operators and travel agencies of all sizes can now enjoy the benefits of a fully integrated solution to manage both online and traditional distribution channels to deliver an end-to-end sales and booking management system.
Exhibitor: Dolphin Dynamics
Name of Entry: Lixto Online Market Intelligence
Lixto provides software and services to aggregate product and price information from Web channels and to deliver structured data from unstructured information sources. Using the Lixto visual development tools, any Web source can be easily integrated in a short amount of time into a market intelligence application that provides the �outside view� required for effective pricing, revenue management, yield management or rate compliance applications. Lixto addresses the needs of product managers, pricing experts, and rate controllers to understand the market and to gain an accurate, consistent and complete picture of trends and developments in the market place.
Exhibitor: Lixto Software
Name of Entry: SABS 2008 - combining the power of the Internet with the knowledge of the agent
SABS 2008 embraces the changing requirements of the travel industry, both in terms of product distribution and the way in which Travel Agents are required to sell product, using technology that allows agents to sell from any location in the world, whilst negating the need to be within the traditional office environment. It is a unique product that combines the power of the Internet with the knowledge of the agent. Combined with a fully integrated back office solution it removes key depressions, minimising administration and maximising sales time.
Exhibitor: Micros Plc (formerly RedSky IT)
Name of Entry: Ticket payment engine automated for booking flights
Time is money! Saving and optimizing time and flow within sales- and accounting processes means increasing quality and profit.
Partners Software has developed a payment engine for optimizing the whole payment process while using Partners� flight booking solutions. Highlight: As many business credit cards may be preset for booking flights and services as you wish. Partners manages these credit-card pools for both travel agencies and tour operators using these. Partners' system does not request the travellers' credit card for a booking, rather accesses one of the preset travel agency's cards and uses this for payment.
Exhibitor: Partners Software GmbH
Name of Entry: Festive Load Testing Awareness Campaign
In November 07, Site Confidence launched a campaign to increase awareness amongst online travel retailers of the importance of ensuring Websites were fully prepared for the anticipated rush of bookings over the festive period.
The direct mail campaign highlighted how essential it was to confirm that Websites could meet customer expectations and provide a consistent and reliable service for users.
The campaign highlighted how Site Confidence, the UK's leading external Load Testing provider, could help verify the current and future capacity constraints of Websites, offering a special fixed price for this essential testing when completed prior to the Christmas break.
Exhibitor: Site Confidence