SpotHero Wins BTN's 2017 Innovator Award

At The BTN Group's recent Innovate conference, the Innovator of the Year, so named by our expert judges, was a supplier that solved pain points for both corporate travelers and their travel managers: SpotHero takes the uncertainty out of finding a parking spot for travelers and helps travel managers capture, see and report on an opaque area of travel spend.

"It takes the average driver 20 minutes to find a [parking] spot," said SpotHero strategic initiatives manager Becca Rabinowitz. "Instead of looking for parking on the street and making circles, you can actually look for parking right in the SpotHero app and all available parking will come up." As Priceline and Hotels Tonight do, SpotHero negotiates discount pricing for excess inventory from lots, garages, airports, office buildings and valet services in 78 U.S. cities. "Parking is a perishable item," she said. "They're happy to [sell it at a discount] because otherwise they wouldn't sell the spot anyway."

Travelers use the app to prepay—they can toggle between personal and corporate credit cards—and to scan a QR code to access and sign out of a spot. SpotHero sends receipts to users' Concur, Certify and Expensify accounts and includes expense notes the traveler has added in the SpotHero app. From the dashboard, travel managers can download parking spend data, including traveler notes, which aid in client-billable expenses. To illustrate savings potential, Rabinowitz's presentation profiled a pilot client whose 3,000 employees made 10,000 parking reservations over 11 months, at an average price of $31. Considering SpotHero's average parking price is $19, that 38 percent in potential savings would have totaled $125,000.

The judges were impressed with SpotHero's ability to capture parking spend, which travelers often pay for in cash. "It's always good to try to get as many types of purchases [as possible] under control as a travel manager. This is a new area, and some of the numbers were pretty impressive," said Travel Tech Consulting president Norm Rose, one of the judges. They also appreciated the data analytics, the variety in inventory, and the discount pricing.

—JoAnn DeLuna

PEOPLE'S CHOICE: DVI

DVI is known to many as a data-visualization platform, but as president Brian Beard told Innovate attendees: We're so much more than that. DVI offers data aggregation, data cleansing, data reconciliation and data normalization in order to solve "the 40-year-old problem of data quality in this industry."

Using data science, machine learning and visualization sciences, the company offers a robust, intuitive and actionable intelligence platform that enables users to parse data from a wide swath of sources, including supplier, card and external data. Through a series of tabs and filters, users can look into overall program spend, then dig deeper to, for instance, examine overall meetings spend, then dig even deeper to see insights around meetings patterns, meetings leakage and even AV costs for internal meetings versus external meetings. In another scenario, a travel buyer could compare the spend on rental cars versus on-demand services in a certain market and identify how shifting spend to one or the other might save the program money. DVI uses an open API and connects with "anybody and everybody" to send and receive data.

DVI's offering may have been a crowd favorite, but the judges also liked the story DVI was building around the data and the flexibility it offers, not just in visualization but in satisfying the diverse needs of corporates. The lingering question for the discerning panel, however, was: With all the richness DVI delivers in its visualization tools, could it also deliver on simplicity? How easy would it be for a manager to create a top-line report for a CEO, for instance, without the bells and whistles of filtering and deep dives?

—Julie Sickel

JUDGE'S HONORABLE MENTIONS

Not only was DVI the audience's People's Choice at the BTN Innovate conference, the judges also named it an honorable mention, along with two others:

Mezi

Mezi promises to convert a traveler's phone into a personal and powerful travel assistant for booking and trip management. This AI-based platform utilizes both bots and human travel agents to assist travelers via its messaging platform. The human agents help to train the bots and step in when requests get too complicated for the bot to handle. With each interaction, the bots become better and the living profile of each traveler is updated with personal preferences and behavior.

The judges liked Mezi's user experience and appreciated that "rather than just chat, it's looking at the DNA of a travel request." Right now, Mezi's chatbot-to-human ratio for handling requests is 60:40. Within six months, it hopes its bots will handle 80 percent of requests. The judges liked that ambition and Mezi's pilots with travel management companies like Casto Travel but said it remains to be seen whether Mezi's request handling is more efficient than other means.

—Julie Sickel

Tripism

For travelers, the social platform Tripism offers trip planning, research and interaction capabilities with supplier reviews from colleagues and other useful information, such as which hotel or restaurant colleagues frequent most in a given area and which restaurants abroad accept American Express cards. Travel managers gain insight into traveler sentiment about hotels, restaurants and airlines, then can work with suppliers to improve traveler experiences, and Tripism enables suppliers to create promotions and display richer content than would be possible through traditional distribution channels.

Judges appreciated the engagement Tripism provides with corporate travelers. They also loved the openness of the platform—Tripism is booking agnostic—and the fact that the company is willing to collaborate and partner with others like Dinova.

—Julie Sickel

THE COMPETITION

Blacklane

Chauffeured car service platform Blacklane integrates with global distribution systems, travel management companies and Finnair to allow travelers in 53 countries to book rides in advance, including near on-demand bookings. It also connects to Amadeus to access passenger name records. The set rate includes taxes, tolls, fees, gratuities, an hour of free wait time for airport pickups, 15 minutes for other pickups and free cancellations an hour before one-way transfers and 24 hours before hourly bookings.

BTN's judges appreciated Blacklane's GDS integrations, which allow travel managers to receive data easily. They also liked the all-inclusive pricing and the lax cancellation fees. The service's licensed drivers mean companies avoid the duty of care risk people associate with ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber, they said. The judges suggested, however, that Blacklane clearly communicate how its prices compare with other ground transportation options' final prices so travel managers can designate use cases in their travel policies.

—JoAnn DeLuna

Breather

Breather operates 500 professionally designed meeting spaces in 10 cities. The locations' capacities range as large as 70 people. Through an app or the website, meeting arrangers can book as little as an hour in advance and add amenities like A/V equipment, whiteboards, TVs and access to kitchens and waiting rooms. Breather also can arrange catering.

Judges said Breather aids difficult-to-manage small meetings in an innovative way. However, they felt adoption by those who arrange small meetings, such as admins, would be challenging. They also anticipate that Breather will have trouble scaling the business in a timely fashion, as the design Breather touts for its spaces will take time and manpower for each one.

—JoAnn DeLuna

Deem

Deem's Intelligent Attach aims to solve a small problem that is nevertheless a big headache for travel managers. The solution targets travelers who already have booked their flights but not other parts of the business trip. It recommends hotel and ground transportation options that travelers can book easily, thereby increasing attachment rates. The recommendations are based on traveler histories and preferences, as well as corporate policies and preferred programs. The solution not only works with Deem's suite of products but also can be deployed across any booking tool.

The judges praised Deem for targeting a pain point within the industry. But they raised concerns about capturing out-of-channel bookings and noted that Deem's hotel attachment conversion rate was "pretty low" at 1.5 percent.

—Julie Sickel

Dinova

Dinova's network of more than 14,000 restaurants allows companies to earn rebates and offers them visibility into dining transaction data. It partners with travel apps, corporate card providers and booking and expense tools to reach travelers where they are, and the app lets travelers search for restaurants by location and price point. It also serves the traveler experience by using behavioral data, traveler preferences, itinerary and geolocation info to deliver real-time recommendations, and it offers rewards to motivate travelers to eat at restaurants within the program.

The judges liked the quick and simple onboarding for corporate travel programs and the immediate return in savings. Still, they felt Dinova, which has been around for nine years, could be more technologically advanced, especially in terms of analytics and showing value and opportunities. They suggested Dinova develop its application programing interface and Web services and engage with third parties to build out its ecosystem.

—JoAnn DeLuna

FCM Travel Solutions

FCM Travel Solutions presented its Smart Assistant for Mobile tool, but you can call it Sam. The AI-powered chatbot interface manages itineraries for anything booked through FCM, as well as bookings emailed in and added manually. Sam sends context-aware and time-sensitive alerts and messages to travelers, such as, "You need to leave for the airport now if you want to catch your flight." Travelers, in turn, can change or cancel bookings directly through the app, regardless of the booking source, and connect instantly with an FCM travel consultant in the same platform.

The judges commended Sam's user experience controls but wondered how much it could change the market, given that it's a product for a particular travel management company. The judges also desired more clarity about when a request is handed off between the chatbot and travel consultant.

—Julie Sickel

Flightsayer

Flightsayer uses real-time and historical data feeds like weather and FAA flight data to determine the likelihood of delays and cancellations. Before booking, travelers can see a flight's score, or they can email itineraries to Flightsayer so the service can monitor their booked flights. The company notifies travelers when the likelihood of disruption increases, and it shares alternative flight options but does not facilitate rebooking. Flightsayer partners with Adelman and a few BCD Travel affiliates—and is in talks with more travel management companies and global distribution systems—to feed client itineraries into Flightsayer and push Flightsayer data to TMCs' apps or agent platforms.

The judges thought it was a thoughtful, creative and innovative solution to manage flight delays proactively, especially for corporate VIPs, but they wanted the flight alternatives to include a clearer explanation of each potential transaction's cancellation and change fees.

—JoAnn DeLuna

GroundLink

Brio, GroundLink's black car booking platform, gives travel programs insight into their upcoming and completed rides, rides in progress, frequent users and overall ground transport spend. It also tracks flights and adapts pickup times based on the adjusted flight arrival times. Clients in 110 countries can book in advance by app, website or phone. Select cities allow on-demand bookings. Drivers are licensed and insured, and the fleet ranges from a three-person economy car to a 40-person party bus. GroundLink offers as much as $75 off the passenger's next ride if the driver is more than five minutes late.

The judges liked Brio's modern look, corporate controls and ability for travel programs to incorporate their travel policies into the platform. They suggested GroundLink ensure that it distinguishes itself from other on-demand car services like Lyft and Uber to avoid a reputation as simply "a more expensive Uber."

—JoAnn DeLuna

Groups360

Groups360's GroupSync meetings and events sourcing platform allows meeting planners to filter venue searches by date, preferred markets, meeting size, amenities, travel time and other factors. GroupSync uses artificial intelligence to identify and display properties, estimated rates, historical occupancy and spaces booked by other meetings of similar size. Hotels can customize their listings with photos and additional information like renovation updates and number of restaurants. The system summarizes choices, including how the properties scored on the meeting planner's needs, estimated rates and search criteria.

The judges were impressed with Groups360's management team of hotel vets and with the tool's search functionality. However, they were concerned about limited inventory and the lag time between searching and receiving rates. They also were unclear how Groups360 solves the RFP issue, as the company claimed to do in its presentation.

—JoAnn DeLuna

HRS

HRS is looking to kill the annual hotel RFP. Its Active Sourcing solution shifts the process from the once-a-year model to one of continual monitoring and management, supported by HRS's existing suite of products, such as Rate Protector. Clients determine which key performance indicators are most important to their programs, and HRS analyzes programs' hotel data on an ongoing basis to see which hotels are and aren't being used, to identify new opportunities and to fuel dialogue with hotels that aren't producing.

For the judges, however, the presentation would have benefited from a clear visualization of the client dashboard and a deep dive into the levers and products available to clients who choose Active Sourcing. —Julie Sickel

Travelport Locomote

Locomote is built in the spirit of an end-to-end workflow solution for the corporate travel market. The platform uses modules—such as a procurement module, a message and audit module and a booking module—to enable corporates to construct workflows that best fit their travel program needs. Additionally, Locomote integrates other pre-built and third-party solutions into the platform.

The judges lauded the more modern user experience for both the program manager and the traveler and appreciated the unique and flexible workflow capabilities. However, they worried about information capture—for now, Locomote requires off-channel data to be forwarded. The judges also wondered whether Locomote could successfully implement more travel management companies and if the platform really creates a new booking paradigm for corporate travel.

—Julie Sickel