Carmine Carpanzano's new startup Cruising Altitude
Technologies got a vote of confidence last month in the form of an equity
investment in the company from venture capital and advisory firm Solidea
Capital. Solidea has strategic ties to Acquis Consulting, which advised on the
investment.
Cruising Altitude is an early-stage startup
working in the corporate travel direct-booking space with a new technology it
calls Altimeter. Altimeter works with travel suppliers to enable managed
corporate travel bookings on supplier-direct websites, inclusive of corporate
policy, contract rates, corporate payment methods, linkages to expense
reporting and other critical items like duty of care and travel data reporting.
The company says it "co-authors" technology with
suppliers to manage "journey orchestration" that will allow corporate
travelers to book across multiple channels with technology on the back end
pulling together the trip data for management.
Altimeter is getting new investors at a time when content
fragmentation has scrambled the corporate travel market. Corporate travel
buyers increasingly lament content access gaps, in particular with airlines
thanks to New Distribution Capability alternatives and the phasing out of full-content
global distribution system contracts.
"We're at this inflection point in the industry
where travel managers are saying, 'Why can't we use technology [like] AI and
APIs and all these different things to make the corporate travel booking and
management process smoother and give our travelers choice?' " said 490
Consulting managing partner Greeley Koch, who also is advising on the deal. "The
time is right, right now, for a tool like this that will help break down the
siloes we are working in today and really focus on this journey orchestration
from start to finish."
Altimeter is new and "is using newer technologies to
build from the ground up," according to Carpanzano, but the concept of
facilitating corporate bookings and data capture on supplier direct websites isn't
new.
Carpanzano's previous endeavors at booking tool technology
provider NuTravel, which he founded in 2002, were similar. After NuTravel's
standalone booking tool was acquired by Certify in 2017, Carpanzano leaned way
into efforts to build technology that would facilitate corporate travel
bookings on supplier-direct websites. ARC took notice early on and took a
majority stake in NuTravel in 2020, as part of its move towards an "omnichannel"
strategy. ARC changed NuTravel's name to Traverse Technologies in 2023 at which
time it also took full control of the company and made a CEO change.
Carpanzano's refreshed effort with Cruising Altitude and
Altimeter has early interest on the supply side, he told BTN.
"We have a few [suppliers] we are working with closely
to develop [the technology]," Carpanzano said, but did not disclose
supplier names. Koch added that the partners weren't just airlines but also
extended to car rental and hotel companies, especially as the hotel distribution market gets pricier for
properties. "Hotels are really looking at direct-booking strategies as
well," Koch said.
Asked whether travel management companies, which bring in
revenue by facilitating indirect bookings, were on board with the direction
Altimeter presents, Carpanzano said, "We are in conversations with several
TMCs and a few of the larger ones," without naming them. "They are
receptive, very receptive."
He underlined the opportunities TMCs have to support data
management and reporting, and posited TMCs that cling to reporting from their
own single channel would inevitably become less relevant as the market moves on
without them.
"Altimeter can
help enable the TMC as a central repository for everything," said
Carpanzano. "We view the world as the direct and indirect worlds work
working together and, you know, bringing it back into the fold."
Carpanzano said he
would also like for Altimeter to be in a position to provide compensation back
to TMCs should bookings shift dramatically toward direct sites. "We don't
know if this is possible yet," he said, "but that's another concept
we are playing with."