The Travel and Meetings Society incubator committee has chosen the first six participants for its startup program, confirmed committee co-founder and co-lead Hansini Sharma. The program was announced in March and applications opened in April.
Half of the companies selected are in the corporate travel space. Those with ties to the industry include Troop, which helps meeting planners select optimized event locations; Tousca, which connects travel buyers with ground transportation providers in South Africa; and BTPAutomation, which automates corporate hotel sourcing.
The other three are Visxa, which connects individuals with immigration, residence and citizenship lawyers; Certified Africa, which handles cultural trips to Africa; and Scurry Club, which is a members-only travel club for trips in India.
"The companies are diverse and in different stages of development," said Sharma, who also is Acquis Consulting Group's corporate travel practice lead. "There's a mix of leisure and corporate travel that we're excited about. We never intended to be only corporate-travel-focused, and we weren't quite sure what type of interest we would get from the market."
Twenty-three companies applied for the inaugural incubator, which will start on July 6 and last until December, Sharma said, noting each term would be about five months to accommodate two groups per year and fulfill administrative and on- and off-boarding requirements.
Sharma along with program co-chair and co-founder Suzanne Boyan, who also is meetings and travel manager at ZS Associates, and the other members of the incubator program team made the sections, which were based on how well the companies matched the skill sets of what the TAMS community and incubator team could offer, she said.
"All [applicants] were good," Sharma said. "The biggest challenge we had was figuring out how we could help people. In some cases, we really liked the idea, and it was well thought through, but we didn't feed we had the skills set to give them the right help needed."
The TAMS team will run a mentoring program in tandem with the startup incubator. Interested individuals beginning June 22 can express interest in participating through TAMS' website, Sharma said. Selected mentors will be asked to commit four hours per month, with the goal of helping better prepare the participating companies to accomplish their goals and ready them to ask for funding.
"It's a work in progress, and we're excited about the interest," Sharma said. "We're committed to making it successful, but like anything, there will be some bumps in the road along the way, and we will work through them as we encounter them."
RELATED: TAMS Incubator Applications Open Ahead of Schedule