Battle of the Corporate Travel Techies

Producing its own version of Shark Tank, The BTN Group gathered 12 technology companies to pitch their corporate travel and corporate travel management innovations at its recent 2016 Innovate conference. The innovators competed for the 2016 Innovator Award as bestowed by The BTN Group’s panel of judges and for the People’s Choice Award as voted by the conference’s 160 buyer attendees. Here's what went down.

Judge’s Critiques

Avis Now High Points: The car rental industry’s first real-time mobile app represents a big shift to allowing the traveler to control the process. Travelers can choose the vehicle, and the display includes make, model, color and mileage. The traveler also can flash the vehicle lights to find the car in the lot. Receipt data displays upon return of the car, including the debit or—a real first—credit for fuel. In-app customer assistance.

Avis Now Low Points: Driven by capacity, so vehicle choices may turn out to be limited. Questions around returning damaged vehicles. 

Bizly High Points: Ingenuity in filling unused meeting spaces with last-minute corporate demand. Incorporating clients’ onsite conference space into the existing platform sweetened the deal.

Bizly Low Points: Need more integration with property management systems and travel management companies. Despite the curated nature of Bizly’s member hotels, there are potential service issues, particularly around food and beverage. Judges were wary of logistical issues should a clients’ onsite rooms get double-booked.

Blacklane High Points: Users can reserve cars as close as one hour in advance. Efficient use of fleet for the black car industry. Value to the traveler in savings. 

Blacklane Low Points: Are the savings Blacklane claimed over competitors based on apples to apples comparisons of products? Gaps in expense integrations. The bigger question is whether the future of car service would include scheduled rides at all. 

Conichi High Points: Guests are recognized instantly when they arrive at the property, which simplifies and personalizes check-in. Location-based personalization. It integrates with existing hotel property management system technology. Enables mobile payments, automated check-in, mobile check-out and smartphone door entry. 

Conichi Low Points: There’s a concern about time to market, considering each property has to be equipped with beacons. There may be resistance from chains that have their own solutions. Hotel’s ROI may be difficult to measure based on improved guest services. Some human training is required.

Cvent High Points: Virtual cards and Concur Expense integration streamline the method of payment, the processes and the reconciliation, considering that meetings payment can be opaque. The ability to reduce purchase orders is a clear cost efficiency.

Cvent Low Points: Currently integrates only with Citibank; more card providers would add strength. Judges also questioned the calculation purchase order process costs hit $200 per order.

Dufl High Points: A new category that no one in the industry is doing and good market penetration so far. Acknowledging the “niche” market, judges praised the concept for road warriors.

Dufl Low Point: The majority of travelers won’t use this service.

Freebird High Points: Predictive analysis of multitudes of flight data allows users to get a jump on alternate plans before disruption information is shared widely. Rebooked tickets are “free.” Especially applicable for travelers traversing high-disruption markets where systemic issues arise like Chicago. 

Freebird Low Points: Using the metaphor “sick people are the only ones who want to buy insurance,” judges saw less applicability outside high-disruption markets. Judges weren’t convinced that corporations would broadly invest in the per-segment fees to offset the inconvenience of potential travel disruptions.

Groupize High Points: Effectively simplifies sourcing and workflows for small meetings. Includes contract-approval processes. Whether a planner books with or without an RFP, the approvals process remains active, making the tool easier to adopt and offering more potential for “bringing real value back to the organization.” Integration with Concur.

Groupize Low Point: Needs integration with online booking tools other than Concur.

HRS High Points: Collection of data on hotel line items and facilitation of virtual payment. It’s an effort to close the loop on payment and data. Potential for better value-added tax reclamation.

HRS Low Point: The need to pay for room ancillaries with an alternate card could cause problems.

Lyft High Points: The admin portal works for both travel managers and travel arrangers. The event portal enables multiple bookings for events.

Lyft Low Point: Requirement for data signoffs could be a roadblock, making it harder to share that data.

TripRebel High Points: The traveler chooses suitable hotels. TripRebel optimizes the cost by reshopping the selections. Final booking details sent two days before the trip. Consumer feel and quality of the app.

TripRebel Low Points: A consumer app that is transitioning into the corporate space. Will receipt data “and everything else” be brought back to the end user?

Uber for Business High Points: Flags rides that are likely to be leisure rides but are paid using passengers’ corporate profiles. “Smart” features that would learn habits quickly and course correct for individuals. Ninety percent accuracy rate.

Uber for Business Low Points: A tool with a 10 percent failure rate may not be valuable. Is the tool over-engineered with machine learning when an intelligent rules engine might suffice? Considering it examines only 6 percent to 8 percent of transactions, the significance is in question, as well. 

And the Winner Is ...

2016 Business Travel Innovator: Conichi

Roadmap clinched in 2015, and this year, Conichi, another travel experience technology, has beat out travel management players.

Conichi's technology integrates with hotel property management systems, point-of-sale systems and loyalty programs and provides hotels with beacon technology to recognize travelers' mobile devices. Once the traveler is locked in, Conichi displays customer details and preferences to hotel staff to facilitate service and extend special offers and messaging to the traveler. For the traveler, the technology facilitates pre-arrival communication about personal preferences. Onsite, it eliminates standard travel processes with mobile check-in, keyless entry and mobile check-out. It also enables virtual card payment at hotels, which has been a pain point for travel managers. Conichi claims the app has 23 million users.

Founder and CEO Maximilian Waldmann said of the award: "We are a company based in Berlin doing a lot of work in Europe and China right now. We had no footprint in the U.S. Such a recognition, and being here speaking to people and understanding the issues here as we roll out in the U.S. is so important. It has huge significance."

Waldmann pointed out Conichi's ability to deploy to hotels within a corporation's managed hotel program. The German company has an established partnership with hotel distribution provider HRS, which currently flags the "smart hotels" within its portfolio and prioritizes them in search results.

Considering Conichi has fewer traditional travel management features, it's interesting that the judges locked on the company's traveler experience innovation. Waldmann explained: "Companies are moving away from solely looking at pricing and regulations toward enhancing the entire experience: making it better to travel, making it easier, making it seamless. Winning this award proves that point."