Six Most Promising Travel Innovations Revealed at PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit

Hollywood, Calif., USA, | PhoCusWright, the travel industry research authority, announced today the six highest scoring demonstrations from the three categories of Monday's Travel Innovation Summit at The PhoCusWright Conference in Hollywood. They six winners are Home&Abroad, Interactive Mobile @dvertising LLC, TripIt, Triporati, Wandrian Inc. and Yapta.com.

Thirty-two companies took the stage Monday, November 17, at The Travel Innovation Summit at The PhoCusWright Conference to run the gauntlet of public opinion, demonstrate their products to a live audience and test them against the "wisdom of the crowds." This inaugural event showcased the travel industry's hottest, most innovative Web and mobile-based applications by innovators from around the world.

Six winners—two from each of three categories: startups, emerging companies and established companies—were selected by real-time audience voting at The Travel Innovation Summit. These companies advance to the next round on Wednesday and Thursday at the Center Stage event of The PhoCusWright Conference , addressing the larger audience of travel movers and shakers. They each have Five Minutes of Fame to describe their innovation and convince the audience (and judges) that they will be a marketplace success. One company will be chosen as "Best in Show" by a blue ribbon panel of representatives from different areas of the travel industry (analysts, pundits, media, bloggers). The overall winner will be announced during Philip Wolf's epilogue at the close of the conference on Thursday.

A brief description of the six winners:

• Home&Abroad: Fogglight—a free platform that enables travel businesses to integrate trip planning and booking tools into their online service offerings. It allows users to create a travel Web site from scratch.
• Interactive Mobile @dvertising LLC: iM@ (I'm at)—a geographically-aware content management platform providing travelers on-demand access to destination-specific information on accommodations, transportation and entertainment on a variety of mobile devices.
• TripIt: An online platform that builds a travel itinerary from various booking confirmation emails and integrates travel information, weather, maps, and city guides to an itinerary that can be shared via social networking.
• Triporati: Offers an online platform which assists customers in selecting a travel destination by matching the needs and affinities of the traveler with the unique character of over 1,000 global destinations.
• Wandrian Inc.: Wandrian API—integrates global rail booking systems and allow travelers to search, shop and book global rail travel from a single platform.
• Yapta.com: Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant—a travel shopping Web site delivering a unique combination of price assurance and transparency to consumers who have purchased air travel online. It also alerts customers of price changes and changes to rewards redemption values.

"The Travel Innovation Summit demonstrators afforded attendees a sneak preview of the next big wave of ideas that will shape the travel marketplace over the next 12 to 18 months," noted Philip Wolf, PhoCusWright president and CEO.

Prior to the final stages at The PhoCusWright Conference in Hollywood, applicants came from all over the world with ideas in almost every area of the travel value chain. Each was carefully screened by PhoCusWright analysts, using detailed questionnaires, 30-minute interviews and scrutiny of the various technology applications.

Now in its 15th year, The PhoCusWright Conference brings together a prestigious group of more than 1,000 travel, tourism and hospitality players to engage, debate and define the latest developments in global travel commerce.