As most of you know I was intimately involved with this year's PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit. I have been tracking both new media and traditional coverage of this event. I wanted to provide you some feedback from the inside as well as some comments on the overall subject of innovation.
Yesterday I watched 34 firms pitch their innovations at a PhoCusWright's travel innovation conference. Nearly all were aimed at the leisure travel segment, but keep reading, because innovations in the consumer market will shape the face of business travel.
Only those open to change will reap the rewards
by Michael Strauss
From a technological point of view, the travel industry is not the hunter, but the hunted. Innovations are neither fostered nor developed to the necessary extent. Suppliers, distributors, travel management companies, but also technology providers are partially to blame for this. However, new concepts can help the travel industry to reduce costs, master crises and offer better products.
Today as we face a challenging economy and ever increasing belt-tightening, there is an unfortunate consequence on our industry.
Innovation is being quashed.
No one planned for this to happen. But happen, it has.
The innovations over the last few years have been incremental at best.
Apologize for the slight delay in posting my observations about Day Two of The Beat
Live conference in Cleveland this week.
I would like to say that this conference was really unlike the bulk of the conferences I've attended in this industry over the last decade. I told Jay Campbell that I thought that the candor shown by everyone (audience and speakers alike) was truly astounding in a public forum, but that perhaps it is because
The Beat writes such honest observations of this industry to begin with. So perhaps there is no fear in telling the truth. That's the way it seemed anyway!
Day two of the conference focused on innovation, both in pricing and in functionality.
