Amadeus IT Group Named the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Winner

Nov 26, 09 | 1:51 am

PhoCusWright, the travel industry research authority, named Amadeus IT Group the Travel Innovation Summit Winner at the close of The PhoCusWright Conference held November 17 - 19, 2009 in Orlando, Florida.

Amadeus IT Group's Affinity Shopper took top honors among 34 innovative companies at The Travel Innovation Summit@The PhoCusWright Conference. These early-stage, emerging and established companies demonstrated applications, mobile technology and solutions in front of a live audience of travel industry executives and thought leaders.

Three additional companies were honored as finalists of The Travel Innovation Summit. They were selected by real-time audience voting on Tuesday, November 17. The finalists moved on to demonstrate their groundbreaking innovations to be voted on by attendees and a distinguished panel of judges during Center Stage@The PhoCusWright Conference.

The 2009 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Winner and finalists are:

Amadeus IT Group (Affinity Shopper)-The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Winner
Amadeus Affinity Shopper caters to the needs of travelers with specific requirements, as well as travelers who are open to suggestions or in need of inspiration. The solution can help airlines capture travelers' attention and interest early in the search process, and thereby optimize the look to book ratio. Amadeus Affinity Shopper opens the door to the future of travel search, allowing travelers to express themselves in a natural way. View Amadeus IT Group's demonstration and video interview.

gliider-The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Finalist
This research tool lets the user find and gather travel information from any site on the Web, then shows deals specific to that trip. gliider is the only travel tool with "Ask Around"-a way to get travel advice from people that are known and trusted via Facebook.

GlobalMotion (EveryTrail)-The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Finalist
The next generation EveryTrail iPhone and Android apps let users search, download, navigate and share trips while on the go. Users can search a database of over 200,000 trips from over 140 countries, all created by a 100,000-strong member community. At the same time, the traveler can record and instantly share experiences at EveryTrail.com and other social sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Translations.com (Language Weaver)-The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Finalist
Language Weaver is a Web-based application to provide trusted, automated translation for the travel industry. This product will deliver translations out of the box at a quality level that meets the requirements of travel companies. This will enable companies to launch sites, services and information simultaneously and cost-effectively across many languages.

"PhoCusWright interviewed dozens of innovators from around the world. They represented companies large and small, established, emerging and startup," says Bob Offutt, senior technology analyst at PhoCusWright. "The great new ideas that were demonstrated at this year's Travel Innovation Summit show that even in tough economic times, innovation is thriving." The overall tone and sentiment of The Travel Innovation Summit was summarized best by the opening comments of Philip Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright, "Now is the time for the true entrepreneur to shine. As economies faltered around the world, people looked for alternatives-cheaper alternatives, faster alternatives, easier alternatives and smaller alternatives-to what they were currently using. To some, this is a crisis; to an innovator, this is an opportunity."

View all Travel Innovation Summit demonstrations, Center Stage presentations and more by purchasing The PhoCusWright Conference Online Ticket. On-demand content will be available through January 31, 2010.


About PhoCusWright Inc.

PhoCusWright is the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect. Independent, rigorous and unbiased, PhoCusWright fosters smart strategic planning and tactical decision-making.

PhoCusWright delivers qualitative and quantitative research on the evolving dynamics that influence travel, tourism and hospitality distribution. Our marketplace intelligence is the industry standard for segmentation, sizing, forecasting, trends, analysis and consumer travel planning behavior. Every day around the world, senior executives, marketers, strategists and research professionals from all segments of the industry value chain use PhoCusWright research for competitive advantage.

To complement its primary research in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia, PhoCusWright produces several high-profile conferences and trade shows in the U.S. and Germany, and partners with conferences in Canada, China and Singapore. Industry leaders and company analysts bring this intelligence to life by debating issues, sharing ideas and defining the ever-evolving reality of travel commerce.

The company is headquartered in the United States with Asia Pacific operations based in India and local analysts on five continents.