WASHINGTON -- What's a senior who wants to travel but has no traveling partner, to do? Turn to Senior Travel Buddy, Patricia Hager's website that connects local seniors who have similar interests.
Senior Travel Buddy is about to get a boost to its advertising budget. Hager won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award during the ASTA Global Convention here on Thursday, an award that comes with a $10,000 prize thanks to the Dan and Gloria Bohan Foundation.
Hager -- also an agent, whose agency, Where to Next, is an affiliate of MG Travel -- went up against two competitors to win the prize in a "Shark Tank"-style competition.
Each company had six minutes to pitch their idea to a panel of three judges: Marc Casto, president and CEO of Casto Travel; David Chait, founder and CEO of Travefy (last year's Entrepreneur of the Year); Denise Jackson, president and CEO of Balboa Travel Management. The judges then had three minutes to ask follow-up questions.
While the audience did have a chance to vote on their favorite competitor, the judges unanimously chose Hager, making her the winner. (Their votes each counted for 22% of the total, meaning a 66% majority with their unanimous pick.)
The judges confer. From left, David Chait, founder and CEO of Travefy; Denise Jackson, president and CEO of Balboa Travel Management; and Marc Casto, president and CEO of Casto Travel. Photo Credit: TW photo by Jamie Biesiada
Hager went up against Katelyn O'Shaughnessy and her company Idoctours and Gee Mann with Meetings Suite.
Idoctours is a medical tourism company with an online database of doctors around the world. While it has a consumer-facing business, it is also a B2B service that travel agents can use with their clients and get a commission, O'Shaughnessy said. Americans who travel abroad for medical procedures, usually cosmetic surgery, save from 30% to 80% in costs, she estimated.
Meetings Suite, Mann said, connects hotels and bookers, enabling instant bookings for meetings. Agents log into the company's platform and specify a meeting's location, dates and requirements and can instantly book a spot. The instant booking, as opposed to sending requests for proposals, is key, because of the efficiencies it brings.
With Senior Travel Buddy, seniors sign up and search for buddies for free by entering some basic profile information and answering 28 questions about how they like to travel. They are matched with local, same-sex singles and can review their profiles. If they find someone they'd like to contact, they pay a fee of $5.99 per month and can then get in touch with matches.
Hager said the tool's value to agents is in client retention. She herself has recently had several trips canceled and clients lost because a traveling partner became incapacitated or died.
Right now, the site does not offer agents a referral fee or the like, but Hager told judges she would consider it. She also said she would use the prize money for advertising, likely on a morning television program or the radio, which appeal to seniors.
Gloria Bohan, president and CEO of Omega World Travel, presented Hager with the prize on behalf of her foundation.
Bohan said she started the foundation because of her passion for the industry and what she and her late husband gained from the relationships they built in travel. It's her way of giving back.
"You may think that everybody has the same technology to work with and the same tools," she said, "but an entrepreneur and a creative person is the one that's going to make the difference in how all those things are being used."