FORT LAUDERDALE — A new offering by flight search engine
Hipmunk and the launch of an air and hotel aggregator for travel agencies were
among the announcements Tuesday at the Phocuswright Conference here.
Hipmunk and the startup Tripchamp were among 28 presenters
Tuesday at the conference’s Travel Innovation Summit.
Hello Hipmunk, which went online Tuesday, is divided into
two services. Its Hello Email enables users to perform flight, rental car and
hotel searches directly from their email boxes. So, if a group is emailing
about a potential trip, for example, one person in the conversation can simply
add hello@hipmunk to the email chain, then ask it in plain language to look for
flights and rooms on the desired days. Hello Email will then respond with
potential itineraries, copied to everyone in the conversation.
Hello Hipmunk’s other service, Hello Calendar, will make
itinerary suggestions on upcoming trips without even being asked. To use it,
travelers must enable a connection with Google Calendars. Hello Calendars will then see calendar
entries about upcoming trips and make suggestions. The tool will also see a
user’s appointments during upcoming trips and schedule around them. For
example, flight suggestions would take into account that a user has a 2 p.m.
meeting scheduled on the travel day.
“It’s a virtual travel experience and its 100% free,”
Hipmunk CEO Adam Goldstein said during his presentation.
Tripchamp, which launched Tuesday with a network of 100
suppliers, will be a one-stop-shop for travel agencies looking for air tickets
and hotels through discount resellers.
Thus far, the Austin-based company has inked deals with
approximately 60 major resellers, such as Mystifly and Tourico, said Michael
Culhane, chief revenue officer. In addition, it is working with travel agencies that have negotiated deals on specific
air routes. With Tripchamp, those agencies become suppliers of the low-fare
deals that are available to other agencies.
Culhane said the company’s goal is to have 1,000 suppliers
of flights and hotels lined up by this time next year.
“There’s no one else doing this,” he said.
The Travel Innovation Summit will conclude Wednesday morning
with 14 more presentations.