A seamlessly connected travel journey has been an ambition of travel companies for years.
Now Journera and its CEO Jeffrey Katz say they can deliver it.
The launch of Journera TripSignals means airlines, hotels, transportation companies and other travel providers can share data with one another -- for customers that give that permission -- to reduce the friction on travelers as they move through their journey.
The system connects data from travel brands' systems, such as CRM and CRS, so each supplier has a view of the itinerary, real-time status, loyalty programs and more.
TripSignals links those multi-brand and multi-component signals so participating brands can incorporate them into their apps.
Journera says travel providers also can use these real-time signals to monetize the journey along the way, through commissions for shared signals as well as new service offerings customers can consider as they book and while they travel.
"Travelers value the benefits of connected data, such as seeing where their flight is coming from, the status of their checked bags and when their hotel room is ready prior to check-in," said Katz, the founding CEO of Orbitz before starting Journera in 2016.
"But travel has never had a genuine, real-time view of the customer journey to enable a truly integrated journey experience, from flight to hotel to ground transportation to dining and entertainment. With TripSignals, we are giving brands the ability to extend their customer experience in real time and open up new revenue opportunities throughout the journey."
Katz said he expects TripSignals will initially see uptake from brands "with partnerships who want to demonstrate a new level of innovation ... Other customers who have expressed interest are those who practice Agile methods. They have in-house tools already built like analytics or personalization or big cloud data tools and want to use them to create a benefit across the whole journey, not just within their own brand."
The idea of connected trips has excited online travel agencies for years. Booking Holdings CEO and president Glenn Fogel spoke of it in February during the company's fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report call with investors.
"The mobile app is an important platform, because it allows us more opportunities to engage directly with travelers, and, ultimately, we see it as the center of our connected trip vision," Fogel said.
The sticking point, however, has been convincing companies to share data.
An effort underway in Europe known as EONA-X could give travelers there the option to book all legs of their trip in a single platform as soon as summer 2024. The collaboration came about following proposed European Union regulations to require airlines and train operators to share their data with third parties as part of an overarching goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Journera will be testing whether that level of cooperation is possible without a government mandate.
The Chicago-based company already has a stable of partners -- including United Airlines, American Airlines, Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels Corp. -- that account for nearly half of all travel in the United States.
Journera says those partners give TripSignals a head start by providing access to more than 354 million customers and 768 million reservations that can be captured and anonymized through the platform.
Journera was one of PhocusWire's Hot 25 Startups for 2020. Last June the company raised $10 million in Series B-1 funding to bring its total funding to more than $36 million. In December it announced the launch of Journera Audiences, which uses first-party airline and hotel data gathered from its commercial partners to help destination marketing organizations create strategies based on historical and future bookings.
Source: PhocusWire