SpotHero for Business walked away with The BTN Group’s 2017 Business Travel Innovator Award during the fourth annual Innovate conference produced by the publishers of Business Travel News, Travel Procurement and The Beat at the New York Hilton Midtown last week.
Among 14 Business Travel Innovator Lab competitors, SpotHero for Business captured the imaginations and votes of judges Steve Clagg, travel technology manager for Microsoft; Cindy Heston, director of travel and events for Anthem; Norm Rose, president of Travel Tech Consulting; and last year’s winner of the Business Travel Innovator Award, Maximillian Waldmann, CEO of Conichi.
Active in the consumer market for seven years, SpotHero for Business entered the corporate travel space a year ago with business travel features like dashboards for travel program managers and integrations with Concur, Expensify and Certify. Via the mobile app, SpotHero offers business travellers access to parking spaces in garages located in more than 75 major cities across the United States. Travellers reserve and pay for parking spaces via the app. SpotHero for Business negotiates rates with its providers.
“Being able to demonstrate the efficiency and ease of SpotHero for Business to this audience was rewarding in itself,” said strategic initiatives manager Becca Rabinowitz (pictured left), who also presented at the event. “SpotHero saves travellers time and streamlines costs for businesses, and we are so proud to be recognised as an innovator in this industry.”
Conference attendees voted for a separate “People’s Choice” award winner, which went to DVI, the business intelligence company that spun off from Travel and Transport two years ago and came out of beta with its data normalisation services and visualisation tools earlier this year.
“Advances in machine learning and data augmentation allow DVI to produce meaningful business intelligence for travel managers and their stakeholders. We are stoked to win this award because it shows that travel managers understand how important the data is and they are ready for what we do,” said DVI president Brian Beard (pictured right).
Additional participants in the Business Travel Innovator Lab included Blacklane, Breather, Deem, Dinova, FCM Travel Solutions, Flightsayer, Groundlink, Groups360, HRS, Mezi, Travelport Locomote and Tripism.
