SilverRail took top honours among 33 innovative companies that demonstrated applications and technologies that will take travel planning, purchasing and memorializing to a new level on Tuesday, November 16 at The Travel Innovation Summit. Live audience voting sent just seven on to “wow” the crowd at Center Stage… four finalists and three runners-up.

SilverRail Technologies – The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Winner
SilverRail connects the world of rail. Its best-in-class technical solutions help railways and travel sellers to easily connect with each other.  View the product in action on Quno.com.

goby – Emerging Company Finalist
goby helps travelers find cool things to do. Available on the Web, iPhone, Android and iPad apps, goby covers over 350 categories and every city in the US, providing over six million things to do.

Hipmunk – Start-Up Company Finalist
Hipmunk helps travelers find the right flight. Hipmunk hides the bad flights, sorts the good flights by “agony,” and makes it incredibly easy to understand the tradeoffs between flights with its unique user interface.

Kony Solutions Inc. – Established Company Finalist
Kony Solutions is the “Write Once, Run Everywhere” mobile application platform selected by Fortune 500 companies to deliver rich mobile applications to all smartphones, mobile Web, SMS/MMS, tablets, Web gadgets and desktop applications.

CruiseLabs – Emerging Company Runner-Up
Cutting-edge technology that makes booking a cruise online fun! Reviews on thousands of cruise ship cabins, destinations and video content that helps customers book the best cruise online.

GroundLink – Established Company Runner-Up
GroundLink has created an “OpenTable” marketplace for ground transportation (car service, limos, taxis and shuttles) in over 5,000 airports and 172 countries. GroundLink partners with 45,000 providers worldwide. Services are available via LimoRes, Kayak, JetBlue, Royal Caribbean and Amadeus.

TrustYou – Start-Up Company Runner-Up
TrustYou is the first travel site to harness the power of semantic search technology to analyze and organize more than 30 million reviews across dozens of travel and social networking sites.The four finalists were scrutinized by the blue-ribbon panel of judges from all ends of the industry, tapped because they know the real deal when they see it.

Professionals lending insight and expertise to the panel:
James Davidson, President and CEO, Farelogix Inc.
Mike Kistner, CEO, Pegasus Solutions Inc.
Bill McAleer, Managing Director, Voyager Capital
Michael McCormick, Executive Director and COO, National Business Travel Association Inc.
Matt McIlwain, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group LLC
Timothy Mullaney, Journalist
Mark Okerstrom, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Expedia
Debu Purkayastha, Principal, Corporate Development, M&A, Google
Josh Steinitz, CEO, NileGuide
Joseph Strodel, Director, Corporate and Foundation Affairs, Office of External Affairs, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration
Edward Williams, Partner, Brook Venture Fund

“What’s unique about The Travel Innovation Summit is that it combines the Wisdom of the Crowd with the Prudence of the Panel,” says Philip Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright. “Attendees decide which innovators advance to the next stage, and, along with our expert panel, pick the winners. The Travel Innovation Summit is the venue to hear what is percolating in the industry; that is what keeps them coming back for more.”

Featured image credit (Light Bulb Design, Vector illustration): Ockra/iStock