Kurt Knackstedt (left), the Asia Region Board Representative for ACTE for 2012-2014, will join a panel of judges, chaired by Fritz Demopoulos, CEO, Queen’s Road Capital and Kei Shibata, CEO, Venture Republic in selecting the winning travel start-up in the annual competition held by WIT to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in travel.
“Corporate travel is an area that’s being disrupted as much as leisure and is ripe for innovation and we are pleased to have ACTE come onboard as partners to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in travel,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, editor and founder of Web In Travel.
ACTE, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which held its 2012 Asia Education Conference in Singapore recently, is cognizant that corporate travel is facing massive changes as technology becomes more personal, more travellers move online to book and low cost airlines change travel patterns and behaviour.
In 10 years time, it is projected that half of all air seats in Asia will be low cost. “How can that not change corporate travel?” said Knackstedt, who is also Category Lead, Global Sourcing Services, Travel and Expense Management for Rio Tinto Group.
The Angel Investors Lounge is a partnership between ACTE and Solidea Capital, the sister company of Acquis Consulting Group, that provides entrepreneurs with access to a network of expertise and resources required to turn a good idea into a successful venture.
ACTE’s executive director Ron DiLeo said, “The genesis for the idea behind the Lounge stems from watching associations and publications recognizing entrepreneurs and giving them awards but not doing anything to help them actualize their ideas. The biggest problem we see in the corporate travel arena is a lack of progression beyond technology development and we believe this is the result of people not knowing how to advance their business beyond plans or just talking about what they would like to do. As a result there are solutions out there for problems that haven’t even presented themselves yet.”
While the Lounge does not provide or offer direct funding, he said that both ACTE and Lounge partner Solidea have access to various angel investor networks in the US, Canada and Europe. “As part of the Lounge services we introduce entrepreneurs to our network connections. So far there are two companies that have been accepted into the Lounge, both of which have first stage investors and are seeking second rounds of funding.”
Added Knackstedt, “Travel has been on the forefront of innovation and user experience ever since the onset of the Internet. However, the corporate world has a vastly different set of requirements for how travel should be managed vs the leisure world, where the individual has total choice whereas for corporate travellers, the company objectives take precedence.
“The key challenge for the corporate travel world is whether it can take advantage of the plethora of clever search/find techniques, content and on-the-road service capabilities and disruption management options that many leisure-based travel tools have, which are the norm in leisure travel but have yet to permeate corporate – all while making sure companies’ duty-of-care responsibilities, need for data and expenditure information, and traveller behaviour influencing can all still be achieved.”
He said he was looking forward to see how “leisure travel innovators can adapt their commercial models (heavily focused on advertising revenues or commissions) into the fee-for-service world corporate travel works with today?”
Entrepreneurs are being invited to submit their entries by August 31. A shortlist will be selected to pitch live at the Bootcamp on Oct 15 and finalists will go on to the Grand Finals at the WIT Conference, Oct 16-17.
Judging co-chair Shibata said he was looking forward to seeing start-ups in key areas such as OTAs, metasearch, hotel reviews, social, mobile, B2B, big data and gamification.
Shibata, who recently took his company Venture Republic private and is himself exploring investment opportunities in South-east Asia, sees opportunities in the OTA, metasearch and hotel reviews sector, focusing on a single local market with the ability to scale.
Also on the panel of judges are are Brett Henry, Vice President Marketing, Abacus International; Stephan Ekbergh, CEO, Travelstart, South Africa; Martin Symes, Chairman, Wego; and Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, VaultPad.
The winner will walk away with a US$1,000 cash prize and mentoring time, sponsored by VaultPad, a global accelerator for travel start-ups, as well as opportunities to network with investors and fellow entrepreneurs.
Note: A ticket to the WIT Conference includes access to the WIT Bootcamp. Entry fee for WIT Bootcamp only at S$400. EmailGerry Pang
