This week’s Phocuswright Conference in Los Angeles is the event where the “best of the best” in the travel industry are both on stage and in the audience. CIS is heading back to this epic event (again) and we’ve got big plans.
This year, CIS will not only be exhibiting, but CEO Mat Orrego will showcase our new app 4SiteTM as part of the Travel Innovation Summit Launch competition We’re letting you know about our participation because not only are we considered visonary leaders in the travel tech space, but we’re also there to talk with and listen to the other travel innovators at the event. We will be looking for those game-changing nuggets that will give us the edge in developing products that you need in order to deliver the “best of the best” service. That’s what it’s all about.
With that, here are our five favorite things about this year’s conference:
1). Thought Leaders Means Something Here
The term thought leader has been ground down to dust since Joe Kurtzman popularized it in 1994. However, if there is any place it still has meaning, it’s at Phocuswright. According to the conference website, 59% of speakers are CEOS and 56% of the audience is C-level. It’s impossible to leave without insight, strategy, and inspiration.
2). Travel Innovation Platform
The highly anticipated Innovation Platform features 3 stages for innovation: the Battleground for start-ups to present in front of potential investors and incubators, the Summit for young companies, and the Launch for established companies with innovative product launches. Every year the Innovation Platform introduces us to the best new products and ideas, and this year, we’ll be participating ourselves, introducing our new predictive intelligence technology, 4SiteTM, on the Launch stage on Wednesday, November 16 at 10:45 am.
3). Forward Thinking Sessions
We choose the keynote with Lyft’s David Baga as well as the “Board of Directors” Roundtable with Phocuswright’s Philip Wolf, the man behind the phrase “strategically correct, not politically correct,” as two of the sessions that will really focus on what we need in order to succeed in the coming years. Baga’s keynote will address the changing role of on-demand service in the travel industry, and Wolf’s Roundtable should be a high-level look at what’s to come in the industry. The Roundtable includes Terrell Jones, founder of Travelocity.com, Rich Barton, Co-Founder of Zillow and Expedia, and Jeffrey Katz, Founding Chairman and CEO of Orbitz, among others.
4). Executive Interview with Oliver Heckmann, VP Travel & Shopping, Google
Whether for business or leisure travel, Google continues to be a steadfast gateway to the travel world. We want to hear Heckmann’s take on what’s happening in the travel search, shop, and buy funnel, because it tells us a lot about the changing habits of all travelers.
5). It All Comes Down to the Dollar
There’s a good bit going on at Phocuswright around the payment process, and as we’ve been focused on operationalizing virtual cards for travel providers, we’ll be going to the “Unraveling the Cost of Supplier Payments” presented by eNett International and “Building a Global Payments Platform in the Travel Industry” presented by Yapstone.
We’re proud to be an established company that continues to innovate (the prerequisite for participating in the Innovation Launch), and we’re looking forward to many meaningful conversations with other travel industry leaders. There are important discussions to be had, and the topics we hope to discuss could factor into the travel technology landscape for the next few decades.
As always, we’re looking forward to sharing our story and having a lot of fun at the event so keep an eye on our Twitter feed (@MatOrrego and @CISWired) for photos and updates.