AN INTERVIEW WITH:
Scott Hintz
VP of Business Development and Co-Founder
TripIt

Scott Hintz and co-founder Gregg Brockway started online travel management company TripIt in 2006. Hintz is currently VP of business development for TripIt, a role in which he builds partnerships with online travel agencies, travel suppliers and corporate travel software providers. Shortly after TripIt’s January 2011 acquisition by travel software provider Concur, Hintz spoke with eMarketer’s Lauren McKay about the company’s current and future positioning in the business travel market.

eMarketer: Is TripIt geared toward business or leisure travelers?

Scott Hintz: We have a road-warrior, tech-savvy, early adopter audience and we try to offer value to all types of travelers. The large majority of our users, though, are business travelers. When we look at the itineraries being managed within TripIt, almost 75% are for business trips. The remaining 25% are leisure trips. Over time, we think that will start to even out as TripIt becomes more mainstream.

eMarketer: TripIt was acquired by Concur in January. What has changed since the acquisition?

Hintz: Not much from a TripIt perspective. We’re still based in San Francisco, the team is still together and our mission hasn’t changed. Given that Concur’s target customer is the corporate travel manager, TripIt adds an intense focus on the end-traveler.

Concur’s investment enables us to do some aggressive marketing and work on our TripIt for Business product. We are also working to tightly integrate TripIt with Concur’s corporate travel solution set.

eMarketer: You launched TripIt for Business in December of 2010. Who is the target audience?

Hintz: TripIt for Business is aimed at unmanaged businesses, meaning a smaller business that doesn’t have a dedicated in-house travel agency—typically companies with fewer than 200 employees. Companies with more than that tend to work with an exclusive travel agent.

We’ve found that small businesses often book travel on leisure and consumer websites—either directly from an airline or hotel supplier or through an online travel agent like Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity. Although businesses might like to purchase travel in the same way leisure travelers do, businesses have the same needs larger companies have. They need to know where their employees are traveling, how they can save money on travel and how they can ensure their employees on the road are productive and happy.

eMarketer: What business-specific benefits does TripIt for Business provide?

Hintz: TripIt takes a traveler’s disparate bookings and pulls all that information into cohesive itineraries. TripIt for Business takes this a step further. It provides a dashboard for a company’s travel manager to view and manage all the travelers’ itineraries at once. A travel manager could go to Orbitz, book an executive’s flight and then forward that to TripIt to manage the itinerary. What’s nice is that the executive and travel manager both have access to the itinerary so there’s no confusion.

We also offer a function called TripIt Groups, which allow employees to voluntarily opt in to a Group and have a complete view of who in an organization is traveling. A graphic map shows who is going to be on the road, when and where. This makes it a lot easier for companies to coordinate travel and possibly save money.

eMarketer: What social networks does TripIt integrate with? Has this presented any new opportunities?

Hintz: TripIt integrates with a number of social networks that companies use internally. For example, CubeTree, a social business platform that’s now a part of SuccessFactors, connects to TripIt. It lets users set up their travel itineraries to automatically be pushed out to the company social network. When an employee posts a trip on CubeTree, her colleagues can add comments, make recommendations or even ask that the traveler hit up a few prospects while visiting a certain region. A lot of great information sharing is happening.

TripIt also enables its members to share travel plans on public social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. This can also lead to networking opportunities. What’s more, a TripIt feature called “Who’s Close?” sends alerts to travelers, letting them know if friends or contacts in their social network are in the same area. Individuals tend to like a lot of these social capabilities—sharing an itinerary with friends and family members makes them feel more in the loop.

eMarketer: How is TripIt being used on the mobile platform?

Hintz: Mobility and travel go hand-in-hand. TripIt has mobile apps available for the iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry. We also have a mobile website. Through mobile, TripIt users have access to reservations, maps and calendars on their mobile device of their choice. All they have to do is fire up TripIt, and they always know what flight they’re on, what hotel they’re staying at, what car, what restaurants they’re eating at, what ferries or rail they’re taking.

People love to get in the habit of using a single tool that they understand well, and if that tool can solve problems in people’s personal and work lives, that’s all the better. Mobile apps can also help the traveler solve problems while they’re on a trip.

With TripIt Pro—a more advanced account that costs $49 per year—members can get mobile alerts for flight delays, cancellations and gate changes. Often the alerts that we push out to our travelers arrive earlier than the airline alerts—sometimes being the first traveler to know that there’s a delay is really valuable. TripIt Pro also gives alternate flights with open seats in the case of delays or cancellations.

On the travel manager end, if the corporate agency is connected to TripIt’s API, the agent can make a change to a traveler’s itinerary and the update gets pushed through to TripIt and to the traveler’s mobile device. This ability to sync back and forth with the office and traveler keeps the employee more connected and productive on the road.

The complete interview is available to eMarketer Total Access clients. To learn more, click here.

As flash sites like Rue La La and ideeli have diversified from apparel into housewares, beauty and travel, other online businesses have begun staking claims in their own specialties. Why should Gilt Groupe broker dining discounts when culinary brands could capitalize on their own expertise?

Zagat Exclusives, the “original crowd-sourced dining guide,” is the latest restaurant site to jump into the group-buying fray with its September NYC launch. Yelp also began testing daily deals in Sacramento, CA this July, while OpenTable just launched their version, OpenTable Spotlight, earlier this month in Boston and New York.

These are just the established companies branching out. Newcomers InBundles, VillageVines and BlackboardEats—also focused on food deals—are trying to enter this market as well.

Zagat, which will be teaming up with Groupon competitor DealOn, aims to set itself apart by functioning more like a flash sale. Specials will be offered in limited quantities for fixed periods of time with no minimum number of participants. The twist is that the price will lower as more people join. When time runs out, the listed price is what everyone pays.

There’s no secret why these sites, which normally rely on daily emails to get the word out about discounts, are flourishing. According to Valpak 66% of Americans say they’re currently searching more for coupons and discounts than in the past, and 75% will continue this behavior even after the recession ends. Combine that with the fact that across all age ranges, offers sent through email are the best way of getting consumers to try restaurants, and it’s clear that these inbox-filling online sales are paying off.

As more players enter the increasingly saturated dining deals market, more niches are being filled. It’s no longer just half-off falafel, but discounted multicourse tasting menus at Michelin-starred restaurants—that still cost hundreds of dollars. The “foodier” these sites get, the more aware they need to be of public perception and the potential for appearing desperate.

When I recently received an OpenTable message touting a half-off special at Gordon Ramsay at the London, my first thought wasn’t, “Oh, I’d like to eat at the restaurant of that chef who yells on TV.” I already knew this was a restaurant on its last legs and now it had been made obvious. This critical sentiment was consequently echoed on food blogs.

In the more dining-savvy—some would say snobbier—cities, do customers want to be eating in an empty room—or, gasp, with a bunch of bargain-hunters (yes, just like themselves)?

Perhaps. Coupons have lost their nickel-and-diming stigma. A Coupons.com survey conducted in May 2010 found that consumers with household incomes of more than $100,000 were nearly twice as likely to use online coupons than those earning less than $35,000 annually, at 39% vs. 21%.

The question is whether restaurants will stigmatize themselves. A good deal can serve exactly its intended purpose, tapping new audiences and putting bodies in seats. It’s yet to be seen if this approach will translate to repeat business for struggling eateries, though, particularly those with a high price point.

Zagat does offer a statistic that could be key, at least for their new venture: “Zagat surveyors visit the places they vote on over eight times per year on average.” If they can translate this type of loyalty to their Zagat Exclusives users, restaurants should have few worries about getting involved with group buying.

We recently spoke with Jeremy Lockhorn, the director of emerging media and video innovation at Razorfish, about best practices for approaching mobile app development and the importance of thinking about apps as part of a larger mobile marketing ecosystem. Here’s a snippet from the full interview available on eMarketer Total Access. (Read more…)