Company Profiles: Spotlight on Travel and Tech

Travel is an expensive yet popular hobby. According to the U.S. Travel Association, direct spending on domestic and international leisure travel by Americans totaled more than $683 billion in 2016. These U.S. residents logged 1.7 billion person-trips for leisure purposes last year—at an average cost of $400 per person-trip. The U.S. Travel Association defines a person-trip as one-person travel away from home overnight in a paid accommodation or on a day or overnight trip to a destination 50 miles or more (one way) from home.

You may be already involved with incentive travel because it involves the credit card airline miles you gain or the loyalty points you obtain by traveling with a particular airline. Those are just a few examples and there is a not-for-profit who ensures the industry as a whole is always moving forward.

If you’re unfamiliar with SpotHero, you probably drive in areas where parking isn’t an issue. Lucky you! For many living in or visiting high-population, ultra-packed cities, however, the company has come to be a lifesaver.

We spoke to Kristen Cho, Vice President of Marketing at the company, to learn more about SpotHero, its story, and where it’s going.

Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, you don’t want to leave your business behind. That’s where Hightail comes in, allowing colleagues to view complex information and make critical decisions from all parts of the globe. According to Hightail’s Chief Marketing Officer, Deborah Holstein, “Everyone is able to participate regardless of where they are geographically.”

Do you live to travel? If you’ve found your way to RewardExpert, it’s a safe bet that you do. After all, earning enough points and miles to score free airline tickets requires diligence and a well-crafted plan—two things your average sporadic vacationer rarely has. It’s even possible you love traveling so much that you’ve imagined quitting your job and spending the rest of your years journeying around the globe. But while that’s an attractive daydream, it doesn’t leave much room for family, friends, or future retirement savings.

The home page at Stride Travel includes a banner that says “Life’s too short for vanilla vacations.” While most of us would agree with that conclusion, planning that perfect combination of travel, accommodations and sightseeing is not an easy task.

What if you didn’t have to search for a good travel agency or company, because the agency or company could find you?

Zicasso connects luxury travelers with pre-qualified travel specialists. You identify the country you plan to visit, along with any special interests you have, and Zicasso matches you with top tour companies or agencies who can plan your ideal trip.

You’re in a new city and have discovered an under-the-radar restaurant but they only accept cash. You’re checking into your hotel and need cash to tip the staff. You’ve found a few treasures at the open-air market but none of the vendors have a credit card reader.

These are only a few of the reasons you might need good, old-fashioned paper money while traveling—and an ATM is likely where you’ll have to go to get it, despite the certainty of paying surcharge and out-of-network fees just to get your hands on your own money. But before you resign yourself to getting nickeled-and-dimed by your bank and the ATM owner, you may have an alternative.

The more often you travel by plane, the more likely your chances of having to deal with a delayed, lost, damaged or otherwise mishandled baggage incident. At its best, such an occurrence is inconvenient. At its worst—maybe you packed your all-time favorite outfit or your great grandmother’s prized silver—it’s downright heartbreaking.

Whether you hate the hassle of airline travel or want to see more of the world from the ground, buses and trains offer a cost-effective alternative for reaching almost any destination. Of course, planning a trip that utilizes these public transportation resources has traditionally been challenging, requiring review of multiple carrier websites to find and compare routes and costs. Fortunately, this is no longer the case—thanks to Wanderu.

If you’re looking for the satisfaction that comes with helping others, you may have found it hard to find an organization that needs someone just like you.

When you think about going on a cruise, what images come to mind? If you’re like most, you may envision sun-filled skies, gentle waves, relaxing pools, endless buffets of decadent dishes, plus pants that are too tight and a scale that reads at least 10 pounds heavier by the time you return home. But what if you could enjoy all the best features of a cruise vacation while simultaneously getting a jumpstart on a healthier lifestyle? With Holistic Holiday at Sea, you actually can.

Have you ever longed to meet someone who hates Justin Bieber as much as you do? Well, there’s an app for that. It’s called Hater, and it’s taken the dating world by storm.

Hater creates romance by matching people based on who or what they loathe. Public Relations Director Sam Terris said the app’s mission is to get the dealbreakers on the table, rather than go through five dates only to find out that “Joe is a conspiracy theorist.”

Florida is a popular destination for vacationers from all over the world. According to the Orlando Sentinel, nearly 113 million tourists visited the Sunshine State last year. Orlando, the central Florida city that Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Orlando Resort, and SeaWorld Orlando Resort call home, is home to some of the biggest attractions for travelers.

For many of us in the industrialized world, malaria seems a distant and fading issue, encountered only when visiting the most remote regions of the globe.

As much as you love your dog, it’s not always possible to travel with them. You could ask a friend, family member or neighbor to drop by and take care of the everyday duties, but not all dog owners have that luxury.

That’s where Rover.com can help.

World travel can seem daunting. After all, there are many places to go, a lot of preparations to make, and some uncertainty about what you’ll find once you reach your destination. Fortunately, there are tools online to help ease both your burden and your anxiety about traveling abroad. We found one called YouCouldTravel.

Imagine traveling the world, exploring exotic locations, immersing yourself in extraordinary cultures, and meeting new exciting people, all while earning a living. Sounds like a dream, right? Fortunately, it’s one that can become your reality—even if you’re not a travel blogger or adventure photographer—with the help of Upwork, a web-based platform designed to connect freelancers with companies and the contract jobs they need to fill.

If you think you’re the only person in your circle of friends who has not been on a cruise, think again. According to Cruiseline.com founder, Faraz Qureshi, “In North America, 85% of people have never been on a cruise.” Qureshi gets that statistic from the Cruise Line Industry Association (CLIA).

The fact that only 1 in 5 people in the U.S. and Canada have ever taken a cruise is one of the leading reasons Qureshi created Cruiseline.com in the first place.

Imagine that you’re out in a new city—let’s say New York—and you want to go where the local residents are going, such as an event that they are recommending to each other. Alban Sayag had that same wish, and built a solution that generates hyper-local recommendations on the fly.