Forward Thinking Company

I’ve never met Gregg Brockway, but I think he’s been poking around my office. How else would he know that the manila folder on my filing cabinet is crammed full of hotel reservations, street maps and confirmation e-mails for assorted flights and rental cars? Probably, Brockway would say, because most travelers—especially on-the-go business people—have one just like it. We grab it on our way out of the office, fumble through it in taxicabs and shuttle vans, and hope none of our hand-scribbled notes fall out along the way. Now, thanks to Brockway and like-minded Web gurus, there’s a much easier way.

For Brockway, the problem at hand was that manila folder and the pile of papers inside it. The year was 2006, and he’d just left Classic Vacations, an upscale travel site that utilized “personal travel advisors” who handled all their customers’ travel arrangements. Prior to that, he was a co-founder of Hotwire. So he knew that most travelers don’t have the luxury of a travel assistant; they book trips through multiple suppliers and have to manage the resulting paperwork themselves.

Brockway’s light-bulb moment came when he realized that most travel-booking activity happens via e-mail. “If we could develop technology that could read that information and do something with it, we could create a simpler user experience,” Brockway says. “We wanted to recreate that offline itinerary online, and put it on steroids.” The result was TripIt, (www.tripit.com), which Brockway and his partners launched in the fall of 2007.

It’s based on a proprietary technology, “The Itinerator,” that allows users to forward their travel confirmation emails to TripIt, where they’re compiled into a single master itinerary. It’s all there—flight details, hotel and rental car reservations, etc.— in one document, along with Google maps and turn-by-turn directions (say, between the airport and your hotel) and even the daily weather along the way.

The service is free to users, and currently works with more than 500 travel providers, including airlines, hotels, shuttle companies and other online travel sites. The data can be updated or augmented at any time and can be synced with any Web-enabled mobile device or iCalendar-supported system. Recently, the company added apps for LinkedIn and the iPhone, and unveiled applications for expense reporting and social networking.

Perhaps that explains why 80 percent of TripIt users are business travelers. As Brockway says, “If you can bring all your travel information into one place and share it with the people who need to know your plans—family, co-workers, clients—then you’ve got a pretty compelling service.”

Not-So-Secret Agents

Like Gregg Brockway, Chinedu Echeruo has spent much of the last decade trying to facilitate the process of getting from Point A to Point B. Three years ago, for example, he was trying to book a trip from New York to Ghana when he discovered that local travel agents didn’t know much about Africa. He knew there had to be agents out there somewhere who could help, but had no way of knowing who—or where—they were.

The conundrum prompted him to create Tripology (www.tripology.com), which serves as a global matchmaker between travelers and travel agents, regardless of their location. To use the site, visitors create free online trip requests noting their destination(s), travel budget and other pertinent information. Requests are then matched to agents with the most appropriate expertise; selected agents have the option to purchase the lead and make contact with the potential client. Launched two years ago, the site now has a database of 12,500 registered travel specialists and has processed more than 85,000 trip requests.

And, according to CEO John Peters, more of those requests now come from business travelers: “People are saying, 'I could go online and do it myself, but it’s a pain in the neck; I don’t have the time and I don’t know if I’m getting the best deal.' More and more, people want to have someone in their corner.”

That’s especially true, he adds, for trips that involve multiple cities or groups that come together from disparate locations: “Why have four or five people all making their own travel arrangements when you can have a specialist who knows both your needs and your destination?” Needless to say, the savings—in time, effort and frustration—can be significant.

Of course, such factors can make or break a business trip—and we can all use all the help we can get. Whether it’s creating your own consolidated itinerary or connecting with someone who can do it for you, Web sites like TripIt and Tripology can put you on the fast track before you even head out the door.