NAPA, CA - March 23, 2016-- Switchfly, Inc., the technology company powering travel search/booking, loyalty program engagement and ancillary merchandising solutions for the world's most celebrated airlines, hotels, online travel agencies and financial services companies, today released some highlights of its eighth annual Thought Leadership Summit, which was held March 16-18 in Napa Valley. The summit focused on new trends and innovations in travel.
This year’s Thought Leadership Summit brought together leaders from all aspects of the travel industry -- air, hotel, transportation, finance and many others. “The purpose of the Summit is to explore and discuss new ideas, movements, economies and innovations,” explained Daniel Farrar, CEO of Switchfly. “We also learn from each other. It is exciting to get feedback about our innovative solutions and what they mean for the future of the industry.”
This year, speakers included:
- Oliver Hsiang of Lyft, who described how Lyft’s innovative platform is growing in new directions thanks to new business partnerships and technologies
- Jim Davidson, CEO of Farelogix, who provided a brief history of travel industry disruptors and some ideas on what may be in store for the airline industry.
- Dan Ruch, CEO of Rocketrip, who spoke about how the travel planning process and vendor expectations have changed since the advent of business travel.
- Bob Diener, Founder of GetaRoom, who gave a detailed lesson on how to increase hotel booking conversion rates.
- Sociolinguist Camilla Vasquez, Ph.D., who spoke about online reviews and how they have transformed the way people find restaurants and hotels, and book vacations.
- Technical evangelist Peter Leyden, who spoke about how the United States and the rest of the world are reinventing themselves through technological innovation.
- Scott Brooks, VP of LoyaltyEdge, and Tracey Moss, Director at Hilton Worldwide, who discussed how consumer behaviors will continue to change within Loyalty.
- Paulius Grigas, CEO of OneGo and Andres Fabris, CEO of Traxo, who addressed how the airline travel industry is changing based on new concepts and data.
- Switchfly executives Diego Dugatkin, Graham Blankenbaker and Justin Steele, who led a deeper dive into the company’s vision, products and the strategic partnerships that will drive innovation within the travel space.
There were also two panel discussions: one on the future of travel booking and how we can break free from restrictive barriers in technology and another on the future of integrating loyalty within the sharing economy and other disruptive trends.
“Overall, our eighth annual Thought Leadership Summit was a tremendous success, and we’re already looking forward to next year,” added Farrar.
If you are interested in attending next year’s event, contact Switchfly for more information.
