Phocuswright Announces the Battleground: The Americas Winners

The award winners of Phocuswright’s Battleground: The Americas, Presented by Amadeus, held September 12, 2017 at the Plug and Play Center have been announced. 16 innovators took the stage to demonstrate groundbreaking applications and solutions that are set to change the travel industry. The winners represent the best of this elite group of early-stage startups. 

"Battleground: The Americas was Phocuswright's first standalone Innovation Platform event to present the most promising early-stage startups in the travel industry" said Phocuswright's manager, research and innovation, Michael Coletta. "By moving Battleground from The Phocuswright Conference to a standalone event we were able to eliminate application and presentation fees, reducing the barrier to entry to zero and encouraging more startups to apply. As a result, the 16 innovators we featured on stage were among the most promising applicants we had ever seen. This diverse set of companies are applying cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, chat and messaging, virtual reality, the Internet of Things and blockchain to bring new ways to tackle challenges across air, dining, distribution, hospitality, tours and transportation. We look forward to seeing the winners compete at Summit this November at The Phocuswright Conference."

The two Battleground: The Americas winners were chosen by the Dragons, a panel of judges comprised of travel and technology experts. 

The Two Winners:
Winner: Waylo
Winner: Redeam

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

Waylo is the first hotel price prediction and tracking app. Hotel rates fluctuate like stocks. Save up to 75% on hotels by scoring the lowest rates in time with Waylo's smart alerts and predictions. Waylo is available as a conversational app over Messenger and Email. A Slack bot and Alexa skill are on the way. 

Redeam enables attractions to accept paper vouchers and mobile tickets from any reseller using a low cost, tablet based validation platform. 

The winners – Waylo and Redeam – move on to demonstrate at Summit, held during the U.S.-based Phocuswright Conference held Nov. 7 – 9 in Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood, Florida.