Alice Ferrari, Strategic Partnerships Lead at Founders Factory, joins Travel Tech Con 2018

We are excited to welcome Alice & Founders Factory to Travel Tech Con 2018 Pitch Competition!

We had a chance to ask Alice a couple of questions.

What do startups building next generation travel tech products need to understand about the industry evolution and future opportunities?

The travel industry is dynamic and always changing and it is important to stay ahead with innovation to meet changes and new needs thinking about what the industry may look like in the next 5 to 10 years.

However, the travel business is a very saturated space so it is important to think out of the box with innovation and work on real industry disruptive ideas challenging existing concepts.

The travel industry is a very challenging environment and can be influenced by many external factors so there are always opportunities to find new solutions to overcome challenges.

The customer expectations for an integrated and connected service are rising and tech travel needs to be able to meet this increasing demand.

What travel tech solutions the industry is currently lacking in your opinion? What industry challenges should startups be tackling in the near future?

The travel space is full of online travel companies, holiday booking platforms and travel inspiration websites so I think this area is very saturated.

Having worked in airline operations I have seen particularly great opportunities in improving the airport experience, both from a customer side and from an operators side or the airport itself — I see the real opportunities today is in transforming the traveler’s journey through innovative technology allowing travel companies to provide them with tools to offer a better customer experiences, further assistance, improved operations.

There is still a lot of development needed in terms of automation of airport processes — like areas in security, screening and border control — the most panful parts of the process.

Travelers want to have more control over their journey and technology should enable this by allowing them to complete most of these steps through their own devices, for example using biometric identification for passport control/ immigration or more efficient security, without having to remove or unpack personal items.

Technology that is multimodal and integrates different parts of the journey- Access to instant and comprehensive information about their journey at each stage (home/office, en-route, before arrival at the other end).

Also during disruption it is important to have multi modal and multi company offerings offering more independence in re-planning journey in case of disruption, particularly when there is mass disruption for example when there is poor weather.

More information to help customers plan their journey through the airport, wanting to know wait times at security and border control and wait times at arrival customs.

Boarding process improvements, again travellers want more control over the process.

Ground operations efficiency tools, such as staff scheduling, fueling, catering — matching resources to activity making the entire supply chain more efficient, minimising costs and this is especially true during disruption.

What are some of your favorite travel tech products, projects or innovation initiatives in the industry?

I like products that help improve the traveler’s journey and I am intrigued by the new ideas developed in the B2B space for airlines and other travel companies that have provided ground breaking tools to offer a better customer experience and operational efficiency — for example new app developments see Flio, the airport app and Lumo — flight delay predictive technology, allowing better efficiency for the entire travel ecosystem to proactively manage delays and its effects.

I like seeing personalised technology that helps efficiently plan that helps plan a seamless journey with integrated services end to end and make it easier for users, we’ve seen some interesting developments here at Founders Factory with the creation of TapTrip.

Full program available via TTC18 mobile app and here’s how to get the most out of TTC18!