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WTM Fresh - the final shortlist

by Mark Frary

Photo: Gideon Tsang


The five start-ups that have made the final shortlist for this year’s innovative WTM Fresh elevator pitch session, organised by Travel Perspective, have been announced. The five finalists will have five minutes to impress our panel of judges on Wednesday 6th November. The elevator pitch session, taking place at the WTM Knowledge Theatre, is open to all-comers but is expected to be very busy so come early.

The shortlisted start-ups are as follows, with what they say about themselves:

The Escape List

The UK’s first and only affordable luxury hotel website. Our handpicked selection of the most inspiring and indulgent places to stay around the UK. The eclectic range of properties all promise to deliver on quality but also importantly on price - all must offer rooms at under £150 per room/night.

The result? An image focused, design conscious, easy to search website that inspires users to get away from it all. We’re an inspiration resource so rigorously select which properties we feature to simplify the staycation research process, allowing users to book direct with the hotel, cutting out the middle man.

Luxtripper

Luxtripper’s team of travel editors have handpicked more than 35,000 4 & 5 star holiday and hotels options around the world based on reviews, standards, facilities and much more. This research powers our unique online ‘where to go when’ search engine at www.luxtripper.co.uk. All you do is enter your ‘month’ ‘weather’ and holiday experience and under 3 seconds the engine gives you a list of holidays for your perfect trip! You can then search your exact dates, get live pricing and book with immediate confirmation. It’s as simple as that!

SnowResort

SnowResort is changing the face of online ski guides, with detailed yet easy-to-use website and app pages for more than 1,000 worldwide resorts. While existing guides tend to focus on well-known destinations, with information restricted to basic resort summaries and piste facts, SnowResort goes further. Each online resort guide brings users up-to-date information about restaurants, hire shops, childcare and much more, with a mobile app that puts all this at your fingertips whether you’re in resort, on the piste or planning your holiday. Both use comprehensive filter tools to enable users to select resort, by features important to them.

Sugarcake

Sugarcake is a social tourism eco-system for the Caribbean that helps users discover the culture around them, create their ideal experiences and explore the possibilities with the help of recommendations from their friends. With Sugarcake users will be able to book their accommodations, flights, event tickets, place reservations at recommended restaurants etc from one site / mobile app! This results in an all-in-one tourism eco-system that takes the hassle out of travel and discovery and allows users to freely explore and do what’s both near and around them.

Sujester

A crowd-sourced inspiration engine that encourages people to plan more than a year ahead and to inspire them through showing them moments experienced by people like them

The judges on the day are Joakim Everstin, Innovations Manager, Sabre Travel Network, Lee Hayhurst, Head of News, Travolution, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, Vaultpad, Paul Smith, Ignite100 and Sally Broom, Tripbod with our own Mark Frary as chair.

WTM Fresh was open to companies using technology - such as web, mobile, social, app or a combination of these - to help consumers plan their trips and effect those decisions.

WTM Fresh is sponsored by Sabre Travel Network and the winning pitch will win a cheque for £5,000 from the sponsors as well as mentoring from the sponsor and other members of the judging panel.