Company Name: Inntopia
Official Website: https://www.inntopia.com/
What do they do? Inntopia processes reservations for “Resorts, Destination Marketing Organizations, Central Reservation Agencies, Activity Providers, Web Portals and other Travel Suppliers, Aggregators, and Resellers.” It’s a reservation system for both online and phone-based booking.
Are they a business-to-business (B2B) company, or business-to-consumer (B2C)? B2B
Founder(s): Sterling Valley Systems, Inc. is the owner and operator of Inntopia, and is based in Stowe, Vermont.
Date Founded: 1997
Presentation Notes: Inntopia provides a way to incorporate so-called “non-traditional” or “long-tail” travel products into an existing online travel search tool – things like vacation rentals and activities. The goal is to provide these non-traditional products alongside existing traditional products (such as hotels, flights, and car rentals) so that travelers could more easily book everything in one place. Inntopia believes that the vacation rentals market is already huge, and that tours/activities is the next big thing.
Why should/shouldn’t travelers care? This is a system that the end user may benefit from, especially if they want a bit more flexibility over the individual components of a package trip – it would allow travelers to book each item of a package instead of just going with the travel provider had chosen. Some providers that are already using the system, however, are just using it to provide new packages with no ability to customize them. That doesn’t seem as appealing, since it just feels like yet another package trip option. Customization here would be key to whether travelers would find this different and useful.
Author: Sean Keener