A Galway-based company is trialling a mobile travel technology solution in Germany called Snap2Travel (www.snap2travel.com), which is making innovative use of image recognition technology.
Founded by Greg Cawley, the new app aims to “excite the traveller, support the travel agent and provide an information and product distribution outlet for travel suppliers and business partners”.
Cawley has more than 20 years of technology experience, 10 of which were specifically in the travel technology market, having been involved in management in the area within Lufthansa and Amadeus.
In 2002, he led a management buyout of Traventec, a software services development company for the travel industry based in Galway, which was subsequently sold to OpenJaw technologies in 2008.
Trialing began in Germany
“We started pulling the pieces together for Snap2Travel last October and have been trialling with travel agencies in Germany since 1 June of this year. I have good contacts in the travel industry there and it’s one of the larger markets in Europe. It is an educational process as it is a new technology for the travel agents,” he explains.
“I always had it in the back of my mind to set up a business in the area of travel and the idea came from another business I got involved in, back in 2008, Koaaba which specialises in image recognition and smart visuals.”
The potential of Snap2Travel
At the moment, the Snap2Travel app allows you to take a picture of a page or image in a holiday catalogue, put in your dates and receive real-time prices. If you want to book there and then, you’re connected to your default travel agency, all over your mobile phone.
“We have over 75,000 properties on our database and growing and we have recently signed up a leading tour operator to pilot our solution,” says Cawley.
“The bigger vision is that Snap2Travel will allow people to ‘look, book and go’. It is part of the augmented reality trend. In a few years’ time the idea would be that you could take a picture of a restaurant from outside it and get information in real time about that restaurant . Already today we can offer the capability to snap a poster advertising a musical and book tickets all over your mobile phone.”
Article courtesy of Bizstartup.ie
