Travel booking site nominated for Start Up of the Year at Travel Innovation Summit at PhoCusWright Conference.
ATLANTA – Mr. Arlo, the first travel website of its kind, launched on Thursday, 8th November. The launch is in time for PhoCusWright’s Travel Innovation Summit in Phoenix, where he is nominated for Start-Up of the Year and People’s Choice awards at the Travel Innovation Summit.
Designed for the traveler, Mr. Arlo is an integrated travel retail experience, complete with friends’ recommendations and TripAdvisor reviews, as well as restaurant reservations through OpenTable, to make entire purchases all in one place.
By getting to know you, your friends and your preferences, Mr. Arlo recommends trips, restaurants, and activities that fit your personality. His knowledge and expert connections give consumers confidence to make the right decisions, as they are chosen from his favorite 150,000 three-star and above hotels, 25,000 restaurants through OpenTable and 5,500 activities worldwide.
What makes Mr. Arlo different from other online travel web sites is that he is personal, mobile, local, and social.
The proprietary Travel Persona Engine (TPE) customizes each user’s experience by making available a personalized list of recommendations. TPE accomplishes this by identifying user’s check-ins, likes, dislikes, past behavior and similar decisions made by their friends and/or other users. Mr. Arlo analyzes characteristics of hotels, restaurants, activities and destinations to recommend what he thinks you’ll love.
It is estimated that by the year 2015 more than five billion consumers will be booking travel on mobile devices, and to meet this demand Mr. Arlo has an identical mobile and website experience. He knows if you are accessing the site from a computer, iPad, or smartphone and adjusts the screen accordingly. Additionally, Mr. Arlo’s personnel works on both the app and the website together – not separate departments like many other retail experiences.
Mr. Arlo keeps you informed on your mobile device – even when abroad. You are a local, not a tourist with Mr. Arlo, with insider advice on restaurants and activities.
He encourages customers to share their travel experience with friends. The permission-only, unique network of social media connections including FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other sharing options lets you know where your friends have been and helps you brag to them about where you have been.
“Planning your perfect trip can be a gamble with typical booking sites. So we designed Mr. Arlo to get to know you by asking questions, tailor-making recommendations, and booking the whole trip on one easy retail site,” said VP of Supply & Distribution, Chuck Jensen. “Searching endlessly for hotels and activities on several different sites leads to frustration, and can take the pleasure out of planning a trip. Mr. Arlo provides the solution that is aesthetically-pleasing, easy to use, aspirational and personal.”
Mr. Arlo is the only travel site to offer OpenTable restaurant bookings without sending you to another online location. TripAdvisor is also a buddy, and shares up-to-the-minute reviews of every hotel. Making friends all the time, Mr. Arlo continues to enhance your booking experience, introducing flights, car rentals and sporting events soon.
Mr. Arlo is unique in the online travel industry as it is privately-owned and raised substantial personal investments prior to launch. The online travel industry is a fast-growing $313 billion marketplace dominated by well-known online travel companies. However, statistics show that more than 53 percent of online travel shoppers are dissatisfied with their current shopping experience, according to an Atmosphere Research Group report and a Forrester Research survey.
Mr. Arlo’s Experts
Mr. Arlo has an impressive Board of Advisors to back him up. With 125 years’ combined experience in the travel industry, including:
- Bob Coggin – Former Vice Chairman of Galileo, Travelport
- Carl Wilson – Former EVP & CIO, Marriott International
- Keehln Wheeler – CEO and Co-Founder
- Chuck Job Lang – CPO and Co-Founder, former Pose Head of Product and Experience Design
- Chuck Jensen – VP Supply and Distribution, former General Manager at Delta.com and VP, Global Account Management at iSeatz
