NEW YORK, June 17, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rocketrip ( www.rocketrip.com ) today launches the first commercially available travel management platform to save companies money on travel expenses by rewarding employees for cost-saving behavior. During the five months of pilot program testing, Rocketrip delivered an average of 23 percent year-over-year savings for seven companies across 354 trips.
"Our pilot programs provide quantifiable evidence that Rocketrip will decrease travel and expense budgets, fundamentally changing employee booking behavior and making travel weary employees feel better about hitting the road," says Dan Ruch, Founder & CEO of Rocketrip. "While not surprising, we are immensely excited that all of our pilot programs surpassed their financial goals while improving company morale."
Rocketrip's secret sauce is a first of its kind algorithm that integrates a company's travel policy with real-time market pricing and predictive analytics to create a Smart Budget for each trip. These budgets effectively "predict" what an employee would have spent on a trip. Employees are set free to book airfare, hotels, and rental cars using favorite travel sites, or the company's travel agency. Rocketrip motivates employees to save by rewarding Rocketrip Points for positive behavior such as booking in advance and staying under budget. Points can be redeemed at top retailers such as Amazon.com, Best Buy, Bloomingdales and American Express.
The Rocketrip platform offers robust controls and analytics so travel managers can easily customize travel policy as well as update policy in real-time. Budget templates can be customized by department and by employee to account for variations in travel policy across employee levels. Rocketrip also offers a suite of reporting capabilities providing real-time analysis of travel spend and behavior including insight into the fluctuation of gross savings, advance purchase behavior and vendor spend analysis. Data from purchases made on the open market are normalized and incorporated into the reporting suite.
Rocketrip Slashes Travel Expenses By 29 Percent For News, Opinion and Entertainment Network TheBlaze
TheBlaze is a news, opinion and entertainment network founded by leading multi-media personality, syndicated talk radio host and entrepreneur Glenn Beck. TheBlaze sought to manage travel costs for 200+ employees taking more than 1,000 trips each year, many of which were last minute due to the nature of the business. Rocketrip worked with the TheBlaze to set a customized travel policy that guided budget pricing based on historical travel and expense data as well as examples of out-of-policy behavior.
Topline results of the 90-day pilot program based on over 200 trips include:
- 29% savings generated in under 3 months across all travel spend
- 42% of savings generated from flight spend
- 55% of savings generated from hotel spend
- Significant improvement in advanced purchases
- 81% increase in flights booked 21+ days in advance
- 24% increase in flights booked 14+ days in advance
- 21% decrease in flights booked within 6 or less days of travel
Glenn Beck recently said on his syndicated radio program, "You wouldn't believe how many employees are now making money on the trips and saving us money. This is the kind of world that we should be living in now."
"Rocketrip helped us achieve our goal of reducing travel costs for our employees by challenging our travelers to find the most cost effective way to go on the road," says Dan Figenshu, VP of Finance for TheBlaze. "The added benefit is that employees get rewarded for making smart travel decisions which gets them excited to travel while saving the company money."
Rocketrip ( http://www.rocketrip.com ) is the first commercially available travel management platform to save companies money on travel expenses by motivating employees to become willing and enthusiastic partners in cost savings. Rocketrip's algorithms integrate a company's travel policy with real-time trip pricing and availability to create a personalized Smart Budget for each trip. Employees are set free to book using their favorite travel websites and are rewarded for booking under budget by sharing a percentage of the savings in gift cards for major retailers. Rocketrip provides employers with insights and analytics on company spending, savings and employee travel behavior, giving them the ability to optimize their travel policy and rewards program.
Rocketrip is based in New York City and has received funding from Canaan Partners , Genacast Ventures , Y Combinator , and angel investors.
For more information about Rocketrip or to schedule an interview with Rocketrip Founder & CEO Dan Ruch, contact Kellie Pelletier, kpelletier@rocketrip.com or 917-514-5851.
