Events agency Agiito have partnered with API developer, TravelTime, to support meeting bookers with travel time information during the venue selection process.
The technology will see Agiito’s meeting bookers presented with venue options ranked by travel time. This aims to provide a “realistic range of venue options that avoid the need to guess travel times or calculate them via third party websites”.
By considering the actual time travelled, it aims to build an accurate picture for bookers and help them make more informed decisions when choosing a meeting location.
“Venue-finding tools typically use straight-line distance to define the proximity of venues, a metric which assumes we travel in straight lines, which of course, we don’t. The reality is, we must navigate the transport network around us, meaning the actual distances are often much further than displayed in venue listings. We were finding that bookers could book a venue they believed to be a short distance away based on a radius search, when the real travel time actually takes twice as long as they were expecting,” explained Charlie Davies (pictured left), CEO, TravelTime.
He added: “Meeting bookers shouldn’t have to rely on inaccurate data to make important location decisions; they should be presented with accurate information that enables them to make the right location-based decision. What they really value is how long it will take their attendees to travel to the venue, so we wanted to provide this at the point of enquiry.”
What’s next?
Agiito are currently implementing the TravelTime API into Meetingspro, the agency’s venue finding booking tool.
Meeting bookers will be able to search for venues based on their bespoke criteria and be presented with the physical walking time to each venue.
It will be available for pilot in February.
Carl Law (pictured right), chief technology officer, Agiito, added: “By making the search results more relevant and accurate, we can offer our customers a more convenient, reliable and personalised experience when booking meetings.”
