Member Article

Digital travel firm wins funding to develop platform in partnership with EE

Manchester-based SME, Indestinate, has secured up to £25,000 funding to develop a destination tourism platform, Now Arriving, in partnership with mobile network EE.

Indestinate was one of the five national winner of the won Data Innovation Contest held by IC tomorrow, part of the Technology Strategy Board.

This platform will enable tourism marketers to use communications network EE’s mobile data on location, movement and demographics to deliver tailored travel experiences to the consumer.

A live impact dashboard will show the effectiveness of tourism marketing campaigns, while providing analytics on the visitor behaviour that makes up the UK’s annual £115bn tourism spend.

A total of 15 start-ups pitched their ideas to the judging panel at the final of the contest, held at BL-NK in Shoreditch. The winners of other categories were Release Consulting, Inform Architecture Ltd., Matrix Knowledge and Peter Balman.

Challenge partners taking part in the event included: Ingram Content Group, EE Limited, Ordnance Survey, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust and Birmingham Public Health and the British Library.

They each set a data-specific challenge relevant to their sector, while also solving a wider industry problem.

The five winning SMEs will retain all of their IP and will work alongside their respective challenge partner to trial their solutions.

Clive Hall, director of digital media at Indestinate, said: “We are delighted and extremely proud to have won this exciting contest, especially against such tough competition.

“With this funding, we can now go beyond our current digital tourism marketing offering, to deliver even greater levels of personalised travel experiences for consumers”.

Peggy Barthes, head of mData at EE, added: “We were very impressed by the calibre and innovation displayed by all the contestants’ ideas for making use of the vast potential of EE’s mData to bring real-world commercial benefits to a variety of fields.

“Indestinate’s Now Arriving platform, however, really stood out as a fantastic way to bring about not only a step change in the capabilities of the UK’s vital tourism industry, but also significant commercial opportunities to the associated marketing and transport industries.

“Most important of all, it will simultaneously enrich the memories and experiences of both domestic and international tourists, which is integral to EE’s brand values and corporate mission.”

Matt Sansam, programme manager at IC tomorrow, said: “Specialist start-ups often provide inventive and innovative solutions to business challenges and the Technology Strategy Board’s IC tomorrow programme continues to connect start-ups and early stage companies with established businesses who are looking to collaborate on new ideas and technology.

“We had an excellent response to this competition and were impressed with the quality and breadth of solutions presented. We’d like to thank all the entrants to this contest and look forward to seeing the winning products and services come to life over the coming months.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .