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Implementation Guide for Mitingu

Click on images to view live smart trip tools

Our relationship is about capabilities and content

We are experts in knitting together solutions that make sense for our partners.  Each partner that we onboard with our tool, we look at whether they have something that would add value to our other clients and partners.

  • Proximity based trip planning is a unique approach
  • Travelers need calendars, contact management systems, maps, information about what is nearby
  • Corporate travel managers need a way to track their travelers and to ensure their safety

Why does proximity matter?

So many reasons – time, impact, friendship, giving.  The corporate traveler is a person that has many reasons for travel.  He or she only spends a fraction of their time traveling for business.  Giving them a tool that they can use for all of those other reasons makes sense.

Sometimes we have to look at things through a new lens

Time to Market

Revenue Accelleration

Our product takes minutes or hours to implement, not days, weeks or months.

Differentiation

Right out of the gate we can deliver a product that is easy to use for corporate travelers, while your other components of your system are being completed.

The Smart Trip Tool Components

I’m Staying

This element of the Smart Trip tool gives the corporate traveler or event attendee the ability to book a hotel in a single click, since the widget is pre-populated with the venue info and if they are attending an event, the event date.  Hotel bookings are guaranteed to be the lowest published rate online. Solutionz provides a 110% best rate promise and will refund 110% of the difference for someone who finds a hotel room available cheaper on another site.

 

I’m Driving

In the US, 89% of all travel is by car.  Driving directions are useful to corporate travelers who are visiting both new prospects and their clients or their own offices or plants, or finding a place to stay nearby the restaurant where they are taking everyone to dinner.  All event attendees are not personally familiar with the event venue.  This tab also provides smart car rental and can be connected to any inventory source.

 

Air Tickets

TripProximity provides the ability to buy airline tickets worldwide.  We can easily add other forms of transportation, such as train.

Address lookup

If the user wishes to travel to a different destination, they can type in their destination using the pencil.

Smarter Car Rental

TripProximity now allows the user to specify whether they want to drive or fly to their destination, which changes where you would pick up your car rental.

Social Sharing

Once the Smart Trip Tool is displayed, the user can choose to share the widget with friends/family.  The widget can be linked back to the ticket purchase page.

 

Smarter Driving Directions

TripProximity now handles multi-day trip planning by allowing the user to define the number of hours per day that they would like to drive.  This then calculates the actual driving time, versus the driving straight throughmethod that Google uses.

Available July 1 (with TripProximity embedded)

Mitingu Event Registration and Ticketing Platform

Click HERE for sample of a live event.

New things coming in 3Q18 - I'm Exploring

New things coming in 3Q18 - Photo Maps

Coming in 3Q18 - TravelNavigator and Duty of Care for Corporate Travel Managers

Portal Invitation

Your Portal is already live with TripProximity and your development team can begin working with our tools immediately.

From our portal you can modify your widgets, create new ones and see your usage statistics.

It is important to note that if you update a widget you do NOT need to reinstall it.  The changes will be live immediately.

The script that you write to augment the code snippet that is generated by the portal will override the fields that are included in your script.  We have put them in as %VARIABLENAME% into the Event and Venue widgets.  We have also built a few sample widgets for you that are included at the top of this page.  These are static widgets.

We have online chat (M-F 8am-9pm ET) on the portal.

Getting Started Guide

Click on the image to download the Getting Started Guide.  This can be useful for socializing the capabilities of the widget with your team.

To be installed on your corporate website as a VISIT US page

YouRGoing can add the Smart Trip tool to your website as a VISIT US page.  This will allow anyone that is traveling to your London offices, whether driving or flying to get driving directions and book a hotel nearby.

The instructions for adding this static widget to your corporate site can be found in the VENUE WIDGET section below.

To plan travel to any event venue

If you ever decide to create landing pages for venues (such as those where Diners/Discover cards are accepted payments), the Smart Trip tool can be added to any of those landing pages to allow anyone traveling to an event at that venue to find a hotel nearby.  This can be useful when someone already has a ticket to an event, but still needs to find a hotel nearby.

The instructions to load the dynamic venue widget to your venue landing pages can be found in the VENUE WIDGET section below.

The Event Widget

The Event widget is one of our Smart Trip tools.  It allows you to dynamically embed trip planning in any event in your system.

It is distinct from the Venue widget in that it has a specific date range for the event and a location where the event is held.

The next section includes your dynamic snippet.  Then you will find the instructions for our Dynamic tool, which shows you how to substitute your data for our variables in real time, so that you only have to install the widget snippet once.  Once it is installed, if you wish to make changes, you can edit the base elements of the widget in the Portal and you do not have to reinstall the snippet.  See the defaults in the last section.

Dynamic Tool - Customizing with variables from your system

Add the dynamic variable elements that you wish to pass at display time to the appropriate widget snippet from the portal.

Follow the variables with the closing code segment.

We’ve included the recommended variables for EVENSI (shown encased in %VARIABLENAME% signs, which you will strip out in your actual entry):

<script type=”text/javascript”>
tripWidget({
eventStart: ‘YYYY/MM/DD’,
eventEnd: ‘YYYY/MM/DD’,
headerText: ‘Plan to attend  ‘,
appendPOI: ‘Y’,
poiName: ‘%EVENTNAME%’,
address: ‘%STREET%, %CITY%,%STATE%,%POSTCODE%’,
trackingCode: ‘%CUSTOMERTRACKINGINFO%’,
imageUrl: ‘%IMAGEURL%’,
imageLink: ‘%IMAGELINK%’,
})
</script>
Once you have the code installed, contact us with the test link and we will help to test on multiple platforms and on multiple browsers.

Your Variable Settings can be modified in your TripProximity Portal

  • The tool type is set to EVENT
  • The header text is set to “Plan to attend  “
  • Pass the Event Name as a variable
  • The POI name will be appended to the header text
  • We have stored a default image that you can override at display time with the event image, which ties the page together and reduces the perception that this is an advertisement
  • Pass the Tracking number at display time from your customer information (should include at minimum the event number and can also include geography, such as the city of the event).  We pass this back to you in the analytics and payment report.
  • Pass the location information in the address field at display time
  • We default to the US and USD for currency, but you can set the widget to default to the currency of the venue.  Pricing of hotels can be displayed in up to 40 currencies, but the transaction will be in USD, as Priceline is the merchant of record and they are a US company.
  • The booking brand will default to The Hotels Nearby Events.
  • We havc used your color scheme from your site to customize the palette for the widget.  This can be modified in our portal.
  • The widget is set to display the HOTEL tab in front.  If you would like a MAP widget as the default,  we can provide a separate widget for that purpose, which could be called based on a business rule.  You will need to insert your Google Map API code in your Account once you register.
  • We have enabled the Air and Driving tabs and social sharing.
  • The user can enter the departure and arrival airports at transaction time
  •  The event dates should be passed to us at transaction time, using a business rule to determine if they should arrive the night before, and/or stay a night after the event.

The Venue Widget (dynamic)

The Venue widget is one of our Smart Trip tools.  It allows you to embed trip planning on any page in your system or on your site or blog where there is a contact with an address.  A venue can be a physical place, like a company or a museum, or it can be a location like a park or a beach.  As long as we can pinpoint a latitude/longitude, we can “trip enable” any landing page.

This tool is distinct from the Event widget in that the dates of travel are relative to the date that the tool is displayed, e.g. travel 7 days from today for 1 night.

Click the HDQ widget above to see the widget for the your corporate website for people traveling to see you.

The next section includes your snippet for your HDQ location.  Then you will find the instructions for our Dynamic tool, which shows you how to substitute your data for our variables in real time, so that you only have to install the widget snippet once.

If you need a VENUE widget we have created one on the portal.  Once it is installed, if you wish to make changes, you can edit the base elements of the widget in the Portal and you do not have to reinstall the snippet. See the defaults in the last section.

Your dynamic code snippet for Venue (use with variable fields outlined below)

<script type="text/javascript" data-id="tp-widget" data-token=
"R52B57ZT9qMQ53e6Lqt9CK0L9mQI6EEp5D7H1150JAii49hvWt25wS73Db2t9ZT7" 
src="https://widget.tripproximity.com/js/widget.min.js"></script>
<div class="tp-widget" id="tp-widget"></div>

Dynamic Venue Tool - Customizing with variables from your system

Add to the widget snippet the dynamic variable elements that you wish to pass at display time, preceded by the following two lines (your snippet). Follow the variables with the closing code segment.

We’ve included the recommended variables for Evensi (shown encased in %VARIABLENAME% signs, which you will strip out in your actual entry):

<script type=”text/javascript”>
tripWidget({
daysFromToday: ‘7’,
numberOfDays: ‘1’,
headerText: ‘Plan your trip to ‘,
appendPOI: ‘Y’,
poiName: ‘%CONTACTNAME%’,
address: ‘%STREET%, %CITY%,%STATE%,%POSTCODE%’,
trackingCode: ‘%CUSTOMERTRACKINGINFO%’,
imageUrl: ‘%IMAGEURL%’,
imageLink: ‘%IMAGELINK%’,
 </script>
Once you have the code installed, contact us with the test link and we will help to test on multiple platforms and on multiple browsers.

Your Variable Settings can be modified in your TripProximity Portal

  • The tool type is set to VENUE
  • The header text is set to “Plan my trip to “
  • Pass the Company or Venue Name as a variable
  • The POI name will be appended to the header text
  • We have stored a default image that you can override at display time
  • Pass the Tracking number at display time from your customer information
  • Pass the location information in the address field at display time
  • We default to the US and USD for currency
  • The booking brand will default to the hotels nearby events
  • The color scheme has been set to match your site palette.  This can be changed using our portal.
  • The widget is set to display the MAP in front.  If you would like a HOTEL widget as the default, we can change it or we can provide a separate widget for that purpose, which could be called based on a business rule
  • We have enabled the Air and Driving tabs
  • The user can enter the departure and arrival airports at transaction time
  • The travel dates will default to 7 days from the day that the widget is displayed
  • The default trip length is 1 night
  • These can both be overriden by the traveler

What brands can I choose from for the booking system that the traveler sees?

Depending on how you implement the widget, you may have a different need for targeted messaging in the booking system.  For example, for a calendaring implementation, you may want to use TheHotelsNearby Companies.  Or for a contact management system, just TheHotelsNearby.  Or if you are designating all of the upside from using the widget to your favorite charity, you can use TravelingToGive.   The next selection shows you all of the possibilities.

The Brand Options

The default refid is 5135 and the default brand is The Hotels Nearby.
To change the brand to one of our niche brands, you must use the combination of the refid and reflickid2 below.
These can be overridden at transaction time by using the refid and refclickid2 variables
refid= Brand refclickid2=
5135 The Hotels Nearby
6832 The Hotels Nearby Amusement Parks hotelbyattractions
6832 The Hotels Nearby Assisted Living hotelsbyamusementparks
6832 The Hotels Nearby Attractions hotelsbyassistedliving.com
6832 The Hotels Nearby Bloggers hotelsbybloggers
6832 The Hotels Nearby Companies hotelsbycompanies
6832 The Hotels Nearby Convention Centers hotelsbyconventioncenters
6832 The Hotels Nearby Cruise Ports hotelsbycruiseports
6832 The Hotels Nearby Doctors hotelsbydoctors
6832 The Hotels Nearby Embassies hotelsbyembassies
6856 The Hotels Nearby Events hotelsbyevents
6832 The Hotels Nearby Festivals hotelsbyfestivals
6832 The Hotels Nearby Funeral Homes hotelsbyfuneralhomes
6988 The Hotels Nearby Golf Courses hotelsbygolfcourses
6832 The Hotels Nearby Hospice hotelsbyhospice
6855 The Hotels Nearby Hospitals hotelsbyhospitals
6832 The Hotels Nearby Military Bases hotelsbymilitarybases
6832 The Hotels Nearby Museums hotelsbymuseums
6832 The Hotels Nearby Nursing Homes hotelsbynursinghomes
6832 The Hotels Nearby Places hotelsbyplaces
6832 The Hotels Nearby Prisons hotelsbyprisons
6832 The Hotels Nearby Racetracks hotelsbyracetracks
6832 The Hotels Nearby Spas hotelsbyspas
6832 The Hotels Nearby Theatres hotelsbytheatres
6832 The Hotels Nearby Trainstations hotelsbytrainstations
6857 The Hotels Nearby Universities hotelsbyuniversities
6832 The Hotels Nearby Wineries hotelsbywineries
6832 The Hotels Nearby Zoos hotelsbyzoos
7028 TravelingtoGIVE

Private Label Branding

Can we use our own brand?  Absolutely!

For a one time fee of $1200 you can upgrade to Level 3 online and provide your own header artwork to us for the booking back end.

In addition to custom branding, you will get:

  • Early access to all new products
  • Immediate eligibility for royalties
  • Eligibility for volume bonuses
  • Earn bonus for embedding the smart trip tool into client systems
  • Dedicated account director

Tech Tips

Following are tips for the technical integration of TripProximity.

External System Interaction

The TripProximity widget interacts with the following systems:

  • Google Places for lookup of the venues and addresses in the address field
  • Google Maps for lookup of the latitude/longitude of any address

Once the input from the widget is received, we pass a search string to our booking system.  It contains:

  • Brand to be displayed in the booking system
  • Travel parameters
  • Tracking information to provide reporting back to you for each client

CSS

The widget has its own style sheet that governs the display of the widget within a container.

 

Rules for Display

The widget can be populated with event and venue information.  Ideally, the widget needs the full address to do an accurate proximity lookup of the hotels nearby.

The date fields for events can be coupled with a business rule.  For instance if you have an event that begins before noon, you may want to set the date of arrival to 1 day before the event begins.  If the event ends after 3pm, you may want to set the date of departure to 1 day after the event.

Just a reminder, even if there is no address or a partial address (city/state), our new widget with the Google Places lookup can find the precise address of the venue or company that they are visiting (even a Starbucks or TopGolf! or finding a hotel near someone’s house that works from home).  The user controls this by using the pencil tool on the address field to do their own lookup.

Static Widgets versus Dynamic Widgets

The static widget contains the following:

async onload=”tripWidget()”

The dynamic widget does not load asynchronously.  If you turn on the dynamic flag in the portal in the widget editor, it removes that line from the code snippet that is generated.  If you try to install a dynamic widget directly into an HTML container on WordPress, it will NOT render.

Press Release Draft

We will work with you to craft a press release for your implementations of TripProximity.  You will be the first corporate travel site to launch smart trip planning.

Our CMO George Lynch will help you craft engaging communications for social media and the press.

Update your About Page with smart trip planning

We help you craft your About Page to show the differentiation that you get with TripProximity.

Recommended Help Text

We will assist you in drafting the help text for your clients, including the FAQs.

For any other details regarding widget customization, please access the Support Center.