Former Google Travel Mgr. Readies Guest Traveler Platform Launch

Veteran travel buyer Greg Wilczek in the coming months will launch a new platform for managing non-profiled travelers, EmPath, tackling what he said was "the one use case that we could just not solve" in his years managing travel.

EmPath is being designed as a "well-lit path" through which non-profiled travelers—job candidates, company-sponsored guests, contractors or employees' spouses, for example—can book, manage, pay for and be reimbursed for their travel, Wilczek said. A host can come into the platform, provide basic information about a guest traveler, including where they are traveling to and an email address, for example. That generates invitations to the guests to come into the platform themselves. From there, they can book travel, including controls around policy and access to corporate discounts, manage payments and submit for reimbursements for any in-policy incidental expenses by scanning receipts.

While booking can be handled for guest travelers by methods such as assigning them an agent, the payment expense side present a bigger challenge, Wilczek said.

"It really starts to fall down around payment. You can put up a card for air, but hotel is trickier, and other incidentals are darn near impossible," he said. "With the reimbursement on the tail end, it's a manual process, and non-profiled travelers can be waiting for weeks at a time."

That wait can present particularly awkward situations, such as job candidates who find out they didn't get the job and still must wait several more weeks to be reimbursed by the company that didn't hire them, Wilczek said. The EmPath platform can reimburse approved expenses immediately to travelers' bank accounts or a peer-to-peer app, he said.

The platform was designed to integrate with customers' own travel management companies, corporate cards, supplier discounts and data lakes, Wilczek said.

For companies that don't opt to bring in their own TMC, EmPath has partnered with Altour to provide service and fulfillment. Altour provides a "global presence" for fulfillment, and customers can still load in their own discounts to be used in the Altour environment even if they do not wish to bring in their own TMC, Wilczek said.

Wilczek said he is leveraging his industry relationships and know-how to launch the platform. He most recently was Google's New York-based head of travel, and he also has led travel programs for Credit Suisse, Marsh & McLennan and Bear Stearns as well as 10 years of experience working for travel management companies. His co-founder, Vishal Chouhan, also comes with a Google background and brings the product architecture and data knowledge to the table, Wilczek said. They hired a team of about 10 engineers to develop the platform.

With its two cofounders coming from Google, EmPath has "total Google DNA" and is built on Google platforms including its Cloud, Maps and Reviews tools, according to Wilczek.

The company is "100 percent bootstrapping," not seeking external investors, according to Wilczek.

"We want to control our own destiny," he said. "We don't want to be pressured to grow in ways that we can't or be pressured to be something that we're not, which is part of the deal you make with raising money and having [venture capital investors] on your cap table."

For its revenue model, EmPath has a variety of financial plans for clients, including annual budget fees or per-attendee fees, but clients generally prefer a per-trip fee, Wilczek said. The company does not take revenue from suppliers, he said.

EmPath is planning a soft launch in May followed by going live in June. The company will be "onboarding our first set of customers in three different bands" to ensure it is being selective with its initial customers. "When you launch a company, you want to be partnered with customers who can grow with you and go on a journey with you," Wilczek said.

The June launch also coincides with the expected full launch of another guest travel management platform, Juno, which is being developed by the team behind former guest travel management app Pana. Juno this week announced $2 million in seed funding as well as its own first TMC partner for service and fulfillment: also Altour.

BTN stablemate The Beat reported that Wilczek and the team behind Juno had been in talks to work together but ultimately decided to each forge their own path.

Wilczek said the development of two solutions "validates the need" for guest traveler management platforms, based not only from his own experience as a travel manager but from his discussions with numerous other travel manager prior to starting the company.

"All of the established suppliers have a non-employee or guest solution, but try to pull it together," Wilczek said. "The agency might have [online booking tool] access, and the payment cards are issuing one-time cards but there's no integration with the [global distribution system] and the booking. The expenses might happen in a different tool. It's not at all stitched together, and we saw very clearly that there needs to be one platform."