Shane Green and Edin Saracevic have one shared passion: maps.
“Edin and I felt strongly that maps should not just be online or just in print or just in [your Palm Pilot]. We needed to create a map that could go all of those places,” Green said. “So you could get the same map if you were at home planning your trip or walking down the street.”
That goal turned into The Map Network, a Washington-based company that designs both print and interactive, digital maps for hospitality industry clients. Today, the company has more than 90 destination-focused clients, including the Washington, D.C. Convention and Tourism Corp., and hundreds of trade show and special event clients, including the Super Bowl. The Map Network will officially launch a new line of maps designed specifically for hotel clients today at the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals convention in Minneapolis.
The company’s products are more than just a generic map you might find on Google or Yahoo, said Green. Instead, clients can put customized information on their maps. For example, Map Network included detailed information on parties, parking and nearby Detroit restaurants for last year’s Super Bowl map.
“All of that [information] was available through a single interface. Everyone who’s a stakeholder at an event wants to raise their little red flag and say ‘Here I am,’ ” Green said. “Instead of just letting them be a pink dot on the map we really want to empower each of [our clients] to create their own content.”
The company’s success hasbeen tremendous, doubling its revenues every year since it was founded in 1999. Last year the company pulled in just under $10 million.
The maps have also raised revenue for clients, said Jon Lockwood, director of sales and marketing for the Renaissance Washington, D.C, Map Network’s first hotel client.
The hotel took in $400,000 in additional revenue last year in convention group bookings as a direct result of its online maps, Lockwood said. With the customized maps, the sales team was able to show potential clients the hotel’s convention space. In the past, the hotel sales team would fax or e-mail the layout.
“It wasn’t as functional,” Lockwood said.
With Map Network “we can show it in real time and then we were able to show them all the cool things around the hotel after we convinced them the space was right,” Lockwood said.
The co-founders
Shane Green, 35, president and CEO
» Prior to Map Network, Green launched Witten Technologies with his father. The company provides highly technical mapping services for government clients. He came to Washington on a fellowship from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Edin Saracevic, 40, executive vice president, director
» Saracevic was founder and president of MapA Productions, Inc., a company that developed print maps for clients in Europe. He was an award winning movie producer in Bosnia-Herzegovina before moving to the U.S. in the 1990s.
