Introducing places. (pronounced “Places Dot”)

Manhattan, NY 04/29/2021: Deciding to combine their resources and ongoing projects, New York Online and VisitorTix announced today their merger and the launch of a new company, Places Dot, LLC.

Its inaugural product, places.widget, is a next generation no-code activities marketplace which does not require having technical expertise or hiring a developer to start selling online. With data and analytics at its core, places.widget is designed for publishers, travel agencies, DMOs, and other providers of visitor-related content who want to get additional e-commerce revenue and wish to develop or enhance their first-party data.

Marina Petrova, previously CEO of New York Online, will step up as the CEO of the newly formed merged companies entity, Places Dot. Current CEO of VisitorTix, Bruce Amick, will carry the COO mantle and Jonathan Elkoubi, Chief Commercial Officer for VisitorTix, will retain CCO responsibilities.

In March 2020, the co-founders formed an impromptu collaboration that gave birth to HTTA.US – the U.S. Hospitality, Tourism, Travel & Activities Recovery Registry - a benevolent initiative to support the unemployed and furloughed professionals of the Travel Sector (recipient of Groups Today’s “Reader’s Choice Award 2020”).

Marina Petrova, co-founder and newly appointed CEO of Places Dot, talks about the new partnership: “As we were working together on HTTA, Bruce, Jonathan and I had many conversations not only about the impact of the pandemic, but also about the other challenges facing the travel industry, such as the increasing expenses to standing up and maintaining e-commerce presence, the evolution of the distribution model for activities, constantly growing marketing costs yielding declining conversions, to name a few. Our shared vision to create a powerful solution, coupled with our years of experience in travel, arts & entertainment, data science, e-commerce, consumer insights, and business development, has become the foundation of Places Dot and has defined our approach to building technologically advanced solutions for the industry.”

Co-founder of Places Dot, Bruce Amick will spearhead the development of places.arts, a unique iteration of places.widget: “Although there are many positive indicators emerging from the travel sector these last few weeks, the recovery for the Arts &  Entertainment sector will require focused and innovative programs to entice local and visitor patrons back. With places.arts, we are offering solutions designed specifically for rebuilding the symbiosis between Arts & Entertainment and Tourism & Hospitality companies, providing customized ecosystems where they can organically deepen and broaden engagements with their audiences and guests while simultaneously building a trove of actionable user data.”

Jonathan Elkoubi, co-founder and CCO of Places Dot added: “When Covid-19 confinements started in New York, Bruce and I wanted to do something positive to instill hope amongst our Travel and Tourism peers; Marina Petrova responded right away to my appeal on LinkedIn and a month later, the www.htta.us website was up and running. During the darkest hours of the pandemic, I’ve preached that the best ways out of the crisis are through collaboration, cooperation and innovation. Holding similar goals and ambitions, it became clear to Marina, Bruce and I that the best way forward would be through the merger of our companies. Places Dot is our attempt to look at the visitor journey’s data - digital and physical - no longer through the lens of the travel industry alone, but through better understanding behaviors which find their roots in emotions and transcending societal trends. And then share those valuable insights with both suppliers and clients. We will turn our approach to the data generated by places.widget and other Places Dot products into a new industry benchmark.” 

For more information, go to: www.placesdot.com