Houston Airports soar with first-class awards in international ceremony

top of the line

This year, the Houston airport system won in a new category: "Best Art in the Airport". Photo courtesy of Houston Airports

We can now dub Houston the city of first-class airports and first-class service.

During the 2023 Skytrax World Airport Awards in Amsterdam, the Houston airport system earned several prestigious honors, including a second consecutive five-star rating.

Skytrax is the leading international air transport rating organization; they determine their ratings based on annual audits of every airport. This year, the Houston airport system won in a new category that was unveiled at the ceremony – “Best Art in the Airport” – which was determined by a panel of judges.

Mario Diaz, the director of aviation for Houston Airports, said in a press release that superior customer service is the “guiding light” for the city’s airport system.

“Excellent customer service is at our core; an expansive and eclectic arts program, just awarded World’s Best Art Program in 2023, provides a meaningful and memorable experience,” said Diaz.

The awards continued to stack up. William P. Hobby Airport maintained its five-star rating for the second year in a row. It is one of 18 total five-star airports in the world, but the one and only five-star Skytrax airport in North America.

Other accolades the Hobby Airport earned include:

  • Best Regional Airport in North America, for the second consecutive year
  • No. 2 Best Airport in the United States
  • No. 3 Best Airport in North America

George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) maintained its four-star classification for the sixth year in a row. It was also named the fourth best airport in North America, and third best in the United States.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner said the Skytrax awards reaffirm the city airports’ “dedication to detail and commitment to customer service.”

“Houston truly is a global city where our guests are valued and celebrated,” he praised. “Another year of [five]-star and [four]-star ratings is proof that the investments we continue to make in our Houston Airports arts program, airport infrastructure and technology and team members are smart and successful investments that lead to a world-class and award-winning passenger experience.”

More information about the awards can be found on fly2houston.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

After a weeks-long, COVID-caused intermission, Texas-based Vonlane is hitting highways with daily routes starting July 1. Photo courtesy of Vonlane

Texas bus biz plans to get on the road again

BACK ON TRACK

Vonlane buses are revving their engines again. After weeks without service due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Dallas-based luxury bus operator will restart all routes serving Texas on July 1.

In a June 9 message to customers, Vonlane said daily departures resuming July 1 would include:

  • Houston-Dallas
  • Houston-Fort Worth
  • Houston-Austin
  • Houston-San Antonio
  • Dallas-Austin
  • Dallas-Oklahoma City
  • Fort Worth-Austin

Coming soon are routes to Nashville and Atlanta, with details to be announced, the company says.

As the coronavirus started to cripple travel in March, Vonlane temporarily eliminated four routes serving Texas. "While we are significantly impacted by the circumstances of the day," Vonlane founder and CEO Alex Danza said then. "Our goal is to be a solution for your urgent personal travel."

But by April 15, when most of Texas was sheltering in place, Vonlane suspended operations due to lack of demand. Limited routes between Dallas, Austin, and Houston resumed May 29.

Like many businesses, Vonlane also pivoted its operation in new directions during the shutdown.

On Memorial Day, the company announced it was expanding its services to include out-of-state charters. It now offers bespoke charter service to popular destinations across the continental U.S. like Colorado, Florida, and New Orleans, as an alternative to flying.

Passengers who book a private charter have access to up to 22 seats, can leave from a specific departure point of their choice, and travel to any destination, the company says.

Vonlane also rolled out a parcel shipping service in Texas. "Need to get something to a loved one, friend, or business associate in Austin, Dallas, or Houston today?" Danza said in the announcement. "Send it aboard the next Vonlane departure for a flat fee." More details on the service are outlined here.

In putting its luxury buses back on the road, Vonlane is adopting a number of measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, such as limiting the passenger count to 13 by blocking all aisle seats through June 30; requiring passengers and employees to wear face coverings; and checking passengers' temperatures before boarding.

"As one of our core values, the safety of our passengers, crew, and fellow over-the-road travelers is our top priority," Danza said in a May 26 release announcing the charters. "In light of the current coronavirus situation, Vonlane is maximizing our efforts to make sure the Vonlane experience is as responsible, safe, and comfortable as our passengers have come to expect."

Vonlane launched its high-end bus service in 2014 with the Dallas-to-Austin route. Each bus, which holds fewer than two dozen passengers, features amenities like WiFi, satellite TV and radio, and leather seats.

Reservations can be booked online, and may be canceled and fully refunded up to 24 hours before departure.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Vonlane is now driving beyond Texas. Courtesy photo

Texas travel company revs up for out-of-state expansion

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

In response to pandemic-triggered travel interruptions, Dallas-based high-end bus operator Vonlane is expanding its services to include out-of-state charters and in-state parcel shipping.

In a Memorial Day message to customers, Vonlane founder and CEO Alex Danza said the company now offers charter service to destinations across the continental U.S., citing examples like Colorado, Florida, and New Orleans. Danza says this provides long-distance travel when airline flights aren't an option.

"These bespoke trips allow you to travel privately with your friends, family, and business associates aboard your own Private Jet on Wheels," Danza wrote. "You name the pickup location, destination, and dates while we handle all of the logistics."

Vonlane has also rolled out a same-day parcel shipping service in Texas, where packages basically hitch a ride with the motor coaches.

"Need to get something to a loved one, friend, or business associate in Austin, Dallas, or Houston today?" Danza said. "Send it aboard the next Vonlane departure for a flat fee."

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Vonlane halted its city-to-city bus service due to a lack of demand. Some routes returned on May 29, including Dallas-Austin, Dallas-Houston, and Houston-Austin.

In putting its luxury buses back on the road, Vonlane is adopting a number of measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, such as limiting the passenger count to 13 by blocking all aisle seats through June 30; requiring passengers and employees to wear face coverings; and checking passengers' temperatures before boarding.

"As one of our core values, the safety of our passengers, crew, and fellow over-the-road travelers is our top priority," Danza says in a May 26 release. "In light of the current coronavirus situation, Vonlane is maximizing our efforts to make sure the Vonlane experience is as responsible, safe, and comfortable as our passengers have come to expect."

Danza says Vonlane hopes to resurrect its Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City routes "as soon as feasible."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Lodgeur provides its guests with hotel luxury with room to breathe. Courtesy of Lodgeur

Hospitality startup adds a new luxe approach to Houston's apartment rental market

City living

In 2018, Houston set a new tourism record with 22.3 million visitors to the city. That same year, Sébastien Long was finishing his Cambridge thesis on home-sharing companies like Airbnb and falling in love with a classmate. When the couple moved to Houston after graduation, Long brought his ideas with him, and that's how Lodgeur was born.

Lodgeur works as an upscale home-sharing startup that offers luxury apartments in midtown and downtown Houston for nightly rent. It doesn't replace Airbnb; customers can browse through and book the properties through the familiar website. Guests can also book short or extended stays directly with Lodgeur's website.

In short, Long's research found that most Airbnb's have high guest experience ratings, but those user reviews don't work to inspire the 90 percent of Americans who haven't used a homestay service. Those people have worries — mostly about what to expect, about safety, and about having to interact with homeowners. Long believes he can calm those fears by building a trusted brand that customers recognize on Airbnb, and Houston turned out to be the perfect place to do that: his main inspiration, Conrad Hilton, did the same with hotels over the last century.

"Houston has been a city that's been overlooked. Most companies didn't come here first," Long says. "Actually, people are coming to Houston every week of the year, prices don't fluctuate too much, and you're probably going to be running at a high occupancy every week of the year."

So Long drove around the city, looking for apartment buildings he liked and hoped his guests would, too. Having grown up working at the campground-turned-resort started by his parents in the French Mediterranean, he had an eye for what tourists found attractive — buildings with character, high-end aesthetics and clean designs like a hotel, but with modern kitchen appliances and more space.

"We're roughly split between leisure guests and business travelers," Long says. "They want to feel like they're staying in a home away from home."

Getting that experience is about the same price as a hotel. The properties range from $90 per night to a $200 apartment with 50 feet of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown. The apartments have not just attracted outside visitors; people have come from around Houston to stay during home renovations or when their houses have flooded, Long says.

The first guests arrived in mid-April. Long wanted to open by managing just a few properties, to make sure the company could ensure great guest experiences.

Last week, he hired his first full-time employee — an ex-marine who graduated from the University of Houston's Conrad Hilton College of Hospitality — and has contracted a marketing agency to turn up Lodgeur's social media presence. For now, Lodgeur relies on a freelance interior designer to fashion the apartments and a local housekeeping company to keep them clean.

Long — who is a Station Houston and WeWork Labs member — says he is looking to expand, but he wants to do so organically: Many of the owners of properties he's already renting own other apartment complexes, and he plans to work with them to move Lodgeur out of inner Houston, and then to other cities. Lodgeur isn't raising funds yet, but Long says he'll be looking for investors this summer.

Recently, Long stayed at Hilton in Austin — his first time at a hotel since launching Lodgeur. He booked a room with a king-sized bed, but it felt small. Business requires him to carry a tape measure, so he measured the mattress: it was six inches smaller than the mattresses Lodgeur uses. He laughed, thinking of how much more comfortable guests would be in an apartment with bigger beds and more space.

"I don't know how people would go back (to hotels)," he says.

ElecTrip uses eco-friendly Teslas to shuttle business people to and fro across the state. Courtesy of Electrip

Texas startup using Tesla cars for more efficient and eco-friendly travel

Rethinking roadtrips

A Texas startup shuffling business men and women across the state in style has created an elevated road trip experience for its customers.

Founded in 2018 and based in Austin, ElecTrip aims to add luxury and convenience to regional commutes between major Texas cities by providing transportation in Teslas equipped with WiFi, complimentary snacks, and professional drivers.

Mandeep Patel, a University of Texas at Austin student, had the idea for the company just about a year ago while completing an internship. Patel had the company up and running just a few months later.

Patel serves as founder and CEO, along with his classmate and co-founder, Eliott Lee, who is COO. Lee tells InnovationMap that he and Patel had gotten tired of the stress of airport travel, the restrictive schedule of buses, and the soul-draining fatigue of driving. ElecTrip's no-compromise solution is cost effective, comfortable, and carbon neutral.

"One thing we really pride ourselves on is being sustainable, energy-efficient, and having no emissions," Lee says.

ElecTrip offers door-to-door service for their customers, who can customize pickup and drop-off locations in any major Texas city. The company has eight routes between Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, but customers can book a custom route within a 300-mile radius of those cities. Prices range from $249.99 to $429.99, but customers can opt to share rides to cut down on cost, with cars seating three to five riders.

"We emphasize on B2B, geared more towards businesses," says Lee, explaining that customers can customize their trip with food and beverage requests.

The company offers three different Tesla models: Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, and Tesla Model 3, each offering a specific number of passenger seats, luggage capacity, and mileage range.

"The main reason why we chose Tesla is because of the supercharger network," says Lee in referring to Tesla's 1,422 Supercharger Stations throughout the United States.

Clients don't have to worry about the charging process, Lee says. The company plans the trips around these charging stations, which are free to any Tesla user.

ElecTrip is less than a year old and has already coordinated hundreds of rides, according to the website. While starting the company while still juggling classes — Lee expects to graduate from UT in 2020, while Patel is graduating this year — Lee says being a student-run startup has its perks.

"We find a lot of funding in startup competitions that only students have access to," said Lee.

Additional initial funding for the company came out of Patel's savings account, Lee says. ElecTrip owns one Tesla and rents out additional vehicles to cover the demand of rides. Lee explains that renting vehicles instead of owning them would cut back on the company's real estate while providing additional income for Tesla owners that aren't using their cars.

Patel and Lee are the only two full-time employees at ElecTrip, as all drivers work on a contract-basis. Lee tells InnovationMap that in the future, ElecTrip will focus on business partnerships.

"A lot of these other services are geared towards consumers," says Lee. "We hope to be geared toward mainly towards businesses in the long run."

ElecTrip is gearing up for growing its partnerships with local small businesses in Austin and Houston to provide food and drink products for rides.

"It is something we're looking at targeting in the next one or two months," says Lee.

Mandeep Patel (left) and Eliott Lee are the co-founders of ElecTrip, a travel company that uses Teslas across Texas.Courtesy of ElecTrip

Houston-based entrepreneurs have launched Guzo, a travel social networking app. Getty Images

Updated: Houston startup relaunches to connect the dots for travelers

All aboard

This story has been updated to reflect new information.

A year or so ago, Gordon Taylor had thousands of college students using his rideshare app focused on roadtrips, Croozen, across almost 20 universities in the United States. But, as the company grew to the general population, he realized his concept wasn't sustainable for a wider range of people.

First of all, the average Houstonian doesn't drive across Texas too frequently. And, if they do, they look to busses, planes, or driving themselves, Taylor says. Plus, Americans are very conditioned to fear rides from strangers.

"There are successful platforms in Europe that were doing this, but Americans are so different in terms of cultures," he says.

Six months ago, Taylor, along with his brother, Joshua, decided to pivot his travel company and relaunch it as Guzo — "melkam guzo" means "have a great trip" in Ethiopia.

"One of the things that got Gordan and I excited in the beginning of Croozen was just the idea of someone else in the car with you and that shared experience," Joshua Taylor says. "Looking past that, just being focused on the car was hindering us. Let's divorce the car and focus on travel as a whole."

Guzo is a collaborative social network that will be a one-stop platform for experiencing and planning travel. Users can register to the app and connect with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers to solicit ideas for different vacation spots. Rather than spread across apps like text message, Google Docs, Instagram, and Pinterest, for example, you can have all your ideas right in one app. The brothers asked their friends, family, and previous Croozen users to see what they'd want from a travel app, and that played into how they designed Guzo.

The new app launched January 29 at a party at City Hall. The mayor has even declared it Guzo Day. Both native Houstonians, the Taylor brothers say Guzo will focus solely on travel in Houston at first, but they will branch out to other cities, states, and international destinations down the road.

The brothers have a lot of ideas and goals for the app, including Guzo Guides, which will be a select number of influencers in each city that can offer their professional advice on things to do. More details on the app and the guides will become available when the app launches.

For the Taylor brothers, Guzo is all about connecting people when they travel.

"Whatever business you run, there are people involved," Joshua Taylor says. "So, we want to be able to use our platform to bring people together and have them travel more efficiently."


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Houston plummets on list of best places to live in new national report

yikes

In a surprise turn of events, Houston has fallen from grace in U.S. News and World Report's "Best Places to Live" ranking for 2023-2024.

Last year, Houston ranked No. 59 on the annual report — not surprising, considering all the Newstonians. However, the Bayou City plummeted to a shocking No. 140.

But why? According to the report: "A paycheck goes further in Houston than it does in other major metro areas, with affordable housing and free or cheap attractions like biking along Buffalo Bayou and exploring the 7,800-acre George Bush Park. The affordability of this region, which is located in southeastern Texas and home to more than 7 million residents in the metro area, is attracting new people from across the country and around the world."

The report takes a look at several different metrics to determine their rankings, including quality of life, housing affordability, desirability, and job market strength.

Somehow, Houston scored a mere 5.6 out of 10 in the livability score. By the numbers (and out of a perfect 10), Houston scored a 6 for desirability, 6.3 for value, 5.5. for job market, a surprising 5 for quality of life, and 5.9 for net migration.

It gets worse: Houston ranks as only No. 10 on the report's Best Place to Live in Texas list for 2023.

Texas overall saw a major drop. Austin, previously the No. 1 place to live in America for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019, lands at No. 40 overall this year. Austin managed to hang on to its title of the Best Place to Live in Texas for 2023, with San Antonio at No. 2, and Dallas-Fort Worth taking No. 3. Rounding out the top five is Killeen in No. 4, and El Paso at No. 5.

Here's how other Texas cities faired in 2023's Best Places to Live report:

  • No. 103 – San Antonio, down from No. 83 last year
  • No. 113 – Dallas-Fort Worth, down from No. 32 last year
  • No. 122 – Killeen, down from No. 108 last year
  • No. 128 – El Paso, down from No. 124 last year
  • No. 131 – Beaumont, down from No. 109 last year
  • No. 132 – Corpus Christi, up from No. 133 last year
  • No. 134 – Brownsville, unchanged from last year
  • No. 137 – McAllen, up from No. 138 last year
  • No. 140 – Houston, down from No. 59 last year

The full report can be found on U.S. News and World Report's website.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston health care institution secures $100M for expansion, shares renderings

fresh funding

Baylor College of Medicine has collected $100 million toward its $150 million fundraising goal for the college’s planned Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.

The $100 million in gifts include:

  • A total of $30 million from The Cullen Foundation, The Cullen Trust for Health Care, and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education.
  • $12 million from the DeBakey Medical Foundation
  • $10 million from the Huffington Foundation
  • More than $45 million from members of Baylor’s Board of Trustees and other community donors, including the M.D. Anderson Foundation, the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation, and The Elkins Foundation.

“The Cullen Trust for Health Care is very honored to support this building along with The Cullen Foundation and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education,” Cullen Geiselman Muse, chair of The Cullen Trust for Health Care, says in a news release. “We cannot wait to see what new beginnings will come from inside the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.”

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

The Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. The 503,000-square-foot tower is the first phase of Baylor’s planned Health Sciences Park, an 800,000-square-foot project that will feature medical education and research adjacent to patient care at Baylor Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center on the McNair Campus.

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project that will support healthcare, life sciences, and business ventures. Baylor is the anchor tenant in the first building being constructed at Helix Park.

“To really change the future of health, we need a space that facilitates the future,” says Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO, and executive dean of Baylor. “We need to have a great building to recruit great talent. Having a place where our clinical programs are located, where our data scientists are, next to a biotech development center, and having our medical students all integrated into that environment will allow them to be ready in the future for where healthcare is going.”

In the 1940s, Lillie and Roy Cullen and the M.D. Anderson Foundation were instrumental in establishing the Texas Medical Center, which is now the world’s largest medical complex.

“Baylor is the place it is today because of philanthropy,” Klotman says. “The Cullen family, the M.D. Anderson Foundation, and the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation have been some of Baylor’s most devoted champions, which has enabled Baylor to mold generations of exceptional health sciences professionals. It is fitting that history is repeating itself with support for this state-of-the-art education building.”

The Cullen Foundation donated $30 million to the project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

what's trending

Editor's note:Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included overheard advice from corporates to startups, a rising hub for innovation at UH, and more.

University of Houston plans to build new central campus innovation hub

The University of Houston will construct a new hub for innovation on its main campus. The building is planned to be adjacent to the M.D. Anderson Library. Photo via uh.edu

Over a year ago, the University of Houston got the greenlight from the state of Texas to create a central hub for innovation on campus, Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation at the University of Houston, tells InnovationMap.

“We asked the state two years ago for appropriations to create an innovation hub at the University of Houston,” Krishnamoorti says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. “We are now in the process of creating an innovation hub central to the campus at the University of Houston."

While the project is still in its early stages, the university has revealed some details on the building, which is slated to open in 2025 next to the M.D. Anderson Library on UH's main campus. It will be around 70,000 square feet and will house a makerspace, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, the Energy Transition Institute, innovation programs, and Presidential Frontier Faculty labs and offices. Read more.

Overheard: What Houston corporates are looking for from startups

At its annual Activation Festival, the Ion hosted a conversation about the relationship between corporates and startups. Photo courtesy of Shannon O'Hara/the Ion

Hundreds of innovators from Houston and beyond flocked to the Ion's annual Activation Festival, and one of the topics discussed at the series of programming was the relationship between corporates and startups.

One of Houston's points of pride is having the third most Fortune 500 companies headquartered here, but how can the city's innovation ecosystem take advantage of that market? And, on the other side of it, how can corporates make the most of Houston innovators?

At a panel on May 17 entitled "Corporate-Startup Partnerships: How to Build Them, Sustain Them, and How They’re Key to Fast-Tracking Innovation and Growth," three corporate leaders explained how they navigate relationships with startups and how cultivating these opportunities is key to the future of business. Read more.

Houston bank opens new innovation hub within its location in The Woodlands

The new space allows for Amegy Bank employees as well as North Houston innovators to work collaboratively. Photo via Amegy Bank

Amegy Bank renovated it banking center in The Woodlands to add a hub for innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship.

The office, located at 4576 Research Forest Dr., now houses a refurbished space from The Cannon, a co-working and entrepreneurship hub with locations across Houston. The Cannon creates and manages spaces where startup founders, business owners, investors, and more can meet on common ground to collaborate on their entrepreneurial endeavors.

“Amegy Bank has served the needs of business owners and families across Houston for over 30 years,” Amegy Bank-Houston President Dave Stevenson says in a news release. “The banking center’s refreshed design, with The Cannon onsite, will revolutionize North Houston’s access to localized financial resources tailored for entrepreneurs and small-to-mid-size businesses."Read more.

How this Houston-based studio is tackling billion-dollar problems with internal innovation

Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader, shares how her team is advancing software solutions while navigating hype cycles and solving billion-dollar-problems. Photo courtesy of KPMG

In 2021, KPMG, a New York-based global audit, accounting, and advisory service provider, formed a new entity to play in the innovation space. The Houston-based team finds innovative software that benefit KPMG's clients across industries.

"We're really focused on transformative businesses that we can offer our clients in the next three to five years to solve fairly large problems," Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader, tells InnovationMap.

Now, almost two years later, KPMG Studio has spun out its first company, AI-based security startup Cranium, which has raised $7 million in a seed round led by SYN Ventures with support from KPMG.

Established to advance internal innovation, KPMG Studio's technologies don't always get spun out into startups like Cranium, but with support of the team, the early-stage ideas receive guidance from the company's resources with the potential to be rolled into KPMG's suite of services for its clients. Read more.

Houston startup with revolutionary battery technology opens new labs

TexPower's founders — Board Chairman Arumugam Manthiram, CTO Wangda Li, and CEO Evan Erickson, respectively — celebrated the opening of the company's new lab space. Photo courtesy of TexPower

A Houston startup founded off research out of a Texas university has cut the ribbon on its new lab space.

TexPower EV Technologies Inc. celebrated the opening of its 6,000-square-foot laboratory and three-ton-per-year pilot production line at a ribbon-cutting event last week. The Northwest Houston site is located at 6935 Brittmoore Rd.

The new space will help the company further commercialize its cobalt-free lithium-ion cathode, lithium nickel manganese aluminum oxide (NMA). The technology is game changing for the electrification of the United States, including the rapid adoption of electric vehicles.

Currently, the country is experiencing a supply chain crisis, says Evan Erickson, co-founder and CEO of the company, at the event. Most of the world's cobalt, a material traditionally used in lithium-ion cathodes, is sourced primarily from the Congo and refinement is mostly controlled by China, he explains.

For these reasons, Cathodes are the most expensive component of lithium-ion batteries. But TexPower has a unique technology to solve this supply chain issue, and now with its new labs, is one step closer to commercialization of its materials. Read more.

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