News

Dec
07
2016

Travel Tags, Inc. Appoints Chris Shimek, VP Global Operations

INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, MN – Travel Tags, Inc. announces the appointment of Chris Shimek as vice president of global operations. Mr. Shimek is succeeding Ken Dishno, who will be retiring after a remarkable career of 11 years of continuous service to the company and its employees.

A talented individual, Mr. Shimek has more than 25 years of experience in business strategy and execution. 

“Chris is an excellent addition to our organization,” said Al Rausch, president of Travel Tags, Inc. “With a focus on integrity, honesty, people development, strategy and process, we have no doubt he will deliver immediate and high-impact results.”

Mr. Shimek has a passion for continuous improvement and excellent experience with the tools, techniques and methodologies that focus on waste reduction and elimination.  His approach is hard on process, easy on people – always assuming positive intent.  With a collaborative and team-oriented mindset, he will be a great fit for TTI, both culturally and professionally. He will focus on operational excellence and world class performance in the categories of Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost. 

“I am excited to join such a recognized leader in the card manufacturing industry,” said Shimek. “As we continue to expand and explore new markets, I plan to instill my proven methodologies and techniques to bolster the operational excellence at each of our facilities.”

 

MEDIA CONTACT:
CHRIS SHIMEK | VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL OPERATIONS
651.554.8517
CJShimek@traveltags.com

TAGS:   Chris Shimek, Leadership Team

Nov
29
2016

VR Will Be A $38 Billion Industry By 2026

Virtual reality will be a bustling industry by the middle of the next decade, but getting to that point will take some time, according to a study released today.

The new 10-year industry forecast from Greenlight Insights and Road to VR suggests the VR business will be "very modest" through 2018, and in an "inflexion zone" for the next five years before blossoming to $38 billion in annual revenues by 2026.

An oft-cited study from Digi-Capital had concluded that the VR industry would be worth $30 billion by 2020.

But despite the rosy industry forecasts, more than half of the report’s industry respondents said they expect to bring in less than $1 million in VR revenue in the next 12 months, and just 45.2% think they’ll be profitable in that time frame.

As the number of VR hardware platforms has grown to include the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Playstation VR, Google Daydream (and Cardboard), and Samsung Gear VR, among others, one of the biggest concerns about the health of the consumer VR industry has been a dearth of quality content.

That is changing as more and more content is developed, but the report suggested that the lion’s share of industry revenue will still come from hardware sales. Overall, the authors wrote, about 62% of revenue will come from sale of headsets, VR cameras, and other gear.

Within hardware, meanwhile, VR cameras are expected to bloom from less than 1% today (for devices like Ricoh’s Theta S or Samsung’s Gear 360) to about 12%, or $4.6 billion, by 2026, Greenlight and Road to VR predicted.

At the same time, there will likely be a "broad transition" away from VR headsets with cables—like the Rift, Vive, and PSVR—to cordless systems starting in three to five years. Some of those systems will still depend on being linked to a separate computing device, like a phone. But the report suggested that standalone headsets with built-in computing could become a major category within the sector by 2021.

Already, however, Facebook-owned Oculus and Microsoft have talked about standalones, though neither have shared timeframes on when they expect to release their devices.

Another significant shift in the industry is expected to come in 2020, the report concluded, when revenue from consumer-related VR experiences like games will be surpassed by enterprise experiences like workforce training.

"The enterprise market will become the largest part of the VR industry," the authors wrote, "accounting for nearly a third of total industry revenues from all sources by 2026."

[Continue reading at Fast Company online.]

 

Source: fastcompany.com, November 2, 2016 - by Daniel Terdiman

MEDIA CONTACT:
KATIE SINSKY | MARKETING DEPT.
651 554 8533
KRSinsky@traveltags.com

TAGS:   trends, Wearables

Nov
23
2016

2016’s Best Gift Cards

Gift cards are supposed to make gift-giving simpler, reducing the need to worry about the recipient’s tastes and what specific items he or she might already have. But not all gift cards are created equal, which might help explain why nearly $1 billion in value went unused in 2015, despite gift cards being the most popular type of present for the ninth consecutive year.

So in the interest of helping you find the best gift cards for any occasion – whether a birthday, holiday, graduation, etc. – we [WalletHub] compared the 50 most popular options across five major categories: 1) card popularity; 2) average discount; 3) average resale value; 4) retailer appeal; and 5) shipping fees.

 

2016's Best Gift Cards

1. Amazon Gift Card
2. Visa Gift Card
3. iTunes Gift Card
4. American Express Gift Card
5. Walmart Gift Card
6. Target Gift Card
7. Starbucks Gift Card
8. Google Play Gift Card
9. Netflix Gift Card
10. eBay Gift Card

[Check out the rest of the TOP 50 list at WalletHub.com and the Methodology behind this year's findings]

 

Source: wallethub.com, November 10, 2016 - by John S. Kiernan

MEDIA CONTACT:
KATIE SINSKY | MARKETING DEPT.
651 554 8533
KRSinsky@traveltags.com

TAGS:   holidays, trends