👀 Busy days for travel tech

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Here is your weekly roundup of the top travel innovation, trends and startups news:

  • In March Hopin announced a $400 million investment round. Now the event management platform has raised an extra $450 million. With this money, the company has been on acquisition-spree and now plans to use the funds to accelerate their growth. Now… that’s fast. I mean, they were founded in 2019! Awesome! 
  • In order to help hotels, resorts and vacation rental managers to improve how they interact with their guests, SendSquared has raised $1 million. The US-based startup will use the funds to further grow their marketing communications platform for hotels and resorts. 
  • It can be overwhelming to try to keep up with all the COVID-19 info out there, right? I feel you. I bumped into this amazing dashboard created by Information is Beautiful and thought it deserved it’s own space here on the newsletter. Take it as a (beautiful) reminder of everything we’ve already been through since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • It can be overwhelming to try to keep up with all the COVID-19 info out there, right? I feel you. I bumped into this amazing dashboard created by Information is Beautiful and thought it deserved it’s own space here on the newsletter. Take it as a (beautiful) reminder of everything we’ve already been through since the beginning of the pandemic. 
  • Casai, a Mexico City-based startup which manages short-term rentals mainly for leisure travelers, is now expanding into serviced apartments for corporate travelers. By announcing the acquisition of the Brazilian operations of Q Apartments, they strengthen the goal to make Brazil their biggest market until the end of the year. 
  • With the mission to revolutionise the travel industry for people with disabilities, Wheel the World has raised $2 million in its seed round. Through their platform, the startup makes it easier for travelers with disabilities to book places to stay and things to do. The company will also work with hotels and tours to attract this new segment of travelers and how to work with people who have disabilities.
  • Slovakian-based NextRetreat is launching the first “all-in-one” solution for organising team travel. Where many platform work with a traveler in mind, NextRetreat was designed exclusively for teams. In times of so many people working from home, traveling with the team is definitely a hot topic right now.

🚞 Combine flight and train tickets?

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Apart from the weekly content curation, during this past weeks we have been also working on our first Premium Report. I’m proud of how far our team went to bring an overview of the hottest travel startups around the world in 2021. The report will profile startups with the most promising business models which have endured (or started) through the pandemic. You can expect to find innovative solutions emerging from different countries and different areas. The premium report will be available starting on August 19th.

And for now, here is your weekly roundup of the top travel innovation, trends and startups news:

  • Barcelona-based startup Exoticca closed a round of €25.2 million. The startup offers package tours combining manually-curated products with an intensive use of technology. the money will be used to accelerate growth.
  • Feels like a déjà vu to mention a big investment just ahead of an IPO. But well… seems like Microsoft is now at advanced talks to invest in Oyoat a $9 billion valuation… just ahead of its IPO! I guess the deal might also include that Oyo will count on Microsoft’s cloud system then, right?
  • DHL Express ordered 12 battery-operated aircrafts, and it’s aiming to launch the world’s first fully electric air courier fleet in 2024. Also: the zero-emission aeroplane can be charged as operations (loading and unloading) happen, which allows the company to stick to their tight “express” schedules.

🚙⚡ Personalised roadtrips? Here we go!

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Here is your weekly overview of the  most relevant news about innovation, trends and startups on the travel industry. Ready for it? 

  • When we look at the global scene for travel tech, seems like Brazil is a great place for travel companies to kick-off. I’ll be interested to see how Brazilian founders will keep up after the pandemic. By the way: if you know a Brazilian travel startup which we should keep an eye on, hit reply and let us know 🙂
  • Remember last week when we mentioned the powerful combination travel and fintech solutions? So, here is another example: As a result of a freshly established partnership, Amadeus will now offer Hopper’s fintech solutions. This means any travel provider will be able to integrate Hopper’s fintech solutions which increase average order value, improve margins, and drive customer satisfaction. The deal starts by offering two products: “Cancel for Any Reason” and “Price Freeze”, but with plans to expand in the future.
  • So many people going on roadtrips this year. SO MANY. The statement itself might not be surprising, but to see a company like Skyscanner is now offering personalised road trips is definitely something I didn’t see coming. I think that adopting Inspirock’s solution is a great way for them to explore this (established) trend.
  • Helping more than 250 million users to book, plan and manage their travels, the leading travel app Ixigo has raised $53 million led by the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC. I mean… just ahead of the IPO!This is it for this week.

Fintech stepping into travel 👀

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As we head for the weekend, we wrapped up the most relevant news about innovation, trends and startups on the travel industry. Here it goes:

  • Trains, trains, trains: there is so much going on around the European rails lately. And although it’s true that the current pandemic might have encouraged more people to avoid crowded airports and travel by train, it is not the only reason. TravelPerk loves trains <3 and here are more reasons for everyone to hop onboard, too. 
  • After announcing a huuuge funding last week, the UK-based fintech Revolut now launched Stays: a feature that allows users to book travel accommodation directly through the app, and receive up to 10% of their money back. “We’ve built Stays to make it easy for people to find and book their perfect break in their ideal destination. After 18 months of endless restrictions and lockdowns, we want to give people more and make their money travel further.” says Marsel Nikaj, Revolut’s head of savings & lifestyle.
  • And… uh… spoiler alert: in a couple of weeks we will be launching our own FutureTravel report featuring the hottest 100 travel startups around the world! If you are curious about the most innovative solutions on the travel industry right now, and would like to have it on your radar, this will definitely be for you — stay tuned 🙂  
  • Israel-based startup Bookaway has closed a $46 million investment round. It will now form a portfolio of businesses focusing on ground and sea transportation booking services – first brands to join are GetByBus and 12Go. The funding is aimed at the company’s growth, particularly by acquiring other brands and expanding its global reach.   
  • The Indian startup OYO raised $660 million from global institutional investors such as JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Mizuho Securities. The funds will be used to pay off debt and invest in product technology.   

It sounds like a-bit-too-obvious news at this point, but I couldn’t close this edition without mentioning Jeff Bezos trip to space earlier this week. From many critics, doubts and insights all over social media this week, I found particularly interesting to read about his “overview effect” and the willingness to take care of the Earth: “This is the only good planet in the solar system (…) We’ve sent robotic probes to all of them. This is the only good one, I promise you. So we have to take care of it. And when you go into space and see how fragile it is, you want to take care of it even more. And that’s what this is about.” I’ll stay with that. That’s it for today, . If you enjoyed this edition of FutureTravel, do consider sharing it with others who you think will enjoy a weekly overview of the main innovations going on in the travel industry. And remember: for feedback, industry news and insights, you can always hit reply and let me know 🙂

EU Green Deal + Calling Travel Startups

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Lets go straight to our weekly overview of what’s going on in the travel industry right now:

  • Just yesterday the EU unveiled a new green plan which is kind of a big thing for the future. Amongst many of the new regulations, two main things will highly impact the travel industry as we know it: airlines will need to pay more when they emit CO2 and shipowners will have to pay for their pollution, for the first time. 
  • AAlchemy Ventures, together with ESADE BAN and Tez Tour, launched a challenge for Travel Tech and Hospitality startups to identify the most promising and innovative projects worldwide. Wondering about the prize? Well, the winners will get an investment offer from Tez Tour as well as a whole pack of benefits, such as access to their clientele to roll out and test the product, several training and acceleration opportunities. If you’re a startup in this field, this call is for you! 
  • This week an interesting report landed in my inbox and I believe it can also be relevant for many of our readers here at FutureTravel. Former eDreams Odigeo colleagues Mauricio Prieto and Mario Gavira have launched an analysis of the driving forces in online travel. Brilliant!
  • Just in: Delta Airlines reports $652 million profit in the second quarter of this year. This happened for the first time since the pandemic hit. Obvious good news for Delta, but this also brings good hope for the whole industry.
  • Last weekend many of us watched as Sir Richard Branson took off on a spacecraft. Virgin Galactic claims to have already sold over 600 tickets for the experience, priced at $250,000 each. And then their shares started going down. As many major publications are now talking about spaceflight being an everyday commercial thing, I’d love to hear from you: what do you think, will spaceflights be something we can really look forward too? 
  • I think we have been talking about at least one contactless solution in every edition since we launched. And guess what? Here is a new one: this week British Airways launched a new platform for passengers to order their drinks and meals onboard. The solution will start running on selected flights from next Monday.That’s it for today, . If you enjoy FutureTravel, it would be great if you could pass it forward to those who you think might enjoy reading it too – that would be awesome!

🚩 News from Stayfolio + TravelPerk + Airasia

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Here is your weekly overview of what’s going on:

  • After experiencing some 300% revenue growth during 2020, the South Korea-based travel startup Stayfolio has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding to expand their accommodation platform.✈ Over the last year, it’s become clear that sustainability is now more important than ever for business travellers. Businesses have been taking stock and realising that we all have to do more in terms of our environmental impact. You can check out TravelPerk leading sustainability solution GreenPerk that allows companies to offset their business travel carbon footprint through contributions to environmental projects around the world. 
  • While we are at it: This week TravelPerk announced the acquisition of ClickTravel, the biggest travel platform in the UK. This is TravelPerk’s third and largest acquisition to date and this investment validates their strategy of growth and market consolidation. Awesome! 
  • On an American-to-American deal, Amtrak negotiated 83 new trains from Siemens Mobility this week. We are talking about very modern trains, ready to replace some 50 year old rail cards and give passengers a comfortable travel experience, with the latest in sustainable and intelligent rail technology. Great to see action (and money!) going in this direction: the deal represents a $7.3 billion investment! Seems like our “new normal” might include more people traveling by train in the near future, uh? 
  • The US-based Luxury travel subscription company Inspirato is going public through a merger with Thayer Ventures Acquisition Corp. This deal gives the combined company an estimated enterprise value of $1.1 billion.✈ Airasia is going into new markets. If launching 15 different non-airline products was not enough to show that, it does get clear with the acquisition of southeast Asia’s leading mobile payments app Gojek’s business in Thailand. According to the CEO, their ambition is to be “a leading challenger super app” – and well, this just gets them one turbo step closer to that.That’s it for today, . If your company also has interesting travel-related news to announce, feel free to reach out to me via email.

Getting ready for the Future of Travel ✈

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Here is your weekly roundup:

  • Remember the days before the pandemic when social media made us feel like everyone else was traveling but us? We were witnessing a big boom of digital creators focused on travel, that’s what was going on. For now, many of them seem to have pivoted to other areas, but the travel industry might need them on the short and mid term. The publication Skift published an interesting piece about this topic which I think is worth reading. And hey, while we are at it: who’s the travel influencer we can’t miss? Hit reply and let me know! 🙂
  • TravelPerk announced a new partnership with Divvy, the leading spend and expense management platform. Although this is mostly relevant for US-based small and medium-sized businesses, it’s great to see them doing yet another fresh collaboration when it comes to optimizing the experiences for their clients. Through this collaboration, TravelPerk will provide all Divvy’s clients with a simpler way to handle their travel needs on business trips, while also giving finance teams a central place to control, manage, and track spend. Seems like everyone wins, eh? 🙂
  • Touristic destinations are getting busy again in the South of Europe – that’s the good news. But hotels, that just managed to get their booking numbers up again, are now facing a new challenge: the lack of workers. Oh-oh.
  • How can we ensure that travel will come back in a safe and sustainable way? That’s what Airbnb wanted to find out during an interesting virtual conversation they hosted this week: the company brought together Airbnb hosts and EU policymakers from the European Parliament and the European Commission to discuss the future of European travel. No news, but there seems to be a strong need both for a clear and fair regulation for short term rentals and to support local communities. Let’s see what comes from this conversation moving forward…
  • It sounds very obvious when we say that the travel industry took a strong hit during the pandemic. But this week a new study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows that this “big hit” will cost more than 4 trillion dollars for the global economy. Ahm… to be honest that’s worst than I thought.
  • Tourism represented 20% of Thailand’s economy before the pandemic and everyone was looking for ways to make things work again – so they did! They found their way to reopen Phuket, their most touristic island, with a courageous program called Phuket Sandbox, which does not include quarantine for the travelers. Bold!

Travel startups are ready to roll 🙌

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As more and more business events go back to the ‘in-person’ format, we are all starting to make plans, right? Earlier this month there was VivaTech happening in France, next week there will be MWC here in Barcelona. If you’re planning your next business trip, make sure to check out TravelPerk <3 And, uh, if you are still looking for the next travel events worth attending this year, it means you still haven’t seen our last free report: here are the top 30 travel events around the globe.

Here is your weekly roundup of what’s going on on the travel industry:

  • Good news from Switzerland: the big data startup Zytlyn has secured 2.5 million dollars. The money will be used to accelerate the growth of their travel-focused AI-based prediction solution for the travel industry. One thing I love about Zytlyn’s solution is that it doesn’t require clients to implement a completely new system, it just runs on what’s already there in order to gather insights for better decision making. Magic! 
  • I’m sure you are up to date with the situation in the UK right now, but things got a bit bad with the spread of the delta variant. Europe is scared of it being the cost of making Summer happen. But this time WTTC says there is no need for quarantine. 
  • As borders open up, travelers are still highly concerned about their safety, so Travel Weekly mapped out 6 interesting trends that might stick for safer travel. It might be the most obvious one, but I have to say I’ll love to see contactless experiences staying around 🙂
  • Think with Google is providing insights on how some players have turned the pandemic chaos into opportunity. You can check out their conversations with the leadership at Scoot, Tourism New Zealand, Rakuten Travel and Grab to see how they are doing it. You can read about it here or listen to it on Spotify.
  • This “virtual roundtable” from Hotel Designs about how the Food and Beverage hospitality is evolving was such a good read. Interesting to read about how restaurants play such a relevant part on the overall guest experience and to read different points of view, from names that have been around from 90 years and others who are just starting fresh. Well done!

🔥 Booming of Air Taxis + Funds for Travel

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In case you missed it: last week we launched an exclusive report for our readers featuring a curation of the top 30 travel events around the globe. This free report has been published in partnership with TravelPerk (yay!) who makes business travel easier with a simple and effective solution. You probably know them already – but in any case: you can read more about their business trip booking solution here. 

And here comes your weekly roundup of what’s going on on the travel industry:

  • The Spanish bank Santander together with Signal Capital (UK) have launched a fund focused on the travel sector. Named “Signal Santander European Hospitality Opportunities”, the investment fund will make it possible for hotels to raise funds and recover from the pandemic. 200 million euros are predetermined to give hotels in the South of Europe (and specially in Spain) another chance to recuperate.
  • As countries are reopening, things seem to be a little bit different here and there for the travel industry. One of the shifts we are seeing emerge that seems to be here to stay is regarding sustainability. With that in mind, WTTC and UNEP released a report on single-use plastic on the travel and tourism sector. The report brings practical and strategic recommendations for businesses and policymakers, with the intention to help different stakeholders taking actions on a collective level, coordinating actions and policies. You can read the report here.
  • United Airlines has just launched a new corporate venture fund with the mission to continue investing in emerging companies that have the potential to shape the future of travel. After their recent partnerships with Boom Supersonic and Archer Aviation, we will definitely keep an eye on what happens at United Airlines Ventures.

At this point I’m sure you know that June is pride month, right? I’d love to use this space to give voice to the best travel references you know celebrating LGBTQ+. Their stories, their issues, them. So if you have something-travel on your radar (a name, a company, a story, a podcast, a link) who you think should be shared with others, do let me know and it might be included in next week’s edition

Report: Top 30 Travel Events Around the World ✈

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In this week’s edition of the FutureTravel newsletter, I’m excited to share with you that we started a partnership with TravelPerk, who – just like us – are thrilled to see the travel industry catching up again and ready to see in-person business events slowly coming back as well.As a result of this partnership today we are publishing a free report about the Top 30 Travel Events Around the World. This document is exclusively for FutureTravel subscribers and provides a curation of the top travel industry events happening around the globe between June and December of 2021.And, well, if you are considering to attend any of these events (or have other business travel plans) you should totally plan your business trip with the help of TravelPerk 

And here comes your weekly roundup of top travel news:

  • While we get used to the big and small changes that this pandemic brought to our lives, some contactless solutions (for example related to payments) seem to be here to stay – and it seems like we will keep scanning QR codes before making our order.

Are Spaceflights the next big thing? 🚀

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  • Domestic travel has seen new heights during the past months as travel restrictions were in place here, there and everywhere. As a result of that, many travellers went exploring new areas on their own countries instead of crossing borders. So we’re not surprised to see that rural communities are having their tourism moment as UNWTO opens call for “Best Tourism Villages”. I love it. 

Opening Europe & Risking Tokyo Olympics 💭

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  • But, let’s be honest. They are not the only ones thinking that tech startups really has the power to completely shape this new wave of the travel industry. As I went through this research from GlobalData saying that “Travel Apps Will Play Key Role in Tourism Recovery”, there was only one thought in my mind: Bring tech closer, now! Don’t worry – you’ll hear me saying that again.

Home Check-in + Sustainable Travel 👌

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  • Etihad is now offering to their passengers in Abu Dhabi the option to handle the hassle of traveling from the comfort of their homes. Think PCR tests, luggage check in, getting boarding pass and picking a seat. Passengers are ready to head to the airport hands free – and me too! 
  • To support the “bringing back” of Summer in Europe, Google has joined forces with ETC. It might sound pretty obvious for some, but I still find it interesting to see that a tech company has such a strong influence over the recovery of the travel sector in Europe.
  • Sherpa has raised $8.5 million. With their API, travel companies can provide travelers with up-to-date information about travel restrictions in their destination. Let’s say it kind of makes sense, with so many travel restrictions shuffling right now. 🙂

Gearing up for the travel comeback

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  • TripActions has acquired Reed & Mackay, an UK-based travel management company. In my opinion it is totally worth it to read this article and see how Fred Statford (CEO) justifies the “unusual marriage”. One quote that caught my attention: “It has become pretty clear that the future is tech and digital. The world is changing in terms of people’s thinking and how people have got used to working.” Well, I agree 100%.

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