best travel startups in the world

30 Top Travel Startups to Watch in 2024

• Top Startups to Watch

Last Updated: May 10, 2024 By TRUiC Team

The travel industry was hard hit by the pandemic, with travel startups facing sharp declines in demand at pivotal stages of their business. The companies that are thriving today are those that have quickly adapted to meet the ever-evolving needs of travelers.

From work retreats to staycations, innovation is the name of the game. These top travel startups are promoting tourism by making it more convenient, more eco-friendly, and simply more fun. There are plenty of opportunities for any entrepreneur, particularly as the public gets their second wind to get back out there and start exploring.

Recommended: Learn how to launch your own company by reading our comprehensive guide on how to start a startup .

Best Travel Startups to Follow

Every year, new startups pull to the forefront of their industry through exciting innovation and industry-disrupting business models. We’ve rounded up the top travel startups of 2024 that startup lovers, investors, and aspiring entrepreneurs should follow.

Disclaimer: With so many exciting travel companies launching and growing worldwide, we aren’t able to cover them all. Furthermore, the startups that are listed below are not officially ranked and are listed in no particular order.

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• Location: San Francisco, California
• Founder(s): Francis Davidson, Lucas Pellan, Martin Picard
• Founded In: 2014
• Funding: Post IPO-Equity, $839.6 Million
• Investors Include: Principal Global Investors, BlackRock, Moore Capital

Sonder taps into a growing demand for unique places to stay. The company has a number of luxury properties in popular destinations around the world. What makes the company even more special is that the staff has adapted services based on how people travel today. Travelers can check-in, request towels, and get recommendations on what to do — all from their phones.

2. TravelPerk

• Location: Barcelona, Spain
• Founder(s): Avi Meir, Javier Suarez, and Ron Levin
• Founded In: 2015
• Funding: Series D, $530.3 Million
• Investors Include:  SoftBank Vision Fund, Greyhound Capital, General Catalyst

TravelPerk is a travel platform that helps business travelers manage their travel and expenses as well as book business trips with ease. The platform suits businesses of all sizes and streamlines the process of finding, booking, and planning business travel.

• Location: Singapore
• Founder(s): Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir
• Founded In: 2019
• Funding: Series A, $67.3 Million
• Investors Include: Plug and Play , GO Ventures, Rakuten Capital

Airalo is providing a more flexible phone alternative no matter what country you’re in. Their eSIM store is the first of its kind, offering affordable, local rates for eSIM compatible phones, tablets, or PC computers. Customers never have to worry about carrying several SIM cards, changing their phone number, or losing communication capabilities with Airalo eSIM cards.

4. Tripsider

• Founder(s): Olga Bortnikova, Ivan Bortnikov
• Founded In: 2018
• Funding: Seed, $1 Million
• Investors Include:  Liqvest, Mission Gate, Starta

Next on our list of top travel startups is Tripsider , an app that matches people with the right trip based on everything from their interests to their budget. The company compares the algorithm to that of a dating app, taking into account values, past experiences, and goals to match people with a travel expert via text or phone call. Experts have resources to help travelers officially confirm their bookings, removing one more thing for vacationers to worry about.

5. BabyQuip

• Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Founder(s): Fran Maier
• Founded In: 2016
• Funding: Seed, $10.7 Million
• Investors Include: Moai Capital, How Women Invest, SBI Investment

BabyQuip is a travel startup with a new take on the gig economy – providing a platform for baby gear rentals for traveling families. BabyQuip delivers all the necessary gear to wherever a family needs it – the airport, a hotel, or even the grandparents’ house. The company will tailor the equipment to each client’s needs, whether it’s a full-size crib, car seat, stroller, or anything else.

6. The Hotels Network

• Founder(s): Juanjo Rodriguez, Laura Martinez Celada, Marc Rollan Serrano
• Funding: Series B, $15.2 million
• Investors Include: Seaya Ventures, Elaia, 4Founders Capital, NFX

The Hotels Network is a platform that serves as a method of growth for hotels using technology to attract and convert online visitors to paying customers by creating a unique, personalized, and predictive user experience. Hotels can use the platform to compare reviews, pricing, analytics in order to create more impactful marketing campaigns.

• Location: London, United Kingdom
• Founder(s): Steve Domin, Tom Bates, Vincent Pastor
• Founded In: 2017
• Funding: Series B, $56.2 Million
• Investors Include: Index Ventures , Benchmark , Kima Ventures, Blossom Capital, et al.

Duffel is an online platform for travelers to find, book, and manage flights from a myriad of airlines. Working in tandem with airlines to provide a better customer experience, Duffel provides travelers with real-time pricing and availability to make booking a trip easier than ever.

• Location: Madrid, Spain
• Founder(s): Dennis Vilovic, Leonard Cremer
• Funding:  Series B, $11 Million
• Investors Include:  All Iron Ventures, Durable Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group

Troop is a travel technology company that utilizes data to help corporations plan in-person meetings. Leveraging the power of science and technology, Troop makes planning in-person meetings for their Fortune 500 companies sustainable, safe, and secure.

9. roadsurfer

• Location: Munich, Germany
• Founder(s): Christoph Niemann, Markus Dickhardt, Susanne Dickhardt
• Funding: Series Unknown, $28.9 Million
• Investors Include : Lawrence Leuschner, Heartcore Capital, 10x Group, et al.

roadsurfer rents RV campers to outdoor lovers in Europe and America. The company stands for freedom and offers a number of perks to its customers, including unlimited mileage, a free second driver, road assistance, and flexible rebooking options. For anyone who dreams of getting away from it all and experiencing van life for a few months, this company is connecting people to the vehicles they need to hit the road.

10. Pickyourtrail

• Location: Chennai, India
• Founder(s): Hari Ganapathy, Srinath Shankar
• Funding: Venture, $3 Million
• Investors Include: Kumar Vembu, Vinay Ahuja, Girish Mathrubootham, Kunal Shah

Pickyourtrail is India’s largest online holiday booking platform for DIY travelers. People come here to customize their vacations by building unique itineraries from the ground up. The platform takes into account people’s interests, timelines, and budgets before crafting travel that will mesh with the individual’s tastes. The company also works with a number of tourism boards in popular locations, such as Iceland, Japan, and New Zealand, to create more streamlined experiences for all customers.

• Founder(s): Johannes Siebers, Michael Siebers, Rasmus Porsgaard
• Funding: Series E, $199.8 Million
• Investors Include: Venture Stars, Prime Ventures, EQT Ventures, et al.

Holidu is a website where vacationers can book accommodations at the lowest price. It was started by the founders after trying to find a place to stay in Portugal, only to find that many of the same properties were listed on different sites at different prices. Their platform makes it possible to search and book rental properties without having to worry if there was a better deal out there.

12. Whimstay

• Founder(s): Alexander Alioto, Ben Jamshahi, Kamesh Jasani, Noel Russell
• Funding: Seed, $10 Million
• Investors Include:  Talent Resource Ventures 

Whimstay is designed for last-minute travelers who want great deals. The app and website helps property owners and hosts match their unsold nights with travelers, so everyone can benefit from the search engine. The company is built on the premise that many of our favorite travel moments are entirely unplanned, and the platform boasts up to 60% savings off the original costs of rental properties.

13. Scenset

• Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Founder(s): Eli Bressert, Tamar van de Paal
• Funding: Seed, $5 Million
• Investors Include:  Cavalry Ventures, Project A Ventures

Next on our list of the best travel companies is Scenset . Most people take just under 3 weeks to book a trip, and while some people may love piecing it all together, most just want to just get it over with. Scenset personalizes your vacations with end-to-end planning with the help of travel curators. The team is there so travelers don’t have to skip from site to site, and these experts often deliver experiences that travelers would never have without their interference.

14. Boom Supersonic

• Location: Englewood, Colorado
• Founder(s): Blake Scholl, Joe Wilding, Joshua Krall
• Funding:  Series Unknown, $700 Million
• Investors Include:  Momentum Ventures, Prime Movers Lab, Caruso Ventures

Boom Supersonic is attempting to cut down on travel time by as much as half with supersonic jets. Travelers have the option of going from Tokyo to Seattle in as little as 4.5 hours (compared to 8.5 hours in a standard passenger plane). The company offers more than 500 transoceanic routes, allowing more people to test their boundaries and explore the world.

• Location:  Paris, France
• Founder(s): Aziza Chaouachi, Mario Moinet, Yassine Ben Romdhane
• Funding: Convertible Note, $22 Million
• Investors Include: Prime Ventures

Leavy allows people to live anywhere they’d like, if only for 24 hours or less. Though it was founded before the pandemic, the company is tapping into the idea of travel and affordability. The platform pairs customers with people willing to share their homes and pays cash to anyone who will open the door. While accommodation amenities vary, the barebones feature of Leavy is opening the door to people who might not have been able to afford travel otherwise.

• Location: Bucharest, Romania
• Founder(s): Alexandru Govoreanu
• Funding: Seed, $1.8 Million
• Investors Include: Early Game Ventures, Sparking Capital

Questo is a gaming app for travelers designed to help them explore cities and towns in an unusual way. So if an individual in London wanted to hunt down Jack the Ripper, they’re whisked away on an exciting quest, gathering clues in real time while learning about history at the same time. Games range depending on destination, so you can uncover the Midici conspiracy in Florence or discover the ghosts of Glasgow.

• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Founder(s): Naren Shaam
• Founded In: 2013
• Funding: Series E, $476 Million
• Investors Include: Lazard Asset Management, Stack Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, et al.

Omio is a transportation app that gives travelers an easy way to travel long distances. It’s not designed for getting around a city but rather suggests nearby airports and train routes that would make it possible to cover serious ground at the drop of a hat. It helps travelers visualize the best routes to take based on everything from speed to price. Travelers can also access tickets on their phones for trains and planes, adding an extra layer of convenience.

18. Surf Air Mobility

• Location: Hawthorne, California
• Founder(s): Cory Cozzens, David Eyerly, Liam Fayed, Reed Farnsworth, Scott Craig Porter, Sudhin Shahani, Wade Eyerly
• Founded In: 2012
• Funding: Debt Financing, $563.7 Million
• Investors Include: IVP, Troy Capital, Sway Ventures, et al.

Surf Air Mobility is an environmentally friendly company that’s introducing the world to zero-emission flying with the help of electric vehicles. With more than 910 million tons of carbon on the line, the company is starting with existing aircraft. The staff replaces the standard engine with an electric version as a means to decarbonize the travel industry.

19. SafetyWing

• Location: Silicon Valley (Palo Alto, California)
• Founder(s): Hans Nyvold Kjellby, Lona Alia, Sarah Beyahte Sandnes, Sondre Rasch
• Funding: Series B, $47.1 Million
• Investors Include: Creandum, Alma Mundi Ventures, Kinnevik, et al. 

SafetyWing describes its products as insurance for nomads, by nomads. The company makes it possible for people outside their home country to get the medical help they need, including treatments needed for COVID-19, should they become ill or injured while abroad. People can even purchase insurance while they’re in a foreign country.

20. Wanderlog

• Founder(s): Harry Yu, Peter Xu
• Funding: Seed, $1.7 Million
• Investors Include: Y Combinator , Abstract Ventures, General Catalyst

Wanderlog is a free travel app that makes it possible for travelers to build and map their vacations. Designed for trips of all kinds, including the open road, it’s a way for people to keep all of their details organized so they know where they are, what they’re doing, and where they’re going at all times. Drive times, reviews, and reservations can all be tracked in one handy place, making it less likely that something will go wrong along the way.

• Founder(s): Oskar Bruening, Ruzwana Bashir
• Funding: Series C, $119.9 Million
• Investors Include : Eric Schmidt, 12 BF Global Ventures, Cathay Innovation, et al.

Peek helps tourism businesses book more people by offering handy software to take payments, market their services, and manage reviews. So far, the company has powered more than $1 billion in experiences (e.g., paddleboards, pottery classes, rafting, etc.). Their customers love the easy-to-use platform that makes it possible to both generate and track business.

• Location: New York, New York
• Founder(s): Anthony Menna, Greg Ramey, Mike Petrakis
• Funding:  Series A, $17 Million
• Investors Include:  Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Corazon Capital, Alumni Ventures

Batch  is designed specifically for bachelor or bachelorette parties. It helps the core planner track the details of the trip, so everyone can have a smooth experience. Trying to coordinate anything on a group trip like this can be an exercise in futility, but the app accounts for any number of scenarios, making it possible for people to have more fun before, during, and after the trip.

23. Sēkr

• Location: San Diego, California
• Founder(s): Breanne Acio, Jessica Shisler
• Founded In: 2020
• Funding: Seed, $3.1 million
• Investors Include: Crescent Ridge Partners Ventures, Storyteller Overland, Backstage Capital, et al

Sēkr is a mobile platform for outdoor lovers, making it easier, safer, and more communal to plan a trip and dig into the Great Outdoors. The company has more than 50,000 campsites included in its platform, making it the nation’s largest database of free campsites and local events. People can use it to learn more about what they can really expect at each site, and to connect to virtual friends with similar interests.

24. Point.me

• Founder(s): Adam Morvitz, Tiffany Funk
• Funding: Series A, $12 Million
• Investors Include:  Thayer Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Plug and Play

Next up on our list of top travel startups is Point.me . With so many different types of airline miles and points out there, it can be difficult for travelers to keep track of all their rewards. As a result, they often end up losing out on their benefits, or cashing them in for a fraction of what they’re worth. Point.me scours the internet to find the absolute best deals for travelers who want to get the most from each and every point.

25. AvantStay

• Location:  Los Angeles, California
• Founder(s): Reuben Doetsch, Sean Breuner
• Funding: Private Equity, $686 Million
• Investors Include: Saluda Grade, Bullpen Capital, Capital One Ventures

AvantStay is a booking platform with unique properties that can be used for personal or commercial use alike. These are luxury rentals that feature unique amenities, including stunning interior design for groups. Excellent for family and company retreats or just a fun weekend trip between friends, AvantStay makes it possible for travelers to hammer down accommodation details and organize additional excursions as well (e.g., spa treatments, wine tastings, etc.).

26. Spotnana

• Founder(s): Sarosh Waghmar, Shikhar Agarwal
• Funding: Series B, $116 Million
• Investors Include:  ICONIQ Growth, Durable Capital Partners, Blank Ventures

Spotnana designs software to connect partners, suppliers, and providers, all in service of improving the booking experience for travelers. The idea is to unbundle travel, making it possible for travelers in the future to get anything they need without the hassle. The core values are freedom and trust, reintroducing choice to the traveler so they feel comfortable making any and all of their arrangements online.

27. Life House

• Founder(s): Rami Zeidan, Yury Yakubchyk
• Funding: Series C, $230 Million
• Investors Include: Tiger Global Management, Sound Ventures, Global Founders Capital

Life House is a vertically integrated operating system built for boutique hotels. It specifically supports three functions: hotel technology for operators, hotel management for owners, and hotel branding and positioning. With Life House's powerful software, boutique hotels gain a suite of tools that can help streamline processes and increase their profitability.

28. Kindred

• Founder(s): Tasneem Amina, Justine Palefsky
• Founded In: 2021
• Funding: Series A, $22.8 Million
• Investors Include: Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners

Kindred is a home-swap platform that connects travelers with other members to trade spaces or travel with credits they can earn by using the platform. With Kindred, hosts receive complimentary hosting essentials like towels, sheets, and lockboxes as well as free professional cleaning before and after guest stays. 

29. Hotelverse

• Location: Mallorca, Spain
• Founder(s): Rafael Bover, Fermin Carmona
• Funding: Seed, $3.92 Million
• Investors Include: Sabadell Venture Capital, Plug and Play

Hotelverse leverages technology to create an innovative booking experience for travelers. On the platform, users can explore hotel facilities, customize their room, do a flyover of their hotel, and book a room — all virtually using a realistic, 3D model. 

• Location: Vancouver, Canada  
• Founder(s): Connor J. Wilson 
• Founded In: 2020 
• Funding: Angel Investment, CA$1.1 Million

Pilot is a travel planning platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Using its free app, travelers can plan and collaborate with friends on trips by creating itineraries, planning routes, importing travel documents, and obtaining travel visas — all on one platform. Plus, the app works both online and offline thereby ensuring travelers can access important travel information at any time. 

Recommended:  Check out our full list of the  top startups to watch in 2024 !

What are travel startups?

Travel startups today are largely companies that lean on innovation to get noticed in a saturated landscape. Because we’re more reliant than ever on our devices, many of the companies on this list have tech that will drive tourism across the globe.

Whether by reducing carbon emissions, offering health insurance by phone, or making it easier to split costs, travel startups are tackling the small and big issues that stop travelers from fully committing to a trip.

What does the future of the travel industry look like?

The future of the tourism industry will be controlled by everything from global emissions to public health. However, based on the most popular startups today, one of the major trends is based on how people book their travel and how the details are managed. Travel is likely to become more customizable, more affordable, and less damaging to the environment.

What are some travel startup ideas?

Travel startup ideas are often born from personal experiences that people have with their own bookings. So maybe you have a difficult time scheduling a trip on a regular weekend. This leads to an idea that helps vacationers travel without having to take vacation time from work.

Or maybe you take your inspiration from global headlines. If gas prices rise drastically in your area, you can start an app that helps people take a staycation they’ll never forget.

How do you start a travel startup?

Beginning a travel startup will mean sketching out a business model with details about how you’ll monetize your idea and how much capital you’ll need to get started. You’ll need to know what kind of staff you’ll need, how much you can pay them, and what kind of collaboration will be needed to hit your milestones. From there, you’ll likely need to approach investors and secure funding.

About the Author

The TRUiC Team

TRUiC’s team of researchers, writers, and editors dedicate hours to ensure startupsavant.com’s articles are actionable and accessible for both startup founders and startup enthusiasts. From launching a startup to growing your venture, you can trust that our information is an up-to-date and reliable source.

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The travel industry was one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic.

In 2023, global tourism recovered, jumping back to  84% of pre-pandemic levels . However, the industry as a whole isn't expected to recover until 2027 .

Despite that, some travel startups are still growing exponentially.

Check out this list of companies that are looking to revitalize the travel industry in 2024 and beyond.

1. TravelPerk

5-year search growth : 270%

Search growth status : Exploding

Year founded : 2015

Location : Barcelona, Spain

Funding : $530.3M (Series Unknown)

What they do : TravelPerk is a travel management platform designed to simplify business travel. It offers a centralized platform for booking, managing, and analyzing business travel, with features such as real-time booking, expense management, and travel policy enforcement. The company aims to reduce the time and cost associated with business travel while providing a seamless and enjoyable experience for travelers.

2. SafetyWing

5-year search growth : 1,550%

Year founded : 2017

Location : Palo Alto, California

Funding : $47.1M (Series B)

What they do : SafetyWing is an insurtech company that focuses on digital nomads. Their flagship "Nomad Insurance" is accepted across several different countries (ideal for travel). SafetyWing also offers a B2B "Remote Health" product that provides coverage for remote teams.

5-year search growth : 99x+

Year founded : 2019

Location : Singapore, Singapore

Funding : $67.3M (Series B)

What they do : Airalo is an alternative to using multiple SIM cards while traveling. Specifically, the company offers over 190 affordable "eSIMs" that can be switched over with a few clicks. eSIMs aren't supported by all smartphones. But are becoming an increasingly-common feature in newer models. The SIM company recently raised $60 million in their most recent series B funding found.

4. Roadsurfer

5-year search growth : 1,360%

Location : Bayern, Germany

Funding : $33.9M (Series Unknown)

What they do : Roadsurfer rents out customized camper vans in 13 countries in Europe. Besides the core rental service, the startup also offers a number of optional add-ons for each trip, like kitchen cutlery. Each plan also includes an insurance policy.

5. YouLi (YouLive to Travel)

5-year search growth : 41%

Search growth status : Peaked

Year founded : 2016

Location : Melbourne, Australia

Funding : $200K (Angel)

What they do : YouLi is an all-in-one travel management software for organizing group trips and company retreats. The software includes a number templates for different types of travel itineraries. The software also has a member's area that travelers can use to manage and pay for their trips.

6. PickYourTrail

5-year search growth : 188%

Search growth status : Regular

Year founded : 2014

Location : Chennai, India

Funding : $3M (Series Unknown)

What they do : PickYourTrail is a platform for booking entire trips online (including flight, road transportation and lodging). The startup reports that 46,000 people have used the service to date.

5-year search growth : 400%

Location : New York, NY

Funding : Undisclosed

What they do : Tracki is a travel tech startup that provides real-time GPS tracking solutions for individuals, families, and businesses. Their products range from portable GPS trackers to asset trackers and pet trackers, which can be easily monitored through their mobile app or web platform.

8. Very Local Trip

5-year search growth : 475%

What they do : Very Local Trip connects travelers with local tour guides. In other words, the startup is a focused version of Airbnb's "Experiences" feature.

5-year search growth : 4,900%

Year founded : 2018

Location : Madrid, Spain

Funding : $200.6K (Seed)

What they do : Holafly is an eSIM startup that offers international data plans for travelers. The company partners with local providers in different countries and offers unlimited data plans for a fixed time period. Currently, the startup operates in 160+ countries with 1 million customers worldwide. 

5-year search growth : 21%

Location : New York, New York

Funding : $181M (Series D)

What they do : Away is a DTC travel brand. Often called the “Warby Parker for suitcases,” the company keeps overhead costs low by selling direct-to-consumer. Away's product line includes sleep masks, travel pillows and compression socks.

5-year search growth : 231%

Location : Denver, Colorado

What they do : GOTRAX is an electric scooter company that provides affordable and eco-friendly transportation solutions for urban dwellers. With a range of electric scooters for adults and kids, GOTRAX offers a convenient and cost-effective way to navigate through busy city streets.

12. Lodgify

Year founded : 2012

Funding : $36.6M (Series B)

What they do : Lodgify develops software that help property owners manage their vacation rental properties. The all-in-one website includes features to manage bookings, accept reservations, and synchronize across different platforms, including Airbnb, Vrbo, and Expedia.

13. Bobobox

5-year search growth : 325%

Location : Badung, Indonesia

Funding : $13M (Series A)

What they do : Bobobox is a technology-based hospitality startup that provides affordable and accessible capsule hotels for travelers in Indonesia. The company utilizes an app-based platform that allows customers to book and manage their stays, as well as access various hotel amenities and services. Bobobox aims to revolutionize the hospitality industry in Indonesia by offering affordable and convenient lodging options that cater to the needs of modern travelers.

5-year search growth : 6%

Location : Bucharest, Romania

Funding : $1.8M (Seed)

What they do : Questo is a mobile app for iPhone and Android that gamifies city exploration. Users embark on "quests" in order discover interesting spots and learn about local lore. Each quest is designed by a local "creator". The app currently offers quests in over 100 cities.

15. Bespoke

5-year search growth : 39%

Location : Tokyo, Japan

Funding : $2.5M (Series B)

What they do : Bespoke has developed an AI-powered chatbot designed for multilingual guest services. Their software provides hotel guests with answers to hotel-specific questions, local recommendations, and restaurant reservations. Bespoke was used by the Japanese government during COVID-19 to communicate critical health and safety updates to residents and travelers.

16. Tailos (Formerly Maidbot)

5-year search growth : 340%

Location : Austin, Texas

Funding : $50K (Series B)

What they do : Tailos , formerly Maidbot, manufacturers a housekeeping robot (named Rosie) designed to clean hotels and commercial buildings. Rosie takes on "dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks", in order to reduce injuries to staff while increasing productivity and consistency.

17. TasteAtlas

5-year search growth : 375%

Location : Zagreb, Croatia

What they do : TasteAtlas is a food and travel startup that provides a comprehensive guide to traditional dishes, drinks, and ingredients from all over the world. The platform offers a database of authentic food recommendations and local restaurants to help travelers discover new cuisines and experiences. Additionally, TasteAtlas allows users to create their own food maps and share their culinary discoveries with others.

18. Roame Travel

5-year search growth : 2,300%

Search growth status : Exploding 

Year founded : 2023

Location : San Francisco, California

What they do : Roame is a free award travel search engine that finds available flights that qualify for credit card points and miles redemption. Currently, Roame provides search results for 16 airline loyalty programs and 200 airlines . Users can upgrade to a premium membership to access the SkyView feature, a search function that finds flights within a 90-day search window. 

That wraps up our list of travel startups growing despite the hardships of the pandemic.

The trend away from traditional hotels and towards short-term rental properties, RVs, and campsites accelerated this year as more people work remotely and seek a change of scenery.

There is also a notable shift towards AI and automation, as hotels seek to cut costs and increase efficiency.

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Top 20 travel startups to watch out for in 2024

1. travelperk.

• Headquarters : Barcelona, Spain
• Other office locations : Boston, Chicago, Miami, Berlin, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London
• Number of employees : 1,142 
• Funding : raised a total of $408.2M over 9 rounds

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2. timeshifter.

• Headquarters: New York, USA
• Other office locations: Southampton, NY, Water Mill, NY
• Number of employees: 861
• Funding: raised a total of $3.5M over 3 rounds

3. GetYourGuide

• Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
• Other office locations: Zurich, Sydney, Vienna, Paris, Hong Kong, Rome, Dubai, San Francisco, New York City, Cape Town, Barcelona, London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo
• Number of employees: 928
• Funding: raised a total of $5.9 billion in venture funding by 2022
• Headquarters: Saudi Arabia
• Other office locations: N/A
• Number of employees: 16
• Funding: seed round closed in February 2023

5. Lighthouse (OTA Insight)

• Headquarters: London, UK
• Other office locations: Singapore, Denver, Belgium, Sao Paolo, Dallas
• Number of employees: 411
• Funding: $80 million Series B 

6. SafetyWing

• Headquarters: California, USA
• Number of employees: 145
• Funding: raised a total of $47M over 4 rounds

7. Coindrum

• Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
• Number of employees: 10
• Funding: raised a total of $2.9M over 2 rounds

8. Luggage Hero

• Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
• Number of employees: 30
• Funding: raised a total of $3.9M over 5 rounds

9. Blacklane

• Other office locations: New York, San Diego, Miami, Dubai, Paris, Brisbane
• Number of employees: 343
• Funding: raised a total of $103M over 10 rounds
• Headquarters: USA
• Other office locations: Singapore
• Number of employees: 300+
• Funding: raised a total of $67.3M over 3 rounds

11. Roadsurfer

• Headquarters: Bayern, Germany
• Other office locations: 70+ locations 
• Number of employees: 263
• Funding: $31.3M (Series Unknown)

12. PickYourTrail

• Headquarters: Chennai, India 
• Number of employees: 5
• Funding: $4.74M over 5 rounds from 12 investors

13. Tripsider

• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA
• Number of employees: 50
• Funding: $1M in seed
• Headquarters: Cedarhurst, New York, USA
• Number of employees: 100 
• Funding: Undisclosed

15. Tourisfair

• Headquarters: Saabrücken, Germany 
• Number of employees: 10 
• Funding: £500-800K
• Headquarters: Austin, Texas 
• Number of employees: 12
• Funding: $4.25M in seed funding in 2023
• Headquarters: London, UK 
• Funding: $236M in funding across 35 funding rounds

18. Katanox

• Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands 
• Other office locations: Manchester, Delaware, Seattle, New York 
• Number of employees: 25
• Funding: $5.7M raised by 2022

19. Greether

• Headquarters: Zurich, Switzerland  
• Number of employees: 34
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The 28 Most Innovative Travel Tech Startups Around the World

Asian travel tech startups

Middle east travel tech startups , american travel tech startups, european travel tech startups, latam travel tech startups.

Although it suffered tremendously during the pandemic, the travel industry keeps going forwards. In 2020, the entire sector lost more than 60 million jobs and $4.5 trillion . However, it’s coming back to its feet, and some projections indicate that it will again become one of the fastest-growing sectors. It’s expected to reach a market size of $1.5 trillion and a growth rate of 8.5% by 2027 .  

One reason for such incredibly fast recuperation is travel tech. There are hundreds of innovative travel tech companies focused on delivering powerful solutions to help travel companies achieve operational excellence, generate new revenue streams, and stay above the fold even during the most challenging times.

Here is the list of the most innovative travel tech startups you should know in 2022.

The Asian travel tech startup market is quite dynamic, with new startups emerging regularly. We’ve found the following five startups to be the most innovative.

Website: https://www.airalo.com/  

Product/service description: Airalo is a travel tech startup that offers eSIMs. eSIMs are a great alternative to SIM cards, and they are supported by cutting-edge smartphones. The company’s offer currently includes over 190 eSIMs cards.

Stage: Series A

Year of foundation: 2019

Founders: Abraham Burak and Ahmet Bahadır Özdemir

Funds raised: $7.3M

Why have we included it in the list?

Airalo has secured its position on our list because it enables people to easily stay connected when traveling without spending a fortune on high roaming bills. It offers dedicated apps for both Android and iPhone users.

Website: www.travelflan.com  

Product/service description: TravelFlan is a comprehensive platform leveraging cutting-edge tech, including AI and Big Data, to deliver outstanding experiences to travelers and travel companies.

Year of foundation: 2015

Founders: Abel Zhao

Funds raised: $7 million

We included TravelFlan on our list because it’s a great example of a small team being able to achieve a lot. In just a few years, the startup delivered an inventory aggregator and processor, a big data analytical engine, a supply chain and inventory management system, and a voice- and text-based AI personal concierge. 

Website: www.yanolja.in/ko/  

Product/service description: Yanolja is one of the most successful travel tech startups in Asia. It delivers an easy-to-use mobile app for hotel reservations. The company uses AI and VR to delight its users.

Stage: Venture – Series Unknown

Year of foundation: 2005

Founders: Lee Sujin

Funds raised: $1.9 billion

Yanolja is on our list because the company continues to seek new solutions beyond mobility tech to help the travel industry move forward. The most recent Yanolja strategy was to leverage IoT to create a cloud-based hotel management solution.

Website: www.be-spoke.io  

Product/service description: Bespoke is a startup focused on leveraging AI to deliver a powerful chatbot to travelers. The chatbot can make reservations, offer personalized recommendations, and answer many questions.

Stage: Series B

Founders: Akemi Tsunagawa

Funds raised: $2.6 million

Bespoke is one of the best AI-enabled chatbots with multilingual capabilities in the travel sector. The startup even enabled the Japanese government to use it during the pandemic to deliver critical information to travelers and residents.

H2O Hospitality

Website: www.h2ojapan.co.jp  

Product/service description: H2O Hospitality is among a few startups that have successfully built an in-house automation solution to streamline the management of accommodation facilities. 

Stage: Series C

Founders: John Lee

Funds raised: $48.9 million

What we love about this startup’s tech is that it’s capable of automating all processes through a PMS without any additional human resources on site. That enables the startup to guarantee lowered operational costs.

There are a dozen Middle East-based travel tech startups, especially in Israel. You can find the most innovative ones below.

Website: mize.tech  

Product/service description: Mize offers profit optimization solutions to facilitate higher profits . Using big data enables hotel booking businesses and hotel resellers to easily manage post-booking revenue and become more competitive in their markets. 

Stage:   Series B

Year of foundation: 2016

Founders: Dor Krubiner, Guy Levitan, and Omry Litvak

Funds raised: $4.4 million

Mize is on our list because it helped revolutionize revenue management as we know it . Instead of optimizing the selling-side and pre-booking processes, it enables companies to do buy-side and post-booking revenue management.

Website: www.upstay.tech  

Product/service description: UpStay offers hotels a new way to generate additional revenue streams. This easy-to-adopt upselling platform enables hotels to capture more pre-arrival sales, including additional ancillaries and room upgrades.

Stage: Pre-Seed

Founders: Tzafrir Blonder

Funds raised: $1 million

UpStay doesn’t only unlock new revenue streams, but it’s also completely automated. The staff doesn’t have to do anything, as UpStay works in the background of the existing hotel system. More importantly, it ships out with support for Channel Manager, Booking Engine, and PMS integration .

Website: www.ekar.ae  

Product/service description: ekar is a revolutionized car rental service. Using geo-location and other advanced mobile technologies, ekar delivered an app that enables travelers to benefit from a daily car rental service. 

Founders: Ravi Bhusari and Vilhelm Hedberg

Funds raised: $17.5 million

We included ekar in our list because it uses the latest tech to enable travelers to book and access cars for personal driving use safely and securely. Every car in their network is equipped with tech that enables travelers to unlock and lock them with their smartphones.

Website: www.guesty.com  

Product/service description: While Guesty started small back in 2013, today, it’s one of the world’s leading property management solutions. The platform comes with easy-to-use features to enable property managers to streamline and automate their processes.

Stage: Series E

Year of foundation: 2013

Founders: Amiad Soto and Koby Soto

Funds raised: $284.5 million

Guesty is on our list because it is the first end-to-end property management solution for short-term rentals. The company successfully delivers all the nifty features, such as a unified inbox to help managers streamline bookings and check-in & check-out date management.

Website: www.reTravel.io  

Product/service description: ReTravel is a startup aiming to help travel agencies with their upselling and cross-selling efforts. The startup’s marketplace features everything a travel company needs to personalize its offer and attract more travelers. 

Year of foundation: 2020

Founders: Nir Gurevich and Revital Kristal

Funds raised: N/A

We added ReTravel to our list because it uses modern technologies such as AI and ML and delivers a solution that travel companies of any size can afford. The level of personalization goes so far that the platform can offer the right product to the right customer via the perfect channel.

Website: www.air-dr.com  

Product/service description: Air Doctor is a connection technology that enables travelers to find and use medical services wherever they are. The company offers its services online, thus enabling anyone who wants to use them to do it on the go as long as they have an internet connection.

Founders: Efrat Sagi Ofir, Jenny Cohen Derfler, Yam Derfler, and Yegor Kurbachev

Funds raised: $30.9 million

While Air Doctor doesn’t use cutting-edge technologies, it does provide innovative perks to travelers. Given that travelers are more concerned about their health after the Covid pandemic, Air Doctor’s vast medical network of physicians can encourage travelers to book packages and be more relaxed.

The American travel tech startup scene doesn’t fall behind its Asian and Middle East counterparts. The market is quite diverse, with startups leveraging tech to achieve all sorts of objectives. Here are the top five travel tech startups in North America. 

Website: https://www.safetywing.com/

Product/service description: This is one of the unique tech travel startups, more precisely, insurtech travel startups. SafetyWing specializes in providing health and medical insurance to remote individuals and businesses. 

Year of foundation: 2017

Founders: Hans Nyvold Kjellby, Lona Alia, Sarah Beyahte Sandnes, and Sondre Rasch

Funds raised: $47.1 million

This innovative insurtech startup has reserved its spot on our list of travel tech startups because it creates freedom for travelers . Its innovative approach to travel insurance enables travelers across borders to get travel and medical incident insurance even while abroad.

Mogul Hospitality

Website: https://www.mogulhospitality.com/  

Product/service description: Mogul Hospitality is a next-gen platform to enable companies to easily identify and contact top talent in the industry. Its focus is on enabling travel and hospitality brands to build trust and thrive on the unique values they offer to their clients.  

Stage: Seed

Founders: Alexander Mirza and Yvonne Choi

Funds raised: $3.1 million

We’ve added Mogul Hospitality to the list because it packs some really powerful features, including talent acquisition and data analytics, service profit chain management tools, and experiential training and learning platform. 

Website: www.hopper.com  

Product/service description: Hopper is a travel tech startup that came up with the travel app. The app uses big data and predictive analytics to make relevant and affordable travel recommendations to its users. 

Stage: Secondary Market

Year of foundation: 2007

Founders: Frederic Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk

Funds raised: $633.7 million

Hopper is a perfect example of a well-aged travel tech startup. We added it to our list because they were among the first startups to recognize the value of big data and the future of smartphones. Today Hopper mobile app helps thousands of travelers worldwide to find the best hotel and flight deals. 

Website: https://www.tentrr.com/  

Product/service description: Tentrr is one of the few travel tech startups that truly revolutionized how people interact with campsite-related travel products without reinventing the wheel. Tech-wise, the company uses a simple website with advanced location-based search functionality. It enables people to book campsites on private land. 

Founders: Eloise Bune and Michael D’Agostino

Funds raised: $17.8 million

While Tentrr doesn’t use new tech, we added it to our list because it revolutionized the campsite booking process. By enabling landowners to interact directly with travelers, Tentrr successfully facilitated local economic growth throughout the country, secured new revenue streams for landowners, and promoted natural locations.

Website: www.snaptravel.com  

Product/service description: Snaptravel is a travel tech startup that built its solution around AI. Their platform leverages AI to identify relevant, affordable hotels and flights for every traveler . Snaptravel’s price-conscious users can also use the platform to book accommodations and transport.

Founders: Henry Shi and Hussein Fazal

Funds raised: $101.4 million

Snaptravel is an excellent example of how a travel tech startup can create astonishing results when thinking out of the box. In fact, Snaptravel used its message-driven platform to create Snapcommerce, which is a platform that enables users to find the products they need at the most affordable prices.  

The European travel tech startup market is blooming. There are dozens of startups in this niche offering a wide range of solutions to companies in the sector. The following five emerge as the top ones when it comes to innovation. 

Travel Perk

Website: www.travelperk.com  

Product/service description: The team at Travel Perk has come up with a comprehensive platform for business travel booking and management. This startup, with headquarters based in Barcelona, offers an end-to-end solution for the business travel needs of any company. 

Stage: Series-D

Founders: Avi Meir, Javier Suarez, Ron Levin

Funds raised: $408.2 million

It’s great to have a platform that allows you to book and manage business travel – and Travel Perk does it in a very convenient and intuitive way offering deep insights into travel spending. It also allows users to get information on their companies’ carbon impact updated in real-time.

123Comapre.me

Website: https://123compare.me/en/  

Product/service description: 123Compare.me is a travel tech SaaS company focused on creating a perfect conversion rate optimization solution for the hospitality industry . It enables travelers to easily compare prices on official websites and OTAs, thus enabling them to get the best deal.

Stage: Pre-seed

Founders: Jordi Serra and Pau Ferret

Funds raised: Approximately $250.000

We decided to add 123Comapre.me to the top travel tech startup list because they offer a sophisticated solution that compares direct booking and OTAs’ prices in real-time. It’s one of the few travel tech solutions that promote direct booking.

Website: www.lodgify.com  

Product/service description: Lodgify startup entered the market with one goal – to simplify marketing for vacation rental product providers. They came up with a comprehensive SaaS platform for vacation rental property managers and owners.

Year of foundation: 2012

Founders: Dennis Klett and Marco De Gregorio

Funds raised: $6.6 million

Lodgify secured its position on our list because it makes a huge difference for vacation rental owners and managers when it comes to marketing and management properties. Its intuitive dashboard enables users to establish an online presence, facilitate online booking, and synchronize data across all online platforms. 

Website: www.questoapp.com  

Product/service description: Questo enables travelers to explore cities in a brand-new way. The startup has created an app that enables creators to come up with engaging city exploration games. The app currently supports both Android and iPhone devices and features over 100 city exploration games. 

Founders: Alexandru Govoreanu

Funds raised: $1.8 million

We’ve added Questo to our list because it enables travelers worldwide to experience cities like never before. The app is quite engaging as it offers games centered around a wide range of themes such as movies, local legends, books, and historical facts. 

The Hotels Network

Website: www.thehotelsnetwork.com  

Product/service description: The Hotels Network’s innovative approach to growth hacking enables hotels to attract more guests and increase bookings through a direct channel. The platform leverages several technologies to allow hotels to personalize online booking journeys for all guests individually. 

Founders: Juanjo Rodriguez, Laura Martinez Celada, Marc Rollan Serrano

Funds raised: $15.2 million

What we love about the Hotels Network is its well-planned and comprehensive platform. It comes with all the features hotels need to attract and engage new potential guests. It also uses predictive personalization to deliver memorable experiences to potential guests, thus increasing conversion rates and boosting direct bookings.

If you want to see what’s going on in the Latam travel tech startup niche, you need to check out the following companies.

Website: www.tripyeah.com  

Product/service description: TravelYeah is a startup that offers a comprehensive travel meta optimizer. The company uses AI, ML, and sophisticated algorithms to process thousands of data points and create personalized and the most optimal travel itineraries for travel agents.

Year of foundation: 2020 

Founders: Elias Musalem, Fernando Ordonez, and Miguel Rodriguez

Funds raised: $14 million

We’ve added TripYeah to our list because the startup uses next-gen technologies to create next-gen solutions. Their travel meta optimizer is one of its kind in helping travel agents create itineraries that reflect the unique needs and preferences of travelers.

Website: www.travelx.io  

Product/service description: TravelX specializes in providing online travel services. But there is one thing that makes their services unique. The startup uses blockchain technology, thus making its retailing and distribution platform transparent, secure, efficient, and decentralized.

Year of foundation:   2021

Founders: Juan Lafosse

Funds raised: $10 million

TravelX has secured its spot on our list because the startup revolutionizes travel product distribution and retailing . Thanks to blockchain, travel companies can easily tokenize their travel and transportation product inventory to facilitate sales across borders while reducing costs and generating more revenue . 

Website: https://travel.rappi.com/  

Product/service description: Following great success, Columbian startup Rappi decided to tap into a new vertical by launching Rappi Travel startup. Rappi allows users to book flights to destinations worldwide through an Android or iPhone mobile app. 

Year of foundation: 2020 Rappi Travel (2015 Rappi)

Founders: Juan Pablo Ortega, Sebastian Mejia, Felipe Villamarin, Guillermo Plaza Roche, and Simón Borrero

Funds raised: $2.2 billion

We’ve added Rappi Travel to our list because the startup’s team seems to never settle down with an achievement. Instead, they always look for new innovative solutions to help the tourism sector recuperate and provide additional support to travelers. 

Website: https://www.onfly.com.br/  

Product/service description: Onfly is a startup that delivers next-gen solutions for business travel. It also offers solutions for travel expense management and credit cards. Its focus is on small and medium businesses in LATAM. 

Founders: Marcelo Linhares

Funds raised: $390,000

Business travel is an important aspect of business management for many companies. And we’ve added Onfly because it offers companies everything they need to manage their business travels through one platform. 

Website: https://arrivedo.com/  

Product/service description: Arrivedo leverages cutting-edge technologies to create and curate content for travelers. It enables travel companies to drive user engagement rates by offering them a way to tell a story about every destination in their offer. 

Founders: Alonso Franco and Rodrigo Lopez

Funds raised: $3.9 million

We added Arrivedo to the list because it’s a perfect example of how to leverage popular technologies to delight travelers. The app curates every guide, ensuring that only the most complete and engaging guides are available to hotels, travel agencies, and tourism boards. The content is dynamic, and users can access it through a map easily embeddable on a website or in an app.

Website: https://pinguim.app.br/  

Product/service description: Pinguim is a tech and tourism startup devoted to changing the way people interact with travel packages. The app leverages AI to help connect people who share common travel goals and those that want to have the same experiences and same destinations.

Stage:   Seed

Founders: Renata Franco

Funds raised: $195,000

Pinguim has secured its spot on our list because it offers something brand new to people who enjoy traveling. Thanks to the AI and easy-to-use app, travelers can now meet like-minded people and explore the world together. 

Local Adventures

Website: https://localadventures.travel/  

Product/service description: Local Adventure is a travel tech startup that specializes in offering accessible solutions to enable clients to easily plan and book their trips. The company also offers innovative fintech solutions to help clients get access to more flexible arrangements.

Stage : Seed

Founders: Daniel Peña, Moises Vera, and Sebastian Nicolas Rodríguez Romero

Local Adventures is on the list because it doesn’t just offer any travel experience to travelers. The company tropicalizes and validates experiences using technology to ensure only the best ones are available to clients. The company has also helped LATAM tourists get access to international travel packages.

According to CB Insights, the global travel tech startup space lost over 30% of funding in 2020 . Nevertheless, some startups managed to attract tech investors by embracing innovation. 

The 25 startups you had the chance to discover above are on our travel tech market map . While each one brings unique value, they all have one thing in common – they help recuperate the travel sector . 

As you can see, these startups use both proven and emerging technologies to achieve various goals, from improving the traveling experience to enabling travel companies to capture more profit and generate new revenue streams.  

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Cristóbal Reali, VP of Global Sales at Mize, with over 20 years of experience, has led high-performance teams in major companies in the tourism industry, as well as in the public sector. He has successfully undertaken ventures, including a DMO and technology transformation consulting. In his role at Mize, he stands out not only for his analytical and strategic ability but also for effective leadership. He speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. He holds a degree in Economics from UBA, complementing his professional training at Harvard Business School Online.

Mize is the leading hotel booking optimization solution in the world. With over 170 partners using our fintech products, Mize creates new extra profit for the hotel booking industry using its fully automated proprietary technology and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue across its suite of products for its partners. Mize was founded in 2016 with its headquarters in Tel Aviv and offices worldwide.

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The 12 Travel Startups to Watch Out For In 2021

No one could have anticipated what 2020 had in store for us. When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, back in March, the travel and hospitality industries were among the sectors that were hit the hardest, having to navigate one of the worst crises in history. Several travel corporations and startups went through difficult layoffs in the weeks and months to follow - most notably Airbnb and TripActions. The industry as a whole quickly realized that this pandemic would have lasting effects and change the way we travel for the foreseeable future.

The good news is that there are signs of recovery as we near the end of 2020 and look ahead to 2021. On the startup front, Airbnb’s long-awaited IPO is sure to give travel industry partners a tailwind, proving that despite a global pandemic, “getting away” is not just a luxury, but has rather become a necessity for many. Adding to this, the growing concept of “working from anywhere” is changing how we think of accommodations - being more than just a place where we sleep and get away for the weekend.

Do you want to meet a curated selection of startups in travel? Get in touch with us

In the travel industry, 2020 has been a year where many companies have raised funds to "survive" the current pandemic - if they even had the ability to raise. The latest data from Crunchbase shows that both the number of funding rounds and the average dollar amounts raised by venture-backed travel startups have declined this year. Early-stage startups were the hardest hit with less fresh venture capital money going towards backing companies at this stage.

However, “in the midst of every crisis lies an opportunity,” and we, at Plug and Play, are firm believers that there will be many winners born out of the pandemic. We’ve listed out 12 travel startups below that are redefining the travel and hospitality space and that we think are worthwhile to keep an eye on in 2021 .

Purchasing international data plans when traveling can be frustrating. Buying a local SIM card can be a tedious process and carriers like AT&T tend to charge a huge fee to use data plans abroad. Airalo is here to change that, as the world’s first eSIM store. Almost all new smartphones are being offered with an eSIM, a SIM that’s already embedded inside the device. Airalo is an eSIM marketplace that smartphone users can use to buy temporary mobile data plans when traveling abroad. Airalo’s mobile data plans are completely separate from your standard mobile data plan and run on a local network.

“Contactless” has been the theme of 2020 and will continue to be for at least the first part of 2021. Ditto is a distributed database for cross-platform apps to sync even without an internet connection. With Ditto , your apps can sync directly with each other during outages, crashes, or in mobile not-spots. Since the pandemic hit, Ditto has seen a surge of interest from airlines.

Amenitiz is an all-in-one platform for the hospitality industry. This travel startup ’s solution centralizes all the tools that any hotelier would need to run its property into a single, easy-to-use platform: a PMS, a website builder with a fully-integrated booking engine, and a channel manager. The main value proposition is the platform’s convenience, allowing hotels to increase direct bookings, save costs, with a great UX. The company has more than 1,200 clients across Europe.

Meetings and events planning have become increasingly complicated. Troop aggregates thousands of data points, enabling corporate travel managers and meeting planners to select event destinations based on objective intelligence rather than just opinion. The platform of this travel startup optimizes destination selection based on cost, travel time, ease of travel, visa requirements, and carbon footprint, among other factors. Now, Troop is adding functions to surface safety and security information to address the risk side that becomes part of the equation.

Facial recognition and biometric identification technology could play a pivotal role in how “immunity” or “health passports” might work. One of the leaders in this space is Yoti , who allows consumers to take control of their digital identity by creating a reusable ID on their smartphone that can be shared multiple times with organizations on the Yoti platform. It is a GDPR/CCPA compliant solution, available in 6 languages and accepts passports and photos from 165 countries.

The Hotels Network

In today’s environment, hotel brands need to take innovative approaches in order to increase their direct bookings. The Hotels Network enables hoteliers around the world to increase direct bookings by using predictive personalization to offer each guest a unique user experience. The company has developed a predictive algorithm for hotels, capable of analyzing the visitor's interactions in real-time and predicting the action they intend to take on the website before they do so. This enables hotel owners and marketers to change the messaging on their websites in real-time, personalizing the experience for website users. The Hotels Network works with more than 5,000 hotels across 96 countries.

Smooss helps travel companies (especially airlines) to increase revenue and improve customer experience thanks to tailor-made solutions designed on top of reservation systems. This travel startup currently has two main products: an upselling platform and a disruption recovery solution. Smooss enables easy rebooking with its universal “Disruption Recovery” solution and enables a personalized revenue opportunity through its Smooss Ancillary Platform.

As more employees work remotely, companies are finding it difficult to recognize and reward them. Blueboard solves this problem, offering a rewards and recognition platform that is providing a curated experience that employers can bestow on their employees and top performers. Virtual cooking classes, skydiving, snorkeling, you name it, Blueboard’s concierge service is here to handle all of the logistics.

Port is another travel startup that will shape 2021 . Curious travelers want to experience and learn about different places in the world, however, there are many tour and travel experiences not within reach if you are unable to travel (for financial, time or physical reasons). Port enables travelers and working professionals to book on-demand remote guides around the world and receive live, interactive video calls to experience new destinations or attend events that they can't physically go to.

It’s safe to say that COVID-19 has changed the world of events with everything moving online. Hopin is an interactive web events company that allows hosts to create events where through video, quality connections can be made. Whether it’s a 50 person event or 50,000 person conference, you can customize your event to fit the requirements and even have attendees move in and out of rooms. It was recently announced that Hopin (founded just in 2019!) closed a $125M Series B at a $2.125B valuation.

Butler Hospitality

Butler takes over restaurants inside of hotels and transforms them into delivery hubs that provide virtual room service to nearby full, limited- and select-service hotels. Butler designs its own menu of elevated, accessible luxury food, prepares it in its own kitchens, and delivers it to hotels throughout New York City in under thirty minutes. By partnering directly with hotels, Butler delivers food directly to the hotel room and charges the guest’s credit card on file unlike other delivery services.

Calling air cargo demand “one of the few bright spots” in the global airline sector, IATA chief economist Brian Pearce said that requirements for air freight had been supported by the transport of medical equipment and essential supplies. We expect this to continue as unlike passenger demand, air freight requirements are following a fairly typical recession/recovery cycle. cargo.one is a digital platform for freight forwarders to search, compare and book air freight capacities across airlines. These airlines benefit from a fully digital and data-driven distribution channel, attracting new business at lower cost and higher operational efficiency.

In 2021, travel startups will not only play a large role in helping us adjust to the new normal and restore confidence in travel, but also challenge the fundamental ways of how we’ve thought about travel, which presents an exciting prospect - especially for early-stage investors. If 2020 was about surviving, we have our fingers crossed that 2021 will be about thriving.

Innovation in the travel industry is happening. Don’t be left behind.

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50 🔥 Travel Startups

Here's our list of hot travel startups to watch in 2022.

👏 Thanks to over 3000 voters from 88 countries 🎉 Official results below — congrats to the Top 10 😅 See how close the competition was in this cool visual

🦄 The #1 upvoted startup wins 0.005 Bitcoin (~$250 USD) 👍 One voter (random) will win 0.001 Bitcoin (~$50 USD) 🚨 Voting has closed (December 19 at 23:59 UTC)

🦄 1. Tripsider (formerly YouTravel.me)

🏆 2. NaviSavi

🏅 4. yolovivo

🏅 5. Troupe

🏅 7. Floodin PRO

🏅 8. socialbnb

🏅 9. Ask A Local

🏅 10. SafeScore

Global Convoy

Eddy Travels AI Assistant

Nomad Stays

Travel Creators

GetAboutAble

Travel Kollekt

Map Your City

Room Steals

World Views

Local Purse

I like local

Guess Where Trips

The Work From Anywhere Team

Unearthed Retreats

Paradise Ride

What's The Plan

Yūgen Earthside

Trip.Social

Visit Dark Skies

Competition rules . If there is a draw, the prize will be split evenly between the winning startups. To be in the draw to win 0.001 BTC you must upvote at least one of the startups, and have a completed profile. The winners will be announced in the weekly newsletter and contacted via email. Good luck!

Top Travel Companies (720)

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At FareHarbor, our mission is to make experiences better for everyone. Founded in 2013 in Hawaii and acquired by Booking Holdings in 2018, FareHarbor creates powerful tools that enable our clients (think boat rentals, museums, food tours, events and more!) to operate and grow. With over 20,000 clients across 90+ countries—we’re the largest in our industry and shaping the future of travel, together. Our team is an ‘Ohana of 700+ people around the world. We’re passionate about pioneering an industry, embracing challenges with open arms, and delivering value to the experiences industry.

We are TravelPerk: a scaling unicorn valued at $1.3 billion that has raised over $400m since our creation in 2015. Backed by world-class investors with portfolios including Airbnb, Stripe, Slack, Trello, Gusto, Twitter, Farfetch and Deliveroo, our team comprises of A-players from the travel and technology industries. We’ve been named the fastest-growing SaaS startup in the world by SaaS1000 and featured as one of the hottest startups to watch by both Forbes and Wired. We’re revolutionizing the B2B corporate travel market—worth over $1.3 trillion— to connect people in real life in an enjoyable and sustainable way. TravelPerk is innovative. In recent years, we have welcomed and acquired the likes of Click Travel, NexTravel and Albatross to the team. From TravelCare, to FlexiPerk and GreenPerk, we are shaping the industry's future and embodying our company values while we do it--create a 7 star experience, impact over effort, bea good person, we are a team, we are all owners.

Sojern is built on more than a decade of expertise analyzing the complete traveler path to purchase. We drive travelers from dream to destination by activating multi-channel branding and performance solutions on the Sojern Traveler Platform for more than 10,000 travel companies around the globe.

Rocket Travel

Rocket Travel by Agoda is Agoda's strategic partnerships arm, working with the world’s largest companies to create branded experiences from the first search to check-out from their stay. Our global partnerships range from world-class airlines to international banks, as well large-scale shopping platforms, SuperApps, and the largest travel players in the world. Our customers can earn and redeem miles, points, and gift cards, or save big with exclusive discounts, for booking travel accommodations around the world, from global favorite brands to boutique bed and breakfasts. We also help our partners curate vacation excursion planning and car rental services, with a completely branded experience from the first search to check-out from their stay. We attract customers from every corner of the globe with a user experience that's built in-house from ideation to finished product. We have offices in Chicago, NYC, Bangkok, Medellín, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Cebu, as well as colleagues working remotely across four continents.

We’re a thriving, global online marketplace making the beauty of the outdoors accessible to everyone by mobilizing the over 50 million recreational vehicles that sit idly around the world and connecting them with people craving memorable travel experiences. We help everyone go forth safely in the outdoors by providing insurance through Roamly, the best RV insurance out there.

Navan is the all-in-one super app that makes travel and expense easy so you can focus on being there, not getting there. Say goodbye to spending hours on the phone trying to change your flight or saving stacks of receipts to manually input expenses. From EAs and finance teams to travel managers and employees, Navan empowers people to focus on the things that matter most to them — all while providing companies with real-time visibility, savings, and control. Navan’s investors include visionaries like Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Ventures, Greenoaks, Zeev Ventures, and entrepreneurs Lee Fixel, Adam Bain, and Elad Gil. In Oct 2022, Navan announced its Series G upround at a post-money valuation of $9.2B to help accelerate future growth plans. In April 2023, Navan expanded in the Indian market with the acquisition of Tripeur, a modern, people-centric corporate travel and expense management company. The group’s fifth acquisition in under two years, Tripeur joined the Navan Group alongside Spanish meetings and events specialists, Atlanta Events & Corporate Travel Consultants; Berlin-based modern travel management company, Comtravo; leading Scandinavian travel agency Resia AB; and London-based high-touch TMC, Reed & Mackay.

Supporting over 2 million members, we send you affordable international & domestic US flight deals daily, so you can invite the unexpected and never overpay on flights again. Unlike automated flight alerts and “deals” sent out by way of affiliate links, we leverage innovative software and our team of human flight experts to send out rigorously-vetted, high-quality deals that are worth our members’ time and money. We’re so much more than crusaders for cheap flights, and our numbers prove it. - 2 million: Members to date, growing every day - 100%: Our average year-over-year revenue growth set to continue on this trend - $100 million: Total airfare our deals have helped members save. - $31,000: The largest member savings in one purchase occurred when our members bought 5 plane tickets to Bali when we sent out a mistake business class fare. - 263,009: Miles, our most prolific member, has traveled with the 20 Going deals she has purchased. - 30+: Number of proposals have happened on SCF trips… that we know of. - Countless: Memories and stories created through our members’ trips. We’re making travel dreams more attainable for everyone, one deal at a time. We're a 100% remote team with members all over the world. If “to travel is to live” resonates with you and your background seems like it could be a fit for one of our positions, we’d love to hear from you!

Spotnana is the travel platform that connects humanity. We are modernizing the infrastructure of the travel industry in order to bring freedom, simplicity, and trust to travelers everywhere. Our groundbreaking Travel-as-a-Service platform revolutionizes travel for corporations and consumers, modernizes how travel suppliers sell their inventory, and enables any company to provide the world’s best global travel experiences to their customers. To learn more, visit spotnana.com.

Hotel Engine

Hotel Engine is a Denver-based, high-growth travel tech company that focuses on one goal — making business lodging simpler. We’re on a mission to become the global leading platform for business lodging, by providing a savings-driven and easy-to-use platform. And with more than 200 employees serving 35K+ businesses, we are well on our way to achieving that goal.

Upgrade, Inc.

At Upgrade, we like to tackle big problems and create innovative products that make a meaningful difference in people's lives. We don't have all the answers but we always help each other, look for ways to improve, move fast, and act as owners to make credit more affordable for millions of families across America.

Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight)

From the beginning, Lighthouse has pushed the boundaries of what is possible to achieve and deliver with data. Our three founders launched Lighthouse in 2012 with a mission to help the hospitality industry visualize and leverage its data. What started as unique idea that originated during a trip to the London Olympics amongst friends has quickly grown into a global business. Today, our entrepreneurial and innovative team processes billions of data points a day for our customer-base of 55,000 top-tier hospitality clients, including Accor, Best Western, and Wyndham across over 184 countries. Lighthouse is a cloud-based data intelligence platform for the hospitality industry that provides hoteliers with a suite of revenue management solutions and empowers them to make smarter revenue and distribution decisions. While our company headquarters is in London, we also host six total offices around the globe- from Singapore to Denver to Dallas to Ghent to Sao Paolo. Our Denver office serves as the axis for our US operations and commercial functionalities as we push to capture more and more of the US market. Despite the large geographic distances between many of our employees and teams, we maintain strong personal relationships between employees and foster an international and diverse culture across borders and boundaries. We hope to continue our expansion in the coming years by providing excellent services to hoteliers everywhere, and we are positioned to achieve exponential growth in the years to come.

AirDNA began with a big dream in a balmy California garage in 2015. Since then, the technology startup has grown into the leading provider of data and business intelligence for the billion-dollar travel and vacation rental industry—with offices in Denver and Barcelona. Our self-serve platform eliminates guesswork and equips Airbnb hosts with smart and competitive insights needed to succeed in the ever-evolving short-term rental landscape. We also arm enterprise clients with customized reports and in-depth dashboards to ensure they can scale and invest strategically. These customers include hundreds of top financial institutions, real estate companies, vacation rental managers, and destination marketing organizations around the world. We track the daily performance of over 10 million Airbnb and Vrbo properties across 120,000 global markets. We also collect data from over a million partner properties. This marriage of scraped and source data, enhanced by our proprietary algorithms, makes our solutions the most accurate and comprehensive in the world. We’re firm believers that data isn’t the destination; it’s the starting point. The launchpad. The bedrock for any future-forward business.

Woven is a stealth startup backed by four top venture firms that is reimagining the way consumers travel. The company is building an AI-native Travel App that simplifies the process of discovering, planning, and booking trips, all in one app. It’s like having a personal travel agent, but better, as it’s affordable, available 24/7, responds within seconds, and is armed with local insights, captivating photos, maps, itineraries, pricing, and availability. The explosion of travel booking sites is sucking the fun out of getting away with their maze of disjointed self-serve transactions that leave travelers needing to visit dozens of websites to plan a trip. By pioneering breakthroughs in Agent Architectures and leveraging the latest advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs), Woven is poised to revolutionize the travel industry by helping consumers craft exquisite, personalized travel experiences. Led by a 3X AI founder who’s raised over $100M and a 4X COO who’s raised over $500M, the company is backed by former executives from Pinterest, Twitter, and Stitch Fix along with AI-focused venture funds, including SignalFire.

Wanderu is Travel for the Next Generation, providing the simplest way to find and book bus and train travel. We help millions of travelers locate the best travel options at the best price. By working directly with hundreds of ground travel carriers, Wanderu provides service through North America and Europe. Our partners include the largest providers in the world, including Amtrak, Greyhound, Megabus, BoltBus, Peter Pan Bus Lines, Grupo Senda and Trailways of New York, among many others.

TROOP is on a mission to reinvent meeting planning, taking what is an inefficient, drawn out and laborious process today and making it simple and quick for anyone to organise a meeting. Workforces are now distributed, no longer office based everyday meaning that yesterday's commuter has become tomorrow's business traveller. Meeting in person is now much rarer as we managed without it for so long so it is much harder to justify although the activity is more valuable than ever because we have been separated. Having up to date data to make the right decision on whether to meet in person, virtually or in a hybrid format is a must have for companies of any size however this has not been available to access dynamically from a single source until now the TROOP. In the past people relied on their personal opinions and experience of travel however all this has changed with covid. Flight schedules are decimated, pricing changes rapidly, as do the travel restrictions and in some cases so does the risk of travelling to certain countries. TROOP is the single source of truth and powers these decisions for global organisation across multiple industries by providing all the data required to make the best decision on how to meet, be it Covid related restrictions, costs of travel and accommodations, the environmental impact or the travel experience such as needing a visa or taking a stopover flight.

SilverRail is delivering the digital infrastructure for the global rail industry.    SilverRail's technology makes rail easy for rail operators, travel agencies and travellers. Its product suite spans the full customer experience: journey planning, distribution, fulfilment, customer service and data insight.  We handle more than 1 billion online rail searches each year  We distribute tickets for more than 35 providers and carriers  We process more than 30 million bookings each year  We serve more than 1,500 corporate customers worldwide  SilverRail was founded in 2009 and has offices in London, Boston, Stockholm and Brisbane. 

CLEAR transforms what is uniquely you – your fingerprints, your face, your eyes – into a secure, biometric key to frictionless experiences. CLEAR currently powers customer experiences in nearly 40 U.S. airports and venues. With over 3 million members so far, CLEAR is the identity platform of the future, today.

SevenRooms is a guest experience and retention platform for hospitality operators that enables them to build more profitable direct relationships, deliver exceptional experiences, and increase repeat business. Founded in 2011 and venture-backed by Amazon, Comcast Ventures, Highgate Ventures and Providence Strategic Growth, SevenRooms has dining, hotel F&B, nightlife and entertainment clients in 250+ cities globally.

Canary Technologies

Canary Technologies is a leader in hospitality technology that provides hoteliers with easy, intuitive, and secure solutions to help hotels provide an ideal guest experience.

Airbnb is a community based on connection and belonging—a community that was born in 2008 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to 4 million hosts who have welcomed over 800 million guest arrivals to about 100,000 cities in almost every country and region across the globe. Hosts on Airbnb are everyday people who share their worlds to provide guests with the feeling of connection and being at home. At Airbnb, we believe that hosts, guests and the communities where we operate are all stakeholders we have a responsibility to serve, and that by serving them alongside our employees and investors, we will build an enduringly successful company.

Work Your Passion. Live Your Purpose.

Travel Startup Funding 2023: We Tracked 200 Investments – Follow The Money

Justin Dawes , Skift

December 23rd, 2023 at 8:00 AM EST

Startup founders and investors have been saying all year that funding is tighter, but travel startups still raised billions in venture capital.

Justin Dawes

Travel startups raised at least $3.7 billion in 2023. Skift tracked more than 200 travel startup fundraises through a weekly roundup article, compiled from company announcements and exclusive reporting. 

While $3.7 billion is a big number, the actual total is surely higher. That’s because some startups do not share when they raise money, and some do not disclose amounts raised. And we don’t track all global markets.  

Below is an overview of the biggest raises, funding trends, and other important developments from 2023. (Is your travel startup raising money in 2024? Let us know .)

Short-Term Rentals

The short-term rental sector was the most well-funded in 2023. Skift tracked nearly 30 startups related to short-term rentals that raised more than $676 million.

The group includes booking platforms, property-management platforms, niche websites, and more.  

The sector has exploded since the pandemic, driven in large part by the surge in remote work, and that growth is continuing . 

Some of the startups that raised money are focused particularly on the digital nomad market. That includes Berlin-based property manager Habyt, which raised $42.4 million for a booking platform that includes rentals in co-living spaces, homes, and hotels for locals and travelers.

There have been fundraises for even more niche platforms, as well. Germany-based Raus and Australia-based Unyoked each raised millions of dollars for vacation-rental platforms that offer high-tech cabins in remote locations.

And Vipio raised several million dollars for specialty vacation rentals with a portfolio that includes Freddie Mercury’s former vacation home. 

Startups from the hotel tech sector were most likely to be funded in 2023, though the sector did not get the largest amount of funding overall.  

Skift tracked more than 30 startups related to hotel tech that raised at least $274 million, including several startups that did not disclose their funding amounts. 

This category covers a number of software products and services, such as property management, pricing and revenue, guest communications, kitchen operations, and more.  

The largest fundraise among them was $48 million by Stayntouch, a property management system owned by MCR. 

Next-Generation Aircraft

Nine startups developing next-generation aircraft and components raised more than $603 million. 

Regent Craft raised $60 million in October toward development of an electric seaglider for commercial travel along coastal routes. The first, called Viceroy, will carry 12 passengers up to 180 miles and is meant for underserved coastal communities. The company has a goal to deliver the product by mid-decade. 

And ZeroAvia raised $116 million in November to develop a hydrogen-electric jet engine, focusing first on engines that support a 300-mile range in aircrafts of nine to 19 seats by the end of 2025. 

Corporate Travel

There’s a lot of investment going toward platforms that help companies streamline corporate travel expenses. We tracked nine platforms that raised at least $445 million

Mooncard , a platform based in Paris, raised $40.6 million for an expense automation platform that includes providing Visa expense cards for employees of client companies. 

Tours and Activities

The tours and activities sector has been busy this year.

Klook, an online travel agency for tours and activities, recently raised $210 million (equity and debt) in a bid to compete with GetYourGuide and Viator. The Hong Kong-based company has now raised more than $900 million.

GetYourGuide this year raised $85 million in venture capital along with $109 million in revolving credit, pushing its total investment past the $1 billion mark.

And multiple startup platforms meant to streamline operations and sales for the sector raised millions of dollars. Historically one of most low-tech sectors in the industry, the tours and activities sector has been more focused on getting online and adopting new technology. 

Other Trends

• We tracked eight startups involved with the growing sustainable aviation fuel sector, raising a total of at least $312 million.
• There were various online travel agencies and other booking platforms, often specializing in niche markets, that raised a few hundred million dollars. Wheel the World, a booking platform for travelers with disabilities raised money in March , as did Bach, a planning and booking platform for bachelorette parties.
• There were fundraises by multiple startups working to modernize the ground transportation industry, particularly taxi operations and airport transfer bookings. 
• Startups with a product powered by generative AI are starting to raise money, though not large sums at the moment. 

Top 8 Single Fundraises 

• Ramp, corporate expenses including travel: $300 million
• Archer Aviation, flying taxi: $215 million
• Klook, online travel agency for tours and activities: $210 million (equity and debt)
• GetYourGuide, online travel agency for tours and activities: $194 million (equity and debt)
• Lilium, flying taxi: $192 million
• SkyNGR, sustainable aviation fuel: $190.9 million
• Hostaway, short-term rental management platform: $175 million
• DiDi Autonomous Driving, autonomous rideshare vehicle: $149 million

Backed by Celebrities 

There were multiple trip planners for consumers that raised money in 2023. 

Two of them were backed by entertainment celebrities.

• John Legend is a founder of It’s Good, an “invite-only” social media app for restaurant reviews, meant to combat negative reviews on Google and Yelp. The startup raised $5 million in October. 
• Paris Hilton is an investor for Layla, a generative AI trip planner chatbot accessible through an app or through direct messages on Instagram. The startup raised $3.3 million in late November.

Seven Innovative startups 

Below is a list of funded startups that stood out for being particularly unique.

• HalalBooking is an online travel agency tailored for the Muslim market , with features meant to help users search for specific needs, such as a resort with a ladies-only beach, a hotel with halal food, or a villa with a secluded pool.
• Scapia is a credit card for Indian travelers that offers unlimited domestic airport lounge access and 10% rewards on all purchases, which can be used to book travel through the app. 
• Fairlyne is a platform that helps consumers resell non-refundable travel tickets , a capability that’s common for sports and concerts but not travel.
• Autio offers more than 10,000 short audio stories based on geographic location and signed a deal with JetBlue to offer in-flight audio entertainment.
• HotelYaari is a platform that allows investors to purchase a stake in luxury hotels. 
• Minut provides short-term rental hosts with sensors to detect things like cigarette smoke, too many visitors, or too much outside noise. 
• DiDi Autonomous Driving raised $149 million for an autonomous rideshare vehicle that includes a robotic arm to pick up luggage and wake up passengers. And there’s no driver’s seat. 

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Tags: artificial intelligence , asia newsletter , business travel , funding , online travel newsletter , startups , vcroundup

Photo credit: Archer Aviation was one of the top-funded travel startups in 2023. Archer Aviation / Archer Aviation

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Top 26 Travel startups Foreign and domestic travel is back on in 2023

Foreign and domestic travel is back on in 2023, albeit restricted and with some countries still off-limit.

Nevertheless, travel companies for both home and away holidays are finding ways to adapt to the new market they find themselves operating in, and this is very true for the many travel startup companies that are still operating.

Here are 26 to watch for if you have any travel needs for the end of 2021 and beyond…

Citymapper is a transport app which helps users to navigate cities. Citymapper analyses sources to provide and develop routing and transport data about cities to help people all over the world travel with ease. Since its conception in 2011, Citymapper has quickly become one of the most popular mobile apps for city travel.

2011 – London, UK

Azmat Yusuf

Total funding: $59.5m

Web: https://citymapper.com/

Culture Trip

Culture Trip is a global tech startup inspiring people to explore the world’s culture and creativity. Culture Trip’s framework is built on innovative technology and a global network of local content creators. The company tells stories showing the uniqueness of a location, its people, and its culture. As well as reading stories and travel guides, users can book trips at these hand-picked destinations.

Kris Naudts

Total funding: £102m

Web: https://theculturetrip.com/

Duffel is a travel-tech startup company that facilitates users in searching, booking, and managing flights from 18 airlines with ease. Duffel’s mission is to help businesses of all sizes to provide easy flight booking experiences for their clients. Duffel’s platform also allows users to access baggage and lounge ancillaries, and easily manage refunds and cancellations.

2017 – London, UK

Steve Domin, Tom Bates, Vincent Pastor

Total funding: $56.2m

Web: https://duffel.com/

Arangrant is a travel agency specializing in business class flights, providing clients with a superior travel booking experience over the phone. The company’s experienced travel experts work tirelessly to match customers with the perfect business class flights, considering their preferences, budget, and destination. They offer personalized assistance over the phone and bespoke service tailored to meet each client’s unique needs.

2016 – Athens, Attiki, Greece

Aiden Short, Christos Spatharakis, Panagiotis Sarafis, Vasileios Lahanas

Total funding: $3.6m

Web: https://www.ferryhopper.com/

Ferryhopper

Ferryhopper provides an innovative ferry booking platform to make travelling by ferry easy and fun.

Using Ferryhopper, travellers have direct and indirect connections to over 160 Greek, Italian and Turkish ports. Users can also plan their ferry trip effortlessly, book their tickets, and compare prices.

Holidu aims to make searching for and booking vacation rentals easy. Holidu’s search engine uses proprietary image recognition technology to compare the prices of millions of rental properties. Holidu users can easily find the best deals in accommodation and save up to 55% on their bookings.

2014 – Munich, Bayern, Germany

Johannes Siebers, Michael Siebers, Rasmus Porsgaard

Total funding: $100.4m

Web: https://www.holidu.com/

HouseTrip is an online marketplace that allows rental management companies and individuals to rent out their properties in a simpler way. HouseTrip has quickly become one of the most popular holiday rental sites in Europe with over 6,000,000 nights booked since going live in 2010. The company has offices in London, Lausanne, and Lisbon.

2009 – London, UK

Arnaud Bertrand, Junjun Chen-Bertrand

Total funding: $59.7m

Web: https://www.housetrip.com/

Houst is a short-let host management service that simplifies the process of property listing for hosts who want to let their properties for short stays. Houst handles everything from listing and marketing properties to hospitality, such as cleaning, laundry, and key handling.  Houst’s mission is to enable hassle-free hosting for everyone.

2015 – London, UK

Daniel Scott, James Jenkins-Yates, Tom Jones

Total funding: $17.2m

Web: https://www.houst.com/

Klazz’s mission is to revolutionise the language travel industry by matching international students to domestic teachers in the country of travel. Klazz predominantly markets English language courses to Spanish, French, Italian, and German speakers travelling in. All teachers are certified and vetted by Klazz to ensure the best language learning experience for travelling students.

2017 – Berlin, Germany

Oliver Flueckiger

Total funding: $800k

Web: https://www.klazz.com/

Love Home Swap

Love Home Swap is a home-swapping website that facilitates members to exchange and rent their homes with other members, for free. Members can choose from over 54,000 stylish homes in city and holiday destinations in more than 160 countries worldwide, with excellent levels of service from Love Home Swap.

Simon Walker

Total funding: $4.2m

Web: https://www.lovehomeswap.com/

LuckyTrip is a travel inspiration app helping users to find a trip with one tap. LuckyTrip has created a mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to help travellers to find unique trips. Users enter their budget, tap the “Lucky” button, and are instantly shown a trip to hundreds of destinations in Europe that fit their budget.

Alex Burns, Tamer Q’taish, Tiff Burns

Total funding: £4.4m

Web: https://www.luckytrip.co.uk/

Luxtripper is a luxury travel company that operates an online travel booking site that matches users with suitable holiday destinations. Not only does Luxtripper’s platform allows customers to book holidays, but it offers a bespoke holiday service that matches customers to luxury destinations. The team of travel experts then works to create multi-destination itineraries, tailored to the customer’s requirements.

2013 – London, UK

Nena Chaletzos

Total funding: £2.2m

Web: https://www.luxtripper.co.uk/

Mapify is a social marketplace for travel experiences designed to connect travellers around the world through past and ongoing journeys. Using Mapify users can visualise, find and plan travel experiences. On Mapify’s website and app, users can upload pictures, make a map of their travels, create a bucket list, plan trips, and follow other users.

David Pflugpeil, Magnus Langanke, Patrick Haede, Sebastian Hade, Sebastian Haede, Tobi Schnorpfeil

Total funding: $1.3m

Web: https://mapify.travel

Much Better Adventures

Much Better Adventures helps people organize their skiing, cycling, or road biking holiday directly with specialist independent operators. The platform’s infrastructure consists of a global network of specialist marketplaces and a SaaS reservation platform, which empowers local operators around the world with the online reservation and sales tools, while the marketplace makes it easy for users to book great holiday experiences.

Alex Narracott, Guy Bowden, Sam Bruce

Total funding: $5.4m

Web: https://muchbetteradventures.com

Onefinestay

Onefinestay is a startup that provides travellers with a stay in the finest homes in the city and provides homeowners with an opportunity to earn another source of income from hosting travellers in their homes. Onefinestay helps homeowners with marketing and managing their homes, and helps travellers to find and book the right homes. Onefinestay emphasizes hospitality and providing support 24/7 to ensure the finest stay for clients.

Demetrios Zoppos, Evan Frank, Greg Marsh, Tim Davey

Total funding: $80.9m

Web: https://www.onefinestay.com

Questo has pioneered the leading platform for city exploration games, thanks to the expertise of local creators and businesses around the world who have helped to create unique location-specific games which new travellers and locals play to explore the city. Each game is totally unique and could be based on the city’s iconic history, books, films, or local legends. For example, you can explore London by hunting for Jack the Ripper. Questo is currently present in over 100 cities and expanding…

2017 – Bucharest, Bucuresti, Romania

Alexandru Govoreanu

Total funding: $1.8m

Web: https://www.questoapp.com

Seatfrog is a mobile app designed to provide effortless upgrades for airlines and passengers. Seatfrog operates as a customer-centric auction platform for upgrades on the day of departure, selling seats that were guaranteed to otherwise fly empty. The platform targets passengers within 48hrs of their flight, to help them upgrade. Seatfrog is designed for seamless customer interaction with in-app payments and boarding passes reissued directly to mobile in one simple transaction.

2014 – London, UK

Ben Ient, Dirk Stewart, Iain Griffin

Total funding: £15.7m

Web: https://www.seatfrog.com

Secret Escapes

Secret Escapes is a members-only travel club that offers discounted rates on luxury hotels and holidays. At Secret Escapes, members sign up for free for access to the best deals on holidays and hotels. In return for signing up, members have access to exclusive rates for selected luxury hotels and holidays at up to a 60% discount on prices offered elsewhere.

2010 – London, UK

Alex Saint, Tom Valentine, Troy Collins

Total funding: $249.2m

Web: https://www.secretescapes.com

SilverRail wants to change the way people move by offering the best-in-class technology solutions to help railways and travel distributors easily connect with each other.  SilverRail specialises in the fields of passenger rail ticketing, travel distribution technology, and global rail access to make travel by train more efficient, spanning the full customer experience.

Aaron Gowell, Will Phillipson

Total funding: $69m

Web: https://silverrailtech.com

Stasher is the world’s first luggage storage network that operates by connecting short-term visitors with a network of local hotels and shops that have space to securely store luggage. Stasher works as an online platform, allowing users to book storage in advance or on the day. Stasher works in partnership with an international network of hotels and retailers to provide travellers with affordable and convenient storage for their luggage.

Anthony Collias, Jacob Wedderburn-Day, Matthew Majewski

Web: https://stasher.com

The Plum Guide

The Plum Guide is a marketplace of the world’s best holiday homes. The Plum Guide offers holiday homes based on its rigorous, systematic analysis of testing every single home on the planet and accepting only the top 1%. The Plum Guide tests for the top 1% by using the self-pioneered Plum Test; a hospitality exam that uses a mix of algorithms and physical visits by hospitality experts. Since 2016 the Plum Guide has vetted over 80,000 homes.

Alex Lee, Arif Meharali, Doron Meyassed, Imran Arshed, Will Smith

Total funding: $29.1m

Web: https://www.plumguide.com

Travala.com

Travala.com, the world’s leading cryptocurrency-friendly hotel booking service with the best prices on over 2 million properties across 230 countries. Since 2017, Travala has become the world’s leading blockchain-based travel booking platform trusted by thousands. Travala stands out on the hotel booking market, as travellers can pay using different cryptocurrencies in addition to credit and debit cards and earn valuable rewards with their bookings.

2017 – Eccleston, Lancashire, UK

Juan Otero, Matthew Luczynski, Steven Hipwell

Total funding: £2m

Web: https://www.travala.com

tripAbrood is an AI-driven travel platform designed for families to discover and book holidays. TripAbrood’s family travel assistant, Skye, guides users through the discovery and booking phases efficiently by sourcing relevant information to make booking a holiday simple.

2018 – London, UK

Alexa-Maria Rathbone Barker, Ketan Anand

Total funding: £645k

Web: https://tripabrood.com

TripAdmit is a startup providing a new ticketing solution. TripAdmit helps customers to access the best guided tours, skip the ticket lines, book day trips and show a selection of the best locations. TripAdmit is also designed for tour and activity operators to sell online via their own website and to distribute their activities amongst their partners. TripAdmit also allows distribution partners to earn ancillary revenue from tours and activities.

2018 – Dublin, Ireland

John Maguire, Andrew Kelly

Total funding: €500k

Web: https://tripadmit.com

Victor is a UK-based private jet charter marketplace. Victor aims to bring transparency to the air transportation industry by connecting fliers directly to aircraft operators. Victor’s platform provides a flight management team to support customers’ end-to-end travel requirements.  Victor integrates smart technology, transparency, and customer service to ensure that members are always connected.

Clive Jackson

Total funding: $62.5m

Web: https://www.flyvictor.com

Zeelo is a safe bus-sharing company that is developing smart transportation services for commuting and travelling to school. Zeelo uses data and technology to design convenient bus routes in areas of high private car usage to offer people the option to swap their car for a Zeelo bus. Zeelo works in partnership with local bus and coach operators to provide the best service for drivers and commuters. Commuters can book transportation services via the mobile app.

2016 – London, UK

Barney Williams, Sam Ryan

Total funding: $5.5m

Web: https://www.zeelo.co

Will you be using any of these companies for travel in the next 12 months?

If you are travelling, be sure to check out the SplentoApp for storing and sharing your travel photos – click the link now to see some amazing travel photos in our travel photo album!

The list above includes startups that are performing wonders within the travel industry.

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16 Less-Known Travel and Tourism Startups Around the World

Explore the unconventional with these 16 unique travel startups globally. Discover new places, experiences, and innovative solutions reinventing the tourism industry. Start your journey here!

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Travelers are ready to get out and explore, according to a new report by the World Travel & Tourism Council . Venture capitalists recognize the opportunity – over the last ten years, they have fueled travel startups with $19 billion in funding.

We choose top disrupting travel and tourism startups to provide aspiring entrepreneurs with insights on what it takes to hit it big in the industry. Rather than including top-tier players like Tripadvisor 🌴, we aim to explore some lesser-known startup travel companies which are gaining market traction lately.

Check out our list of innovative tourism startups that make big waves now.

1. Touch Stay

Whether you have 5 properties or 500, Touch Stay digital guidebooks help you easily create and share property information to deliver the best guest experience. From practical accommodation information and inspirational content, to automated (and free!) SMS and email messaging, Touch Stay guidebooks give guests everything they need to know before, during and after their stay. Spend less time answering guest questions and focus on growing your short term rental business with Touch Stay.

Touch Stay was founded by Andy McNulty and Joe Jones – two serial travellers who kept on encountering the same issue over and over again: an absence of clear communication with their rental accommodation hosts.

2. Beyond Pricing

Beyond Pricing is a revenue management solution for short-term rental managers and owners to get, grow, and keep revenue, established by Ian McHenry and David Kelso in San Francisco in 2013.

The startup provides vacation rental owners with an automated AI-based pricing solution. The service analyzes market data in real-time and adjusts pricing recommendations to maximize revenue. Beyond Pricing claims their solution to increase revenue by up to 40%.

The company has raised $3.5 million in investments. They were funded by Plug and Play, Amicus Capital, Resolute Ventures, and Bullpen Capital, among the others.

• Beyond Pricing was included in Phocuswright’s 25 hottest startups list for 2019.
• The startup was covered by The Wall Street Journal, Time, CNN, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Mashable.

3.  Coindrum

Coindrum is converting foreign coins into duty-free vouchers.

A self-service machines provider founded by Lukas Decker in Dublin.

The startup offers a neat solution for those travelers who find themselves left with pockets full of basically useless coins after leaving the currency zone. They are offered to deposit foreign change into one of the Coindrum machines placed inside the airport area. In exchange, a tourist gets a voucher to spend in a duty-free zone. This also benefits duty-free retailers by making the non-spenders spend.

Coindrum received $2 million in funding. Among their investors were co-founders of Ryanair and Hostelworld.

• Coindrum won the 2018 top travel startups award.
• Last year, the startup was selected for the Retailtech Hub program in Munich to provide their machines to Germany’s key retailers.

4. Crowdvision

CrowdVision  is a leading automated pedestrian analytics and insights company.

A UK-based early-stage company founded by Fiona Strens and Anders Johansson in 2011.

Crowdvision provides an automated real-time computer vision technology that analyzes crowds at the airport using video cameras and machine learning. The solution allows to prevent bottlenecks and achieve smooth passenger flow throughout the terminal.

• In 2018, Crowdvision received an investment of an undisclosed amount from Amadeus Ventures. Prior to this, the startup was backed by Oaktree Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, Angel CoFund, and Beacon Capital.
• Among the airports using Crowdvision technology are London Heathrow, London City, Stansted and Jersey airports, as well as Tokyo’s Narita and Chicago O’Hare airports.

5. Culture Trip

Culture Trip is your trusted shortcut to booking travel that’s good and makes you feel good.

One of the hottest travel startups geared towards those who are looking to dive deep into the local culture. The company was founded in 2011 by Kris Naudts in London. In subsequent years, they expanded their presence to New York and Tel Aviv and established a network of over 300 local authors across the globe.

Culture Trip is a hybrid of a magazine and a travel platform that delivers exclusive local content, recommendations, and overviews on culture and art. They aim to inspire travelers to explore the world through local cultures and creativity.

In 2016, the startup secured $20 million in funding from PPF Group. A further investment of $80 million boosted the company’s growth in 2018.

• Forbes named Culture Trip as one of the fastest-growing startups.
• In 2018, they were awarded by Red Herring Top 100 Europe, British Media Awards, the Sunday Times Fast Track Disrupters to Watch awards.
• This year, Culture Trip was named among the hottest startup travel companies by the Europas Awards.

Doerz is a real-life experience with the city locals.

The company is in business since 2016. Doerz was launched by Tomi M. Virtanen in Turku, Finland.

The startup was born from the idea of exploring the foreign city from the inside – by doing stuff and going places with the locals. Doerz is a social platform where verified local experience providers offer to share their daily real-life activities. You can find yourself ice-fishing on a forest lake, cooking pea soup in a Finnish student dorm, composing a song with a local musician – the list goes on.

• Currently, their ambassadors’ network covers 14 cities in Finland, Estonia, Germany, France, and Italy.
• Doerz has raised €127.448 on Seedrs.
• The startup is in partnership with Finnair and Viking Line.

7.  Evaneos

Evaneos is the leading online marketplace for tailor-made tours. Plan your trip with the expertise of a local travel agent in the destination.

Evaneos is a French tours and travels startup founded in 2009 by Eric La Bonnardière and Yvan Wibaux.

The startup has created the world’s first online platform aimed to connect tourists directly with local travel agents. Evaneos platform provides access to 1,300 local agencies and features 8,000+ ready-made, customizable itineraries to 160 destinations. The startup serves over 30,000 tourists across the globe.

• Evaneos has raised about $109 million in funding. Among the investors are Serena Capital and Fonds Ambition Numérique.
• Their solution has received positive reviews by National Geographic, Daily Mail, Wanderlust, TechCrunch, The Guardian, and other media.

Itinari is helping travelers tread off the beaten track.

A Brussels-based trip startup aimed to help people around the world discover and share some lesser-known local attractions. Italy-born entrepreneur Nicolas Casula founded the company in 2017.

Itinari is a media platform featuring exclusive travel articles that reveal some hidden gems across the globe. The contributors’ network covers more than 40 European countries. Here you can also find articles on some niche local activities like horseback riding in Kazakhstan or Parisian pet cemetery exploration.

The startup has raised €830k in funding.

Hopper’s innovative technology helps travelers save up to 40% every time they travel.

Take Skyscanner startup idea, add some advanced predictive analytics, and you’ll get Hopper. This cheap flights startup was co-founded by former Expedia engineers Frederick Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk in Montreal, Canada.

Hopper is a mobile app designed to automate travel-related prises monitoring. Its AI-driven algorithm processes million of prices daily and predicts how prices will change up to a year in advance. The user then gets a suggestion on when they should book a trip or wait, and when there will be the best time to make a purchase.

The startup has raised over $184 million and is valued at $780 million. Among their investors are Citi Ventures, Brightspark, OMERS Ventures, and Accomplice.

• As of today, Hopper app has exceeded 40 million installs, becoming one of the fastest-growing travel booking startups .
• In 2019, the startup was featured in the world’s most innovative companies list by Fast Company for the second year in a row.
• Hopper is the 2018 People’s Voice Webby Award They also won the 2016 Google Play Award in the category of Standout Startup.

Grabr is a monetize your free luggage space.

A San Francisco-based startup is on the market since 2015. The project was launched by Russian-born spouses Artem Fedyaev and Daria Rebenok.

The startup idea was to create an “Uber for international shopping”. As a result, they have developed an international peer-to-peer courier service linking shoppers and travelers.

On Grabr, you can drop a link to the desired item from Amazon or any other online store and get a delivery offer from a traveler heading to your destination. As a tourist, you can pick delivery requests at your destination and earn some money for delivering their items.

• In total, Grabr has raised about $14 million. The company was backed by SignalFire, Founders Fund, and Foundation Capital.
• The startup was recognized by the EyeforTravel’s Startup Awards .

11. LuggageHero

Luggage Hero is a luggage-storage startup co-founded by Jannik Lawaetz and Kristian Loekkegaard in Copenhagen (2016).

LH business model is as simple as can be – book online, then drop your suitcase at the nearest LuggageHero partner store in your destination. Today, their network of luggage storage locations covers 45 cities across the US and Europe, with more cities joining in 2022.

• The startup has secured $1.45 million in its 2019 funding round. Their investors include Nordic Eye, Danish Growth Fund, and Innovation Fund Denmark.
• LuggageHero was covered by the New York Times, Forbes, Evening Standard, Lonely Planet.

Panzly is the first flight insurance for delays or cancellations with automatic and immediate payouts.

Panzly is a young Ukraine-born travel insurance startup headquartered in London. The project was created by Ukrainian developers Alex Gayduk and Anton Nesterenko in 2018.

Plane cancelation is never fun, but Panzly founders have decided to make it less stressful. They developed the first flight insurance app with an immediate claim-free payout to the passengers whose plane has been canceled. The service triggers compensation automatically in the event of a two-hour delay.

• Panzly was featured in the 2019 top innovative travel startups by British Airlines, and 2019 top most promising new travel startups by Insurance post.
• They also entered the top 5 Disrupt Launchpad & Awards at 2019 Travel Technology Europe (London).

Questo turns city exploration into a game.

A Romanian travel app startup was established by Alex Govoreanu in 2017 in Bucharest.

Questo is an app that makes real-world city exploration even more fun by mixing traveling and casual gaming. It enables tourists to discover new places while solving augmented puzzles, quests and completing story missions. You can choose either outdoor urban quests or indoor quests in the local castles, museums, etc.

The game is available in 40 cities across Europe.

The startup has secured a seed round of funding from investors, bringing its valuation to $1.5 million.

14. Routehappy

Routehappy finding the comfiest flight.

RH is a NY-based flight booking startup founded by Robert Albert in 2011.

There’s more to a good flight than an affordable price and a convenient schedule. Legroom and a reclining seat, Wi-Fi, snacks and drinks, outlet access, and other small things make a big impact on your comfort during a flight.

Routehappy holds an exhaustive dataset of plane types, seat layouts, and other assessments for flights over the world. You can choose the most comfortable option according to your preferences or based on the overall “happiness points”.

15. SeeVoov

SeeVoov is the first interactive video trip planning platform.

An Israeli travel planning startup co-founded by Asaf Toker and Yosi Golan in 2016.

The startup has raised $400,000 in funding from investors.

• In 2019, SeeVoov was among the top 10 travel technology startups for the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) startup competition.
• The company won the ITB China 2019 Tourism Innovation Startup award.
• Their partners include Samsung, SmartAir, Israir, Pruvo.

16. TravelPerk

TravelPerk is the next-generation business travel platform pioneering the future of business travel.

An award-winning corporate travel startup designed to handle all the business trip management issues. The company was founded in 2015 by three experienced entrepreneurs – Avi Meir, Ron Levin, and Javier Suarez. They are headquartered in Barcelona.

TravelPerk has delivered a free tool that enables users to book and manage travel fast, within the corporate policy, and under budget.

• TravelPerk has gained €65.3 million in funding. The startup is backed by investors from Slack, Trello, Twitter, and Spark Capital.
• Among their partners are Lufthansa, Uber, TransferWise, Farfetch, etc.

🔔 Hire top PHP developers in Ukraine .

You may have noticed geographic diversity in our best tourism startups list. These flourishing travel tech startups represent 12 countries across the world. It looks like blurring international boundaries is at the very core of the tourism startups scene.

If you’re looking to join the travel startups 🦄 unicorn club with your own project, you may consider going offshore and offloading a part of web or mobile development of your project to remote developers. Contact us with your business-related question and our expert team would be happy to provide you with professional assistance on hiring the best tech talent and setting up a remote team in Ukraine.

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Tags: adventure , booking , destinations , experiences , hospitality .

IT Entrepreneur

Hello. I’m Julian from Bali, Indonesia. I have a concept/idea for rural tourism in Indonesia. Pandemic covid19 makes many small-medium enterprises, especially in the tourism sector, get a big impact. I’m looking for a team that can help us to develop our platform. I have 365 members (tourism players), and many rural spots for tourism (diving, surfing, agriculture, culture experience, etc). Also, I want to join the travel startups unicorn club. Thanks!

Hi Julian, Are you thinking to implement this idea in India?

We are young Egyptians we going to start up a new tourism service online. I would like to know how and the way to transfer our business from just a start up company to bring investors to invest in ?

Hello, thanks for the interesting write up. I’m not sure how often you update this blog but we’ve just launched another interesting travel planning and booking platform, http://www.travelplanbooker.com . We’d appreciate all the feedback you can about our site but in general our aim was to simplify travel planning and removing the time consuming process of booking on Silo travel websites. We like to think our platform is user-friendly, adaptable and best of all it enables customers to book transportation, accommodation as well as rental cars and attractions, from a variety of suppliers, all in one place. Please check it out

18 Best Travel Startups to See the World And Work Remotely

As the world continues to transition to a hybrid workforce environment, there are many travel startups that give you a sense of community, and office like vibe while being able to work remotely. Remote working is more and more becoming the norm for the next generation of the global workforce. Whethe

Remote Year

The wander working experience, venture with impact, moving worlds, have fun do good, coworkation, urban adventures, off-season travel, thread caravan.

As the world continues to transition to a hybrid workforce environment, there are many travel startups that give you a sense of community, and office like vibe while being able to work remotely.

Remote working is more and more becoming the norm for the next generation of the global workforce.

Whether you’re a social entrepreneur, freelancer, or creative there are many great travel startups out there that make it easy for your work and travel adventures.

You can choose to travel to remote parts of the world or to some of the most classic cities the world has ever known.

According to UpWork, 36% of the US workers (57.3 million) are freelancers who work remotely.

They collectively contribute $1.4 trillion to the economy every year! By 2020 43% of the U.S. workforce will be freelancers.

Working remotely can certainly have its benefits.

One of those of course is travel.

The ability to work remotely anywhere in the world that has a wifi connection can be very powerful.

This creates the ability to see new cultures, learn new languages, discover new foods, and create a new influx of economic development for places around the world that have not traditionally had tourism dollars coming in.

This clearly shows a shift in the want to travel globally. In turn, this global discovery tour has no doubt enabled social entrepreneurs, freelancers, and creatives, to get even more creative and build things they may have never thought they would.

I believe we are seeing a fundamental shift in how humanity and global economies will exist in the next couple of decades.

Creating global businesses, relationships, and teams has never been more achievable.

Best Travel Startups for Remote Work

Remote Year is a pioneering travel startup that has revolutionized the way people work and explore the world simultaneously.

Offering innovative work and travel programs, Remote Year brings together a community of digital nomads who are able to maintain their jobs while embarking on an immersive journey to various international destinations.

The company curates unique itineraries that span multiple months, allowing participants to experience the culture, sights, and experiences of different cities while working remotely.

With a strong emphasis on building connections, Remote Year provides a supportive environment for professionals to collaborate, network, and create lasting memories together.

Whether in bustling urban centers or off-the-beaten-path locales, Remote Year enables individuals to achieve a harmonious balance between work and adventure, opening up a world of possibilities for remote work and global exploration.

Selina presents an expansive global network of boutique hostels, co-working spaces, and wellness experiences that cater to the needs of modern travelers seeking both work and adventure.

With a focus on creating vibrant and inspiring environments, Selina’s offerings are tailor-made for those who wish to work remotely while immersing themselves in diverse cultures and stunning landscapes.

From dynamic co-working spaces that foster collaboration to thoughtfully designed accommodations that promote comfort and creativity, Selina provides an all-encompassing ecosystem for digital nomads and remote workers.

Whether it’s the chance to work by the beach, in a bustling city center, or amidst tranquil natural surroundings, Selina ensures an enriching experience that combines productive work with meaningful exploration.

Roam is a coliving and coworking community testing the boundaries between work, travel and life adventure. Starting at $500 per week, you gain access to incredible coliving spaces and local communities around the world.

Come and go as you please. Every room includes a private bathroom and is fully furnished with a queen or king-sized bed. Roam provides sheets, towels, and all the other little things you need to feel at home.

The battle-tested, high-speed Internet extends to every corner of your private space.

Lokal Travel stands as an innovative online booking platform, seamlessly uniting explorers with authentic and sustainable encounters spanning the globe.

In close collaboration with thoughtfully chosen family-operated enterprises, community cooperatives, and impactful social initiatives, every Lokal Travel experience leaves a direct positive influence on the local community, all while offering travelers an unparalleled journey.

From breathtaking expeditions to Amazon ecolodges to serene sojourns in familial Himalayan guesthouses, Lokal Travel streamlines the process of booking a myriad of extraordinary trips.

These journeys not only bolster local communities but also contribute to the conservation of nature and the preservation of cultural legacies.

Outsite was founded to serve a new kind of traveller looking to integrate their life and their work. Outsite offers flexible living arrangements, community on your terms, and a beautiful home at an affordable price – whether you’re down the street or across the globe.

Currently, Outsite has 17 spaces in locations both in the USA and internationally , ranging from jungle villas and beachfront apartments to mountain hideaways and urban homes-from-home.

Outsite features the right amenities and design to make each stay as productive, restorative, social, or fun as you desire.

The Wander Working Experience is the first 30-day co-working vacation tailored specifically for social entrepreneurs. The Wander Working Experience was created from a deep desire to help those who are using their business and themselves as a force for good.

Taking groups of 25-30 social entrepreneurs, conscious companies, and change-makers on a co-traveling, co-creating, co-living, co-working, and collaborating 30-day curated life-changing experiences in amazing locations around the world.

WiFi Tribe has grown into a bold, beautiful, tight-knit community filled with like-minded, adventure seeking professionals across the globe .

How does it work? Members choose how many weeks they want to do within 12 months – one, two, three to five, or six or more. Once accepted as a member, you can join wherever you want in the world, stay for several chapters in a row, or pick and choose chapters across the year.

Of course, you can also hop between continents and switch rooms (private vs. shared) anytime. Whether an entrepreneur, consultant, freelancer or creative, everyone who wants to join, needs to come with one shared intention: To become a valuable part of a thriving global community!

Venture with Impact, a social enterprise providing international skilled-based volunteering programs for remotely working professionals launches new project destinations and business partnerships.

Responding to the increasing need of working professionals to find a purpose in their careers and create positive impact with their skills and expertise, Venture with Impact (VWI) opened two new programs in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Lisbon, Portugal running from May and August.

The startup arranges co-working space, accommodation, and skills-based volunteering experiences for professionals that live and travel in a country for one month while continuing to work for their jobs back home.

MovingWorlds operates as a dynamic social impact entity that addresses the global talent gap by bridging the divide.

This online platform and thriving community form a nexus that directly connects individuals eager to travel and contribute their expertise with social impact organizations spanning the globe.

The avenues for lending your skills span a multitude of sectors: be it accounting, web design, social media marketing, business and sales strategy, IT training, video editing, or SEO specialization.

With MovingWorlds, you have the incredible chance to offer your skills to startups and organizations across the world, creating meaningful impact.

Maintaining a high standard, MovingWorlds curates professionals and organizations with care. These curated talents and entities engage seamlessly through the online platform, facilitating the discovery of apt “Experteering” opportunities.

Have Fun Do Good (HFDG) stands as a purpose-driven travel and event enterprise that embraces the impact of volunteerism via distinctive and immersive opportunities.

Through their offerings of travel excursions and corporate events, they bring forth experiences that deeply involve participants in meaningful service. Regardless of whether you’re journeying to distant lands or opting for local involvement, HFDG is your comprehensive solution for diving into volunteerism.

They handle every aspect, from meticulous planning and connections to impactful charities and causes, to arranging accommodations that fit the bill. And, of course, they infuse a sense of enjoyment into every endeavor.

GoodTrip comprises a collective of experts in travel, community development, and ecology. Their core focus lies in responsible international travel and tourism, offering a unique blend of experiences.

Their approach entails leading you through journeys that foster discovery and meaningful connections, all while minimizing your ecological footprint and maximizing the positive impact you leave on the lives you encounter.

Specializing in authorized “People to People” travel experiences in Cuba, immersive Spanish language programs in Guatemala, and expert-guided trips to both Guatemala and Panamá, GoodTrip caters to a range of interests and passions.

Whether your preferences lean towards exploring architecture, birdwatching, dance, diving, history, music, yoga, adventure, or language acquisition, GoodTrip has the capability to curate a tailor-made itinerary that perfectly aligns with your desires.

Alternatively, you can embark on a shared adventure by joining one of their open trips, allowing you to discover your global interests alongside like-minded explorers.

GlobeKick brings to life adventure travel trips for the adventurous. Their travel gurus design and lead different 1week trips, every month, to a different place around the world. Adventure trips are open to GlobeKick Members only. Annual membership is $695 and includes:

1. One GlobeKick adventure of your choosing: anywhere we go, whenever we’re there, with a group of GlobeKickers from around the globe.

2. Lifetime access to GlobeKick Connect — GK’s social networking platform for travelers.

3. 15% discount (ie, $590 price-tag) on any additional adventure trips you’d like to join during your membership

4. One personalized, custom-designed GlobeKick adventure-itinerary anywhere in the world.

Inspiring people in inspiring places do inspiring things. Pop-up coworking spaces in exotic locations. “Going to the office” has a new meaning!

Coworkation wants to bring awareness to the new way of living and working that enables more freedom and whereby people can live life on their terms. Short, 1-2 week trips where every aspect of the coworkation is designed with the codes of Coworkation in mind.

Made In Tours by Urban Adventures marks Intrepid Travel’s significant stride in bolstering local economies through tourism.

Each tour within this initiative is meticulously crafted by locals themselves, ensuring an authentic and immersive experience.

These tours encompass visits to small, independent businesses, fostering a direct connection between travelers and local communities.

With a legacy of 25 years in the adventure travel industry, Intrepid Travel has been a trailblazer in guiding explorers beyond the conventional paths to uncover the world’s most extraordinary destinations.

Operating across more than 100 countries and offering over 1,000 diverse trips across every continent, this Melbourne-based tour operator is amplifying its efforts to facilitate support for local enterprises, facilitate genuine and one-of-a-kind day excursions, and utilize the influence of travel as a positive and impactful force.

Off Season Adventures operates as a wildlife and community tourism entity headquartered in the United States, with a special emphasis on inviting travelers to explore Tanzania during its off-peak periods.

This unique approach not only offers a distinctive travel experience but also empowers local entrepreneurs engaged in the tourism sector.

The core philosophy of Off Season Adventures centers around crafting unforgettable journeys for their patrons, while also upholding their commitment to sustainability and responsible travel.

For every excursion arranged by Off Season Adventures, a carbon offset initiative is implemented. Furthermore, a portion of the revenue generated is allocated to support the neighboring communities surrounding the visited lodging facilities.

This contribution aids in the enhancement of water and waste management systems, access to electricity, educational resources, and improved health services.

Thread Caravan employs local artisans to continue practicing their craft without the pressure to sell the goods they produce.

This allows for appreciation of the process, and for travelers to learn about traditional craft production in communities where various crafts have originated and have been practiced for generations.

Their 5 – 7 night trips, which can also be customized for groups, also include adventurous activities such as sailing, hiking volcanoes and visiting ancient ruins.

Presenting Hara House, the inaugural zero waste guesthouse in North India, committed to transforming the consumption habits of both locals and travelers, whether they are at home or abroad.

A significant portion—20%—of the proceeds generated from guest room bookings and tours are dedicated to supporting environmental initiatives and educational endeavors in North India through the Hara Innovation Fund.

This dynamic social enterprise manages an inclusive onsite community center, fostering collaboration with regional social entrepreneurs by furnishing them with essential resources, workspace, and financial backing for their innovative projects.

They collaborate with local governments to establish tangible, on-site communities, enhancing local economies and fostering enriching experiences.

As Digital Nomads themselves, they forge genuine on-site communities across the globe, uniting individuals who are motivated, enthusiastic, and relish the combination of travel and meaningful connections.

They manage the renowned NomadX Private Travel Community, a platform where they provide insights, advice, and exclusive deals to their community members.

Waste to Wear: Meet Topiku, the Sustainable Brand That Turns Trash Into Hats

Photo credit: Topiku Topiku makes SoCal streetwear-inspired hats from textile offcuts, leather scraps and HDPE plastics typically found in buckets. Monty Hasan, Founder of Topiku set up the sustainable fashion brand after meeting artisan villagers in his native Indonesia, who crafted bags from upcyc

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• Backpacking Trips

10 Best Backpacking Trips Around the World

The views will leave you as breathless as the treks.

Evie Carrick is a writer and editor who’s lived in five countries and visited well over 50. She now splits her time between Colorado and Paris, ensuring she doesn't have to live without skiing or L'As du Fallafel.

Ruben Earth/Getty Images

Hiking can transport you to waterfalls, high-alpine lakes, and vistas that many people never get to see. But why settle for a single day in the wilderness when you could spend multiple days soaking up the views and sleeping under the stars? Backpacking allows you to go deeper, stay longer, and in some cases, lose the crowds. Plus, there's a wonderful simplicity that comes with only being able to bring what you can carry on your back — you might be surprised by how little you need and how good you feel when you step away from it all.

When you're ready to take your love of hiking to the next level, start with a one- or two-night trip on a familiar route. Once you've got your gear, hiking legs, and general know-how dialed in, you might want to consider taking on a renowned multiday trek. While typically strenuous, these are some of the most beautiful and iconic backpacking trips in the world — just keep in mind that many require hiring a guide and obtaining a permit, so plan your journey well in advance.

Inca Trail, Peru

The Inca Trail is the famous route that leads to Machu Picchu . It provides a once-in-a-lifetime trek that follows the footsteps of a great lost civilization. While most people are in it for the finale, there's plenty more to see along this 26-mile backpacking route, During the trip, which typically takes about four days, you'll hike over Dead Woman's Pass (don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds) and amid the terraces of Wiñay Wayna while enjoying near-constant views of the Andes.

Torres del Paine W Trek, Chile

This backpacking route cuts through Torres del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region, which is renowned for its stunning mountains and uncannily blue lakes. It's also home to rare wildlife, like the guanaco, a llama-like animal. Hiking the W Trek isn't easy — it covers about 50 miles and takes most people four or five days — but waking up lakeside at the foot of a snowcapped mountain is well worth the effort. The highlight of the hike is standing at the base of the three "towers" (granite peaks) that give the national park its name.

Tour du Mont Blanc, Switzerland, Italy, and France

If you dream of immersing yourself in the Alps, here's your chance. You'll cross international borders on foot as the Tour du Mont Blanc trail passes through France, Italy, and Switzerland, circumnavigating the highest peak in Western Europe. At more than 15,700 feet, Mont Blanc is the star of this backpacking journey. The 105-mile loop includes plenty of lodging — from rustic mountain huts to luxury hotels — and you can use public transportation to shorten the trip if needed. People take anywhere from six to 12 days to complete the hike.

Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim, United States

Millions of people visit Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park each year, but few take on the Rim-to-Rim trail, which dips deep into the canyon and requires an equally steep hike out. The best option is to start at the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail, then hike out on the Bright Angel Trail, which draws plenty of South Rim day hikers. Most people split the 24-mile trek into two days, even though some fit and experienced desert backpackers can knock it out in one. Either way, hiking from one rim to the other will earn you serious bragging rights.

Panorama Ridge, Canada

Western Canada is full of amazing trails, but Panorama Ridge is extra special. The views are continual along this track, which leads you about 19 miles round trip from the Rubble Creek Trailhead just south of Whistler Village. As you make your way through the stunning Garibaldi Provincial Park, you'll pass fields of wildflowers (depending on the season), a disintegrating volcano, and a high-alpine lake, all while enjoying views of Mount Price and Mount Garibaldi. You can do the full hike over two days or one very long (about 12-hour) day. You also have the option of hiking just half of Panorama Ridge if you start and end at Garibaldi Lake Campground.

El Camino de Santiago, Spain

El Camino de Santiago is a historic Spanish pilgrimage route that leads to the Catedral de Santiago de Compostela. There are many paths to the cathedral, but one of the most scenic is Camino del Norte, which starts in San Sebastian and traverses along the northern coast before meeting up with Camino Primitivo, which is considered to be the original path.

As beautiful as it may be, keep in mind that this backpacking trip is not for the faint of heart — the entire 500-mile spiritual journey takes travelers weeks or even months. Of course, you can always dip in for a section and spend the rest of your holiday sipping on cava at a luxe resort — no judgment.

Kepler Track, New Zealand

Nestled in Fiordland National Park on New Zealand's South Island is the 37-mile Kepler Track, a loop showcasing the highlights of Fiordland: glacier-carved valleys, the sandy shores of Te Anau and Manapouri, waterfalls, and endless mountains. Start your journey from Kepler Track car park and tackle the trail counterclockwise, so you can knock out the most challenging climb up front. Most people take three or four days to complete this classic New Zealand Great Walk.

Mount Kilimanjaro Lemosho Route, Tanzania

What hiker hasn't dreamed of summiting the tallest mountain in Africa? Standing at 19,340 feet, Mount Kilimanjaro is a challenging trek, but your journey up this dormant volcano will reward you with the unforgettable experience of hiking from a bone-dry savanna to a snow-covered peak. If you're going to take on "Kili," you might as well opt for the most beautiful trail — a title well earned by the 42-mile Lemosho Route, which takes most people six to nine days to hike.

Great Ocean Walk, Australia

Natphotos/Getty Images

The 68-mile Great Ocean Walk hugs the coast of southwest Victoria, running alongside the famous driving route, the Great Ocean Road. Most people hike westbound from Apollo Bay so they can end at the true highlight of the trek: the Twelve Apostles (limestone rock formations rising dramatically from the ocean). Along the way, you'll pass through Great Otway and Port Campbell national parks where you might spot koalas in the canopy or whales in the water. No part of this hike is super steep — it's a coastal walk, after all — but walking on sand can be a challenge. The Great Ocean Walk takes about eight days to finish.

Kumano Kodō, Japan

tororo/Getty Images

The Kumano Kodō is a network of sacred pilgrimage routes — similar to Spain's El Camino — that travels for about 115 miles through bamboo forests and stunning Japanese countryside on the Kii Peninsula of Honshu. Along the route, hikers get plenty of chances to stop at shrines, soak in onsen (hot springs), and take in sights such as waterfalls and terraced rice fields. The trails are steep enough to get your blood pumping, but this immersive glimpse into Japan's history and culture is worth the four- to six-day hike.

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Top 9 Travel Trends & Innovations in 2024

How are the latest trends in the travel industry reshaping trip planning and enhancing tourist experiences in 2024? Explore our in-depth industry research on the top 9 travel trends based on our analysis of 3500+ companies worldwide. These trends include AI, immersive tourism, IoT, contactless travel & more!

Technological advancements in the travel industry meet the growing demand for personalized experiences, safety, and sustainability. Post the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging travel trends mark a shift towards contactless travel through digital payments, self-check-ins, and more. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain are automating various hospitality and travel-related operations.

For instance, smart hotels make use of internet-connected devices to remotely control rooms. Further, businesses offer virtual tours by adopting extended reality (XR) technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Travel companies also leverage data analytics to personalize marketing. At the same time, traveler assisting solutions like chatbots and voice technology aid them in booking accommodation and optimizing journeys. These travel trends improve the overall profitability of the tourism industry and enable it to make operations more sustainable and safe.

This article was published in July 2022 and updated in February 2024.

Innovation Map outlines the Top 9 Travel Trends & 18 Promising Startups

For this in-depth research on the Top 9 Trends & Startups, we analyzed a sample of 18 global startups and scaleups. The result of this research is data-driven innovation intelligence that improves strategic decision-making by giving you an overview of emerging technologies & startups in the travel industry. These insights are derived by working with our Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform , covering 2 500 000+ startups & scaleups globally. As the world’s largest resource for data on emerging companies, the SaaS platform enables you to identify relevant startups, emerging technologies & future industry trends quickly & exhaustively.

In the Innovation Map below, you get an overview of the Top 9 Travel Trends & Innovations that impact travel & tourism companies worldwide. Moreover, the Travel Innovation Map reveals 3 500+ hand-picked startups, all working on emerging technologies that advance their field.

Top 9 Travel Trends

• Artificial Intelligence
• Immersive Tourism
• Internet of Things
• Contactless Travel
• Big Data & Analytics
• Post-Pandemic Tourism
• Tour Premiumization

Click to download

Tree Map reveals the Impact of the Top 9 Travel Trends

Based on the Travel Innovation Map, the Tree Map below illustrates the impact of the Top 9 Travel Industry Trends in 2024. Startups and scaleups are enabling contactless travel using technologies like biometrics, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and near-field communication (NFC). This is due to increasing health and hygiene concerns post the pandemic. The use of AI in tourism ensures hassle-free trip planning while AR and VR allow tourists to virtually visit various locations and excursions. IoT increases visibility into tourism industry operations and allows passengers to track their luggage more efficiently. Further, the demand for personalized and luxurious travel is rising. Several startups enable recreational space travel as well as offer sustainable travel options to passengers.

Global Startup Heat Map covers 3 635 Travel Startups & Scaleups

The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the global distribution of the 3 635 exemplary startups & scaleups that we analyzed for this research. Created through the StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, the Heat Map reveals that the US, Europe, and India see the most activity.

Below, you get to meet 18 out of these 3 635 promising startups & scaleups as well as the solutions they develop. These 18 startups are hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. Depending on your specific needs, your top picks might look entirely different.

Interested in exploring all 3500+ travel startups & scaleups?

Top 9 Travel Trends in 2024

1. artificial intelligence.

Hotels employ intelligent chatbots, powered by AI, to provide quick and personalized responses to traveler inquiries. These chatbots simplify the booking process and gather customer reviews, aiding potential travelers in making informed decisions. Moreover, AI-based robots enhance the customer experience by automating hotel disinfection and delivering room service.

At airports, these robots guide travelers and assist with luggage handling. Facial recognition technology, driven by AI, expedites identity verification at airports, enhancing security and offering a swift alternative to traditional methods. Startups are developing AI-powered trip planning solutions, optimizing journeys, and personalizing travel experiences.

Travel Professor develops a Travel Chatbot

UK-based startup Travel Professor offers an AI-enabled chatbot for travelers. The startup’s chat widget software monitors multiple flight deals and notifies users when their preferences match. It also provides travel destination recommendations and flight price alerts. This allows travelers to book economical flights and have a budget-friendly tourism experience.

Pneuma Travel facilitates Travel Planning

US startup Pneuma Travel develops a voice-assisted digital agent, Sarah , to streamline the process of travel planning. This assistant, powered by AI, excels in arranging flight and accommodation bookings and assists travelers in discovering a variety of activities. Sarah , available round the clock, provides continuous support for all travel-related inquiries.

Moreover, Sarah customizes travel options according to individual preferences and budgetary constraints. The agent further enhances the travel experience by providing insights into local attractions in unfamiliar cities. Importantly, Sarah enables real-time modifications to travel plans, in compliance with specific airline policies, thereby minimizing waiting times for users.

2. Immersive Tourism

Immersive tourism caters to the growing demand for meaningful experiences among travelers, leveraging AR, VR, and mixed reality (MR). VR simulates original locations through a computer-generated environment, allowing tourists to virtually explore destinations. It provides travelers with a comprehensive 360-degree tour of points of interest.

AR enhances the travel experience with interactive elements such as navigation maps and ads. Travel companies employ AR and VR-based gamification to heighten tourist attractions. Moreover, these technologies enable hotels and resorts to present amenities and rooms in an engaging, interactive manner.

VR Travel Expo offers VR-based Travel Plans

US startup VR Travel Expo develops a VR travel application to transform the way people research and book travel. The application enables users to plan their vacations more efficiently. It provides an engaging platform for users to explore and expand their knowledge of the world. Moreover, it employs 3D geospatial technology that creates real-time digital twins of the world. This further enhances the travel planning experience.

AR Tour makes AR Glasses

Italian startup AR Tour offers AR-powered tours. The startup’s AR glasses superimpose reconstructed images of archaeological ruins to show how the site originally was. Its tour informs the tourists about the site’s history and significance via an audio-visual package. Moreover, the startup designs lightweight AR glasses to prevent motion sickness among tourists, improving convenience.

3. Internet of Things

IoT generates ample data that tourism companies leverage to personalize services in their subsequent visits. Hotels use IoT sensors to enable smart rooms that automate room lighting, temperature, and ambiance control, enhancing guest comfort. These sensors adjust appliances in vacant rooms, conserving energy and reducing the building’s carbon footprint.

Startups harness IoT to deliver location-specific information to customers, including real-time luggage tracking via IoT tags, minimizing lost items. Airlines also incorporate IoT-based solutions into seats, monitoring passenger temperature and heart rate for proactive health management.

Altitude enables Smart Hotels

New Zealand-based startup Altitude creates an IoT-based hotel software and hardware to develop smart hotels. The startup makes self-service kiosks to automate reservations, room up-gradation, payments, as well as check-in and check-out. Its hotel management platform further enables contactless engagement with guests. Additionally, Altitude’s mobile keys allow guests to open doors using mobile phones, providing convenience and saving time for travelers.

Smart Tour provides Smart Itineraries

Brazilian startup Smart Tour offers smart itineraries using IoT and quick response (QR) codes. The startup recommends travel routes and destinations based on the user’s preference in real-time. This facilitates a seamless experience for travelers. Besides, the user-generated data enables tourism managers to better understand consumer behavior and indulge in proximity marketing. The startup also offers a contact tracing solution to monitor COVID-19 infected travelers and ensure public safety.

4. Contactless Travel

Travelers benefit from contactless recognition technologies like retina scanning, which replace traditional travel documents, speeding up passenger identification and reducing airport queues. QR codes offered by travel companies allow tourists to access relevant information on their mobile devices, enhancing engagement.

Hotels have introduced contactless self-check-ins, enabling visitors to arrange services before arrival. Additionally, contactless payment modes are available in hotels and restaurants for swift and secure transactions. Moreover, wearable devices are transforming the travel experience by providing real-time notifications and touch-free access to services and information.

Loxe designs Smart Hotel Keys

US-based startup Loxe makes smart mobile keys for hotels. The startup’s smartphone app replaces key cards with contactless mobile keys that allow users to unlock doors using smartphones. It also reduces operational costs incurred in the manufacturing of conventional keys or plastic cards. Moreover, the startup designs a Bluetooth retrofit module that converts normal door locks into mobile-ready door locks. This allows hotel owners to easily convert their existing locks into smart ones without additional expenses while improving guest safety and convenience.

Avendi provides Contactless Payment

Singaporean startup Avendi offers contactless and cashless payments for travelers. The startup allows tourists to accumulate expenses throughout their trip and pay at the end of the journey. Avendi’s app utilizes QR codes to add all the billed expenses and shown through its dashboard. The user settles the tab amount in the preferred currency, preventing the inconvenience of cash withdrawal or credit card payments.

5. Big Data & Analytics

Big data empowers travel companies with customer trends for strategic marketing. Analyzing traveler behavior, they offer tailored recommendations for hotel bookings, cab hires, flight reservations, and ticket purchases.

Predicting future demand is another advantage of big data and analytics, helping hotels and airlines identify peak periods to optimize revenue. Advanced analysis of transactional data aids in detecting cyber fraud, and safeguarding sensitive customer information such as credit card details and biometric data.

CheckandPack creates a Travel Platform

Dutch startup CheckandPack offers a big data travel platform. It runs marketing campaigns to gather traveler data and understand tourism trends. Based on these insights, the platform enables businesses to approach travelers with a customized appeal. It also provides travelers with holiday planning.

3Victors provides Travel Data Analytics

US-based startup 3Victors offers travel data analytics. The startup’s product, PriceEye Suite , proactively monitors the prices of numerous airlines to provide insights into competitor prices. It creates a dashboard to display travelers’ location of interest, allowing travel airlines to better manage their revenue and pricing strategy.

6. Post-Pandemic Tourism

Post-pandemic tourism focuses on safe, sustainable, and flexible travel options, responding to evolving traveler preferences and health guidelines. Enhanced health and safety protocols, including regular sanitization and contactless services, become standard in airlines and hotels, ensuring traveler confidence.

Destinations and operators emphasize outdoor and less crowded experiences, catering to a heightened demand for nature-based and wellness travel. Flexible booking policies and trip insurance gain prominence, offering peace of mind amid uncertainties. Sustainable travel gains traction, with tourists and businesses prioritizing environmental impact and community well-being.

GOPASS Global enables Pre-travel Risk Management

Singaporean startup GOPASS Global provides a travel risk analytics platform against COVID-19. It analyzes the biosecurity risk elements involved in a trip, such as border restrictions, quarantine requirements, airport type, and airline transit points or seating in real-time. This allows travelers to assess risk factors and plan their trips accordingly.

Moreover, the startup creates world maps displaying information regarding COVID-prone areas, testing areas, and vaccine coverage. This provides travelers with a preview of the current situation, allowing them to ensure safety during business and leisure travel.

Workcations enables Work from Anywhere

Indian startup Workcations provides properties at tourist destinations for remote-working individuals. It offers amenities like internet connectivity, food, and a quiet ambiance, allowing tourists to work in a peaceful environment without hindrance. This increases employee productivity, motivation, and retention.

7. Tour Premiumization

Hyper-personalization in travel experiences is on the rise, with tourists eager to immerse themselves in diverse cultures. Luxury travelers enjoy tailored experiences and intuitive services through tour premiumization. Health and wellness packages offered by travel startups help tourists unwind.

These retreats enhance health and offer detoxifying food options. Space tourism is another exciting development, offering leisure or research trips to space. Lastly, travel startups are fostering customer loyalty and building strong relationships through membership or subscription models.

STOKE provides Space Tour

US-based startup STOKE facilitates space travel using everyday-operable rockets. The startup’s rockets are reusable and deliver satellites to any desired orbit. This enables on-demand access to space, paving way for space tours for exploration, recreation, and research. The startup also emphasizes the economical and rapid development of its hardware for feasible spacecraft launches, advancing space tourism.

Origin offers Travel Personalization

Dutch startup Origin provides premium travel personalization to tourists. The startup utilizes machine learning and travel curators to plan creative vacations. It also arranges flights and accommodation for travelers. Further, the startup measures the carbon output of itineraries and offers sustainable tourism options.

8. Ecotourism

Traveling responsibly minimizes tourism’s environmental impact and supports local communities’ well-being. Ecotourists strive to reduce their carbon footprint during their journeys. Startups contribute by developing sustainable transport, ecolodges, and solar-powered resorts.

Airline passengers have the option to offset carbon emissions during flight bookings. Local tourism stimulates small businesses economically and creates job opportunities. It also emphasizes minimum littering, which lowers pollution and the time spent on cleanups.

Jet-Set Offset simplifies Flight Carbon Offset

US-based startup Jet-Set Offset creates a carbon-offsetting platform for air travel. The startup partners with non-profit organizations working against climate change and connects them with travelers. Each time travelers book flight tickets via the startup’s platform, Jet-Set Offset contributes a certain amount per mile for their journey to environmental organizations. This way, the passenger’s journey promotes mileage-based donations to offset carbon emissions.

The Green Stamp facilitates Ethical Wildlife Tour

Dutch startup The Green Stamp provides a platform to book ethical wildlife tours. It curates tours based on the tourists’ inclinations toward certain locations or wildlife. Exploration of these projects allows travelers to indirectly contribute to their cause as these wildlife projects donate to the welfare of local communities and the environment.

9. Blockchain

Blockchain provides the travel industry with operational transparency and security. Traceable payments, particularly for international travel, are a key application, that fosters trust among parties involved in transactions.

Automation and enforcement of agreements in travel insurance and supplier contracts are achieved through smart contracts. This strengthens reliability and cuts administrative costs. Travel firms establish customer loyalty programs where points are exchanged for cryptocurrency. Lastly, blockchain increases data storage security, reducing the risk of information leaks.

Upswing facilitates Guest Profiling

Indian startup Upswing creates AURA , a blockchain-powered platform for guest profiling. It provides a holistic view of guests, their preferences, and purchase patterns. The platform associates a score with each guest and suggests improvements in their service. This facilitates hotels to provide a personalized experience to their guests and, in turn, increase sales.

UIQ Travel develops a Solo Traveling App

US-based startup UIQ Travel develops a blockchain-based app to connect solo travelers. It discovers people with shared interests and suggests tours or attractions. Such hyper-personalized recommendations assist in experience discovery and also increase traveler engagement.

Discover all Travel Trends, Technologies & Startups

Tourism, although severely impacted by the pandemic, now continues to rapidly grow across the globe. Post-pandemic trends indicate an increasing emphasis on hygiene and safety during travel. The industry is witnessing the widespread adoption of disruptive technologies like AI, XR, IoT, and blockchain. The travel industry utilizes big data to understand traveler trends for targeted marketing. The transition to ecotourism is accelerating as businesses integrate zero-emission transit and carbon offset programs to reduce their carbon footprint.

The Travel Trends & Startups outlined in this report only scratch the surface of trends that we identified during our data-driven innovation and startup scouting process. Among others, personalization, decarbonization, and travel safety will transform the sector as we know it today. Identifying new opportunities and emerging technologies to implement into your business goes a long way in gaining a competitive advantage. Get in touch to easily and exhaustively scout startups, technologies & trends that matter to you!

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Critical Financial

18 Reasons Why America Is No Longer the Greatest Country in the World

Posted: May 14, 2024 | Last updated: May 14, 2024

Most Americans still believe that America is one of the greatest countries in the world, but it’s plagued by issues that threaten its reputation as “the shining city on the hill.” Polarization, eroding civil liberties, and deteriorating mental health are some of the 18 reasons why America may not be the greatest country in the world. 

Political Polarization

America has suffered from an increasingly polarized political landscape over the last decade, especially since the 2016 election, which has decreased bipartisan cooperation. There’s a decline in trust in political institutions and elected officials. The Pew Research Center reported last year that public trust in the federal government is “near record lows.”

Deterioration of Infrastructure

America’s infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and public transportation, needs upgrades and repairs. The Biden administration has implemented billions of dollars of spending on infrastructure, but it is lagging behind America’s competitors, especially China. The recent collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore highlights infrastructure developed for smaller boats, trains, and vehicles. 

Declining Global Influence

Other nations, notably China, challenge America’s dominance in global affairs and point to the country’s problems as a byproduct of dysfunctional democracy. America’s military interventions in the Middle East post-9/11 and its recent disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan have damaged its international reputation. 

Environmental Degradation

America’s slow response to climate change and the skepticism of some Republicans threaten the global effort to combat rising temperatures. Urbanization and industrialization also threaten wildlife and biodiversity across the nation. 

Issues with Gun Control

America has a uniquely high rate of gun-related deaths compared to other developed countries. Suicides account for over half of these deaths, and the country struggles with school shootings more than any other country. 

Erosion of Civil Liberties

Brookings notes that the country is experiencing “two major forms of democratic erosion in its governing institutions: election manipulation and executive overreach.” Since 2010, American state legislatures have passed laws that aim to “reduce voters’ access to the ballot, politicize election administration,” and shut down electoral competition with extreme gerrymandering. 

Challenges in Innovation and Technology

Other countries are leading in emerging technologies, including 5G and renewable energy. While America is at the forefront of the development of AI, regulatory and financial hurdles are impeding the growth of startups and innovation that will push the industry forward. 

Social Fragmentation

Over the past decades, divides based on race, religion, and political ideology have grown among some Americans. The increasing trend of working from home has also led to a declining sense of community and increasing social isolation. 

Decline in Educational Standards

The Hill recently reported that hopes that K-12 math scores would rebound after plummeting during the COVID-19 pandemic “have proven vain.” They’re the “worst they’ve been since the 1970s.” America is lagging in STEM and data literacy rankings globally. 

Deteriorating Mental Health

There has been an alarming increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide rates in America, with 50,000 Americans taking their lives in 2022. A lack of widespread access to affordable and effective mental health care, along with a persistent stigma, is hindering individuals from seeking help. 

Consumerism and Materialism

High consumption levels have been shown to lead to unhappiness in the U.S. Due to the culture of consumerism, Americans are widely accepted as living in debt, which has led to environmental degradation from unsustainable consumption patterns. 

Immigration Challenges

Immigration, particularly illegal immigration at the southern border, is a highly divisive issue in America. Challenges in integrating immigrants and avoiding a rise in xenophobia are significant issues, as is reforming immigration policies when Democrats and Republicans can’t reach an agreement. 

Rising Income Inequality

Over recent decades, the income disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest in America has grown significantly, as has the gap between poorer and richer areas. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported last year that “geographic income inequality has risen more than 40% between 1980 and 2021.”

Education System Inequities

Unequal access to quality education for students in poorer, marginalized communities, particularly in inner-city areas, is a significant problem in America. Persistent underfunding of these schools and disputes over curriculum content also reflect broader cultural wars. 

The Opioid Crisis

Widespread addiction to opioids has plagued America since the 1990s, and today, deaths from overdose are among the leading causes of injury-related casualties in the country. Aggressive marketing of opioids by pharmaceutical companies in the 1990s led to thousands of deaths and lives ruined by addiction. The rise of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, over the past decade, with imports from China and Mexico, has compounded the problem. 

Erosion of Healthcare Quality

Despite high spending, the American healthcare system isn’t known for being the most effective and struggles with significant administrative overheads. KFF notes that in “2022, 25.6 million nonelderly individuals were uninsured,” primarily “because the cost of coverage was too high.”

Economic Vulnerabilities

America’s persistent trade deficits with key global partners and adversaries, as well as a growing national debt and concerns over fiscal sustainability over the past decade, have led some to worry about economic vulnerability. However, the economy is doing well, with low unemployment levels, rising wages, and inflation falling. 

Media Polarization

Over the past few decades, there has been increasing polarization within the media, with news outlets devoting more airtime to opinion shows catering to specific ideological audiences. The news media in America plays a significant role in shaping political views and is partly responsible for the polarized political climate.

Read More: 17 Things Society Can No Longer Do Because Gen Z Said So

Gen Z, our digital-native, trendsetting generation, is making waves in the cultural sea, steering the ship of societal norms in fresh and unexpected directions. As they charter new territories, there are certain practices they’d rather we say goodbye to. Curious? Let’s take a look at 17 things the rest of us can no longer do because Gen Z said so.

17 Things Society Can No Longer Do Because Gen Z Said So

19 Big Mistakes People Make After Losing a Spouse

Losing a spouse is one of life’s most tragic experiences, and when we’re overwhelmed by grief, we might make some decisions that we’ll later regret. Here are 19 mistakes people make after losing their spouse.

20 Time-Honored Practices Our Grandparents Followed That We Should Bring Back

Our grandparents had a far simpler life. There was no such thing as social media. Instead, there was more walking and meals were always fresh and homemade. With so many things keeping us busy nowadays, sometimes life would seem much easier if we lived the way our grandparents did.

19 Common Behaviors of Highly Intelligent People

Intelligent individuals often display a range of behaviors and qualities that set them apart from others. When exploring these characteristics, it’s crucial to comprehend that intelligence is a multifaceted attribute. Here are 19 essential behaviors and qualities frequently observed in highly intelligent people.

17 Things We Were Taught in High School That We Now Know Aren’t True

Well, this one may depend on when you went to high school, but for this millennial, these are the things we were taught in high school that have been proven not to be true. Personally, I still want to go back and correct every teacher who told me I wouldn’t always have a calculator in my pocket; the joke is on them.

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UN Tourism launches Women in Tech Startup Competition: Middle East

UN Tourism’s latest initiative supports women-led startups in the Middle East that merge sustainable tourism with innovative technology to drive regional development and empower female entrepreneurship in the sector.

UN Tourism has launched the second edition of its Women in Tech Startup Competition: Middle East . The initiative aims to highlight and support women entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of sustainable tourism and technology across the region.

Applications now Open

The competition targets startups that are led by women and based in the Middle East. Enterprises must be operating within the tourism sector and related industries, and offer sustainable solutions for people, the planet, and prosperity. They must also be an entrepreneurial project at an early stage, idea stage, or Series A stage of their journey. Applications are open for the following three categories:

• People and Skills: this category calls for startups with environmental and sustainable approaches in education tech, social connectivity, wellness or health, with cross-cutting benefits with tourism.
• Green Travel Solutions: for startups that use environmentally friendly and sustainable approaches in green tech, green infrastructure, travel and logistics, urban development or rural development, with cross-cutting benefits with tourism.
• Market Innovators: for startups working with emergent technologies applied to tourism.

UN Tourism has welcomed key global and regional partners and ecosystem collaborators to support the winning startups. Almosafer, Plug and Play, AIM, The Bench, Impulse4Women and Bilakatu will be providing visibility, personalized mentorship, consultancy and access to potential investment to the best entrepreneurial solutions. This year’s applications will be processed through Plug and Play’s open innovation platform, the largest in the world, and the finalists will also be invited to join the global UN Tourism Innovation Network.

The launch was announced at the AIM Congress, a leading investment platform, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, during a special UN Tourism Investment Forum session on “Investing in Innovation and Enabling Women Entrepreneurs”.

The second edition follows on from the success of the inaugural initiative, with over 140 startups and SMEs applying from 11 countries. The four winners, Fosha (Egypt), Sparkle Haze (UAE), Plastus Biotech (Saudi Arabia), Xenios Academy (UAE) were announced last year during the celebrations for World Tourism Day on 27 September in Riyadh.

UN Tourism and Women Empowerment

UN Tourism is committed to advancing the positive impact of tourism on women’s lives, thereby contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 5 – Gender Equality. The organization has been actively supporting women entrepreneurs, working to propel the tourism sector forward and to foster inclusivity.

UN Tourism Executive Director Natalia Bayona says: “It is crucial to empower female entrepreneurs in the Middle East with innovative business proposals that have a component of positive social impact and respect for the environment to support the sustainable development of the growing tourism sector in the region.”

UN Tourism and Innovation

Since 2018, UN Tourism has launched more than 25 startup competitions and innovation challenges, covering over 150 countries around the world. With over 20,000 participants and more than 350 top startups mapped with USD 2+ billion in funding, UN Tourism continues its efforts to support digitalization and innovation to advance the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Tourism is a tool for positive transformation and inclusive economic development.

Theodore Koumelis

Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.

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Stanford's VR breakthrough could spell the end of clunky headsets - thanks to AI

Research team at Stanford from left-to-right: Brian Chao, Manu Gopakumar, Gun-Yeal Lee, Gordon Wetzstein, Suyeon Choi (Photo by Andrew Brodhead).

One of the biggest criticisms of AR and VR, and especially Apple's vision of what it calls " spatial computing ," is the bulk of the eyewear. There's no doubt we've reached the point where some XR devices and experiences are amazing, but there's a fairly high wall of annoyance to climb to make use of them.

Devices are heavy, ugly, and uncomfortable, and while the four-year-old  Quest 2 is available for $200 , prices go up and up, with the $3500 Apple Vision Pro causing wallets to implode.

Also: Why Meta's Ray-Ban Smart Glasses are my favorite tech purchase this year

Although we've long seen the promise of VR, and we all expect the technology to get better, we've mostly had to trust in the historical pace of technological advancement to provide us with assurance of a more practical future. But now, we're starting to see real science happening that showcases how this all might be possible.

A team of researchers at Stanford University, led by engineering associate professor Gorden Wetzstein, has built a prototype of lightweight glasses that can show digital images in front of your eyes, blending them seamlessly with the real world. His team specializes in computational imaging and display technologies. They've been working on integrating digital information into our visual perception of the real world.

"Our headset appears to the outside world just like an everyday pair of glasses, but what the wearer sees through the lenses is an enriched world overlaid with vibrant, full-color 3D computed imagery," says Wetzstein. "Holographic displays have long been considered the ultimate 3D technique, but it's never quite achieved that big commercial breakthrough…Maybe now they have the killer app they've been waiting for all these years."

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So what is Wetzstein's team doing that's different from the work at Apple and Meta?

Protype holographic glasses

The Stanford team is focusing on fundamental technologies and scientific advancements in holographic augmented reality and computational imaging. They're doing research into creating new ways for generating more natural and immersive visual experiences using sophisticated techniques like metasurface waveguides and AI-driven holography.

Metasurface waveguides?

Let's deconstruct both words. A metasurface is an engineered material that consists of tiny, precisely arranged structures on a surface. These structures are smaller than the wavelengths of the light they're interacting with.

The idea is these tiny nanostructures, called waveguides, manipulate light in strategic ways, altering phase, amplitude, and polarization as it traverses the material. This allows engineers to exert very detailed control over light.

What we've been seeing with both the Quest 3 and Vision Pro is the use of traditional computer displays, but scaled down to fit in front of our eyes. The display technology is impressive, but it's still an evolution of screen output.

Stanford's approach throws that out so that the computer doesn't directly drive a screen. Instead, it controls light paths using the waveguides. Radically oversimplified, it's using these three approaches:

Spatial light modulation: A computer CPU or GPU controls spatial light modulators (SLMs) that adjust the light entering the waveguides. These are tiny devices used to control intensity, phase, or direction of light on a pixel-by-pixel basis. By manipulating the properties of light, they direct and manipulate light itself at the nano-level.

Complex light patterns: A VR device calculates and generates complex light patterns, which allows the headset to dictate the specific ways light interacts with the metasurface. This, in turn, modifies the eventual image seen by a user.

Real-time adjustments: Computers then make real-time adjustments to the nano-light sequences, based on user interaction and environmental change. The idea is to make sure the content shown is stable and accurate for various conditions and lighting activities.

You can see why AI is critical in this application

Doing all this industrial light magic doesn't come easily. AI needs to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Here's some of what the AI has to do to make this possible:

Improve image formation: AI algorithms use a combination of physically accurate modeling and learned component attributes to predict and correct how light traverses the holographic environment.

Optimization of wavefront manipulation: The AIs have to adjust the phase and amplitude of light at various stages to generate a desired visual outcome. They do this using a precise manipulation of the wavefronts in the XR environment.

Handling complex calculations: This, of course, requires a lot of math. It's necessary to model the behavior of light within the metasurface waveguide, dealing with the diffraction, interference, and dispersion of light.

While some of these challenges might be possible using traditional top-down computing, most of the process requires capabilities that are beyond the capabilities of traditional approaches. AI has to step up in the following ways:

Complex pattern recognition and adaptation: A hallmark of AI capability, especially in terms of machine learning, is the ability to recognize complex patterns and adapt to new data without explicitly requiring new programming. With holography AR, this ability allows the AI to deal with the thousands of variables involved in light propagation (phase shifts, interference patterns, diffraction effects, and more), and then correct for changes dynamically.

Real-time processing and optimization: That dynamic correction needs to be done in real time, and when we're talking about light coming into the eye, the need is for truly instant response. Even the slightest delay can cause issues for the wearer, ranging from slight discomfort to violent nausea. But with the AI's ability to process enormous amounts of data as it flows, and then make instantaneous adjustments, human-compatible light processing for AR vision is possible.

Machine learning from feedback: Machine learning enables the XR systems to improve dynamically over time, processing camera feedback and continuously refining the holographic images projected, reducing errors and enhancing image quality.

Handling non-linear and high-dimensional data: The math involved in how light interacts with complex surfaces, especially the metasurfaces used in holography, often requires calculations based on data that is wildly non-linear and contains vast arrays of data points. AI's are built to manage this data by leveraging machine learning's ability to deal with complex data sets and perform real-time processing.

Integration of diverse data types: The data available to produce the images required in holographic AR is not limited to just giant sets of X/Y coordinates. AIs are able to process optical data, spatial data, and environmental information, and use all of it to create composite images.

What does it all mean?

Without a doubt, the single biggest factor holding back the popularity of XR and spatial computing devices is the bulk of the headset. If functionality like that found in Quest 3 or the Vision Pro were available in a pair of traditional glasses, the potential would be huge.

Also: Meta Quest 2 vs Quest 3: Which VR headset should you buy?

There is a limit to how small glasses can become when embedding traditional screens. But by changing the optical properties of the glass itself, scientists would be building on the most accepted augmented reality device in history: our glasses.

Unfortunately, what the Stanford team has now is a prototype. The technology needs to be developed much more to move from research, into fundamental science, into the engineering lab, and then on to productization. While the Stanford team didn't predict how long that would take, it would be a fair bet to assume this technology is at least five to ten years out.

But don't let that discourage you. It's been about 17 years since the first iPhone was released and even in the device's first three or four years, we saw tremendous improvement. I expect we'll see similar improvements in the next few years for the current crop of spatial computing and XR devices.

Of course, the future is out there. What will this be like in 17 years? Perhaps the Stanford team has given us our first glimpse.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter , and follow me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz , on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz , on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz , and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV .

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