travel based startups

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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16 Less-Known Travel and Tourism Startups Around the World

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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

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.

At Plug and Play's Travel accelerator we are in touch with corporations and startups that are changing the world as we know it. Join our platform today.

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

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Europe’s Top 50 Travel Startups 2021 – Premium Report

The past 16 months have been extremely challenging for all travel-related companies. Travel restrictions and social distancing forced most of the global travel sector to a halt. But some innovators kept going, and are now catching up momentum again.

This is why at EU-Startups we decided to dig deeper into the travel industry, to present you with the most resilient and innovative European startups that have survived and are now ready to disrupt the travel sector.

After an intensive research, we selected “Europe’s Top 50 Travel Startups” – all founded between 2018 and 2021. The premium report can be purchased/downloaded here  for just €95 (£82).

Below you’ll find a little appetizer in the form of 5 promising travel startups which are also featured in our report. We’re listing those 5 companies below in no particular order.

If you want to see the full list of the Top 50 Travel startups, make sure to download our report . The accepted payment options are PayPal and Credit Card, but you can also send an email to [email protected] , and we’ll send you the report and a corresponding invoice (payable via bank transfer).

By the way : If you’re interested in travel startups, also make sure to sign up for our free FutureTravel newsletter, which provides you with a weekly update regarding travel trends, innovation and travel startups.

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Paris hilton and an esteemed group of travel leaders invest €3 million in the berlin-based ai travel planner ‘layla’, milan-based weroad takes off with €18 million series b to reinvent group adventure travel for millennials, london-based traveltech interlnkd bags €1.1 million to empower travel sellers to ear new revenue streams, barcelona-based caravelo takes off with €3.5 million to expand “all you can fly” subscriptions, meet europe’s top 50 travel startups of 2023 (premium report), meet the 10 finalists of the 2023 futuretravel summit pitch competition, pioneering the future of travel: meet 10 european alternatives to expedia, berlin-based squake raises €3.5 million to enable travel and logistics players to make more sustainable choices, most popular, toulouse-based space tech infinite orbits bags €12 million to build first life extension satellite, antwerp-based vc pitchdrive raises third fund of €40 million to fuel entrepreneur-driven early-stage investing, vds has opened the call for its seventh edition international startup competition in valencia (sponsored), introducing resourcly: the winner of the eu-startups summit 2024 pitch competition.

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Travel startups: Disruption from within?

Startups play an essential role in spearheading innovation that benefits consumers, businesses, and industries. But travel startups have been underfunded when compared to startups in other sectors. Looking back over the past 15 years, the travel and tourism industry received around 1 percent of funding for startups across all industries. 1 McKinsey analysis based on PitchBook Data, Inc.. This relatively low level of investment stands out in contrast to the industry’s size: Travel and tourism contributed to over 10 percent of global GDP in 2019. 2 “Travel & Tourism: Economic impact 2022,” World Travel & Tourism Council, June 14, 2022. These factors suggest that it’s a tough industry in which to raise money.

Despite these funding challenges, and unprecedented industry uncertainties, over $27 billion worth of investments were poured into travel companies from 2020 to 2022. In fact, in 2021, investment set a new record of just under $11 billion—indicating that investor appetite has not only returned to pre-COVID-19 levels, but even surpassed it.

About this research

Analysis is based on information obtained from the Phocuswright startup database. Funding was analyzed from 2005 to 2022 YTD (including November 2022), based on a sample of 3,865 startups. This included 6,395 funding rounds, accounting for $76 billion in funding (exhibit).

Given this context, a new report Travel startups: Disruption from within–or not? presents an overview of the travel startup environment, and how the funding landscape has evolved across geographies, and across the different types of travel startups. Analysis is based on information obtained from the Phocuswright startup database and draws on insights from industry executives (see sidebar, “About this research”).

The report examines the kinds of investors that are funding these startups—and the types of businesses they choose for investment. It also puts forward possible future scenarios that would have implications for travel companies and stakeholders in the startup space. This article presents some of the key findings.

Fewer travel startups are attracting funding, but when they do, they secure a substantial amount

Even though funding may be hard to come by, compared to other sectors, investors are interested in travel and tourism. Investment in travel startups has returned to pre-pandemic levels and has even surpassed record-breaking years in the past, such as 2015 and 2019. These peaks were achieved through significant acquisitions that may have consolidated the market. For instance the online travel agency Expedia acquired HomeAway for $3.9 billion in 2015. 3 “Expedia to acquire HomeAway, Inc.,” Expedia media statement, PR Newswire, November 4, 2015.

Furthermore, funding per round has increased over the past decade from an average of around $4 million in 2010 to $20 million in 2022, with the steepest increase seen during the pandemic (Exhibit 1). This indicates that fewer travel startups could be attracting funding, but when they do, they secure a substantial amount. In essence, the relatively small amount of funding that exists is shifting toward fewer startups.

Funding has shifted toward more mature startups

Q&a with johannes reck, ceo of getyourguide.

Johannes Reck is CEO of GetYourGuide, a Berlin-based online travel agency and online marketplace for tours, attractions, and excursions. The company’s website and app connects travelers with activity providers around the world, offering thousands of products in more than 20 languages, and 40 currencies. He shares his views on the investment landscape for travel startups:

What patterns have you noticed regarding investment in travel startups?

At a high level I would say that too little VC money flows into travel altogether, probably due to the market cap that has been realized, and that startups in the scaling phase still have to demonstrate profitability to attract funding. It’s also important not to generalize the way we think about startups—they range in size and maturity from two employees to major disruptors. Essentially, if innovation is not yet proven, then there is little or no money coming in, and this is especially true in Europe.

Are certain types of startups attracting more investor interest than others?

There are category leaders emerging in many areas, such as flights, accommodation, and experiences. I think investors have no appetite to pour money into a number three or four in any given category. And because of the global network effect in travel, it’s really difficult to design a new category. For instance, the chance that a new company could fundamentally disrupt an established concept such as Airbnb, or Booking.com, is limited because of the network effect that locks in global supply and demand—and that’s what makes category leaders so defensible.

Furthermore, there is a perception that as large firms are so big, they can do everything, and that may scare away a lot of investors from betting on a smaller innovative company. The presence of large incumbents may stifle innovation—but startups have a central role to play in this regard and can benefit the entire industry.

What role do you think travel companies could play in the startup landscape?

I think travel companies have to invest in innovation now, otherwise they could be worse positioned in a future crisis. Essentially, travel companies could look at how investing in startups could strengthen all areas of their value chain. They could also focus on the value that innovation will bring to the industry, instead of investing only with profit in mind.

That said, there may be room for travel companies to look at M&A. There is much less competition, compared to pre-COVID-19, and acquisition is now much more efficient. This means that companies could be in a position to grow—much faster and with less effort.

Across industries, later-stage funding (i.e., Series B, C, D) has made up the majority of startup investment (Exhibit 2). Between 2020 and 2022, more acquisitions (e.g., Getaroom.com and On Location Experiences) and public financing rounds (e.g., Sonder and Vacasa) took place than in previous years. This could be symptomatic of a trend: Investors may want to back category leaders that have reached scale (See sidebar, “Q&A with Johannes Reck, CEO of GetYourGuide”).

Hospitality startups remain the leading category for investment

Most recent funding has been channeled to hospitality startups, making up 49 percent of investment between 2015 and 2019, and 41 percent between 2020 and 2022. This is likely due to the rising popularity of short-term rentals. Startups providing services for short-term rentals, such as Airbnb or AvantStay, accounted for 55 percent of hospitality startup funding in 2021.

Business travel startups doubled their share of investment during the pandemic, and within this category, startups in the corporate segment, such as the expense-management software provider Divvy, secured 98 percent of funding between 2020 and 2022. The MICE segment received the remaining 2 percent, likely due to the decrease in events during the pandemic.

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In the same period, booking and transport startups lost some share of funding as investor priorities may have shifted during the crisis. In the booking category, online travel agency businesses secured 90 percent of funding.

Overall, the pre-trip category remains the least funded, having attracted 1 percent of total funding in the past seven years. Within this category, startups in insurance attracted 84 percent of funding in 2021 (Exhibit 3).

Travel companies account for a relatively small percentage of travel startup funding

Since 2015, five categories of investors have funded travel startups:

• Angel and private investors: These investors oversaw 138 rounds of capital raising totaling $3.6 billion between 2015 and 2021.
• Banks and the public sector: These institutions oversaw 125 funding rounds, totaling $6.4 billion. Much of this funding took place in 2021, likely due to pandemic-related bailouts and large rounds of debt funding.
• Venture capital (VC) and VC-orientated private equity (PE) firms: This group raised 2,090 rounds of funding, totaling $72 billion.
• Travel companies: These are frequently in-house incubators or joint ventures that provide potential businesses with direct support. Travel companies raised $7.8 billion in investment through 389 rounds.
• Non-travel companies: Despite not being in the tourism sector, these companies raised more money ($12.5 billion) in 264 rounds than their travel-industry counterparts.

Overall, VCs have been the leading investor category, and spent nine times more than travel companies in 2021. Since 2015, travel companies accounted for a relatively small percentage of startup funding, and this has decreased in recent years, dropping from 18 percent in 2020 to 5 percent in 2021.

Between 2015 and 2019, VCs and PEs invested at least twice as much per funding round compared to travel companies. Average funding size was roughly $37 million for VCs and PEs, compared to $17 million for travel companies. This leveled out between 2020 and 2022 where both groups invested approximately $30 million on average per funding round.

In 2021, banks greatly increased their investment share and matched VC investments, likely driven by increases in debt funding (Exhibit 4).

The travel industry could benefit from supporting startups

To date, travel companies have played a very small role in investing in the industry. As startups generally spearhead innovation, travel companies could take up opportunities to support startups—and reap the benefits. Furthermore, by not supporting, or finding ways to engage other players in the industry, travel companies may be missing an opportunity to shape the next generation of travel businesses. And as the investment landscape becomes tougher, travel companies are well placed to ensure that the innovation pipeline continues to flourish, even if VCs and larger players withdraw.

Travel companies could become more involved in investing in the industry and bring their expertise to bear on innovation and the sorts of capabilities and technologies that may be needed. And they stand to gain from leveraging startup capabilities in-house. Research into collaboration between corporates and startups in other industries shows that both parties stand to benefit. Startups can benefit from corporate funding, resources, and customer access, while corporates may need the innovation that startups offer to stay ahead of competitors and disruption, and also to access new technology. 4 “Collaborations between corporates and startups,” McKinsey, May 2020.

Three possible future scenarios could materialize in light of the trends in travel startup funding.

• Incumbent-driven consolidation: In this scenario, sustained emphasis on short-term profitability due to inflation and increasing cost of capital would make it difficult for travel startups to attract funding and gain ground in the industry. Funding rounds would be smaller due to early exits, closures, bankruptcies, or consolidation by established and scaled technology-driven firms. Established players would focus more on developing products and services that can be scaled globally and less on optimizing backend processes where rapid scale-up is potentially more challenging, such as manual check-in processes in hotels. This situation would lead to less innovation across the industry. In the long run, reduced innovation due to less startup diversity may require more in-house innovation for optimizing backend processes and technology.
• Emergence of multiple niche startups: Early-stage startups would see sustained and potentially increased funding, while funding for startups in the later stages would plummet. This could lead to an exit wave across later-stage startups due to bankruptcies. At the same time, a wave of new, more diversified, startups could emerge that aim to tackle a variety of niche problems in the industry, such as core technology elements. The result could be an even broader but more fragmented ecosystem of new industry players, leading to higher levels of innovation throughout the industry. Travel companies could acquire distressed startups, at lower valuations, which would boost in-house innovation and allow incumbents to provide new offerings.
• Travel startups golden 20s: In this scenario, travel startups across all growth stages and categories would see continuous increases in funding and growth. There would also be an increase in larger investments aimed at developing technology and core industry processes such as AI-enabled fulfillment, and disruption management. Innovation could flourish across the industry. In this fast-growing landscape, competition for funding would intensify and investors’ expectations around performance could increase. At the same time, collaboration would become more complex due to the diversified landscape of partners and suppliers. Established businesses would need to build in-house innovation capabilities organically or acquire them. Differentiation would become more difficult and several leading incumbents may be replaced by new challengers in the market.

However the future pans out, support for startups can boost innovation and strengthen the travel and tourism value chain, for all participants.

Giuseppe Genovese is a consultant in McKinsey’s Dallas office, Evgeni Kochman is an associate partner in the Frankfurt office, Vik Krishnan is a partner in the San Francisco office, and Nina Wittkamp is a partner in the Munich office.

The authors wish to thank Karel Dörner, Markus Berger-de León, Patrick Naef, and Christian Dominka, for their contributions to this report.

The authors also wish to thank Hollis Thomases, a senior research analyst at Phocuswright, Chetan Kapoor, a research analyst Asia Pacific at Phocuswright, and Johannes Reck, CEO of GetYourGuide.

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List of Top Travel and Tourism Startups in India

Ashwini , Shilpa sharma

“It will be much more about responsible travel now. We are going to value our freedom a lot more" – Deep Kalra, Founder of MakeMyTrip on impact of Covid on travel industry

The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest industries in India, it's a major driver of economic growth globally. India's tourism industry is experiencing a good period of growth, driven by the flourishing Indian middle class, growth in high spending foreign tourists and coordinated government campaigns to promote 'Incredible India'. But Due to restrictions linked to Covid-19, the number of foreign tourist in India during 2021 decreased to 1.52 million compared to 2.74 million in 2020, dropping by 44.5%, though foreign exchange earnings grew during the same period, as per the India Tourism Statistics 2022 report. In 2019, India saw 10.93 million foreign tourist arrivals, which dropped by 75% in 2020.

In 2021, the travel and tourism industry in India contributed around 178 billion U.S. dollars to the country's GDP. Just a few days ago the Indian government has said that the country's tourism sector will recover to the pre-pandemic level by mid-2024 , they also said that by 2030, the tourism sector will contribute $250 billion to the country's gross domestic product (GDP).According to the recent India Travel Market Report by Phocuswright, the total Indian travel market stood at US$19.1 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $40.4 billion in 2025, with online penetration reaching 58% in 2025.

The booming IT and outsourcing industry has led to a growing number of business trips made by foreigners to India. After Covid, along with work from home, a new trend has come, i.e., workcation for which travel companies are coming up with very good offers and packages. These plans comprise elegant and peaceful places to work with sightseeing and event sports in the evening. These packages are varied and diverse.

From choosing destinations to connecting with locals and customizing the holiday, the travel startup business in India is looking to add a new dimension to the ever-evolving traveling story.

Here is the list of successful tour and travel startups.

Travel & Tourism Industry in India - Key Highlights

Top Travel and Tourism Startups in India:

Pickyourtrail

Scoutmytrip, thrillophilia, travel triangle, extravelmoney, travel & tourism industry in india - key highlights.

Also Read: Travel and Tourism Industry Trends in 2021: Post-Covid Scenario

Top 20 Travel and Tourism Startups in India

MakeMyTrip is one of the oldest travel startup in India . The inspiration for this startup came to Kalra when he was booking a holiday to Thailand. He realized that the internet could offer more competitive prices by cutting out the middleman. MakeMyTrip's mission is to provide customers a one-stop-shop for all their travel needs by providing online travel services that include flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail and bus tickets.

Cleartrip, headquartered in Mumbai , was founded by Stuart Crighton, Hrush Bhatt in the year 2005. The company operates an online travel aggregator website for booking flights and train tickets, hotel reservations, and activities in India and the Middle East countries. Cleartrip is one of the few business travel startups in India. It has offices across India, UAE , Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Cleartrip is another travel tech company in India, started its services to the Persian Gulf nations of Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt. On June 21, 2018, Cleartrip announced the acquisition of Saudi Arabia-based online travel aggregator (OTA) Flyin.

Clear trip also operates -

• Cleartrip for Business , an online corporate travel management tool. It is a business travel solution for companies
• Agent Box , a travel tool for travel agents.
• Cleartrip Mobile , a travel booking app for consumers.
• Expressway , to let users store traveller profile and payment details securely to make one-click bookings.
• Flexifly, a solution that enables flyers to change their travel date and time and switch flights between airlines without any hefty penalties.

Within few years goibibo became a big payer in travel industry . Goibibo acquired redBus in 2013 to enhance its product offering. The 2016 merger of MMT and Goibibo gave MMT depth of content and an access to a bigger consumer base. It's core value differentiator is the most trusted user experience, be it in terms of quickest search and booking, fastest payments , settlement or refund processes. Along with the usual services travel startups provide, Goibibo became the no 1 travel startup to introduce real travel booking currency named as Go Cash which can be used without any restrictions or limits of use .

In small towns, this start up company has built up good trust and about 48% of new users are associated with tier 2 and tier 3 cities, it has seen a 65% increase in transacting users since January this year and that it has been 'successful' in consolidating its position as the 'second largest' OTA brand in the country.

It is the largest hospitality startup from the list of top hospitality startups in India comprising budget hotels. It is usually one of the first names that pop up in people's minds when they think of cost efficient hotel bookings in India. The startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers travellers vacant rooms at a cheaper price . OYO Rooms start at a nominal price of Rs. 999. Besides bulk renting hotels, they have also invested in their own properties as well. Click here to know how exactly OYO Rooms work .

The users can also opt for OYO Premium which provides a more-than-basic experience. OYO Rooms are located in the prime areas of the city and therefore they ensure travellers of having the best experience, it is also close to the best sight-seeing destinations and various dining options. The startup also raised an investment of $90 million from Softbank earlier in 2016. In 2019, OYO raised $1.5 Billion in Series F funding led by SoftBank Group , Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia India .

Hari Ganapathy and Srinath Shankar got the idea of the startup after their experience from a self-planned trip to Europe in 2012.  This platform uses deep tech to let travellers create, customize and book international vacations . Pickyourtrail considers more than 40 factors like duration, travel time, ratings, etc to build personalized itineraries that travellers can further customize & book .

After the trip is booked, travellers can use Pickyourtrail’s app to keep track of bookings and get real-time information on flight and weather updates, restaurant recommendations, and on-trip chat support.

Their goal is to perform best in the tour and travel business when it comes to international trips.

ScoutMyTrip is a road trip planner , It works for all sorts of outings, from short weekend travels to long excursions.

The motive that the duo has been able to solve through their startup is to collate information that is currently very diversified. Basically it is an information portal that makes travel easy and accessible for anyone. The company plans to connect travellers with people who want to travel on any particular vehicle. It will also facilitate customised tour packages.

With artificial intelligence, customers can create an itinerary containing the information necessary for their road trip—gas stations, toilets, restaurants, hotels to stay, and points of interest. The human intelligence aspect brings in the ability to personalize information as per one's needs.

The corporate outdoor and experiential learning model adopted by Thrillophilia in its early days, has proven to be of great significance since it was fairly new concept in India.

Thrillophilia provides you with handpicked adventure travel options. It is best suited for travellers seeking an off-the-beaten-track package for sightseeing, sports, and adventurous activities like water rafting, snorkelling, bungee jumping, and skydiving. The travellers can also curate the best tours and authentic suppliers.

Travel Triangle operates their services with a versatile team of 450+ peopl e. Travel Triangle is operating as an online marketplace model bringing both travellers and trusted & expert travel agents on a common platform. Travel Triangle is a S aaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform to help them manage and analyse customer interactions and data.

goMowgli is a travel startup that had its name inspired by the fictional character we all loved growing up –Mowgli from Jungle Book. It has a fleet of buses across different states (using the concept of “hop-off buses”) and the travellers can buy a pass for a fixed number of days – a week or two. It is suitable for solo travellers and backpackers who want to travel without a fixed plan or do not want to get in trouble of booking cabs while traveling the city.

goMowgli claims to be India's first flexible bus network for travellers. Flexible bus network mean is you can catch the bus anytime you want from any place in their network, and get off anytime, at any place.

goMowgli will tell you the exact location of the nearest bus when you switch on the GPS feature on your smartphone. The app is growing in popularity very fast. At present, their revenue generation is basically based on the passes they sell (Rs. 1700/day) . And their marketing is mainly based on social media and word of mouth.

Tripoto is a Delhi-based startup founded by Anirudh Gupta and Michael Lyngdoh and one of the best travel startups in India. It allows users to create itineraries for their future trips that they can also share with other travelers. They can share their travel experiences, related content and pictures, itineraries, maps, stories, and reviews.

The startup has one of the largest communities of travellers in the world where people get a chance to share their travel experiences, discover unique trips and travel itineraries by other travelers and connect with them around the world through the website. Tripoto’s aim is to become the largest source of crowd-sourced travel content platforms in the world by enabling users to share their credible travel information.

ExTravelMoney is an online aggregator and marketplace for forex services that bring the hyperlocal eCommerce model to foreign exchange business and is helping users save money on currency exchange and money transfer from and to abroad. Users can use this platform to search for banks and money changers near them who offer these forex services. They can also compare the exchange rates and total cost of a forex service including the services fees, tax charges, even the rating of each forex store they are searching for.

The users can therefore make an informed decision based on this knowledge and book the cheapest and the best forex services near them directly from their app ExTravelMoney. If you are traveling in a foreign country, foreign exchange is an important component to plan. It isn’t easy to purchase forex due to the time and the hassle it takes in finding the best exchange rates. The website provides travelers with forex dealers across the country to bring them the best available exchange rate in the market and all they need to do is log in to their website, state their forex requirement, and then it connects you to the nearest forex dealer.

Nearify is an app founded by Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh and Vivek Srivastava in 2012 that provides users with updated information on events that are happening around them. Like information on the city, major tourist attractions, and fairs & festivals happening in the area. All the user needs to do is to key in the name of the city to find listings of meet-ups, workshops, music concerts, and cultural hangout places in their close proximity.

It is best suited for travelers who want to know what’s happening in other locations of the place they are traveling to and wish to plan their itinerary and also don’t want to miss out on the social events happening in nearby cities or locations.

TripHobo is a Pune-based travel startup that has an innovative new travel platform where the collective effort of their dedicated team of travel enthusiasts. They are trying to transform its user's travel experience by making travel more sharable and personally tailored. The platform lets you connect with travel buddies around the world and hence makes your experience even richer and memorable.

TripHobo is a vacation planning website that is also the world’s leading vacation planning platform on which you can plan trips to about 150,000 destinations worldwide. It lets users discover great itineraries created by travellers just like them.

It's an online travel platform for travellers to explore travel destinations, plan and book their trips in advance. It allows users to dynamically create self-serviced customized travel packages after receiving inquiries from clients.

The users can also compare reviews and plan their activities and sightseeing for their trips, it also involves native wholesale suppliers who are responsible for the operational aspects of the business of your trip that includes ground handling and fulfillment. iTraveller has created more than 2 lakh trips featuring over 20 travel destinations across the globe and more than 60 native wholesale suppliers from across these destinations. The brand of iTraveller is now changed to Lastminute.

The mobile marketplace connects travellers with the local people in the city you are traveling to. These people are called “Sherpas” and are chosen after a thorough background check and verified authenticity. They offer numerous itineraries, popularly known as “micro tours”, from sightseeing, photography tours, and heritage walks and food walks to explore a location from the eyes of a local guide – Sherpa.

Sherpas can be from any profession and list experiences that will cost you less than Rs. 3,000 per participant. This is a unique feature that SeekSherpa offers, it helps you in traveling better by interacting with the residents of the place you are seeking to explore. This way, your trip is better, well experienced, and more memorable.

SOTC India is a leading travel and tourism company active across various travel segments including Leisure Travel, Incentive Travel and Business Travel . It is one of the leaders in segments, namely Escorted Group Tours, Customized Holidays,  and Incentive Travel amongst others. SOTC offers customized holidays around the world, Corporate Tours and provides packages for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) related travel needs.

Travelling is one of the most exciting and important parts of our life. It teaches us a lot. These startups in the tourism industry in India are helping us to make our journey better, safer, and easier. If we have missed out on any travel startup in India, do let us know in the comments.

FAQs on Travel Startups in India

How to start a travel business in india or how to start a travel company in india.

Best tips to start a travel business in India or a travel company in India:

• Step 1: Prepare a plan for your travel business.
• Step 2: Brand your travel business along with dealing in legal formalities.
• Step 3: Manage your funding strategy.
• Step 4: Pick a great location and hire employees.

How to start an online travel agency in India?

The list of requirements to start an online travel agency in India :

• Make a thorough research on your competitors and the market.
• Find your own niche in the travel industry.
• Build your team.
• Take a call on a travel website or a travel software, or both.
• Make a strategy for marketing.
• Target a location.

Must have tools for startups - Recommended by StartupTalky

• Manage your business smoothly- Google Workspace

National Technology Day: Experts Share Insights on Technology Trends and Innovations

National Technology Day is celebrated on May 11th as an occasion to honor Indian scientists, engineers, and technologists. It's a time to recognise the endless possibilities technology offers and ensure responsible innovation. Nowadays, with AI being the talk of the town, or better to say, the talk of the world,

AI Squared Acquires Multiwoven to Accelerate Delivery of Data and AI Insights into Business Applications

Acquisition of leading open-source reverse ETL (rETL) platform comes on the heels of robust Series A funding round. Mumbai, May 10, 2024: AI Squared , a leading technology provider for integrating information into web-based business applications, announces its acquisition of the world’s number one open-source Reverse ETL (rETL) company, Multiwoven.

Sony Marketing Strategy: An In-depth Analysis of its 7Ps Approach

The Sony Group Corporation is a Japanese global enterprise with its head office in Minato, Tokyo. As a significant player in the technology industry, it is among the biggest producers of consumer and business electronics worldwide and the biggest console maker and publisher of video games. Sony Entertainment Inc., is

Harnessing the Sky: How Atmospheric Water Generation Can Combat Global Water Scarcity

The article has been contributed by Mr. Navkaran Singh Bagga, CEO & Founder, Akvo. In today’s world, water scarcity affects over two billion people globally, posing a severe threat to both human health and economic stability. Innovative solutions are imperative to address this crisis. Akvo's atmospheric water generator (AWG) technology

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Discover 5 Top Sustainable Travel & Tourism Startups

Curious about new technological advancements in the travel industry? Explore our analysis of 630 global sustainable travel and tourism startups & scaleups & learn how their solutions impact your business!

The travel industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic . To come out strong from this crisis, it is important for you to stay ahead of the technology curve as this strengthens your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the travel industry . This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked sustainable travel & tourism startups.

Global Startup Heat Map: 5 Top Sustainable Travel & Tourism Startups

The 5 travel startups you will explore below are chosen based on our data-driven startup scouting approach, taking into account factors such as location, founding year, and relevance of technology, among others. This analysis is based on the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform , covering over 1.3 million startups & scaleups globally.

The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the 5 startups our Innovation Researchers curated for this report. Moreover, you get insights into regions that observe a high startup activity and the global geographic distribution of the 630 companies we analyzed for this specific topic.

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Green Tickets creates a Sustainable Travel Planner

Although traveling helps broaden people’s horizons and get to know different cultures, it is a major contributor to climate change. Therefore, startups develop planning solutions to provide travelers with sustainable alternatives, reducing the toll on the environment. Such solutions include sustainable ticket search, carbon offsetting, and CO2 calculations to lower the carbon footprint of the tourism sector.

Dutch startup Green Tickets develops sustainable route planning solutions for travel within Europe. The startup’s ticket suggestion platform allows users to compare the sustainability of the routes they choose. Among the factors that the startup includes are the mode of transportation and time of day. Moreover, Green Tickets offers eco traveling tips, giving tourists an opportunity to plan their trip more sustainably.

Tripian personalizes Sustainable Travel

It is evident that the travel industry needs to adapt to the changes brought by the changing public concern about climate change. To support travel companies adapt to the tourists’ demands, startups develop personalized and sustainable solutions. Utilizing technologies such as AI and data analytics, these solutions improve customer experience and retention.

Canadian startup Tripian provides a trip planning platform to personalize related content and services. The platform uses AI to show customers personalized travel recommendations based on their profiles. Additionally, the platform offers a route planner and location-based recommendations, thereby accommodating the preferences of green tourists.

CO2 Cards reduces Carbon Offset

When it is impossible to avoid a carbon footprint, carbon offsetting solutions compensate for the carbon dioxide (CO2) created through supporting environmental projects such as reforestation. To further advance this effort, startups develop carbon offsetting initiatives to balance travel-related emissions. These solutions promote green tourism to support the growing sustainability movement.

Bulgarian startup CO2 Cards offers a carbon-offsetting solution for online travel agencies. The solution consists of an application programming interface (API) that calculates the carbon footprint based on customers’ orders and integrates carbon offsetting options in the companies’ ticketing systems. This helps travel agents secure the trust of environmentally-minded customers and reduce the net carbon footprint of the travel industry.

Jet-Set Offset focuses on Sustainable Air Travel

Air travel is one of the biggest contributors to growing CO2 emissions. Although sustainability-wise, any other mode of transportation is more preferable than air travel, it sometimes is the only option. To reduce the impact of passenger flights, startups provide carbon offsetting solutions for individuals and businesses, sometimes in collaboration with environmental organizations.

Jet-Set Offset is a US-based startup offering mileage-based carbon offsetting solutions for businesses and individual contributors. The startup gives human resource (HR) departments and travel managers a platform to offset employee air travel emissions. By providing a solution for mileage-based donations, Jet-Set Offset helps companies reach their sustainability goals in an easy way.

MURMURATION tackles Over-tourism

Popular destinations often suffer from an excessive influx of tourists, particularly during peak holiday seasons. This has a negative impact on local communities, visitor experience, and the overall condition of the destination. To tackle over-tourism, startups develop data-driven solutions that utilize satellite data to help local governments preserve their communities and attractions.

French startup MURMURATION provides a sustainable tourism solution based on satellite imagery to travelers and travel agencies. Flockeo , the startup’s platform, utilizes satellite data to identify the number of tourists at a given destination. Empowered by this data, travel agencies and tourists themselves have the opportunity to pursue alternative destinations, thereby lessening the negative impact of over-tourism.

Discover more Travel Startups

To keep you up-to-date on the latest technology and emerging solutions, we provide you with actionable innovation intelligence – quickly and exhaustively. You can download one of our free Innovation Reports and discover new business opportunities or save your time & let us look into your areas of interest. We provide you with an exhaustive overview of new startups, scaleups & emerging technologies that matter to you.

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54 Travel Tech Startups in UK to Watch in 2024

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More From Forbes

Most billion-dollar startups in the u.s. founded by immigrants.

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Guillermo Rauch, founder and CEO of Vercel, one of more than 300 immigrant-founded billion-dollar ... [+] companies.

Tomas Gorny grew up in Poland under communism. But after moving to the U.S. and taking odd jobs like washing dishes and saving money from small ventures, he cofounded the tech company IPOWER in 2001, which he sold 10 years later for $1 billion to Warburg and Goldman Sachs. In 2006, he cofounded Nextiva, a phone and videoconferencing platform valued at $2.7 billion where he’s now CEO.

Gorny is hardly alone: More than half of the most valuable startups in America were founded by immigrants, according to a new analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy. The new research , which I authored, shows how vital immigrants have become in founding America’s most valuable companies.

“Immigrants have started more than half (319 of 582, or 55%) of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more,” the analysis . “Moreover, nearly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. billion-dollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Almost 80% of America’s unicorn companies (privately-held, billion-dollar companies) have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role, such as CEO or vice president of engineering.”

The research is an update of NFAP studies in 2016 and 2018. However, due to the growth in billion-dollar companies, the 2022 study involved gathering and verifying information on the founders of more than 580 unicorn companies tracked by CB Insights. “Unicorns” are privately held companies (i.e., not traded on the stock market), valued at $1 billion or more that have received venture capital financing.

According to the analysis, 58% of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies had only an immigrant or multiple immigrant founders , with no native-born founders.

Many of the immigrant founders of billion-dollar companies have remarkable life stories. Guillermo Rauch, an immigrant from Argentina, founded Vercel, a cloud platform for web developers. The company has 400 employees and is valued at $2.5 billion. Rauch taught himself web development—at age 11— and learned English by “ reading software manuals .”

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Best covid-19 travel insurance plans.

“As a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of being able to create and innovate alongside a global community of developers right from my hometown outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina,” said Rauch in an interview. “My own experiences fueled my desire to solve the challenges I faced while using the web. Immigrating to the U.S. gave me the opportunity to start Vercel to help build a more interesting, intuitive, and open internet by empowering developers to create the moment inspiration strikes.”

Many innovations are only realized via entrepreneurship. Think back to the creations of Nikolai Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell—both immigrants who founded companies and invented useful products. The study notes, “The best ideas will never be applied or perfected without people willing to take a chance on those ideas, and billion-dollar companies are among America’s most innovative.”

There is no startup visa in U.S. law. Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) bill to create one was part of the COMP COMP ETES Act that passed the House of Representatives in February 2022. Since immigrant entrepreneurs cannot gain permanent residence by starting a business, the immigrant founders of billion-dollar companies typically gain their green cards as refugees or family-sponsored or employer-sponsored immigrants. Several came to America as children with their parents.

One-quarter (143 of 582, or 25%) of U.S. billion-dollar startup companies have a founder who came to America as an international student. International students generally must gain H-1B status and (or) an employment-based green card to stay in the United States after graduation.

Two more findings of note from the research: The more than 300 immigrant-founded U.S. companies have a collective value of $1.2 trillion. That makes those companies more valuable than all the companies listed on the main stock markets of several countries, including Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.

The research also found the billion-dollar companies with immigrant founders created an average of 859 jobs per company, with the majority of the employees in the United States.

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Ascend Airways: Everything You Need To Know About The UK's New Charter Startup

• Ascend Airways offers ACMI and charter services, aiming to customize solutions for various clients.
• The airline leverages its affiliation with Avia Solutions Group for industry insights and resources.
• Ascend Airways prioritizes safety, sustainability, and international expansion in the aviation industry.

Ascend Airways is making waves in the UK aviation airspace as a fresh and dynamic charter startup. Based in Bishop's Stortford near London, this innovative airline has embarked on its journey with a clear mission: to redefine air travel with a focus on flexibility, efficiency, and customer service.

As part of the expansive Avia Solutions Group, Ascend Airways leverages a modern fleet and strategic operation insights to offer both ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, and Insurance) and tailored charter services. We will look closer at its origins, growth trajectory, and the unique value it plans to bring to the UK and beyond.

Ascend Airways: origins and vision

Formation and strategic objectives.

Established in October 2023, Ascend Airways (formerly Synergy Aviation) emerged from a strategic vision to enhance the UK's aviation connectivity, particularly in the charter sector. Supported by the extensive infrastructure and expertise of Avia Solutions Group, Ascend aims to leverage this robust backing to ensure operational excellence and innovation in its services.

According to their official news release , this startup isn't just another airline; it's a tailored solution provider, aiming to provide locally based aircraft and crew to meet the requirements of UK-based airlines, tour operators, charter brokers, government entities, and NGOs.

The role of Avia Solutions Group

As a part of Dublin-based Avia Solutions Group, Ascend Airways benefits from its vast network of resources and industry insight, according to the ascendairways.aero site. This affiliation provides Ascend with access to a global network, advanced aviation technology, and industry best practices.

This partnership underscores Ascend's solid foundation and supports its vision of expanding service offerings and operational capabilities within the competitive UK aviation market.

Avia Solutions Group To Launch A UK Based Wet-Lease Airline

Operational dynamics, fleet details and aircraft types.

Ascend Airways is launching its operations with a focused fleet that includes the Boeing 737-800 and the more modern Boeing 737 MAX 8. The choice of these two aircraft reflects Ascend's commitment to creating a fuel-efficient fleet with passenger comfort in mind and aligns perfectly with its charter and ACMI services. The airline's fleet strategy is designed to ensure flexibility in route planning and scalability in operations as the airline expands.

According to planespotters.net .

Service model: ACMI and charter operations

Ascend Airways has positioned itself uniquely in the market by offering both ACMI and bespoke charter services. This dual approach allows the airline to provide tailored solutions to varying client needs, from other airlines to private groups seeking custom travel arrangements.

The adaptability of Ascend's service model is a significant competitive advantage, ideally providing them with the capability to adjust quickly to market changes and client demands.

Strategic hubs and route expansion

According to their official announcements, Ascend Airways has strategically selected London-Gatwick and London-Southend Airports as its operational bases because of their robust infrastructure and ability to support Ascend's growth plans.

This includes their direct and charter services to key European destinations and potentially beyond. The choice of these hubs aligns with Ascend's objective to enhance connectivity and provide comprehensive travel solutions suited to diverse customer requirements.

Safety and sustainability

Ascend Airways prioritizes stringent safety protocols and sustainability efforts. According to Avia Solutions Group, Ascend has successfully secured an Air Operator Certificate from the UK Civil Aviation Authority, affirming its adherence to high safety standards essential for its operations. This certification is a crucial step in establishing trust and a reputation for reliability among passengers and industry partners.

"Obtaining the Air Operator Certificate and license takes a huge amount of work and resources and I'm extremely proud of everyone involved that we have been able to achieve this in time for the summer season. We will now focus on repaying the faith of our launch customer and establishing our sister company, Ascend Airways Malaysia. Our aim is to move our capacity seasonally between UK and Malaysia to access the growing South-East Asian market and maintain year-round utilisation." - Alastair Willson, CEO, Ascend Airways.

Furthermore, Ascend Airways is committed to reducing its environmental impact. They have adopted measures such as planning to use Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to lower carbon emissions significantly. This initiative is part of their broader commitment to sustainability, aiming to align with global efforts to combat climate change and promote environmental stewardship in aviation.

Their stated goals are:

• "Be recognized as an exemplary, socially, and environmentally conscious airline."
• "Be regarded by our employees as an employer of choice that improves working lives."
• "Be positively regarded by our local communities, customers, partners, and stakeholders that establish and sustain partnerships with like-minded customers and suppliers."
• "We are continually reviewing our policy and sustainability will be a standing agenda item at our Board meetings. We will review our Sustainability Strategy annually and track our progress against our targets. Emissions reports will be added to our Compliance Board meetings."

Will 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel Concentrations Enable Net-Zero Flying?

Future outlook and growth plans.

Looking forward, Ascend Airways is set to expand its fleet and extend its services to cover more international routes, focusing on enhancing its presence in key markets. Notably, Ascent is exploring opportunities in Southeast Asia with plans to establish a sister company in Malaysia.

This expansion aims to tap into emerging markets and diversify its service offerings globally. It is also strategically aligned with Ascent's long-term vision to become a leader in regional and international charter services.

According to AeroTime Hub , "Ascend Airways has received its second aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, and having already taken delivery of its first aircraft earlier in 2024, is now finalizing its plans to begin services during the IATA summer scheduling season of 2024."

Wrapping it up

Ascend Airways is entering the UK's competitive aviation market with an ambitious approach that blends traditional charter service levels with modern operational strategies. As it moves forward, the airline will need to navigate the complexities of expanding into international markets while maintaining its commitment to safety and sustainability.

Through its detailed planning, strategic investments and acquisitions, and robust business model, Ascend Airways is well-positioned to become a leading charter airline, offering unique and flexible travel solutions that cater to the evolving needs of modern travelers. The success of Ascend Airways will depend not only on its strategic decisions and market adaptability but also on how well it can sustain its service quality and customer trust in the dynamic landscape of global aviation, ultimately determining its place and longevity within the industry.

Interested in learning more about Ascend Airways or the future of regional and international charter services? Stay tuned to our updates and explore how these flight options and industry developments might affect your travel plans in the future. Let us know in the comments if you plan on flying with Ascend Airways someday!