Hotelbeds and Wayra announced, a few days ago, the winners of the first challenge of the Travel Tech Lab by Hotelbeds. After a competitive day of presentations at the South Summit in Madrid, several startups accepted the challenge of finding disruptive solutions to connect players in the global B2B travel ecosystem and create a frictionless travel experience.
They presented themselves more than 60 companies from 18 countries around the world, among them Spain, South Africa, Israel and Japan. Launched in February, the TravelTech Lab by Hotelbeds is powered by Wayra and seeks to reimagine travel by changing the way travelers move, connect and explore.
The winning start-ups were:
- Botslovers: Chatbots, virtual assistants with artificial intelligence for real companies with the aim of reducing the operating costs of your company by optimizing the customer service section.
- Grain: Unique end-to-end integrated currency exchange solution that enables travel software platforms and marketplaces to eliminate foreign exchange risk for their clients. They do this by suppressing exchange rate volatility in hotel room accounts payable and allowing their customers to pay bills in their local currency through local lanes.
- Smartvel: offers a complete set of solutions to solve different needs throughout the customer journey, where the right content makes all the difference. Its technology collects, categorizes, translates, enriches and validates both the content of the destination and the travel requirements (health requirements, travel documentation, visa). From museums, restaurants, town halls to official sources such as IATA, government agencies and official bodies.
- checkin: helps the owners of tourist accommodation to automate the entire check-in process, from the moment the reservation is created until check-out. Generating up to 80% time savings and increasing revenue with each reservation. Registration and identification of guests, upselling, remote access to the home, sending data to the police, insurance and deposits and online payments.
José María Pestaña, Director of Innovation at Hotelbeds, has stated: “We are impressed by the response to our first challenge, the process to select the winners has not been easy, however, we are sure that we have reached some solutions that will change the rules of the game. We are excited to work with these startups and change the travel ecosystem together.”
These startups will now benefit from the advice of industry experts, Wayra’s network of investors and the possibility of access a pilot program of up to €40,000 with an area of the Hotelbeds business to get your ideas off the ground. In addition, they will be able to take advantage of the innovation spaces of both organizations, both at the Wayra offices in Madrid, and at the Hotelbeds headquarters in Palma de Mallorca.
«At Wayra, it is an exciting challenge to make available all our knowledge of the entrepreneurial ecosystem together with a reference partner in TravelTech to strengthen our position in the hotel and tourism sector. In addition, we want to congratulate all the winners. Together we will seek to create a real impact on your business and we will help you to climb positions”, says Andrés Saborido, Wayra’s global director.
