Startups tips

Three travel tech startups have raised $13.3 million in venture capital this week.

Central Asian airlines are seizing opportunities from Russia’s closed airspace, with airline traffic into the region booming in the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, executives and analysts said.

CIC Hospitality is opening 30 boutique Aiden by Best Western hotels in Scandinavia, but they won’t come with staff in the flesh and blood standing at the front desk. 

Roch Ventures, a €150 million ($160.2 million) fund for travel tech startups in Europe and Israel, has made its first investment. 

A San Fransisco-based advisory firm is seeing more company bosses and their entourages embark on fact-finding trips around the world to gain better business insights.

Four travel tech startups raised $29 million in venture capital this week. 

Thousands of people who checked in their bags with Southwest Airlines late last year did not see them again for nearly a month. 

Travel companies have been trying to knit together the fragmented pieces of the customer journey for years. 

Two startups involved in the travel industry raised nearly $15 million this week.

There are so many startups and other companies developing products powered by generative AI that it’s hard to keep track. 

When Hilton contracted third-party tech company HotelKey to provide the property management system for all 7,000 of its hotels, it made the choice because that’s what executives thought would be best for the company.

Three travel tech startups raised nearly $22 million over the past two weeks 

The ground transport sector is behind the times: Many bus and train companies operate without a modern ticketing or operations system, sometimes tracking sales on spreadsheets and often forcing customers to carry paper tickets. 

Four travel tech startups have raised $328 million in capital this week. 

When OpenAI released ChatGPT last November, there were a few companies that released tools right away or even shared plans to do so.  

Six travel tech startups raised $58 million over the past two weeks.

Sabre said on Wednesday it had acquired a small startup, Techsembly, which helps luxury hoteliers manage the sales of gift cards, among other cloud-based software services.

Airlines have long sold tickets on each other’s flights using interline agreements and strategic marketing deals called codeshares. But dozens have recently been adopting alternative and more flexible arrangements with the help of software from startups such as DoHop.

The story of Culture Trip is sordid, and in the scheme of things, an inconsequential blip on the face of heavily funded travel startups.

Emburse, a software provider of expense technology for corporate travel and meetings, said on Wednesday it’s acquiring Tripbam, a Dallas startup whose tools are used by corporate travel managers.

United Airlines earlier this year put together an investment of $100 million dedicated to startups working on renewable aviation fuels. Only five months later, that fund doubled to $200 million and had investments from three other other airlines.