Virtuoso is hosting its second annual Travel Tech Summit during the 35th annual Virtuoso Travel Week at ARIA Resort & Casino (9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) on August 12. Led by tech entrepreneur, investor and Virtuoso board member, Gilad Berenstein, the 2023 Travel Tech Summit will spotlight innovation in the travel industry, paired with a showcase of 20 startup businesses that are making waves in the travel tech space.
Matthew D. Upchurch, Virtuoso chairman and CEO, will kick off the session. Berenstein will then lead an Innovator Spotlight, featuring Shane O’Flaherty from Microsoft; Stuart Greif from Forbes Travel; Cara Whitehill from Unlock Advisors; Charaf El Mansouri from Dharma; Zach Demuth from JLL; and Carolyn Corda from Deloitte. Virtuoso’s proprietary Tech Ecosystem will also be highlighted with insight from in-house innovators.
Businesses participating in the "Startup Showcase" will be divided into four groups: advisors and agencies; hotel, cruise, tour and transportation; sustainability; and emerging technologies with a focus on AI. Attendees can engage in two showcases of their choice. Information on the participating businesses follows:
Advisor & Agency Tech
- HyperGuest – A technology platform that facilitates connectivity between hotels and travel companies. Through its open marketplace and direct contract capabilities, it empowers the hospitality industry to forge stronger partnerships and unlock opportunities.
- Tern Travel – A platform that brings together everything advisors need to run their business with comprehensive technology, empowering them to better bring the world to their clients.
- TravelWits – It built the first AI-enabled travel search engine to find door-to-door trips fully optimized around various user criteria while integrating the availability and prices of flights, hotels, car rentals and more.
- Tres Technologies – With focus on the traveler and trip, advisors use the Tres software for integrations, automations and workflows that achieve maximum benefits with minimal work.
- TripSuite – A VC-backed startup building the core operating system for travel agencies.
Hotel, Cruise, Tour & Transportation Tech
- NLX – An AI company delivering customer experiences that meet the scale, complexity and compliance standards of enterprises.
- Origin – A Vertical SaaS platform enabling travel experience providers to ditch spreadsheets and bring their businesses online.
- ResortPass – The platform has created day access to hotel amenities, empowering people to experience luxury pools, private beaches, deluxe spas and more, creating an entirely new revenue stream for hotels and resorts.
- The Host Co – It transforms short-term rentals into full-service hospitality with embedded amenities that delight guests and double revenue.
- TRVLR – A marketplace for luxury hotels and travel advisors, it’s the first platform to integrate bookings, payments and commissions in a single place.
Sustainability Tech
- Ampaire – Specializes in electrifying commercial aviation with its revolutionary propulsion system, the first to fly on actual routes across the globe.
- Hydrogen – Universal Hydrogen targets aviation with a zero-emission, 40 to 60 passenger regional aircraft and a modular, capex-light hydrogen fueling solution aiming to establish a global hydrogen logistics network for aviation and other mobility applications.
- Kind Traveler – A travel platform that empowers travelers to give back to the communities they visit through a network of 150-plus charities in 25 countries advancing the U.N. Global Goals.
- Tuzmo – It is building a platform that connects travelers and tourists with local artisans in a destination.
- Weeva – A digital sustainability management tool for tourism businesses that tracks and reports on net environmental and social impact in real-time.
AI & Emerging Tech
- Dharma – It partners with inspiring creators and brands, from Equinox to Netflix, to curate and host unique travel experiences for their communities.
- Legends – A platform that creates privacy-controlled, real-time profiles from phone and photo data, helping travel providers personalize offerings to unlock revenue opportunities while improving loyalty and experience.
- Point.me – The world’s first real-time search engine for credit card points and airline miles, such as Kayak or Google Flights for points.
- Tango – Hyper-personalized travel commerce powered by human-supervised Generative AI.
- Voyage.AI – Via its iPlan app, it simplifies travel planning by taking travelers’ preferences and automating the logistics planning.
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