The hospitality industry is in the midst of a transition from legacy, on-property technology to cloud-based solutions that drive efficiency and personalization at scale. 

Founded in 2012, San Francisco-based Duetto provides hotels and resorts with cloud-based software to optimize and automate pricing, forecasting and group business products to drive revenue, demand and guest experience.

The company said more than 6,000 properties in more than 60 countries use its applications, including GameChanger for pricing, ScoreBoard for intelligent reporting, BlockBuster for contracted-business optimization and OpenSpace (formerly MiceRate) for revenue management of meeting and event spaces.

In June, private equity firm GrowthCurve Capital acquired Duetto for an undisclosed amount from affiliates of Warbug Pincus and other shareholders. 

In a wide-ranging interview with PhocusWire editor in chief Mitra Sorrells, Duetto CEO David Woolenberg discussed the acquisition and how it is helping to accelerate Duetto’s investments in innovation and specifically its use of artificial intelligence.

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It’s been nearly a year since Latin America super app Rappi kicked off its partnership with Marriott in Mexico, enabling loyalty members of both brands to link their accounts to earn and burn points for purchases through either brand.

The integration has since extended to Rappi users in Colombia, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and Rappi global head of travel, Guido Becher, said they are learning quite a bit about user behavior and fine-tuning their messaging to personalize the offering.

“We thought at the beginning … we had a clear audience of the Bonvoy members and the Rappi Pro users, but we identified very interesting cohorts within. The younger generations are more into points and more price sensitive, and the older generation or those with other interests, the perks and other benefits were more important to them.”

As the company continues to develop its work with Marriott, it is also developing loyalty partnerships with airlines such as LATAM and banks in the region, to bring those users into its travel vertical and also to generate business across Rappi’s other products and services.

In the discussion in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright Europe, Becher also discussed the company’s growth plans, how it vast repository of customer data – many that use the app multiple times each week – is helping it provide inspiration and personalization, and why Latin America is similar to Asia when it comes to customer behavior. 

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Merger and acquisition activity has been increasing in the travel technology world. Recent headlines bear out the trend and the figures back it up. There are a number of companies focused on a travel technology roll-up that is seeing smaller players and some startups find a bigger home. But what is driving the increased activity? Are valuations more realistic and what are those acquiring companies and investors looking for?

Discussing the travel M&A trend, CEO Jaime Sastre described the acquisitions as “part of our core growth and development where we’re going to acquire strategic assets that have potential synergies with other companies we have. But we do acquisitions not just for synergies but because we are capital allocators, we have a philosophy of buy and hold forever.”

Each acquisition retains its own CEO with Sastre adding that Constellation’s belief is that software companies are “much better handled by independent CEOs that are not integrated into a large organization.”

He was joined in the PhocusWire Studio at Phocuswright Europe 2024 by Rita Lei, partner at MCF Corporate Finance, which advised Sweden’s Visit Group when PSG Equity became majority shareholder last year.

In a conversation with PhocusWire's Linda Fox, Sastre and Lei discuss travel a resetting in terms of valuations, where they are placing their bets and more.

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Now more than 18 months since the launch of ChatGPT, early excitement about generative artificial intelligence has shifted to the more challenging work of finding practical use cases, with a focus on ones that drive greater efficiency, automation and, ideally, cost-savings or even revenue- generation, for companies. 

But where and how to begin – particularly when new capabilities seems to come out every week – can be challenging.

Cesc Vilanova and Riky Vittoria have both been working with artificial intelligence and its application to travel for many years. In 2014, Vilanova co-founded Sam, an AI-powered virtual travel assistant that was acquired by Flight Centre Travel Group in 2018. In 2015, Vittoria co-founded 30SecondstoFly, an AI-powered booking engine that Amex GBT acquired in 2020.

Last year both started new companies focused on helping companies put AI to work – Vilanova’s Agent Studio and Vittoria’s Acai Travel, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024.

In a conversation in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright Europe, Vilanova and Vittoria offer practical tips for travel industry stakeholders who are determining how to put AI into action.

“What really delivers the best ROI in the smallest amount of time is to select these smaller wins that can be highly deployable,” Vittoria said.

The two also share their take on autonomous agents – “The expectation is that more and more software products won’t require users to click on buttons,” Vilanova said.

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Figuring out the most effective ways to use Google to drive traffic and conversions is a fundamental task for anyone working in digital marketing. And it’s particularly high on the to-do list for marketers working in B2C travel, who pour billions of dollars into Google and other channels each year. In 2023, the combined sales and marketing spend of four of the largest online travel agencies – Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and Trip.com Group – was $16.8 billion, up from $14 billion the prior year.

So naturally any data and insights about Google and search trends overall get noticed by travel stakeholders. In May a leak of Google’s internal documents shed light on the functionality of the search giant’s algorithms that determine site visibility.

And in July digital marketing expert Rand Fishkin published the 2024 edition of his analysis of consumer search behavior on Google. Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, which provides audience research tools and insights to help marketers better understand how to reach their target audience.

In his latest analysis of Google search behavior, Fishkin found that for every 1,000 Google searches, in the United States only 360 go to a non-Google-owned, non-Google-ad-paying property – what Fishkin calls the “open web.” The figure for searches originating in the European Union is slightly higher – 374 of 1,000. In the U.S., nearly 30% of all clicks go to platforms Google owns, including Google Maps, Google Flights, Google Hotels, YouTube and more.

We invited Fishkin to talk to PhocusWire about this study and in particular what travel marketers should learn from the data. In a wide-ranging discussion he shared more about the analysis, and why zero-click content is so important. He also offered advice for travel marketers on how digital marketing will change in the years to come – and why a focus on brand building is critical as attribution-centric models become less relevant. And Fishkin offered his thoughts on large language models and how they may impact search.

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For those working to develop verifiable credentials, digital identity wallets and the rules and systems to support these products, there is little doubt that travel – as well as many other parts of everyday life - is on the verge of a fundamental, radical shift.

It’s a shift that will put more control in the hands of travelers while enabling suppliers and intermediaries to better know who they are dealing with and therefore provide more relevant offers – all while removing existing friction points in the travel journey. 

PhocusWire's Mitra Sorrells talked to Gee Mann, founder & CEO, TravlrID and Heather Dahl, co-founder & CEO, Indicio to discuss digital identity in action, as Indicio is working with SITA and the government of Aruba to enable travelers to the island to pre-authorize their arrival border crossing before they even leave their departure airport.

“This is no longer a technical challenge, this is a change management challenge in the industry,” Dahl said. 

Read the full article here, which includes coverage from Phocuswright Europe sessions on digital identity.

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There are plenty of important factors to consider while starting a company.

And while having a plan, raising money and honing in on a mission and clear messaging are of importance, there's an element that experts agree is equally as crucial: choosing an advisory board. 

Alex Gisbert, general partner of TravelTech.vc, said the practice of having an advisory board has become more common - and is a good thing for startup founders.

"Everyone should be thinking, who are actually my advisors? Who can I call?" said Gisbert.

And that relationship is a two-way street; advisors are also learning from founders, Gisbert said during an executive panel interview focused on the startup scene in the PhocusWire Studio at Phocuswright Europe last month. Gisbert was joined by Stephanie Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Legends, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024, and Benjamin Sann, founder of Curated Planet.

Read the full article here.

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AirAsia MOVE is an online travel agency launched in 2020 as a subsidiary of AirAsia, now known as Capital A. Based in Southeast Asia, the online travel agency offers bookings from more than 700 airlines and more than 900,000 hotels worldwide, plus ride-hailing, insurance, dining and financial services through BigPay.

Air Asia MOVE CEO Nadia Omer talks to PhocusWire editor in chief Mitra Sorrells about adopting new technologies like Gen AI and blockchain, its new trip manager and social stream community within the app, how human interaction is key to the super app concept in Asia and more.

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By the time of last month’s Phocuswright Europe conference in Barcelona, the need for a balance between a more modern approach that would meet customers’ evolving expectations for online retailing while giving businesses the control they need to manage travel expenses was clear to Puck Voorneveld, senior director of distribution and payment transformation at Lufthansa Group, and Michael Harbin, president and CEO of travel tech provider Traverse Technologies.

“From a Lufthansa Group perspective, we haven’t changed our strategy or road ahead,” Voorneveld said during an discussion with Harbin in the PhocusWire studios. “We are committed to NDC and modern airline retailing as such. … Of course, we cannot leave business travel behind.”

Harbin agreed. “You’ve got to meet the traveler, the customer, the corporation, where they are,” he said. “You can’t make them jump through hoops or over different bridges.”

The discussion also covered artificial intelligence, airlines’ approach to coping with an increase of disruptive weather events, among other topics. When asked about the best use cases of AI in the sector, both experts pointed to customer service.

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Gaurav Tuli, partner at F Prime Capital and Anna Schneider, senior research and intelligence analyst at the Lufthansa Innovation Hub, talk to PhocusWire senior reporter Morgan Hines in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright Europe 2024.

Tuli and Schneider covered the latest trends in funding, the big factors that impact how VCs invest and how the current landscape looks more like a recovery phase than a correction phase.

"We're seeing great companies actually get funded now and we're starting to wash through a lot of the noise and aftermath of the last two years, which were very difficult. But some phenomenal companies in travel and outside of travel are getting funded today", said Tuli.

Schneider added that "industry pain points aren't going away and it's always helpful to also have an optimistic outlook going forward ... because there are niches where innovation needs to happen."

Check out PhocusWire's coverage and studio interviews from Phocuswright Europe 2024: https://bit.ly/4cpytRb

»SUBSCRIBE to the PhocusWire channel: https://bit.ly/3PJFaWg
» For news delivered to your inbox: https://bit.ly/3dl6N6V 

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