In Phocus

In an executive interview, Gillian Jones, senior business development manager of Condatis, and Vikas Bhola, CEO of Neoke, suggested that a shift towards digital ID adoption may help facilitate the connected trip, but it can feel daunting. 

And while fragmentation presents a barrier, standardization is another concern, with regions and industries developing their own frameworks for implementing SSI.

According to Bhola, however, the standards from the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Office, combined with European Union’s efforts, put the “interoperable private layer” within reach.

Trust, again, is a key component, specifically for providers like Neoke that will be responsible for onboarding and adhering to varying standards.  

“Trust and the orchestration of trust is the holy grail to enable that connected trip, connected travel,” Bhola said. 

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Speakspots, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered WhatsApp hotel chatbot, has entered the B2B space with a white-label AI agent for hotels.

The new feature was announced at Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona.

“We started as an AI travel planner. Now we have over 50,000 users every month, especially in Europe,” said Andres Martinez Artal, CEO and founder of Speakspots, in an interview with PhocusWire. “We started integrating different destinations. Now we have 300 destinations in 68 countries. At some point, we realized if we want to have the long tail of destinations—not 300 but 3,000—we need to establish some sort of partnership.”

The B2B AI agent was developed to help rural properties automate guest communications and drive incremental revenue.

The solution is meant to be scalable and incorporates web scraping large language models to provide personalized recommendations through WhatsApp. The agent is also capable of handling restaurant and activity reservations, making calls on behalf of guests in the local language—something Speakspots sees as a way to move past language barriers and roaming fees.

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Multiday adventure and experiences platform TourRadar has unveiled TourRadar Moments in its app. The social commerce initiative enables travelers to book trips from uploaded photos and video reels content.

The company is also rewarding the creators for sharing the content with travel credits for future trips.

TourRadar co-founder and CEO Travis Pittman said "the timing is perfect" for the initiative amid ongoing developments in search engine optimization and the growing trend of travelers looking to social platforms for trip inspiration.

During an interview in the PhocusWire studio at Phocuswright Europe 2025, Pittman discussed the gap between inspiration on social platforms and booking and said TourRadar aims to solve this.

He said the initiative enables anyone who has taken a multiday tour to share the photo and reels content, which in turn provides a "richer understanding" for potential customers. TourRadar's tour operator partners can upload their content to the app as well.

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The road to modern retailing in the airline world is long and very complex.

Implementing the International Air Transport Association's New Distribution Capability technology standard is still a source of consternation for many carriers and their retail partners, but others are beginning to evolve towards offer and order and the dream of offering travelers personalized services.

Flyr, which was founded in 2013, has been steadily building up its own retail technology offering for carriers in recent years. The company launched its airline offer and order management system last September, having announced a $295 million funding round the previous month to "accelerate the delivery of modern reservation system."

The United States-based company also has a presence in the hospitality technology world, having acquired Pace Revenue in 2022.

In an interview with PhocusWire, Alex Mans, founder and CEO of Flyr, discussed the current state of airline retailing and the potential for carriers to begin bundling far more than bags and seats. 

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Founded in 2012, Snowflake is a cloud-based data storage company that works across a variety of verticals including travel and hospitality. In September 2024 the company launched its “AI Data Cloud for Travel and Hospitality” to address industry needs such as dynamic pricing and sustainability tracking, reputation management and performance advertising.

Whitnee Hawthorne, global head of travel and hospitality at, Snowflake, talks to Charlotte Lamp-Davies, founder of A Bright Approach, in the PhocusWire Studio.

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Flight specialist Oojo is a relative newcomer to the online travel world.

The company launched four years ago and is part of Trevolution Group, which is the travel technology and services part of the wider Dyninno Group.

During an interview in the PhocusWire Studio, Gulce Karsli Rozeveld, who joined Oojo as CEO earlier this year, discussed the online flight specialist’s growth and her thoughts on whether a one-stop travel shop can ever really succeed.

Rozenveld spoke about the huge time, investment and resources required for such an endeavor and said she could only think of about three players that could do it and "even then it will take a long."

She also said more analysis of human behavior and psychology is needed to discover why a truly end-to-end travel platform hasn’t happened yet and whether consumers would trust a single company with all their travel requirements.

However, Rozenfeld acknowledged that artificial intelligence might change everything and said she’s open and excited about the potential of the technology in travel.

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Airline distribution developments such as new commercial approaches and the move to offer-order have been the topic for many debates in 2024.

Discussions around IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology standard are ongoing but general adoption is still quite low and there seems to be an acceptance, or perhaps resignation, that although there has been a little acceleration, it will take more time.

David Gunnarsson, CEO of Dohop and Charles Rajjou, former CEO of CitizenPlane, were on hand to discuss recent developments during an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference 2024.

Gunnarsson has noted a little acceleration in adoption but said NDC was “always a means to an end” and attributed any acceleration to airlines and technology companies “jumping on the offer-order bandwagon.”

He also said that even the carriers that have embraced the technology standard are still only using a fraction of what it could be used for.

Gunnarsson and Rajjou went on to discuss the move to offer and order, the danger of leaving key stakeholders behind with NDC penetration so low and the remaining challenges for airlines looking to improve the retail experience for customers.

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Turkey with its East meets West location, high internet penetration and relatively young population is well-positioned to further strengthen its presence in the online travel market.

At least that is what Çağlar Erol, CEO of online travel agency Wingie Enuygun Group, is hoping for as he shapes the business for further growth.

In an interview in the PhocusWire studio, Erol said that the OTA operates in 22 different countries and is particularly strong in the Middle East.

He shared that Wingie has grown rapidly in that region since the end of the pandemic and is now targeting further growth across the United Arab Emirates as well as beyond.

Erol also said that Wingie had grown, since launch in 2008, from a fintech-focused business into an online travel agency, with its own payments gateway and digital wallet, offering flights, hotels, transfers, car rentals and bus tickets.

He touched on current challenges for the business such as scaling in different languages and different countries as it expands.

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Group travel in particular seems to be flourishing with an uptick in internal meetings and further growth predicted for 2025. Research from American Express Global Business Travel, released in October, revealed that 66% of meeting planning professionals expect their budgets to rise.

Dennis Vilovic, founder and co-CEO of Troop, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2021, believes group travel could increase by 30% next year despite pressure from some large corporations for employees to return to the office full time.

During an interview in the PhocusWire studio, Vilovic discussed trends in group travel such as longer trips for meetings, mostly internal meetings, secondary locations and group sizes of less than 100.

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When travelers are on the move, ground transportation can be considered in isolation or in combination with another travel element — a traveler could be taking a car to the airport, to a hotel or to the train, the list goes on.

It makes sense therefore that some companies are setting their sights on linking the bookings and data from various travel suppliers — a concept known as the "connected trip," which has been in development for some time across the industry.

Mike McGearty, CEO of Meili, and Niall Carson, chief commercial officer for Mozio, joins senior reporter Morgan Hines in the PhocusWire studio for a wide ranging conversation on whether ground transportation gets the attention it deserves, the challenges it faces and advances in AI and more.

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