On Thursday evening, the first Travel Start-up Night took place at a-ja Zürich City Resort. Even though the Swiss version of the Travel Industry Club (TIC) and Internet Travel Sales Association (VIR) events were co-organized by Kuoni Business Travel, the topic of “business travel” was only marginally present. In fact, start-ups from a wide range of tourism, hotel and catering sectors presented themselves. A quite exciting event with a slightly different focus.
Starting from 18.00 h the participants and the colleagues of the presenting Startups were taken in receipt in the Lounge of the a-ja City Resorts by the supervisors. Since the new Kuoni Business Travel Switzerland boss Andreas Schneider is travelling abroad, sales boss Mirko Schemmel assumed the role of host.
Until the official start of the event there was enough time to talk to one or the other candidate for the pitches. It was nice that among the participants there were also some “old” colleagues from earlier times. In addition, there were also some familiar faces of Sabre and Amadeus.
The members of the TIC and VIR boards, Tom Fecke of Sabre, Tobias Klöpf and Jörg Möller of Wirecard, then addressed a few words of welcome to those present. Then Mirko Schemmel introduced Kuoni Business Travel once again before the microphone was handed over to Jannika Göbel, who then led through the event eloquently in German and English.
The Elevator Pitches
Each start-up selected from the applications had exactly 7 minutes to present its own company, visions and the desired goals. Afterwards there was about 3 minutes time for some critical questions from the audience.
1. KITRO – Food Waste Management for Hotels & Restaurants
First Naomi MacKenzie was asked on stage to tell something about KITRO. She explained how KITRO can help hotels, restaurants and canteens reduce and avoid food waste. This is done by fully automated measurement of the waste in the containers used. The measurement results are continuously displayed in dashboards and help users to optimise their planning. The company is already relatively widely supported by investors and is working on international expansion.
2. MyHotelStats – Data analysis for the hotel industry
Next on stage was Christopher Meignier, co-founder of MyHotelStats. He showed the spectators how his solution can be used to merge sales and occupancy data with information from restaurants, bars, the SPA and hotel shops. In addition, benchmarks from competitors and social media information from customers are to be made available. From this large pool of data, every employee in the hotel will be able to compile the dashboards and reports that suit him or her best. And all this without technical knowledge. More data, more connections – making better decisions. Oliver Käsermann, responsible at Amadeus among other things for the screening of promising start-ups, gave Christopher the appropriate slogan for future presentations: “make every employee a data scientist”!
3. reisetopia – cheap travel, luxurious enjoyment (site in german only)
Because they don’t know what they’re doing! This certainly does not apply to the student team that is currently establishing itself on the market with reisetopia. Here the own experiences in searching, finding and using the best strategies for collecting miles and points are shared with the interested audience. Flying in business or first class and staying overnight in luxury hotels is to be made possible thereby for everyone. Alexander Müller explained to the audience how the start-up company was financed through affiliate deals and how it was able to generate income of € 450 K last year.
4. The Trip Boutique – Your Virtual Assistant
Under the banner “we do the planning – you live the experience”, The Trip Boutique promises curated content and experiences for the next City Trip. According to Fernanda Barrence Mutz, this includes hotels, restaurants, city tours, museum visits and much more. The suggestions are based on a profile created by the user with the corresponding preferences. Bookings are currently made via affiliate links. However, further steps are planned to offer own content and above all to manage the payment process via the own platform. From my point of view this is an exciting approach – but it reaches its limits when several travellers with different profiles plan a trip.
5. Yoordi – scan – order – pay
Jörg Wasmeier from Yoordi finished the exciting pitches. The small company takes care of a problem or even aggravation in the gastronomy, which often leaves a negative last impression – the payment process. Even if this is a little too simplistic. In fact, Yoordi covers the entire process from menu selection to ordering and payment. And all this without the need for an app download for the customer. With the scanning of a QR code, the guest connects to the “table account” and can then order, reorder, pay an invoice partially or completely. And then receives the corresponding electronic invoice directly on the device and the inbox. Yoordi is still cooking on a low flame – but the potential is huge and an optimization of the current process is guaranteed.
and some more short Pitches
After the “official” pitches, other representatives of start-ups were also given the opportunity to briefly introduce their companies. The following took advantage of this opportunity
- Andrea Caspani from My-Mountains.com
- Sebastien Flury of Planify
- Dirk Haro from hocaboo
Also exciting concepts, which you should take the opportunity to have a closer look at.
If you want to see more interesting travel start-ups, you can find an overview of the participants in the VIR innovation competition “Sprungbrett” on the FVW page of tomorrow’s tourism players.
and the winner is......
After the presentations, all attendees were asked to vote for their favourite of the evening. While the organizers counted the votes and the tokens, there was already intensive discussion about what had been seen and heard and a discussion with the presenters was sought.
KITRO was chosen as the winner and participant in the final round of the TIC/VIR Startup Nights in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The second place went to reisetopia. The prizes and certificates were presented by Tom Fecke and Jörg Möller.
travelBrain's Conclusion
This is an exceptional occasion that has never before come up in Switzerland. Of course, start-ups will also be presented at the World Tourism Forum in Lucerne and at the Swiss Travel Management Forum, but the focus and involvement in a series of similar events across national borders is certainly exciting.
It’s a pity that the audience response has been limited. I would have expected more representatives from the industry to be interested in future developments. One or two potential investors should also have shown their interest.
But it was the first event in Switzerland and the organisers may not have been known the same everywhere. The marketing of the event can certainly also be optimized. And perhaps it also makes sense to get one or the other local partner on board.
Adrian Matt for travelBrain
