Edition #66, June 16

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Hi ,

Here is your weekly curation of the top news around travel innovation, trends and startups:

• Navigating mazes at the airport. Being in the airport doesn’t need to be a stressful experience for travellers, but too often it can be. From managing their bags, dealing with language barriers to travelling with the whole family, there can be a lot to organise and take care of. Making it simple with an airport-assistance platform that enables travellers to book a dedicated airport helper, SkySquad has raised $1 million in seed funding.

• Sustainable travel education for professionals. As the result of a partnership between WeTravel and Tourism Cares’, all travel professionals can now access a free education course focused on sustainable tourism. The 10-modules course is offered as part of WeTravel Academy and provides easy-to-follow and concrete steps to help businesses implement sustainable practices in their travel business. The course is widely available for travel professionals eager to be part of the change in the industry, letting them go “from zero to hero” in just 60min of class. Exciting!

• Keep your audio to yourself. Bringing together unique acoustic innovation with the aim to enhance passenger experiences, Safran has just announced a new seat that is fitted with a headset-free and high-quality individual sound experience. The seat allows passengers to enjoy high-quality sound, no matter what position they find themselves in, and can do so without their audio affecting neighbouring passengers.

• Booking ground transportation is getting overhauled. You book the flights, the hotels, even the attractions and activities. But when you land in your destination of choice - how are you getting from A to B? Navigating ground transportation in different countries around the world can be daunting and anxiety-inducing. This week, though, there’s been a lot of action in this sector. In Europe, Berlin-based Distribusion raised €30 million for its platform connecting transport providers and travel brands to make booking easier for travellers. Meanwhile, Israeli company Bookaway has geared itself up for further expansion having now raised $70 million and made an exciting new acquisition.

• Robots are the new museum guide. While museums might normally be associated with places documenting history, culture, and the makings of humanity and society - they often lead the adoption of tech and digital innovations to enhance visitor experience. LG has just introduced the LG CLOi GuideBot, designed to revolutionise the customer experience virtually in museums, convention centres, movie theatres, hotels and the like. It can be used to support security staff, advise visitors on offers, updates and general information and generally bring a flair of the future to guest experience.

• Aprés-pandemic and after more luxury. As we enter into the first summer that is relatively restriction-free since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, it’s been found that travellers have set the bar higher when it comes to what they expect in their holiday let. According to Breezaway, travellers now put cleanliness and safety as key priorities, with expectations rising steeply.

• Dynamic pricing in the attractions industry. For the travel and attractions industry, dynamic pricing is a match made in heaven. It allows providers to manage pricing on a sliding scale, making the most of peak times and low-seasons. Reflecting a growing interest in the space, Swiss firm Smeetz has just raised $4.1 million for its data-driven intelligence tailored to museums, amusement parks, music venues and theatres. The company recently expanded to the UK and France and now wants to go stateside.

See you next week,Ana

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The content of this newsletter is curated and published by Ana Metz, innovation expert, passionate about technology and excited about the future of travel.

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