Hi {{ first name | there }},
Spring finally hit Barcelona this week, and I absolutely love it. Yesterday I joined a Lovable event for founders just a few blocks from home, and I'm still digesting it. The speed at which things can be built right now is… something else. There's the short term impact (the very easy and simple prompting magic) and then there's what this means for tech companies in the longer run. I'm truly thinking about both. Read until the end, there are free credits to try it out for yourself. 🙃
This week we're giving the spotlight to Otel AI, closing a round just 6 months from launch. And our partners at Trengo put together something useful on how tour operators are using WhatsApp to get more reviews - worth a read if you work with guests post-experience.
Let's get into it! ⚡️
Otel AI has closed a €2M round led by Playfair, just six months in from launch. And Floor Bleeker (former Accor CTO) joins as advisor.
The product connects a hotel's existing systems and handles the work that eats a GM's morning (like pricing analysis, payroll alerts, board packs) delivered to the inbox. Without adding a new dashboard or spreadsheet. Paul told us that the market has shifted: "A year ago there was still a lot of education required. Now we have operators logging in every day, automating daily tasks, getting time back to spend with their team and their guests."
💬 "Every general manager I speak to tells me the same thing: they walk in every morning, open six or seven systems, and spend the first hour just trying to understand how their hotel is doing. By the time they have the picture, the morning is gone." - Paul Ryan, CEO & Co-Founder.
If you run tours, you know how hard it is to get guests to actually leave a review. The experience was great, they told you so on the way out… and then nothing. Turns out there's a right moment to ask (and a right channel!), and most operators are getting both wrong 👀
Two hours after a tour ends, guests are still walking home, still on the boat, still sharing photos with friends over WhatsApp. That's the window. And WhatsApp is exactly where they already are.
A review request sent over WhatsApp within that window gets a 70% response rate. The same request sent by email gets a 20% open rate - before you even start counting how many of those actually turn into reviews. Tour operators who've made the switch are seeing more than 5x more monthly reviews compared to email outreach.
With Trengo, a personalized WhatsApp message goes out automatically the moment a tour ends, connected directly to your booking system, with a link straight to Google or TripAdvisor. The guest gets it while they're still smiling. And nobody on your team has to remember to send anything 😌
🇨🇭 Insurteam raises $1.3M to roll out its travel insurance operations across Europe. The AI platform cuts claims processing from weeks to minutes.
🇪🇸 Travelgate acquires AO UK, adding content management to its hotel distribution network of 1,000+ buyers and sellers. Adding to the logic that connectivity moves inventory, but content makes it sell.
🇮🇳 The Hosteller raises ~€16M to scale India's leading backpacker hostel chain, targeting budget and experiential travel for the next generation of Gen Z travelers.
New regulations, capital, AI changing every layer of the stack. If you're building in Europe, there's never been more to keep up with 🫠
The EU-Startups Summit (Malta, May 7-8) is where the people figuring it out gather in one room. You'll recognise some familiar faces, like Andrea Lamperini (WeRoad) and Clare Jones (Polarsteps), as they are both speaking on stage.
We got a discount code exclusive to our readers: with the code FT30, you get 30% off and is valid until the end of next week! Hope to see you there! 🇪🇺
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that's the open rate for tour operators following up with guests via WhatsApp - compared to 20% for email.
💻 Go build something
Went to a Lovable event here in Barcelona yesterday and was completely blown away by what people are building. I've been talking about experimenting with AI and vibe coding for a while now, but seeing it in action is a different thing entirely. This is not sponsored, but if you sign up with this link, we both get credits to build. Full disclosure 😌
🎙️ What 12 years in travel taught him
Great interview with Patrick Andrae (CEO, HomeToGo) sharing from pre-seed to Frankfurt IPO, why vacation rentals were the first to recover post-COVID, and what 12 years in the industry taught him about building in travel. And his closing thought is a highlight for me, as he shares that as the internet fills with AI-generated content, the appetite for real experiences only grows. Good news for all of us :)
See you next week,
Ana
Thank you for reading until the end.
The content of this newsletter is curated and published by Ana Metz, an innovation expert, passionate about technology and excited about the future of travel.
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