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- Zara just showed up for travelers 🛍️
Zara just showed up for travelers 🛍️
by claiming the travel spend window
Hi there,
I recently heard about this story: a fashion brand that understands how people travel, think... and spend. It’s been sitting with me, so I’m bringing it here.
Zara quietly launched Travel Mode: curated city guides plus a “ship-to-hotel” checkout option for travelers. It’s already live in Italy, the UK, and Japan, with Spain, France, and Turkey next. And right in time for peak season.
Zara. Yes, the Spanish fashion giant. The retail machine operating in more than 90 countries. Not exactly who we’d expect to set the bar on traveler experience. and yet… here we are.
Let’s forget brand storytelling for a second?
This is Zara’s way of embedding itself into the traveler’s experience and tapping into the travel spending window. That key moment when people are in a new city, ready to spend, and looking for things that make them feel good right now.
And it solves a clear use case: people with limited luggage, urgent need, high purchase intent. Delivering to where the traveler is. Literally.
Nothing new was built to launch Travel Mode. There is no booking engine, no hotel deals, no expanded inventory. They reframed what they already had (logistics, product, customer data) around a different moment in the customer journey. A focus on sharp execution and a very clear read on traveler behavior.
Look sideways: lifestyle brands are already absorbing parts of the experience that travel companies have left exposed. Anyone still thinking in terms of bookings and beds, it’s already behind. Time to zoom out.
Yes, there’s a conversation to be had about fast fashion and overconsumption. For now, let’s acknowledge the ones mastering execution? 🎉
Funding Spotlight
Munich-based Holidu has just completed a €46 million growth round and acquired Cybevasion, the operator behind gites.fr and chambres-hotes.fr, two of France’s leading holiday rental platforms.
This gives Holidu deeper roots in one of Europe’s most fragmented domestic travel markets, and a stronger local brand to grow with. brings over 35,000 properties and 20 million annual users into the Holidu ecosystem. It’s their long-term bet on local presence and trust.
💬 “France is already one of Holidu’s fastest‑growing markets. By combining Cybevasion’s beloved brands with our tech and local service teams, we’re giving tens of thousands of French hosts an express lane to higher occupancy and international visibility - while delivering a better booking journey for guests.” says CEO Johannes Siebers.
This follows Holidu’s recent acquisition of Finca Mallorca, and last year’s buys of Ferienwohnungen.de in Germany and Clubrural in Spain and Portugal. It’s all part of a broader push to consolidate Europe’s vacation rental market from the ground up.
On our radar:
🇺🇸 Tern acquires Lucia, a freelancer marketplace for travel creators, as they lean deeper into content-led planning tools.
🇳🇱 Tebi, the latest startup from Adyen co-founder Arnout Schuijff, raised $30M from CapitalG to scale its all-in-one OS for hospitality.
🇮🇳 The Tarzan Way raised a seed round to scale its AI-powered group travel platform for B2B clients.
🇫🇷 Kolet raised €8.8M to expand its eSIM product as more travel brands look for simple mobile connectivity solutions.
Before checking out
Not funding rounds. Not product launches. Not deals. Just things we read this week that made us think about what’s shifting under the surface…
🧠Trivago’s leadership lesson
3 former interns are now CEO, CMO, and CFO. And they’ve led a full turnaround. Brilliant and wild. (via Fortune)
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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