Startups

Despite the crisis, travel startups continue to raise funds. SevenRooms, a guest experience platform for restaurants and hotels, was one highlight this week.

Sonder is now the second unicorn in the short-term rental and hotel sector after Airbnb. At this rate, Sonder will IPO before Airbnb.

Vendors are getting creative with pandemic-related services, like the following: Passport control via facial recognition. Contactless elevators. Food-ordering without needing an app. Luggage disinfection via ultraviolet light. Mask-detecting robots.

The latest batch of travel startups to raise funding has focused on themes of corporate travel, integrating mobility services like airport transfers into travel apps, giving hotels guest engagement tools, aggregating destination experiences, and providing technology for managing short-term rentals.

Travel startups funded this week include a data exchange platform, a direct booking solution for hotels, an intercity bus service, a listing service for recreational vehicles, a service for virtual experiences, and a ticketing tool for activities operators.

The recovery for sightseeing, attractions, and experiences is still in early stages in Europe and North America. But it is happening faster than expected in some segments and countries.

Travel startups that have raised fresh funding include GreenCloud, a hotel software firm, Bobobox, a pod hotel brand, React Mobile, a maker of panic buttons, and Cabana, a luxe camper-van firm.

Uplift and Affirm have seen gains from installment payments for travel purchases in the U.S., and the London-based startup Fly Now Pay Later wants to apply the model in Europe. The concept could help cash-strapped people resume trips.

Smaller online travel agencies try to make money by grabbing nickels and eurocent coins ahead of the steamrollers of global advertising behemoths. The underreported story of why China's largest travel company acquired a tiny Dutch travel group highlights the phenomenon.

Mind the gap.