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A regular dissection of the news, issues and trends in travel and technology, featuring interviews with industry executives and entrepreneurs and hosted by PhocusWire editors.

  1. 3 days ago

    Merger & acquisition trends in travel with Morgann Lesné of Cambon Partners

    Q2 2026 was quiet for travel startup funding but busy for M&A. Only two Series B rounds stood out: hotel tech company Smartness raised €47 million, and India-based hostel operator The Hosteller raised $16 million. WeRoad closed the quarter's lone Series C, $58 million led by Airbnb. Clarasight raised an $11.5 million Series A for product development and geographic expansion. Phocuswright's Travel Startups Interactive database shows $1.7 billion in funding for the year's first five months, up from $1.1 billion in 2025. M&A carried the quarter. Expedia Group's acquisition of CarTrawler stood out, aimed at building a one-stop shop for B2B travel. Juniper acquired Deem, and Lighthouse acquired Hotelrank.ai. Bigger deals included Long Lake Management's $6.3 billion purchase of American Express Global Business Travel and Apollo Global Management's agreed $5.7 billion takeover of easyJet. Speaking in the PhocusWire Studio at Phocuswright Europe 2026, Cambon Partners' Morgann Lesné told Linda Fox that deal volumes from 2022-2023 haven't returned, but consolidation pressure is building as small players run out of runway. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  2. 2 Sept

    What Revolut's entrepreneur in residence thinks AI can do for travel

    Revolut's AI travel push, a year after acquiring Swifty, is led by Stanislav Bondarenko, the startup's co-founder, now inside Revolut's lifestyle unit. His goal is unchanged: book flights and hotels from a single voice message. Speaking with PhocusWire's Linda Fox in the PhocusWire Studio, Bondarenko named the advantages of joining a larger company — stability and access to Revolut's existing user base. But the bigger factor is data: the transaction and behavioral history of Revolut's millions of customers. He called this double-edged. It shortcuts development because the team already knows what works, but more data also means more noise, so the real challenge is separating signal from clutter. He also described using a traveler's past trips and spending to anticipate needs before they're stated, comparing it to mind reading — removing steps by inferring intent rather than requiring explicit input. His boldest claim: booking won't need a dedicated chatbot or app going forward. It could happen contextually, wherever the traveler already is. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  3. 26 Aug

    Navigating AI developments as a startup with Zerolook

    Zerolook, a Switzerland-based startup that predicts flight prices, has raised US$1.9 million in pre-seed funding led by Playfair, with participation from Vento Ventures, TrueSight Ventures, Alpha Ventures and several angel investors. Its machine learning model predicts flight prices and itineraries, aiming to cut the volume of searches hitting airline systems. Recent OAG figures show up to 20,000 searches generate one ticket sale, a number that could climb to 200,000 as agentic artificial intelligence (AI) increases search volume. Zerolook's model presents users with a predicted itinerary, price and confidence score. In the PhocusWire Studio, CEO Simone Lini discussed plans to compute prices differently than the fare-filing process used for six decades, along with the startup climate and AI's impact on distribution. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  4. 19 Aug

    Loveholidays' ambitions in the growing packaged travel market

    Loveholidays has quietly built one of the fastest-growing positions in European package travel, expanding from a UK-only startup in 2012 into eight markets and roughly 15% of the UK packaged travel market.  In this conversation, head of strategy Isabella Cheng unpacks the bigger shift behind that growth: dynamic packaging has gone from a niche 2% of the UK market in 2009 to about a quarter of it today, and Loveholidays has built its entire model around being the technology layer that aggregates flights and hotels on the fly rather than selling pre-built package holidays. Cheng also gets specific about where AI actually earns its place at the company, walking through how their chatbot Sandy handles the majority of customer chats at agent-level satisfaction and saves an estimated £4 million a year, and how AI-assisted coding has let engineering nearly double its deployment pace without adding headcount. She wraps with a candid take on the IPO question that's been trailing the company for years. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  5. 12 Aug

    CEO Spotlight: Filip Filipov of OAG

    Less than a year into leading OAG, CEO Filip Filipov sat down with PhocusWire's Linda Fox and the thing that's actually surprised him isn't AI, it's customers. Preferences are outrunning what technology can deliver, on both consumer and B2B sides. The industry, he says, is chasing customers' dreams of what a product could be rather than what's currently buildable. AI adoption matched his expectations directionally but beat them on speed — marketing, finance, and commercial teams picked it up as fast as engineering did. But he pushes back on treating adoption as even across the industry. A startup with the right people moves fast. A decades-old institution carrying legacy process and PII constraints is often capped at Copilot in Word. He's also skeptical of "AI" as a catch-all, lumping product, technology, and distribution together as if they're one thing. The conversation also covers the CEO role's personal weight and where he sees real innovation in travel. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  6. 5 Aug

    The new rules of travel discovery in the age of AI with Propellic and Stiplo

    Generative AI is transforming how travelers discover and book trips, according to a PhocusWire interview with John Matson, chief revenue officer of Propellic, and Carlo del Mistro, founder of Stiplo. Del Mistro said hotel owners often contact his company after finding their property missing from ChatGPT results. He likened today's AI visibility landscape to early SEO, when ranking drivers were poorly understood and constantly shifting. Matson said tracking is still early stage, though statistically relevant measurement is now possible to show movement on specific prompts. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is growing in importance alongside traditional SEO, which both speakers said still plays a major role, depending on the LLM used. AI referral traffic remains small but is growing exponentially, with higher conversion since those visitors arrive already qualified. On suppliers versus OTAs, Matson said he is bullish on suppliers, who can build products from physical assets and retain first party data. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  7. 29 Jul

    Travel's AI winners and losers: the debate continues

    Artificial intelligence is reshaping how travelers discover and book trips, but a critical question remains unresolved: will AI reinforce the industry's biggest players or tear down their advantages? In this episode, two of travel tech's most vocal commentators bring their ongoing public debate into the studio. Mario Gavira, chief marketing officer of Travelier, argues that AI is more likely to strengthen dominant OTAs and hotel groups than displace them. He points to their tech infrastructure, loyal customer bases and unique inventory as durable moats. In his view, AI simply becomes another marketing and booking channel, one the biggest brands are well positioned to exploit. Christian Watts, founder and CEO of Magpie, pushes back hard. He believes AI agents will fundamentally change the shopping experience, replacing endless search results with a handful of tailored options chosen on a traveler's behalf. That shift, he argues, could erode the advantages today's leaders depend on. The conversation moves through some of the industry's most contested questions: whether loyalty programs still matter when an agent can compare offers instantly, what role Google plays as AI reshapes discovery and whether AI platforms become the next gatekeepers travel brands have to negotiate with. Recorded live at Phocuswright Europe 2026 in Barcelona and hosted by PhocusWire's Linda Fox, this episode captures a debate that's been building across a series of opinion pieces for the past 18 months, now playing out face to face. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  8. 6 May

    CEO Spotlight: Gonzalo Estebarena of Despegar

    Just weeks into his new role as CEO of Despegar, Gonzalo Estebarena is outlining an ambitious vision for the Latin America-based OTA as it enters its next phase under Prosus ownership. Having previously served as Despegar’s CTO and chief commercial officer, Estebarena said the company has maintained its “startup soul” while gaining the scale and resources of a global technology company following Prosus’ $1.7 billion acquisition in 2025. A major focus is artificial intelligence, with Despegar committing $100 million annually over the next three years to AI development while aiming to triple the size of the business. Estebarena said access to Prosus has accelerated conversations with technology partners and provided Despegar with a “front-row seat” to AI experimentation and innovation. Expansion in Brazil is a key priority, particularly as Despegar works to become part of a broader Prosus ecosystem spanning travel, food delivery, entertainment and other consumer services. Estebarena described this strategy as targeting “life-decision moments” for consumers. He also discussed Prosus’ development of a “large commerce model,” designed to predict customer actions rather than words, enabling more personalized offers and communications that drive transactions. The interview also explores Uber’s move into hotels, Despegar’s internal AI projects and the leadership challenges Estebarena faces as CEO. All episodes: https://www.phocuswire.com/in-phocus See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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About

A regular dissection of the news, issues and trends in travel and technology, featuring interviews with industry executives and entrepreneurs and hosted by PhocusWire editors.

Information

  • Creator
    PhocusWire
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    97
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 PhocusWire
  • Show Website
    In Phocus

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