Travel Innovation: The State of Startups 2005-2013

Summary

Travel, tourism and hospitality has a history of attracting entrepreneurs inspired by the vertical’s complexities and eager to bring innovation to the world’s largest industry. While established travel companies are continually developing new products and services, startups are often the first to leverage emerging technologies, challenge conventional business models and drive change.

Established in 2008, The Travel Innovation Summit@The Phocuswright Conference is the industry’s premier showcase for innovative travel technologies and applications. Since its inception, The Travel Innovation Summit has featured 126 travel startups, which have in total raised nearly US$700 million. Phocuswright closely follows travel startup and investment developments worldwide, publishing the results in its "State of Startups" spotlight, now in its third edition.

This analysis tracks the global travel startup landscape from 2005 to 2013, examining more than 700 startups founded during this period. The article breaks out startup developments and funding by region, with detailed analysis by both vertical (i.e., travel segment) and horizontal (i.e., technology, medium or business focus).