Michael Coletta

Over the last 20 years, many areas of the travel industry have been transformed by waves of disruption, from technologies like the web and mobile to new product categories like home- and ride-sharing.

The next wave is undoubtedly artificial intelligence (AI), a catch-all term encompassing natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, machine vision and robotics.

In spite of some early-stage funding contraction, the travel startup ecosystem is alive and well. This article explores the state of innovation in travel and highlights the top trends and developments, based on the innovators who participated in Phocuswright’s Innovation Platform events in 2018. Presenters are grouped into categories based on area of focus, and key trends are summarized.

Phocuswright has tracked the launch of more than 80 travel-focused accelerators, incubators, early-stage investors and entrepreneur support programs in the last 5-7 years, not to mention dozens of pitch competitions, hackathons and conferences, including our own. Each promises to connect travel startups with a combination of industry expertise, resources, capital and exposure, and contributes to what is now a robust travel startup support ecosystem. These programs and entities have sprung from intermediaries, suppliers, destinations, investors and independent groups.

Following a flat performance in 2017, the U.S. car rental segment improved in 2018 with a projected 3% growth in gross bookings. Car rental is a mature online market, and as with the segment overall, online channel growth will be relatively soft in the coming years. This report provides an overview of the U.S. car rental segment, including online and mobile bookings, distribution trends, OTA versus supplier dynamics, and projections through 2022.

The cruise and packaged travel segments are entirely leisure-driven, and each remain heavily dependent on traditional travel agency distribution. In 2018, the cruise market is projected to grow more rapidly than packaged travel, at 10% versus 4%, respectively. This report provides complete sizing and analysis on the U.S. cruise and packaged travel segments, including online versus offline bookings, distribution dynamics, OTA versus supplier dynamics and projections through 2022.

Since 2008, Phocuswright has tracked the digital travel startup landscape, publishing annual State of Travel Startups reports beginning in 2012. Since then, digital travel has undergone tremendous transformation, and startups continue to lead the wave of disruption in the global travel industry. This report – covering startups that launched in or after 2008 –  provides a detailed view of the current state of travel startups, including regional analysis, funding levels and business focus.

Since 2008, Phocuswright has tracked the digital travel startup landscape, publishing annual State of Travel Startups reports beginning in 2012. Since then, digital travel has undergone tremendous transformation, and startups continue to lead the wave of disruption in the global travel industry. This report contains, in spreadsheet format, a complete list of travel startups that launched in or after 2008, including  company names and URLs, funding information, current status and more.

Voice is quickly going mainstream as an important human/computer interface, and the implications for travel planning, booking and servicing are profound. Voice has the potential to dramatically alter the search landscape and give more power to the companies that control the major platforms. This report highlights the state of voice in travel today – including travelers’ interest in and use of voice technology – and tests and compares the travel-related skills and actions currently available via a variety of voice-enabled devices and platforms.

Phocuswright and innovation experts led a thought-provoking conversation about the state of European travel innovation on April 19, 2018. Download/View this presentation deck and recording to learn about the current state of investments and the funding environment, how industry venture funds are financing startups to advance strategic initiatives. conichi, the 2017 European Travel Innovator of the Year, also shared insights on the challenges of founding and scaling a startup in Europe.

Each year, Phocuswright publishes an annual “trends” report that discusses the most significant technology-driven issues or developments that will shape travel distribution in the course of the year and beyond. This year we incorporate the views of our extended analyst team, who are industry experts in a range of areas. This paper features introductions to more in-depth discussions on these topics that will be published throughout the remainder of this year.