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.

Virtually everyone on the planet who has used the internet recognizes the three leading search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing. Along with the big 3, there are several others, such as the Chinese search engine Baidu and DuckDuckGo, which does not track and record users’ actions. Despite these advances, we have just begun to unlock the potential of search.