NEWS ned in-person last month, held at News UK’s offices in London. Lee Hayhurst and Josie Klein report


New players in travel ‘need to listen to their customers’


S From left: Ronald Humsy, Pintada; Kirk


Flitton, LuckyTrip; Vivi Cahyadi Himmel, AltoVita; and Erika de Santi, WeRoad


Ben Stephenson (right), Impala, with Lee Hayhurst,


Travolution


uccessful start-ups in travel must spend time listening to their customers and


understanding how established players in the sector operate. That was the message from Ben


Stephenson, co-founder and chief executive of London-based hotel digital marketplace Impala. He told delegates most


assumptions the firm had made over the past four years had “absolutely died”. “We spent a long time talking


about how one of the features of what we do is we help hotels fill their rooms,” he said. “After about a year of this not


landing very well, a hotelier told us, ‘Why do you keep saying this? No one has a problem filling rooms.’


In this industry you


need to work with big enterprises and under- stand how established players do things


“He said it’s about who you fill


the room with and how much you spend. That’s a really good example of why we needed to speak to our customers.” Impala was born out of a feeling


that travel needed the equivalent of a Stripe or Plaid in fintech to modernise retail and distribution. However, Stephenson said this


was a “big bet” that foundered due to the economics and tech infrastructure in travel.


He added: “This is an industry


where you need to use phrases like B2B, you need to work with big enterprises and understand how established players do things.” Stephenson said any start-up’s


chance of success can hinge on realising when things are not working. “The difference between an


averagely successful start-up and one that fails can often be that the averagely successful start-up did not flog the dead horse whereas the failed start-up did.” Stephenson said following the


pandemic the sector should celebrate the fact that financial institutions like Barclays are tipping travel for growth. “When your base is zero, it’s pretty


easy to be in growth. But we should all love that and take a moment to remember the darks days of 2020.”


Travolution award


shortlist of six, which were Byway, Holibob, Hotel Manager, Midnight Deal, Travel Ledger and TripAdmit. The other six start-ups that presented


were Doors to Manual, Chain4Travel, It’s July, Trending Travel, Ultimate Travel Club and Vervotech. The winner of the award will be revealed


at the annual Travolution Awards 2022 ceremony to be held at the London Hilton


Bankside on November 24. i To see all the shortlists for the awards go to: bit.ly/TravoAwards2022


‘Travel up against rival hot sectors for investment’


Travel start-ups have their work cut out competing with other “hot sectors” to attract funding. Investment experts discussed


the current appetite for backing early-stage travel companies. Anthony Rose, founder and


chief executive of Seedlegals, said the impact of the pandemic would put some investors off travel until they saw for themselves how many people were still travelling. “But you have to compete with


other sectors,” he said. “Fintech at the moment is hot,


edtech is hot. I’m not sure that travel and retail is at the moment.” Kolvin Stone, partner at travel


specialist law firm Fox Williams, a summit sponsor, said start-ups were


travelweekly.co.uk


able to take advantage of an active angel investor eco-system backed by the UK government. “Travel is ripe for disruption,” he


said. “At the early stage the money is generally there. It gets more difficult at later A, B or C rounds because investors are looking for metrics.” However, Charles Hardwick,


principal at Vitruvian Partners, said the private equity firm is a “massive


3 NOVEMBER 2022 13 Travolution Start-up Summit


believer” in travel and “very much open for business”. “Travel is complex and there are


many problems that should have been solved 40 years ago. Capital flows where people are solving problems, and innovating.”


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