Launched last year at the initiative of the government to support the development of travel tech, the France Tourisme Tech programme has unveiled a second list of winners, following on from the 15 start-ups that received awards last year. As a result of the dissolution of the French government and the recent political turmoil, the number of start-ups shortlisted has fallen to 10 young shoots which, in their own way, respond to the challenges facing the world of tourism.
While travel tech accounts for only a small proportion of the funds raised by specialist technology investors, this programme aims to supporting the development of these innovative companies. Not financially, but by promoting their ideas to tourist offices, trade associations and international missions. And, what's more, by putting them in touch with major groups.
Supported by forty partners, including Accor, ADP, Air France, B&B Hotels and Belambra for the big names in tourismAlongside Unibail-Rodamco, BNP Paribas Développement and BPI France on the investor side, the first edition of the programme resulted in some sixty strategic contacts and around thirty contracts signed. Most of these concern the testing of these solutions, with three going as far as equity investments, which remain confidential.
Among these experimentsAccor also signed up Luniwave - a system for reducing water and energy consumption - and Murmuration, a supplier of tools for measuring the impact of tourism on the environment. Wemap's mapping solution has also won over Belambra for its holiday villages, while ADP has turned to Outsight to count airport traffic at ADP. Other winning start-ups have also benefited from the programme for a year, including Allthewaywhich organises the collection and check-in of baggage with Air France and certain Accor hotels, or the network of baggage lockers Nannybag.
In the new class honoured by the Minister Delegate for the Tourism Economy, Marina Ferrari, some of the names are very familiar. known from the world of business travel in the image of Fairjunglea B2B platform focused on responsible business travel, now in use by
by over 300 companies worldwide. Another winner, Naboo has tackled a key issue for today's large companies - centralising their event spending - with an all-inclusive, turnkey seminar offering that has achieved a booking volume of €50m in just two years.
Two of the start-ups to be supported by the France Tourisme Tech programme are focused on CSR such as Fullsoon, a start-up that is already helping more than 800 restaurants to combat food waste, or AquaTech Innovation, which is looking at water savings for more sustainable tourism. One start-up, Affluences, specialises in forecasting and managing visitor numbers in real time.
For its part, PeeK'in professionalises and optimises the management of lost property until it is returned, while the start-up Les Flâneuses distributes "lost and found" items. anti-fatigue seats with which museum visitors can move around. Skaping aims to revolutionise the use of webcams in tourism, while Ask Mona aims to revolutionise chatbots in tourism through generative artificial intelligence.
Finally, Fairlyne's solution, which is already used by several million travellers, uses its technological platform to enable transport and soon hotel operators to offer their customers the following services resell their non-refundable reservation when demand is high. Or how to better control overbooking.
