Finalists have emerged in the second edition of the Global Tourism Startup Competition, an initiative of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in association with Globalia, the leading tourism group in Spain and Latin America.
This annual competition, one of the flagship projects of Wakalua the global tourism innovation hub powered by Globalia received proposals from nearly 5,000 startups from 150 countries with the highest number of projects submitted from Spain, followed by India, the United States, Portugal, Nigeria and Colombia.
The latest edition of the competition featured startups in a more mature stage, with at least 10% having had more than €500,000 in turnover in 2018. The finalists from seven categories namely Deep Tech, Smart Mobility, Smart Destinations, Disruptive Hospitality, Rural Development, Innovative tourism solutions, and Special award for sustainability will present their projects at the Wakalua headquarters in Madrid on January 20 with winners emerging from their respective categories.
In the Deep Tech category, Klustera from Mexico will be contending with TravelX from India/USA for the top prize while it will be a straight battle between two Spanish start-ups as Eccocar and Zeleros will go head-to-head in the Smart Mobility category.
Road.Travel from Russia will do battle with Visualfy from Spain in the Smart Destinations category as Hackpacking from Peru will go toe-to-toe with Questo from Romania in the Disruptive Hospitality category.
i-likelocal from the Netherlands will go into a titanic battle with Rutopia from Mexico in the Rural development category while two Portuguese start-ups HiJiffy and LUGGit will slug it out in the Innovative tourism solutions category.
The Sustainability category will have four start-ups jostling for the top prize, they are Adventure Junkies (Australia), La Voyageuse (France), Live Electric Tours (Portugal) and Pikala (Morocco).
Wakalua will host the winning startups for further development, providing support to establish links with leading companies in the sector. Innovation consulting firm Barrabés.biz is also a partner making this project possible.
Lastly, the IE Africa Center will recognize 2 projects in terms of social impact in Africa, awarding them with the Social Innovation Retreat scholarship, Sun Cycles Namibia and Enjoy Agriculture Senegal, presenting their initiatives. The winner of the Travel Tech 4 Good accelerator, in collaboration with the Tui Care Foundation and Enpact, Halla Travel, will also present its startup.
