From banker to luxury villa specialist with Natasha Martsekis of Bright Blue Villas

After 20 years in institutional trading, Natasha Martsekis left banking to follow her passion for hospitality. In 2014 she founded Bright Blue Villas, a luxury villa rental company built on the principles she learned on the trading floor: trust, accountability and treating owners as strategic partn…

AI in action in corporate travel with Perk

Perk (formerly TravelPerk) has launched an MCP connector linking Claude, ChatGPT and other AI assistants directly to its travel and spend management platform. Chief product officer Nikita Miller frames it around killing "shadow work," the time employees waste digging through reports and switching t…

Merger & acquisition trends in travel with Morgann Lesné of Cambon Partners

Q2 2026 was quiet for travel startup funding but busy for M&A. Only two Series B rounds stood out: hotel tech company Smartness raised €47 million, and India-based hostel operator The Hosteller raised $16 million. WeRoad closed the quarter's lone Series C, $58 million led by Airbnb. Clarasight rais…

What Revolut's entrepreneur in residence thinks AI can do for travel

Revolut's AI travel push, a year after acquiring Swifty, is led by Stanislav Bondarenko, the startup's co-founder, now inside Revolut's lifestyle unit. His goal is unchanged: book flights and hotels from a single voice message. Speaking with PhocusWire's Linda Fox in the PhocusWire Studio, Bondare…

Navigating AI developments as a startup with Zerolook

Zerolook, a Switzerland-based startup that predicts flight prices, has raised US$1.9 million in pre-seed funding led by Playfair, with participation from Vento Ventures, TrueSight Ventures, Alpha Ventures and several angel investors. Its machine learning model predicts flight prices and itineraries…

Loveholidays' ambitions in the growing packaged travel market

Loveholidays has quietly built one of the fastest-growing positions in European package travel, expanding from a UK-only startup in 2012 into eight markets and roughly 15% of the UK packaged travel market.  In this conversation, head of strategy Isabella Cheng unpacks the bigger shift behind that …

CEO Spotlight: Filip Filipov of OAG

Less than a year into leading OAG, CEO Filip Filipov sat down with PhocusWire's Linda Fox and the thing that's actually surprised him isn't AI, it's customers. Preferences are outrunning what technology can deliver, on both consumer and B2B sides. The industry, he says, is chasing customers' dream…

The new rules of travel discovery in the age of AI with Propellic and Stiplo

Generative AI is transforming how travelers discover and book trips, according to a PhocusWire interview with John Matson, chief revenue officer of Propellic, and Carlo del Mistro, founder of Stiplo. Del Mistro said hotel owners often contact his company after finding their property missing from C…

Travel's AI winners and losers: the debate continues

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how travelers discover and book trips, but a critical question remains unresolved: will AI reinforce the industry's biggest players or tear down their advantages? In this episode, two of travel tech's most vocal commentators bring their ongoing public debate int…

CEO Spotlight: Gonzalo Estebarena of Despegar

Just weeks into his new role as CEO of Despegar, Gonzalo Estebarena is outlining an ambitious vision for the Latin America-based OTA as it enters its next phase under Prosus ownership. Having previously served as Despegar’s CTO and chief commercial officer, Estebarena said the company has maintaine…