Travel Tech Asia 2026 runs 21 to 23 October at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre (Level 1) in Singapore, with more than 50 exhibitors, ITB Asia said. Named exhibitors include Agoda, Airalo, DerbySoft, DragonPass, Flywire, Rakuten Travel Xchange, SiteMinder and Trip.com. The Korean Tourism Startup Centre is on the list too.

The new feature this year is a hosted buyer programme, which expects about 100 technology buyers: CIOs, CTOs and procurement leads from hotels, travel agencies and DMCs. Darren Seah, Executive Director of Messe Berlin Asia Pacific, said: “Technology has become a key driver of innovation and growth across the travel industry.” The show sits within ITB Asia 2026, which expects more than 18,000 attendees from 132+ countries and territories. Trade visitors register at webreg.biz/itbasia-2026.

The Korean delegation at Travel Tech Asia 2026

KTO, the Korean state tourism body, runs startup centres in Singapore, Tokyo and Bangkok. KTSC Singapore was established in August 2022 and added 13 new partners in 2026, among them Mastercard and Scape. Min Byung-sun, head of KTO’s Tourism Industry Division, has described Singapore as a city-state densely packed with networks of tourism, finance, MICE, hotels and resorts, and global companies, which suits the testing of localised services.

For a hotel group or DMC, that makes the Korean stand a pre-screened supplier shelf. Each company has already pitched to a Singapore audience, and several have a government-backed route to pilots.

What the programme has produced

KTO selected 30 startups for its 2026 Tourism Global Challenge from 209 applicants, a ratio of 6.9 to 1, Seoul Economic Daily reported. Each receives up to 200 million won (about US$145,000) in commercialisation funding. The programme began in 2020 and has supported 147 companies abroad, with Japan, the US, Europe and Southeast Asia as target markets.

The earlier results are commercial ones. The Service Platform took 1 billion won from AirTrip. Tripbtoz signed a 2 billion won contract with Archipelago. Haenyeo’s Kitchen set up a Singapore subsidiary.

Korean travel startups in Singapore: the 2026 cohorts

Two Singapore events this year put 16 Korean startups in front of local buyers and investors. The KTSC Travel Tech Showcase on 11 June, run by StartupX, KTO and KTSC, pitched eight: Alicorn, DIVE IN, DOWHAT, FAIRPASS, Globaleur, MANMANHAN, Prinker Korea and RedSlippers. The 2026 KTSC Demo Day on 20 August, run by KTO and Kiaora Ventures, pitched eight more: Go2Joy, LOYQU, BLF, Ohmyhotel & Co., AllTheStreet, ND Soft, CrossHub and K-Style Hub.

Sorted by what a buyer needs, the list reads as follows.

• Hotel operations: DOWHAT, a hotel operations DX/AX platform; Alicorn, which automates hotel and MICE venues with AI; Go2Joy, which sells hotel rooms by the hour; and Ohmyhotel & Co., which sells rooms B2B and B2C.
• MICE: FAIRPASS handles event registration and badges, and Alicorn covers venue automation.
• Agentic AI: Globaleur builds agentic AI travel recommendations and commerce.
• Language and payments: ND Soft offers AI multilingual interpretation, and CrossHub makes the Travel Pass prepaid payment platform for foreign visitors.

Korean tourism startups including Alicorn and Gadget Korea were first-time exhibitors at Travel Tech Asia 2025, according to TTG Asia. Their return to the floor is the pattern the centre is building on.

Money and momentum

KTO’s 2026 Tourism Global Business Day in Seoul drew 270+ delegates and 20 VC firms from six markets: the US, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong. The day produced 330+ one-on-one meetings, the Korea Times reported. CrossHub got a US$100,000 investment commitment from ThinkZone Ventures.

Kim Gwan-mi, director of KTO’s Tourism Business Support Division, said: “Our goal is to work alongside these founders directly in the field to help foster Korea’s first true tourism unicorns.”

For organisers

Kim Gwan-mi and Min Byung-sun are the two KTO officials to watch. Kim runs the division that backs founders in the field, and Min’s division shapes where the agency places them, with Singapore the current hub. Sixteen Korean pitches in Singapore between June and August, and 30 Global Challenge winners now being placed abroad, point to a supply of Korean founders who want stage time at APAC events. Organisers planning startup pitch sessions can look to these two offices for that pipeline.

Key takeaway

We think hotel, DMC and MICE buyers should make the trip, particularly those who register for the hosted buyer programme, because the Korean Tourism Startup Centre puts a vetted shortlist of hotel-ops, event and payments suppliers in one place. If only one day is possible, spend it on the Korean stand and ask which of the 16 Singapore-pitched companies are on site that week. Airlines and OTAs should check CrossHub and Globaleur against their inbound-payment and AI-commerce roadmaps before they fly.

Raising, launching or scaling a travel startup? Pitch it to TravHQ. Pitch it to TravHQ.

The post Travel Tech Asia 2026: 16 Korean Startups Buyers Should Know appeared first on TravHQ.

Skift Global Forum 2026 opens in New York City on Tuesday 22 September and runs to 24 September, on a stage that drew 5,983 attendees from 5,391 companies across 92 countries in 2025, 62% of them at director level or above. WiT Singapore follows at Marina Bay Sands from 30 September to 2 October. The previews Skift published this week already name the argument both rooms will have: the money in travel has moved from booking to servicing.

Here are the five threads of the week, one number each, and the names to book meetings with before the rooms fill.

1. Spotnana puts a number on servicing: 50%

Spotnana CEO Steve Singh told Skift this week that AI automation can cut servicing costs by 50% or more, and that Spotnana’s AI already handles cancelled flight segments, unticketed flights and refunds. “Servicing. We talk endlessly about search, distribution, and booking. What really matters is what happens after the trip is purchased,” Singh said. Why it matters: for a travel management company or an OTA, servicing is the cost line that grows with every booking, and 50% is the first hard figure a vendor has put on it in public ahead of the forum.

2. Singh’s 95% test for curation

Singh set a second number in the same interview. Curation, on his definition, means presenting the options a traveller would have chosen 95% of the time out of the full available list. Why it matters: that is a testable bar for any agent or search product an operator is being sold, and a question to put to every vendor on the floor in New York and again in Singapore.

3. IHG rebuilds its hotel content for machines

IHG Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer Heather Balsley told Skift that IHG is launching a new content platform later in 2026 and restructuring its hotel content to be machine-readable, so that AI tools surface its properties. She argued that the models will not own the guest relationship. “AI tools can only be as helpful as the content they’re drawing from, so content has become increasingly important,” Balsley said. Why it matters: a global chain treating content as distribution infrastructure sets the bar for every hotel group in Asia Pacific whose room and rate data is not yet readable by an AI agent.

4. WiT Singapore 2026, 30 September to 2 October

WiT Singapore 2026 runs from 30 September to 2 October at Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, six days after New York closes. Why it matters: an operator can hear the same argument twice in eight days, once from the US side and once from Asia Pacific’s hotel groups, OTAs and airlines, and the gap between the two answers is the brief for the fourth quarter.

5. PATA and ATTIA sign an MoU in Bangkok

PATA and ATTIA signed a memorandum of understanding in Bangkok on 15 September to run policy dialogue and to support each other’s conferences and webinars across Asia Pacific. Why it matters: two associations pooling their conference calendars means one more organiser-side channel for travel-tech speakers in the region, and one more table where policy on the technology gets argued before it reaches a ministry.

Who to watch

Two names to book before the rooms fill. Steve Singh of Spotnana, on the 50% servicing figure and the 95% curation bar, and on which servicing tasks the AI handles without a human today. Heather Balsley of IHG, on the content platform due later in 2026 and what machine-readable hotel content looks like in practice for a property in Tokyo or Taipei. In Singapore, the WiT programme team, whose three days at Marina Bay Sands are the Asia Pacific reading of the same agenda.

Key takeaway

Fly to New York if the servicing cost line is on the fourth-quarter plan, and put Singh’s two numbers, 50% and 95%, to every vendor on the floor. Fly to Singapore if the business runs on Asia Pacific supply, because the same argument will be made again at Marina Bay Sands with the region’s hotels, OTAs and airlines in the room. If only one trip is possible from Asia, we would take Singapore and read the Skift sessions from the desk.

The post Weekly Digest: 5 threads for Skift Global Forum 2026, WiT Singapore appeared first on TravHQ.

Last week we were at the OTM Forum 2019 in Mumbai, which is among the top rated travel tech events in India. This year’s event focussed on innovative business strategies and emerging technologies in the travel industry. This year’s forum curated by TravHQ in association with OTM team witnessed some of the hottest names in travel from Facebook, Kayak, Twitter, Booking, Lonely Planet, Indigo, Air Asia, National Geographic Expeditions, Jio Studios and many more.

The Panel on Digital Marketing and Social Media in Travel: Featuring Rachit Uppal, Head of Industry (India & South Asia), Twitter, Saurav Chakraborty Industry Manager (Travel), Facebook India, Abhijit Mishra Director, India & Middle East, Kayak and Girish Singh Head of Marketing APAC, Uber for Business and Daksh Sharma from TravHQ

The Panel on Influencer Marketing and its Role in the Travel Path-to-Purchase featuring Hitesh Rajwani, Sharanya Iyer, Priyanka Chandola,  Ajay Awtaney and Varun Vagish 

The Panel on Opportunities in Indian aviation – Making it big in the world’s most challenging aviation market featuring Chetan Kapoor Research Analyst – Asia-Pacific, Phocuswright Inc., Rajkumar Paranthaman Head of Marketing – India, AirAsia, Raj Sivakumar Senior Vice President – Network & Revenue Management, Jet Airways, Salim Khan Chief Security Officer (Specialist) – India, Emirates and Nitin Sethi – Vice President Digital @ Indigo

Naveen Perla COO, JetSetGo, Ruchi Lahoti Area Manager – India, Booking.com, Maitreyee Das Banerjee, Head of Marketing, Keys Hotel (Berggruen Group) and Todor Gerovski COO, 15toGO with Daksh Sharma in the Panel on How Millennials will Travel in 2019

The Panel on Future of Travel Content Marketing featuring Sesh Seshadri General Manager, Lonely Planet India, Abraham Alapatt President & Group Head – Marketing, Thomas Cook India, Bhawna Grover Head of Content, GoIbibo, Daniel Cheng Founder & President, RTM – Redefine Tourism Mixer and Daksh Sharma from TravHQ

Stay tuned as we bring you more updates, highlights and videos from the proceedings in OTM Forum 2019

The post OTM Forum 2019: India’s most definitive event for the influential travel industry leaders appeared first on TravHQ.

It seems like travel technology firm NIDA Rooms might just be shutting down, for now.

The company is in the process of restructuring its existing business model, which saw the exit of its three senior employees. While the restructuring exercise first started back in July last year, but is in full swing now. The fact that the official website of the firm now leads to an open server, might be a proof.

In an interview published on Marketing Interactive, Kaneswaran Avili, NIDA Rooms CEO and co-founder revealed that as part of its latest strategic move, the company plans to launch its own NIDA budget hotel soon. With the new offering, it aims to be the largest budget hotel chain in Southeast Asia in the next three years, penetrating countries such as Indonesia and Thailand. He also said NIDA Rooms will now focus on deeper integration with its hotel partners, and will roll out new product offerings to attract more customers and hoteliers. More details on this are awaited.

He also confirmed that three senior employees have since departed the organisation. This includes senior vice president of marketing at NIDA Rooms, Carmen Wong; chief technology officer Sudhakar Kondisetti; and chief financial officer Jason Lee. He added that the company is not looking for replacements at the moment, and that the restructure will not see a change in marketing budget.

Just earlier last year, NIDA announced its entry into Bangkok with the addition of Hotel NIDA Sukhumvit Nana to the Hotel NIDA portfolio. The hotel chain had also said that they had achieved a positive, consolidated hotel level EBITDA for first quarter 2018 with four hotels in operation. Last year, the company had also completed its Series A financing, raising a total of US$5.6 million, led by global private investment firm Shanda Group and other South-East Asian investors. To date, the business has raised over US$11 million, making it the best-capitalised business in its segment in the South-East Asian region, the company had said.

The post Is this the end for NIDA Rooms, or a revamped beginning? appeared first on TravHQ.

San Francisco, CA-based global WiFi provider Skyroam recently closed a $20 million Series C funding, bringing its total funding to over $50 million, and proving wrong naysayers, who think the device is unnecessary.

The round was led by Jafco Asia with participation from returning investors Vickers Venture, GSR Ventures, China Broadband Capital, as well as Delta Electronics Capital. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate global deployment of its smart data platform, to strengthen its products, expand the engineering and research team, enhance the end-to-end service platform, and accelerate growth into more vertical markets across the world.

Skyroam keeps travellers connected around the world through mobile hotspots powered by its virtual SIM (vSIM) technology. It delivers on-demand local wireless data through local carrier partnerships around the world. Its global hotspots, embedded with a vSIM, enable unlimited mobile WiFi in 120+ countries. Skyroam’s vSIM technology also provides global mobile data access to IoT, M2M, and wearables applications.

While switching to a local carrier might appear to be an attractive proposition to someone travelling once a year, Skyroam presents a very strong case for frequent travellers journeying to different countries. For instance, on roaming rates, carriers negotiate with each other but customers ultimately don’t benefit from competitive pricing, and are usually stuck with slow speeds.

This is where Skyroam’s virtual SIM technology steps in. It lets people use existing physical SIMs that is then virtualized, and can deliver mobile services to a wireless device, and change carriers on the device as needed, with Skyroam as the trusted third party. By using Skyroam, not only can travellers avoid a telecom company’s extra charges and bandwidth usage limits, but also connect up to five devices at a time. The company also recently announced a new Monthly Unlimited Global WiFi Subscription, available for use around the world for an affordable price of $99/month.

Travel has changed significantly over the last few years. One of those areas is the proliferation of mobile-first applications that make it easy to book and find information on-the-go. Travellers are increasingly taking control of their travel needs, no longer bound by the limitations of connectivity. In the future, travellers will expect even more seamlessness, and the growth of Skyroam will make it easy for people to align their dynamic mobile connectivity needs to their travel requirements, thus, solving a big pain point for frequent travellers.

The post The latest Skyroam funding bodes well for the future of travel connectivity appeared first on TravHQ.

The Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), Australia, FCM Travel Solutions and KPMG released industry’s first insights on disrupting technologies in the travel industry via an analytical whitepaper titled ‘The Digi-Smart Indian Business Traveller’.

According to Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), India is the world’s fastest growing business travel market. With business travel rapidly evolving and technology fore-fronting the business spend for corporates, the whitepaper focuses on how technology is rapidly revolutionising travel by maximising efficiencies, improving experience and increasing choice and options for the average traveller worldwide and increasingly in the Indian market.

Image source: Travel Daily News Asia

The report also details how growing smartphone, internet and digital networking penetration, combined with ever-growing plethora of online travel choices accessible have made technology a part of a business traveller’s DNA. Business travellers are increasingly veering towards technology for virtually all answers for their travel needs. Thus, leading to the emergence of a new age digi-smart business traveller, that implies “a technology-empowered traveller, who leverages technological touch points and tools to minimise encumbrances in his travel journey, improves his/her travel experience while also ensuring a safe, compliant and cost -effective business travel”.

Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions, Indian subsidiary of FCTG, Australia, said, “Digital technology today is rapidly growing. Rapid penetration of smartphones, Near Field Communication, in flight WiFi, faster networks and many such advances are only accelerating the penetration of technology into every aspect of travel. Self-booking tools, travel analytics, Artificial Intelligence and sharing economy services are not only here to stay but hold myriad and exciting possibilities for the future. The whitepaper launched in collaboration with KPMG intelligence aims to assist organisations that wish to serve today’s digi-smart travellers, understand their needs and make strategic decisions, based on these insights”.

Jaideep Ghosh, Partner and Head, Transport, Leisure and Sports, KPMG in India, commented, “Globally, technology has penetrated deep into business travel practices — it finds a host of applications in travel, including online booking tools, sharing economy services, travel analytics, virtual assistance, payments and compliance. India is also witnessing a gradual rise in the adoption of these technological advancements, which have led to the birth of what we call the ‘digi-smart Indian business traveller’. With this whitepaper, we have set out to explore the concept of such travellers, technology trends in business travel, their enabling ecosystem, as well as some potentially disrupting developments that could transform business travel landscape”.

The Indian business travel market is on the cusp of technological innovation led by its fast growing millennial workforce, smartphone usage, internet connectivity and Indian organisations’ growing investments in state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and compliance levels given the heightened physical and cybersecurity risks.

By presenting these insights from this data in the context of key trends – a first in the industry – the objective lies in making this information more relevant and actionable for corporates in India.

The post Indian travellers are becoming more digi-smart : Report appeared first on TravHQ.

Travelport and Roibek Travel have forged a partnership to a long-term agreement that will see Roibek use Travelport’s technology across their 55 branches in the entire Saudi Arabia’s travel industry.

This agreement would witness the growth of Riyadh-based travel agency deploy Travelport’s Universal API, the technology that backs internet bookings and unparalleled travel content to boost their online presence.

Khalid Suliman Al Turaiki, Founder, Roibek Travel, said “as a regional leader in airline ticketing for tours and travels, our selection of Travelport for our business, supports our objective to empower efficiency, increase productivity and improve our overall customers’ experience. A fundamental component of our strategy- as a pioneer of Saudi Arabia’s travel and tourism landscape- is to grow our presence online and Travelport’s technology will also allow us to target growth in our business so that we can bring our online presence to an unprecedented level.”

This point of sales solution would give Roibek access to air and other travel content and services aimed at maximising revenues for travel agents. Smartpoint, as the company calls it, would allow travel agents to sell not only air tickets but various other ancillary products and services of a particular airline in real time from over 400 of the world’s leading network and low-cost carriers.

Ibrahim El Mohandes, Country Manager, Saudi Arabia, Travelport, said “Travelport is delighted to announce this business partnership with Roibek Travel. Our technology solutions are redefining how travel is being searched, bought and sold across the globe and our Travel Commerce Platform creates synergies that facilitate revenue growth for our customers, which will empower Roibek’s growth online, increasing revenue as well as improving customer service for the Roibek’s customers.”

Research shows that Saudi Arabia has the largest travelling population in the Middle East, with the young population making 4-5 trips a year, mostly within Gulf.

The post Travelport and Roibek forge bonds to expand their online presence in the Kingdoms appeared first on TravHQ.

Serko, an NZX listed travel technology company has launched Serko.travel for desktop and mobile.

The app would help save Australian and New Zealand businesses more than 80 million hours a year by streamlining business travel bookings. The app would incorporate companies like Helloworld, Flight Centre, Corporate Traveller, Expedia and Booking.com to sell through it and was developed in partnership with Xero.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) typically book through an agent or an aggregator website. The app would primarily cater companies with the strength of 150 employees and work for domestic and international travels.

“This type of technology has only been available to big businesses in the past,” Darrin said. Serko chief emphasises that this technology would give smaller businesses the same level of access to technology, travel deals, and customer services that larger firm have.

The app claims to have 1500 SMEs already on board. Research by TNS shows that there are roughly 46% SMEs that travel regularly for work and book an average of 30 trips a year.

The time consumed on booking and planning an itinerary added up to 6 hours for an individual employee and up to 40 percent of business trips change plans at least once. About 33 percent of SMEs book via a travel agent and 66 percent book on aggregator sites.

Source: Stuff

The post Serko and Xero launch a travel app for SMEs appeared first on TravHQ.

Meetings.com, leading information provider on meeting and banquet venues worldwide, today announces a new partnership agreement with ABC Global Services, the leading travel agency support company providing the largest hotel discount and amenity programs as well as award winning web based hotel booking platform, ezBOOK by ABC.

ABC Global Services, based out of Boca Raton would utilise Meetings.com technology portal as a source generation and lead supply tool for their clients with meetings and event planning services. ABC Global Services is a leading supplier of services and technology for travel agencies, advisors and professionals. ABC Global Services is a leading supplier of services and technology for travel agencies, advisors and professionals. From site selection to contact negotiations and hotel accommodations, Meetings.com’s support and software service makes the ideal platform for ABC’s agency clients.

“Meetings.com is proud to work together with ABC Global Services. They understand the importance of meeting and event planning services as part of an ongoing commitment to help travel professionals grow their businesses,” stated Tim Hentschel, CEO of Meetings.com. “We are a client-focused team providing exceptional service worldwide and our goal is helping ABC customers find their ideal group hotel accommodations, meeting space, and hospitality services at the best rates possible.”

Through direct, collaborative relationships with the leading meeting and banquet venues around the world, Meetings.com quickly finds clients the perfect space and the best price by combining technology with an experienced worldwide client-focused team.

“After reviewing a variety of options it became abundantly clear that Meetings.com offers the best platform, agency support, the greatest opportunities for customization and the most attractive commercial terms for our agency partners’ meeting and event planning needs,” Eric Altschul, CEO of ABC Global Services added. ”We look forward to working with Meetings.com to roll out their leading edge solution to our agency community.”

Meetings.com provides exceptional service to help each client select the optimal venue and/or develop an exclusive corporate hotel travel program always delivering the best price for their hotel travel needs.

The post Meetings.com partners with ABC Global Services providing travel agency clients with hotel and meeting space appeared first on TravHQ.

You almost thought that we’ve seen it all when it came to engineering marvels of the skies. Hypersonics, electric propulsions, triple-deckers- yes we’ve seen them all. Well, you might just want to hold your breaths for this one. The pod plane. Switzerland’s Federal Polytechnic Institute brings forth this revolutionary design and aims to transform the way people and cargo travel.

What’s the inspiration behind such disruptive design? It’s simple but the concept is very distending. Clip-Air is a futuristic design which would drastically reduce the cost of long-distance shipping and travel. It’s composed of two elements- the humble shipping container or pods, as you’d like to call them, that could be used as cabin or cargo hold, and the flying component, including airframe, cockpit and engines. It has striking similarities to the X-48, an experimental aircraft developed for NASA a decade ago.

The pair of long metal legs protruding from each side of the flying wing keeps the airframe above the ground enough for the capsules to be hung from the centre of the aircraft. The versatility lies in the design which enables it to have the capsules detached to facilitate easy rotation on the ground. The pods could be used to carry the passengers or cargo. The speed could be compared to modern mid-sized airliners.

Claudi Leonardi, who manages the Clip-Air craft project quotes that the design is aimed to maximise the use of airframes for the operators which is the most expensive component.

The passengers would not have to wait in the endless aisles jams to board the flight as it would become seamless and less stressful. Passengers could easily choose from three different competitors, all flown by the same aircraft. Operators could go beyond the airport boundaries by marketing multi-modal itineraries.

As with shipping containers, Clip-Air could be seamlessly transferred onto trucks. The passenger cabins could be managed differently as there comes a facility to attach three capsules could be attached to each aircraft.

The chances of such an engineering model to get implemented are rather slim given that its commercial viability would see a little rough road.

Addison Schonland, founder of Airinsight, a consultancy providing market intelligence about the aviation industry says, “Although it may be brilliant from an engineering point of view, it is going to be very tough to make it work commercially. It would need to compete with proven and well-established technologies, and, frankly, it is dubious whether the market will be ready for such a radical new concept, even in the long term. In any case, if the concept is ever to take off, I would see it working for cargo first.”

Clip-Air researchers are adamant in proving that this concept is as viable as any due to the same technologies used in a different way. They are also looking into the possibility of using biofuels or liquid hydrogen as alternative fuel and have also initiated some contacts with the people in the aerospace industry.

From a design perspective, the prototype seems to be the future of travel and logistics both. Rest is all up to the implementation of the same.

Source: CNN

The post Seen enough of engineering marvels in the Airbus? You might want to reconsider appeared first on TravHQ.