travel-marketplace
(14)
LULUTRIP Sold the Part of the Trip Everyone Else Left to Chance
The clever move was not to plan the whole holiday. It was to take charge of the confusing middle - the tours, tickets, transfers and human help that begin after a Chinese-speaking traveler lands.
The Idea That Waited at the Dock
Getmyboat's founders saw marinas full of unused boats before the sharing economy had a name. A decade of waiting turned that observation into a global marketplace - and, eventually, a merger with its closest American rival.
Sastaticket Sold the Journey. Then It Had to Handle the Refund.
The Pakistani booking company grew by putting travel choices on a screen. Its harder education came when flights stopped, customers called, and selling a ticket was no longer enough.
tiket.com Wants to Book Your Trip. And Keep You After It.
The Indonesian travel company nearly ran out of reasons to stay open. Its next act connects flights, family weekends and everyday shopping - with a sharper promise when plans go wrong.
Spot2Nite Turned One Family’s Camping Headache Into the Booking Rails for 69 Million Travelers
The New Orleans startup began with an RV, an empty itinerary and too many phone calls. Its bigger idea was not another camping directory, but a live inventory network that other travel brands could plug into.
TrovaTrip Put Creators in the Tour-Bus Driver's Seat - Then Removed the Gate That Kept Smaller Communities Out
TrovaTrip found a clever way to turn online trust into offline travel: creators bring the crowd, local operators run the trip, and the platform takes care of the unglamorous middle. Its most revealing product decision was learning when not to demand more data.
Despegar Is Building the Operating System for Latin America’s Vacation
The Buenos Aires-born travel company survived the dot-com bust, regional currency shocks and a pandemic. Now, inside Prosus, it is stitching flights, beds, credit, loyalty and AI into one Latin American checkout.
The Hardest Part of Your Trip Is the Part 12Go Wants to Make Boring
Flights were digitized years ago. The bus to the pier, the ferry after it and the van on the other side are still a mess - and that stubborn gap is 12Go's business.
The Local Travel Platform Teaching South Africans to Book Home First
A R12,000 garage project became a homegrown booking habit. Now LekkeSlaap is betting that local language, human help and 38,000-plus stays can keep travel value closer to home.
The Cruise Club That Turns Monthly Dues Into a Global Booking Machine
inCruises asks travelers to subscribe before they sail, then converts recurring payments, reward points and a worldwide referral network into booking power. The model can unlock meaningful travel value, but members need to understand the rules that make the engine run.
Sabre Wants to Turn Travel's Oldest Plumbing Into an AI Checkout
Born from a chance conversation between two airplane seatmates, Sabre made reservations instant. Six decades later, it is trying to make the travel industry's fragmented checkout work like one intelligent transaction.
Expedia Is Building the Travel Internet Behind the Travel Internet
The familiar booking brands are only the shop window. Expedia Group's more consequential bet is to become the shared infrastructure for travelers, suppliers, advertisers and thousands of businesses that want to sell a trip.
Wheel the World
Wheel the World is a travel platform that makes booking accessible trips reliable for people with disabilities and seniors. Founded in 2017 by Chilean childhood friends Alvaro Silberstein and Camilo Navarro, it treats accessibility as an information problem: trained mappers collect 200+ verified data points per hotel room, activity, and destination, so a wheelchair user can check the exact door width, bed height, and shower type before they book. The company now covers 8,000+ travel services across 200+ destinations and guarantees accessibility on rooms booked through its site.
myRiva
myRiva (formerly Onriva) is a Foster City-based business travel marketplace that uses patented AI to aggregate airfares, hotels and ground transport from more than two million suppliers into one open booking platform. Aimed at small and mid-sized companies, it pairs machine-driven fare matching with 24/7 US-based live agents, real-time traveler dashboards and corporate policy controls, positioning itself as a lower-friction alternative to legacy corporate travel tools.