Rückblick: Die 3. Travel Start-up Night 2021 in Salzburg
The thirdVIR & TIC Travel Start-up Night of the year took place on June 16 at salz21 kompaktat Messe Salzburg, marking the first in-person event in over a year after a period of digital-only events. The venue was well attended, with around 100 guests accepting the invitation to enjoy a networking evening—in compliance with health and safety guidelines, of course—featuring exciting start-up pitches.
The salz21 program kicked off at 4:00 p.m. with an opening panel discussion on the topic of “New Business on the Salzach.” This was followed by the Startup Salzburg pitch session, where three exciting startups presented their ideas. Next came a panel discussion with business angels on “start locally, scale globally” and a panel on the future of learning.
Harald Hafner and Michael Buller welcome the guests
After the break, Start-up Night kicked off at 6:00 p.m. Michael Buller, Chairman of the VIR, and Harald Hafner from the Travel Industry Club Austriaopened the evening. Jannika Göbel from the TICand Carlotta Kranz from the VIRthen outlined the program for Start-up Night.
Anschließend hieß es für die ausgewählten Start-ups, volle Konzentration und auf in das Duell um den Sieg des Abends und somit um den Platz im Finale der Travel Start-up Nights am Ende des Jahres.
Johannes Wigand introduces Live Voice
3, 2, 1… Pitch
The first to take the stage was Live Voice, whichturns smartphones into an audio transmission system for guided tours—a system that is not only more flexible and hygienic than traditional setups but, as a cloud-based solution, also enables remote translation of tours into other languages. Johannes Wigand, co-founder of LiveVoice, demonstrated the remote translation feature live in the hall and showed how Live Voice is setting new standards in terms of pricing and innovation as a SaaS business model.
Alexander Fally and Sebastian Waldbauer from NEEDIT
Next up were Alexander Fally and Sebastian Waldbauer, who launched NEEDIT.at, an online rental platform for outdoor gear. Since 2020, NEEDIT has been successfully connecting private owners and renters of outdoor gear under the umbrella of the sharing economy.
Mischa Moellner introduces Make My Day
Next up was Mischa Moellner with his startup Staymateand its SaaS solution, Make My Day, designed for destinations and tour operators. The platform automatically generates personalized itineraries for guests using a wide variety of tourism data sources, thereby saving them the hassle of planning and inspiring them to visit with concrete daily itineraries.
Tanja Friedrich of Velovio
Next up was Tanja Friedrich from Velovio, a company that designs and manufactures stylish and functional bicycle racks and sells them directly and through distribution partners to B2B and B2Government customers.
The event concluded with Hanna Bergsmann and Marcel Ertl from WinEcycle Tours, who offer guided leisurely e-bike tours—made entirely of wood and in the spirit of sustainability—around Langenlois, Austria’s largest wine town.
Hanna Bergsmann and Marcel Ertl also answered questions from the audience
After each pitch, there is a brief period for questions from the audience. Once again, attendees took advantage of this opportunity to offer plenty of praise and suggestions. Since Travel Start-up Nights always bring together both established players in the tourism industry and young startups, this is a perfect opportunity for the pitching startups to gather feedback and refine their business models.
The startups at the awards ceremony
Before the evening came to a relaxed close thanks to the excellent service provided by Messe Salzburg, everyone was naturally eager to find out which startup had won the competition. Johannes Wigand from Live Voice impressed the evening’s guests and secured a spot in the finals. Second place went to Tanja Friedrich from Velovio, who still has a chance to make it to the finals.
We would like to take this opportunity to once again extend our heartfelt thanks to Messe Salzburgfor their hospitality and enthusiastic support!
The next VIR & TIC Travel Start-up Night will take place on August 30 in Zurich!
Subscribe to the monthly VIR newsletter!
We keep you informed about current topics in the tourism industry.
You can find all our articles listed in our News section. Or choose a topic from our news categories and read only the articles related to that topic.