Rückblick: Die 4. Travel Start-up Night 2021 in Zürich
The venue
In the Crowne Plaza Zurich on August 30 in cooperation with KUONI BUSINESS TRAVEL the fourth VIR & TIC Travel Start-up Night took place this year. This was the second in-person event after more than a year of digital formats, and the venue was well attended: around 30 guests accepted the invitation to experience a networking evening—naturally in compliance with health and safety guidelines—featuring exciting startup pitches. The event was also streamed virtually.
Dirk Bremer and Michael Buller welcome the guests
After welcoming the guests with refreshments in the foyer, the Start-up Night kickedoffat 6:30 p.m. Michael Buller, CEO ofVIR,andDirk Bremer, President of theTravel Industry Club, opened the evening. Birgit Plein from this year’s event partner,Berlin Partner, thenalsosaid a few words of welcome and expressed her delight that the travel industry is in good spirits and that startups continue to be supported. Andreas Schneider fromKUONI BUSINESS TRAVEL, the sponsor of Start-up Night Zurich, also warmly welcomed the guests.
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.
3, 2, 1… Pitch
The Appventure team at the Q&A session
Stephan Wühr, Heinrich Hawel, and Matthias Pletl from Appventure kicked things off. Appventure makes it possible to find the perfect experience—whether on vacation, on a hiking trip, or after work—in a clear, spontaneous, and reliable way. With this, the team led by CEO Stephan Wühr aims to provide tourists and locals with an overview of a wide range of leisure activities in their immediate vicinity, while also supporting leisure providers in the challenge of digitizing their businesses.
Lionel Ebener presents open2work
Next, Lionel Ebener launched the open2workplatform. With open2work, companies canlist their excess capacity in workspaces and meeting rooms online, which can then be booked on a daily basis without a subscription or on a monthly basis. In this way, open2work addresses the challenges of finding a suitable office as well as the trend toward the sharing economy. Afterward, Lionel Ebener answered questions from the interested audience.
Xavier Pantet of Pindex
Next up was Xavier Pantet with his startup Pindex, which offers interactive guided tours designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Thanks to its content-block technology, Pindex enables the creation of spontaneous, engaging, and affordable smartphone-based guided tours. The startup’s vision is to help connect destinations with visitors and locals, thereby boosting the local economy.
Alexander Klenk presents Xinevio
Andreas Klenk from Xinevio wrapped up the session. The startupgives small and medium-sized businesses access to the vast target audience of Chinese tourists by creating an online profile for these companies—similar to a Google My Business listing—on leading platforms such as Alipay, WeChat, and Ctrip, which Chinese tourists use when planning their trips. Xinevio’s goal is to ensure that not onlymajor brands and retail chains benefit from the purchasing power of Chinese travelers, but also businesses of all sizes and levels of experience.
The organizers of TIC & VIR
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 event was moderated by Jannika Göbel from TIC and Jacqueline Beckers and Carlotta Kranz from VIR.
The winners of the evening
Before everyone relaxed and wrapped up the evening with drinks and hors d'oeuvres at the Crowne Plaza Zurich, everyone was naturally eager to find out which startup had come out on top. Lionel Ebener from open2work impressed the evening’s guests and secured a spot in the finals. Second place went to Stephan Wühr, Heinrich Hawel, and Matthias Pletl from Appventure, who can still hope for a spot in the finals.
We would like to take this opportunity to once again extend our heartfelt thanks to our event partner, KUONI BUSINESS TRAVEL.
The next VIR & TIC Travel Start-up Night will take place on September 7 in Cologne!
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