The travel startup of 2025 is Onsai

Munich, December 4, 2025 – On the evening of December 2, an event was held at ADVANT Beiten The grand finale of the TIC & VIR Travel Start-up Night 2025 took place in Frankfurt am Main. Around 70 guests, including startup teams, industry experts, investors, and a panel of judges, watched six inspiring pitches as the teams competed for the title of “Travel Start-up of 2025.”

Following the official welcome by the Travel Industry Club e. V. (TIC) and the Verband Internet Reisevertrieb e. V. (VIR), last year’s winner, Paul Kissel of ViralSpoon, shared what has happened since winning the title and how it has helped his startup. Stephan Bingemer from Heilbronn University kicked off the finals with an inspiring and motivational keynote titled “Founding Tourism Startups of the Future with Foresight and AI.” In his presentation, he emphasized how problems must be identified and approaches to solutions reimagined in order to remain sustainable in the age of AI.

In the end, Onsai won the final with its forward-thinking idea and was named “Travel Start-up 2025.” The start-up impressed the jury and the audience with an AI solution that addresses one of the key challenges facing the hospitality industry: a shortage of staff coupled with rising service expectations. Onsai is developing a digital assistant that answers calls, processes reservations, and automatically responds to a wide range of guest inquiries. Already today, the AI handles more than 10,000 calls for client businesses, significantly reducing the workload for hotel teams—both in terms of time and cost. Thanks to usage-based billing models, the solution is flexible and enables hotels of all sizes to offer professional, round-the-clock guest service. The startup plans to roll out its solution internationally and has set a goal of serving approximately 0.5 percent of the global hotel market by 2028.

NewTravel took second place behind Onsai. The startup makes specialty travel options visible and comparable by building the largest database of special-interest travel offerings in the DACH region. Travel agencies and customers benefit from significant time savings during the consultation process.

FashionTouri took third place with a solution that combines authentic sightseeing with local retail. In doing so, they promote conscious consumption and regional diversity, creating a new, personalized city experience that fosters long-term customer loyalty.

The other three startups also impressed the audience with their passion and their concepts for the future of tourism. Nox Mobility is revolutionizing travel on night trains—with the goal of making long-distance travel more attractive and affordable. Meanwhile, Traivelling enables fully integrated booking of international train trips, including fare comparisons and complete trip planning via a one-stop platform. Vantrip, on the other hand, focuses on AI-based route planning for RV vacations, creating a fully personalized route in under two minutes and thus saving campers the time-consuming preparation work.

The Travel Industry Club e. V. (TIC) and the Association of Internet Travel Distribution e. V. (VIR) would like to extend their heartfelt thanks to ADVANT Beiten for their hospitality, as well as to all sponsors, without whom this year’s finals would not have been possible. In total, a prize package worth 100,000 euros was distributed among the top three winners. In his host’s address, Prof. Dr. Hans-Josef Vogel emphasized how important it is to support startups: “Startups bring new momentum and forward-looking ideas—exactly what we need to keep small and medium-sized businesses and the industry competitive.”

“With the Travel Start-up Night Finale 2025, TIC and VIR have once again demonstrated just how diverse and forward-looking the tourism startup scene is. ‘The startups are developing solutions that are already delivering tangible added value today and paving the way for a digital and sustainable travel world,’ said VIR Board Member Michael Buller. The organizers are looking forward to the next round of the TIC & VIR Travel Start-up Nights 2026.”

The full recording of the TIC & VIR Travel Start-up Night finals is available on Roman Borch’s travelholics podcast.

You can download the press release as a PDF here.