Hotel beds are looking outside of themselves for tech innovation.

In an effort to accelerate technological innovation in travel, Hotelbeds is calling for startups with ideas that can solve problems in the industry.

The main business for Hotelbeds is the wholesale distribution of hotel rooms to travel agents, but the company has been working to add other business-to-business technology products.

That’s where this 15-month program comes in, says Hotel Beds Creative Director José María Pestana.

Hotelbeds is working with Telefónica’s technology innovation center Wayra to identify valuable ideas that will help Hotelbeds develop a low-cost and small-scale viable product.

“The idea is to try to identify disturbing thoughts,” Pestana said. “We want to put innovation at the center of our strategy.

This is not at the level of adding a venture capital arm as some major travel companies have done, but it follows the same idea. The point is that sometimes innovation comes from within the company, but it can also come from outside the company, and if the startup succeeds, it can eventually lead to a strong partnership or acquisition.

In its first HotelBeds competition over the next two months, HotelBeds is looking for ideas that simplify the traveller’s experience during the planning period, a fragmented industry that forces travelers to complete bookings with multiple companies.

“We’ll see what we get and what kind of deals we can sign with these startups,” Pestana said.

“The ultimate goal is that we’re all trying to create a frictionless travel experience together.”

Hotel beds received loans and cash injections in the days leading up to the outbreak, but Pestana said the recovery is going faster than expected along with the rest of the industry, especially so far this year. Hotel Beds said in November that it expects 30 percent growth over the next 12 months. Hotel Beds had its best two weeks in January in terms of bookings and revenue.

Hotelbeds has hired a new CEO, Nicolas Huss, in 2021 to lead the next generation of the business and develop the product portfolio.

Generative AI in travel booking

Skift has covered predictions and opinions about generative AI related to travel bookings. Here are three of the most interesting quotes from that article.

• Patrick Suri, Hopper’s Chief Data Scientist:

“I guess this is just the beginning – we need to go back to basics and rethink a lot about how and why we do things the way we do.”

• Omio CEO Naren Sham said:

“If I make a prediction, it will completely change the way we create products as a travel company,” Sham said. “I see this as a big change coming to the industry, and we’re certainly taking that very seriously.”

• Travel industry veteran and tech consultant Mark McKee explains how small operators will fare if travel search moves to chatbots:

“I think that’s the first question that everybody really has to ask at night. Search engine optimization doesn’t work your way out of that, so what do you do? They will be more dependent on OTAs. OTAs are going to be the big winners here because they’re undefeated, and I’m afraid that won’t continue.