Hugo Pellegrin

🚲 Passman's Passenergy, awarded the Innovation prize at 2025 Food Hotel Tech, helps hotels over 1000m2 target a 40% energy bill reduction by 2030. This IoT solution, involving 4 sensors per room, can cut energy costs by 7-12% by reducing temperature by 1-2 degrees. Installation costs are covered by Energy Saving Certificates, promising returns from the first month. The average energy saving with Passenergy is between 20-30%. Challenges included creating a user-friendly, cost-effective product that works across heating systems and developing long-life (5-year) batteries. Passenergy also collects data for predictive maintenance, saving more energy, and is expanding to monitor water use. It’s already in use by various hotel chains and independent hotels.

🏖 Infiniment Charentes launched ICIA, an AI-driven conversational agent, in partnership with GENIAL. This virtual agent enhances tourist information access through AI, geolocation, and local database utilization on the Infiniment Charentes website. It provides tailored recommendations for tourism, culture, and mobility to tourists and local residents. ICIA helps promote regional tourism businesses to a targeted local audience and prioritizes eco-responsible practices, drawing data from interdepartmental tourist databases and third-party transportation data, including Loopi and local tourism offices. Research indicates 82% of travelers prefer AI assistants over traditional search engines for local information.

📍 Sankofa Travel Studio, incubated by Provence Tourisme Innovation, promotes alternative travel through influencers. CEO Melany Fabre explains their model: influencers design custom trips with local travel agencies, overseen by Sankofa. They aim to address illicit travel sales on social media and enhance traveler-local interactions. Sankofa integrates impactful local actions into trips, like a desert clean-up in Jordan, donating 5% of trip costs to local projects. In 2025, they target producing ten journeys, with three already in development, including a Jordan trip partnering with a professional basketball player, directing 60% of revenue to local communities. Sankofa also addresses illegal travel offers by social media influencers, promoting professional and responsible travel.

📌 A Booking.com study indicates that nearly half (49%) of neurodivergent travelers find traveling more difficult. 15-20% of the global population has a neurological difference, including ADHD, autism, high intellectual potential, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. To alleviate travel stress, 66% are interested in AI for real-time updates and guidance in crowded airports and hotels, but 71% suggest better training for tourism professionals. Other improvements include providing ample pre-travel information (64%), familiarization sessions with airline procedures, and details on sensory elements at attractions. Quieter spaces are demanded by 76%, sensory rooms by 68%, noise reduction by 74%, and two-thirds desire venue maps and contactless check-ins at hotels.

📍 In 2025, Amadeus and Opinium Research's "Travel Dream" report indicates 63% of travelers are willing to pay more for additional amenities; hoteliers could see a 12% booking revenue increase. 48% prefer human interaction at hotel check-in, while 71% of business travelers opt for online/self-check-in. 33% of global travelers are inspired by social media, with 29% influenced by travel influencers. OTA bookings lead at 47%, with 70% interested in VR destination previews, spiking to 82% among business travelers.

💾 Gaiarooms, a Spanish startup specializing in hotel digitalization, completed a €10 million funding round led by Bonsai Venture Capital with business angel Javier Llorente participating. Founded in 2018 and based in Salamanca, Gaiarooms provides connected solutions for 900 accommodations across 8 Spanish cities. The funds will support network expansion, with plans for 4,000 properties by 2028 and eventual international growth. Services include automated check-in, online marketing, and 24/7 customer support.