Innovation

🚀 "Tech Care Episode 3, focused on travel tech health, was recorded at IFTM Top Resa 2024, discussing the investment crisis in startups with experts Kevin Ha, Viviane Silberstein, and Agustin CEDEÑO. Featuring startup pitches from Fairlyne, Luniwave, and Tadamm, an interview with EuroAirship CEO Marie-Christine BILBOW, and a segment by Hugo Pellegrin on the failure of French train startup Midnight Trains. Available on Spotify.

💰 Mews, a leader in the cloud hospitality sector, secured a $100 million financing from Vista Credit Partners, an affiliate of Vista Equity Partners. The investment aims to fuel Mews' M&A program and cement its market leadership. The travel and tourism industry, worth $15.5 trillion, is rapidly adopting cloud technology. Mews Ventures, the investment arm of Mews, has acquired nine companies to date, and the new funding will further accelerate growth and technological transformation in the hospitality industry. Mews CEO, Matt Welle, highlighted the significance of cloud technology in enhancing guest services.

👀 Mark Zuckerberg revealed Meta's AR glasses "Orion", aiming for a smartphone-free future, on the previous day. Orion, a decade in development, is lightweight (

📱 Tech Care's second episode was recorded at the IFTM Top Resa 2024 salon, featuring a focus on generative AI's value in business. Panelists included executives from IBM Consulting, Explore Grand Est, and SNCF Connect & Tech. The episode also showcased startup pitches from Genial, FullSoon, and Gowwiz, and an interview with ADN Tourisme's new Director General Antoine Angeard on federation transformation, along with Hugo Pellegrin's analysis of tourism technology flops.

📜 Over 90% of French consumers regard reviews, especially Google reviews, as their top decision-making criterion for choosing a company. With 75% of internet users preferring Google as their primary information source for evaluations and 56% consulting a company's website, online reviews are critical in shaping customer experience and purchase decisions. A widget displaying customer reviews on your website not only reassures prospects but also positively impacts local SEO by ensuring information consistency between your Google My Business listing and your website. This boosts the likelihood of improved local search rankings on Google and Google Maps. Guest Suite now aids over 3,000 professionals in automatically showcasing customer ratings and comments, enhancing local visibility.

🏨 Mews, awarded Best PMS 2024 by Hotel Tech Report, now serves over 1,000 establishments in France, making it the country with the most Mews clients. Matt Welle, CEO of Mews, highlighted the significant investments made in France to build experienced teams and meet French hoteliers' specific needs. The client base includes various types such as luxury five-star hotels, budget hotels, city hostels, countryside chateaux, and long-stay specialized establishments.

💰 TripAdmit, an Irish company founded in 2018, secures a $1 million funding round led by Dataop to expand its technology solutions for tour guides in North America and Europe. TripAdmit has developed engagement tools for collecting user feedback and digitizing gratuity payments through NFC and QR Code technologies, also incorporating AI through ChatGPT for user reviews.

🍴 La Commission Nationale des Titres Restaurants (CNTR) updated financial distribution of meal vouchers for Q2 2024, showing a market share increase of 8.4 points for supermarkets and a decrease of 6.4 points for restaurants since Q4 2022. This equates to a €576 million loss for restaurateurs and a €756 million gain for large retailers within a year. Only 40% of meal vouchers are now spent in restaurants. The CNTR update doesn't consider the recent acceptance of meal vouchers by LIDL. Restaurateurs, represented by Franck Chaumes, UMIH Restauration President, oppose extending the current temporary measure allowing supermarkets to accept meal vouchers for all food products beyond December 31, 2024.

📱 In August 2024, Wifirst's camping data consumption peaked at 42 Go per location, up from 33 Go the previous year. Implementations at Domaine de la Dragonnière included 5000 meters of outdoor cable, 600 meters of LAN fiber, 127 Outdoor and 11 Indoor antennas. A dedicated network (VLAN) is provided for business needs. The Wifirst Center offers real-time monitoring, with features like network hibernation to optimize energy consumption. WiFi costs range between 100€ to 500€ annually. Les Sablons Portiragnes has a 1 Gbps optical fiber, nearly 200 WiFi access points, and over 10,000 devices monitored monthly during the season.