Innovation

📱 Deutsche Telekom and Perplexity unveiled the AI Phone at Mobile World Congress 2025, aiming to replace the traditional app model with a conversational AI interface. CEO Tim Höttges of Deutsche Telekom, which also heads T-Mobile, anticipates a summer 2025 release with partners including Google Cloud AI, Eleven Labs, and Picsart. The AI Phone seeks to eliminate the need for mobile apps, passwords, and the use of personal data, proposing to streamline the online service booking experience. Despite potential skepticism, Deutsche Telekom plans to integrate new services throughout 2025.

🏢 Kempinski Hotels appointed Karin Raguin as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) to focus on talent development and organizational growth. Raguin brings over 20 years of human resources experience in the luxury and fashion industry, having served as LVMH's Senior Vice President of Human Resources in China since 2022. She led a team of over 35 department heads and was integral to LVMH's Global Tech Board. Kempinski has a dedicated workforce of over 19,000 employees globally.

🎮 PimpMyTrip enhances user experience by integrating gamification, rewarding active users with statuses, badges, and TripCoins. The update aims to make urban exploration addictive, encouraging more exploration, sharing, and frequent app usage. Co-founder Ghislain Foucque envisions a more interactive, rewarding experience, fostering a human and collaborative tourism approach. Users can create personalized address books and share favorite spots, with rewards for quality content contributions.

🎬 Excurio, formerly Emissive, now enables multiple immersive experiences to be broadcast simultaneously at cultural partner venues, a first in entertainment. CEO Fabien Barati revealed that partners in Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux are currently offering three simultaneous experiences to visitors. Excurio's multi-content simultaneous broadcasting patent benefits venues by allowing them to attract audiences to multiple offerings, improving profitability and visitor experience. In April, Excurio will globally launch "Les derniers remparts" and open its immersive experience creation platform to other studios, expanding content and partnership networks.

📱 Travel Compositor unveiled Dora, an AI-powered interactive travel kiosk. Designed as an advanced vending machine, Dora uses artificial intelligence, virtual avatars, and voice recognition to assist travelers in booking flights, hotels, and experiences. Intended for deployment in travel agencies, hotels, airports, and tourism offices, Dora was presented at ITB Berlin 2025 for professionals to evaluate. Travel Compositor aims to expand companies' physical presence cost-effectively with this white-label solution.

🏥 Radisson Hotels launched "Extra Mile Incentive Travel," a customized travel experience program, endorsed by the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE). The initiative provides access to nearly 200 properties across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, featuring unique designs and prime locations. The program responds to the finding that group meals are the most favored activity in incentive travel programs (51%), according to the 2024 Incentive Travel Index.

💸 Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, and Trip spent a combined €17 billion on digital marketing, surpassing the global revenue of all Hiltons and 17 times higher than Accor's operating margin. Booking Holdings led the 2024 investment with €7 billion, over 30% of its annual revenue, up from €6.5 billion in 2023. Expedia followed closely, with Ariane Gorin announcing a 12% increase to €6.5 billion. Airbnb invested €2 billion, while Trip's marketing expenses reached €1.5 billion, up 29% year-over-year.

🏖️ Maya Travel, a Belgian startup, raised €1 million for its virtual travel assistant's development and AI performance investment. The funding round included Lighthouse and business angels, with clients like Travelbase, Joker, Noorderhuis, and Frenchly. The funds will boost expansion, enhance sales and engineering teams, and allow clients to train AI models with their data for more accurate white-label recommendations. Maya Travel's AI assistants, deployable via email, WhatsApp, or travel sites, reportedly increase client sales by 20%.

📦 Apaleo, a PMS provider serving clients like citizenM, easyHotel, and Numa, launched Agent Hub, an AI agent marketplace for hoteliers, in Munich. Agent Hub aims to facilitate the integration of AI in hospitality by offering solutions for revenue management, loyalty programs, and accounting. Mews has previously popularized similar marketplaces. Agent Hub allows customization and easy deployment of AI for daily operations, including email reservation management and sales strategy recommendations.

📱 Amazon has launched Alexa+, a new AI-powered voice assistant that uses language models like Anthropic's Claude from Amazon Bedrock. Alexa+ has "experts" for specific tasks, like controlling Philips Hue, Roborock, or booking through OpenTable and Vagaro. It can autonomously schedule appointments, such as appliance repairs via Thumbtack, and is integrated with Travel partners like Priceline, Viator, and Ticketmaster, allowing for full booking capabilities with Amazon Pay. In 2024, a partnership with Viator enabled booking experiences from hotel rooms via Alexa. Available in beta for Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 users in the US, with a broader rollout planned. Alexa+ costs $19.99, free for Prime members, and is part of a network of 600 million Alexa-equipped devices globally.