The journey trade stays a fertile floor for innovators, regardless of the continued lack of startup funding, fast developments in synthetic intelligence (AI) and wider challenges round financial and political uncertainty.
Many within the trade, from those that have based corporations to those that have funded startups, are excited in regards to the potential for future innovation and the enterprise fashions AI could carry.
Since our first cohort of Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2019 was printed in late 2018, PhocusWire has coated and continues to control 175 corporations throughout all journey segments and geographies.
The Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2026 are not any exception, with corporations from Asia Pacific, the Middle East, the U.Okay., the U.S. and Latin America getting recognition this time round.
The mixed PhocusWire-Phocuswright staff, which started the method of narrowing down a listing of greater than 150 journey startups again in July, continues to search for corporations that stand out for his or her innovation and market potential whereas additionally specializing in range throughout founding groups, sectors and geographies.
Of the category of 2026, 10 are very early stage, having been based in 2024 or 2025. Of the rest, many have been born throughout or simply after the COVID pandemic, which demonstrates their focus and dedication to succeed.
And whereas final 12 months’s cohort included about 10 journey startups constructed utilizing AI or that rapidly included the expertise into their growth methods, this 12 months, no less than 60% of our Hot Startups are leaning closely on AI.
Other rising applied sciences resembling blockchain and decentralized ID are additionally represented.
According to Mike Coletta, senior supervisor of analysis and innovation at Phocuswright, within the present local weather, essentially the most profitable startups might be these which are AI-native and adaptable.
“As we pointed out in The AI-Native Edge: Travel Startups 2025, travel startup funding will hit multi-year lows this year even as AI-native founders report step-function productivity gains. Capital is concentrating in a tiny slice of companies while exits remain a bottleneck. Incumbents are retrofitting, and investors have shifted from spray-and-pray to prove-and-pay,” he mentioned.
“Thus, expect fewer, sharper checks chasing teams like these that can turn speed into distribution and outrun the funding drought. The winners will be the AI-native companies leapfrogging legacy stacks and building agent-ready services that can plug directly into the next generation of distribution.”
Checking in on earlier years
We at the moment are within the eighth 12 months of publishing the Hot 25 Travel Startups.
Including the category of 2026, PhocusWire has acknowledged 200 corporations via the Hot 25 sequence. Collectively, these startups have raised greater than $3.3 billion {dollars}, in line with Phocuswright’s Travel Startups Interactive Database.
Naturally, some startups have been acquired alongside the way in which or merged with different corporations. A small quantity are longer working, however the majority are nonetheless in enterprise.
Across the broader journey startup panorama, Phocuswright has tracked almost 8,000 corporations which have acquired greater than $230 billion in funding from greater than 11,000 rounds since 2005.
While the info exhibits that journey tech funding totaled $5.8 billion in 2024, a slight improve from $5.3 billion in 2023, it’s on monitor to say no once more this 12 months. By the tip of May this 12 months, the determine stood at $1.1 billion.
The class of 2026
For every of the businesses on this 12 months’s listing, we’re sharing particulars supplied by the founders in their very own phrases, together with an outline of the corporate, strategic targets for 2026 and classes realized since founding. We’ve additionally included hyperlinks to PhocusWire’s previous protection of those startups, as relevant.
Click on the corporate names beneath for particulars about every startup, what they’ve been doing and what they plan to do within the coming 12 months.
Arcube
Becoming RentABLE
BizTrip.AI
Bonafide
Buzz
Cruisebound
Dazhboards
DirectBooker
E23
GuestOS
HeyMax
HiGem
Hospy
HostAI
Indicio
Kaiban
Kismet
Landng
Meili
Nowadays
Roamr
SkyLink
VanityPass
Walkway
Xsite
Read our earlier Hot 25 protection
You can revisit earlier Hot 25 Travel Startup rosters and be taught extra particulars about the place these corporations stand in 2025.
Annual bulletins
Where are they now?