Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors in Austria. In the tourism industry, Austrian startups and companies show that they can show international innovation. It was not until 2018 that the startup Tourradar from Vienna attracted attention with a whopping investment of 43 million euros. Just recently, the hotel group Falkensteiner completed a crowdinvesting campaign in the amount of 8.5 million euros.
Erste Bank and Sparkassen, Trending Topics and 4Gamechangers also look for the next major tourism startup in the chick Challenge. At a pitch that takes place this Thursday, 21 February in the workshop Wattens and by the I.E.C.T. The location agency Tirol is supported, 8 startups will pitch in front of a high-caliber jury. The winner of the pitch receives a prize of € 1,000 and enters the final of Austria’s largest startup competition.
The nominated startups
Riddle rallies and scavenger hunts with a historical background for groups: with the help of augmented reality, founder Miriam Weberstorfer wants to make places and their stories interactive.
The startup sees itself as a personalized “Amazon” of hotel-internal and regional holiday experience offers. With the help of online guides, the hotel industry should be able to appeal to luxury and holiday tourists emotionally. Above all luxury travelers are to be addressed.
The Viennese startup around founder Arber Dedaj is a service dedicated to the sharing economy. It manages the leasing of its clients’ real estate on platforms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, HomeAway or TripAdvisor.
The startup is working on a new backpack, which should be designed to best support its wearer in any activity in the mountains. There will also be a crowdfunding campaign to give interested people the opportunity to pre-order.
Kommis develops software products for the hotel industry. They help to organize guest reservations with digital table plans. So even widely used handwritten notes are to be replaced.
The startup of the two founders Julia Rhee and Aleksey Igudesman is considered the Airbnb for rehearsal rooms. Users of the platform should be able to simply rent premises if they need a suitable place to play music while traveling. The startup is already supported by John Malkovich and Billy Joel.
The Tyrolean startup offers hotel revenue management software. The algorithm takes into account factors such as weather, events, guest reviews, holiday times and competitors’ prices, and enables dynamic pricing.
The startup from Wieselburg delivers its customers boxes with five different quality wines from Austria to each 250 ml, so that customers can taste in small quantities by the good drops.
The startups will compete in front of a high-caliber jury. This will decide which tourism start-up company will move into the final of the “Believing Challenge”. The jury members are:
Magdalena Hauser, Managing Director of I.E.C.T.
Lisa Spöck, responsible for startup programs at the Standortagentur Tirol
Erich Falkensteiner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Falkensteiner Michaeler Tourism Group
Clemens Plank, Regional Chairman Young Economy Tyrol
and the Head of Corporate Clients, Tiroler Sparkasse.
The jury will decide live on site which of the 8 startups will enter the finals of the believing challenge as the country’s best tourism project. The final winner will receive 10,000 Euros of prize money from Erste Bank and Sparkasse, 10,000 Euros media volume at Trending Topics, a 5,000 Euro voucher for a Crowdinvesting campaign at Conda, a go-to-market package from Simon Kucher & Partners worth 80,000 euros, a casting starting place for the next season of “2 minutes 2 million” and an annual requirement for drinks from Coca Cola.