Waltru is a Barcelona-based startup offering a personalized travel companion that generates itineraries based on traveler preferences and pace, and narrates each place's story via audio. Currently in beta, it plans to expand to Madrid, Paris, Rome and London. The business model is pay-per-trip via in-app purchases, with B2B2C distribution planned. The founding team consists of three Argentines with software and travel backgrounds.
India-based OTA Ixigo launched a rebuilt AI-native mobile app at its Ixigo NEXT event, featuring an upgraded TARA assistant supporting voice, text, or tap interactions in English, Hindi, and Hinglish. New features include Trip Mode consolidating boarding passes, gate/terminal details, baggage claim info, and travel alerts, plus Agentic Travel Flows that automate tasks like sending boarding passes via WhatsApp, updating Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes on flight changes, monitoring delays/cancellations, and coordinating with hotels for room readiness. Most agentic features are permission-based and opt-in.
Travelport's TripServices Flights API release AirReservation 26.11.86 supports adding Auxiliary Tour (TUR) and Surface (SUR) segments to an existing booking using Custom Auxiliary Segments, and deleting auxiliary segments from an existing booking using Cancel Workbench Items. This feature applies to GDS only.
The SAP Concur blog presents four ways to optimize business trips: using TripIt to automate itinerary management, combining business with leisure (bleisure), leveraging TripIt Pro for real-time notifications, and preventing business travel burnout. The article cites TripIt survey data: 35% of Americans plan a business or bleisure trip this summer, and 34% attribute increased travel to business travel growth.
SAP Concur published a blog post introducing a new email setting in TripIt that allows users to control which itineraries are shared with SAP Concur. Users can customize plan-sharing preferences for each connected email address, such as setting work email to auto-share and personal email to not share. Users can also edit individual trips to choose whether to share. The feature aims to help users separate business and personal travel while streamlining expense reporting.
TripIt from Concur has launched and enhanced several health and safety tools to help travelers navigate post-pandemic travel. New features include: the TripIt Traveler Resource Center, available to all travelers, aggregating public health and safety advisories, cancellation policies, and new travel guidelines; Neighborhood Safety Scores covering more than 65,000 cities and neighborhoods, including a Health and Medical score factoring in COVID-19 data; a redesigned Point Tracker; Nearby Places showing nearby hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies; and Siri Shortcuts for touchless itinerary updates.