Saturday, July 26, 2025
In this exclusive interview, Iñigo Valenzuela, CEO of Smartvel, shares the remarkable journey of transforming a compact startup into one of Europe’s leading TravelTech companies. From overcoming early challenges in product-market fit and securing funding to navigating the seismic shifts brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Iñigo reveals the pivotal moments that shaped Smartvel’s success. He discusses how Smartvel’s AI-driven content solutions have revolutionized destination content, its strategic acquisitions of ArrivalGuides and Avuxi, and how government support in Spain is fueling innovation in traveler accessibility. Iñigo also sees ahead, shedding light on the future of travel technology, and how Smartvel plans to continue leading the charge in a rapidly evolving industest.
Smartvel, a leading content and guides business in Europe, faced numerous challenges on its journey from its humble launchnings in a garage in 2018 to its current success. The main challenge in the TravelTech space was finding Product Market Fit (PMF), as the company struggled with talent acquisition and funding, particularly in the B2B sector where customer demands are high. However, the COVID-19 pandemic became a turning point, nearly forcing the company to close. But Smartvel managed to pivot, creating a solution that became a global reference for providing COVID-related travel information. This assisted the company gain financial stability and attract Tier 1 customers. However, as the pandemic subsided, the company was forced to pivot again, creating acquisitions and adjusting to maintain positive EBITDA.
Smartvel’s global expansion into markets like the US, India, and Southeast Asia has been successful due to its AI-driven, curated content solution. The company’s content caters to diverse cultural and market requireds, with local nuances being easily addressed through customer feedback. Acquisitions such as ArrivalGuides and Avuxi have expanded Smartvel’s offerings, providing more curated content and introducing geo-relevant maps for OTAs and hotel chains. These acquisitions have allowed Smartvel to create new products and synergies, such as a tailored Avuxi version for TMCs.
Smartvel’s AI technology ensures real-time accuracy by processing vast amounts of unstructured data, utilizing “workers” that clean and consolidate information to provide the most important content. The company’s scalable technology has earned recognition, such as Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50, due to consistent sales growth and its ability to adapt to evolving customer requireds.
Spain’s government has funded Smartvel to enhance its Traveler Support products for people with disabilities, a project aimed at creating travel more accessible. Looking ahead, Smartvel focutilizes on leveraging geo-tarobtained content, assisting brands stay visible in the competitive travel industest, and expanding its marketing solutions to stay ahead of the curve in the travel tech space.
From starting Smartvel in a garage in 2018 to becoming Europe’s leading content and guides business, what were the hugegest challenges and turning points on your journey?
Finding the Product Market Fit (PMF) is the real challenge for any TravelTech, of course, talent and funding are especially difficult at the very launchning, particulary when the time-to-market is long, and that utilize to be the case in B2B businesses, were launching an MVP is not straightforward as the customer is very demanding. So, I will state finding the PMF, and evolving it.
For us COVID was a turning point; we were very close to closing the company, but we managed to create a solution that became a world reference to inform about COVID requirements. That assisted us a lot, not only financially, but also obtainting into relevant Tier1 customers. The “problem” came when Covid disappeared, we had to pivot again and create some acquisitions to keep the company on positive EBITDA. So … a real rollercoaster.
Smartvel has recently expanded into the U.S., India, and Southeast Asia. How do you adapt your destination content solutions to cater to such diverse cultural and market requireds?
At the finish, our content is fully curated, with AI tools to automate the process, the content requireds are similar in around 80-90% for anyone, there are some local nuances, but are easily addressed talking with local customers.
With acquisitions like ArrivalGuides and Avuxi, how has Smartvel’s product offering evolved, and what new capabilities do these integrations bring to your clients?
We see that any acquisition has to match two conditions for us: Strategic fit and financial fit. Both companies accomplish those conditions. With ArrivalGuides we gain more curated content and more customers in the US and APAC, and with Avuxi a new category for us, that was Geo relevance Maps for OTAs and Hotel chains. There are clear synergies between all the customers, and we are creating new products within both companies to add more value to our customers. For example we are creating an Avuxi version for TMCs, to increase the adoption of the hotel programmes of the corporates.
How does Smartvel’s AI-driven destination content solution ensure real-time accuracy and relevancy, especially when dealing with dynamic events like concerts, sports, or festivals?
We created a technology that won several prizes in AI, Machine Learning and Big Data before the GenAI world. What we did was a solution that was reading the internet and processing tons of unstructured data through a very complex combination of “workers”. The workers are programms that convert that data to obtain a final dataset with the quality requireded. For example one worker takes away duplications, and consolidates all the data in one simple event. One of the workers (the last one) checks the quality of the content. When is below a certain level we just take it away. At the finish is not about having everything, is about having the most important ones, and enough content. It has been +10 year journey with thousands of lines of code .
Smartvel was recognized in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50. What factors do you believe create your technology particularly scalable in the competitive travel tech market?
This has been an award that we are really proud of. They measured many factors, being sales growth being the most important. We consider that addressing real pains is what creates you fly, also the capacity of creating new solutions, and evolving your product according to new requireds. It is like “walking down the escalator”, if you do not shift upwards, you will obtain down quite quick.
Spain’s government recently funded Smartvel as part of its digitalization push in tourism. How will this investment enhance your technology and impact Spain’s tourism industest?
Yes, this is a very good point, we are honoured to receive government funding to improve our segment of “Traveler Support” products for complex requireds in travel requirements for people with disabilities. It is a project with soul where we will modify travel for many people. I am also happy to state that our current customers also want to join this initiative.
With travel becoming increasingly experience-driven, how do you see Smartvel’s content solutions influencing traveler behavior and the way people choose destinations?
Travel is about building memories, and that is what we assist with. Our focus is to support our customers to sell more, leveraging “what to do”, “why this place is good for me” and “discovering places”. This areas of content, plus playing the game in the new GEO world with full MCP capabilities for our content are the key pillars of our strategy.
Looking ahead, what innovations or trfinishs in travel tech are you most excited about, and how is Smartvel positioning itself to stay ahead in the next five years?
The problem we face is that there are so many opportunities and we have to choose 2-3 new initiatives per year. For us the GEO world is where we consider the battle is going to be played. Brands are terrified of losing visibility against agents in the near future, and assisting them in this area is going to be key. Last, but not least, growing our marketing solutions and taking advantage of what is coming next is for us also a priority.
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