Clear, timely communication is essential at every stage of travel—from planning and booking to on-the-ground support. Yet for many tour and activity operators, relying on emails and phone calls can slow response times, create friction, and lead to missed opportunities. Chirrup was built to solve that challenge.
Founded by travel industry veterans Brent Ramirez and Joanne Howard, Chirrup is a communication platform designed specifically for tour and activity operators. The platform brings calling, texting, and AI-assisted guest communication into one system, making it faster and easier to connect before, during, and after an experience.
With Chirrup, all customer-facing conversations across voice, text, and automated workflows live in one place. Operators can respond more quickly, improve the guest experience, and prevent common issues caused by missed calls, unanswered messages, or overlooked follow-ups, with AI supporting faster, more consistent responses. Companies are capturing revenue from missed opportunities, supporting more guests without adding staff, and increasing the number of high-quality customer reviews.
“As a start-up in the travel industry, we’re focused on connecting with the right partners and learning from other travel tech companies,” said Brent Ramirez, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Chirrup. “Travel Tech creates opportunities for collaboration that can directly support customer growth.”
By keeping conversations connected across every touchpoint, with AI working in the background, Chirrup helps tour operators stay responsive and deliver better travel experiences.
Be Connected Everywhere
A reliable internet connection can make or break a travel experience. Whether discovering a new restaurant, booking activities, or navigating an unfamiliar city, travelers need connectivity that is secure, seamless, and always available. CleverFi was founded to make that possible.
Created in 2024 by Mario Soave, CleverFi enables travelers to automatically and securely connect to WiFi by extending their home WiFi network to anywhere in the world. The result is a stable, private, and effortless connection—eliminating the frustration of entering passwords, navigating unfamiliar networks, or worrying about cybersecurity risks.
Travelers today often bring far more than a phone or laptop—they’re carrying smartwatches, baby monitors, streaming devices, and even voice assistants. CleverFi ensures these devices “feel at home” wherever a traveler goes, without the need to reconnect, reconfigure, or risk placing sensitive devices on shared guest networks.
CleverFi also supports accessibility and digital inclusion. Many travelers with disabilities rely on connected assistive technologies for daily autonomy, and unpredictable WiFi can create real barriers. By making connectivity consistent, secure, and simple, CleverFi helps preserve that independence and ensures everyone can participate more fully in their travel experiences.
“We are excited to join Travel Tech’s Start-Up Membership Program to be part of an ecosystem that allows us to learn from peers, build partnerships, and spread the word about what we do,” said Mario Soave, Founder of CleverFi.
By reimagining how travelers connect, CleverFi is setting a new standard for convenience, safety, and peace of mind on the road.
Traveling should be about experiences, not logistics — yet keeping family and friends updated often means juggling multiple apps where your data is fed to algorithms and advertisers.
Frequent traveler Teemu Kolehmainen recognized this problem firsthand. TripTrix isn’t a service where one can purchase tickets; rather, TripTrix’s role begins after the bookings are made, allowing the business or premium traveler the luxury of not having to worry about oversharing and security. TripTrix provides a secure, private space to share locations, automated status updates, and on-the-go experiences with only the people you choose.
“Travel and social media apps collect massive amounts of personal data, but frequent travelers are getting privacy-conscious and want control over who sees their travel details,” Teemu Kolehmainen, Founder of TripTrix, said. “We are building the first secure and encrypted platform specifically for sharing travel experiences with family and close friends – real-time photos, locations, and updates in one private place. It’s like having a secure and flexible family travel channel that nobody else can access.”
“As a new player in the travel tech industry, TripTrix is excited to join Travel Tech’s Start-Up Member Program so the team can be connected to the industry in a more formal manner and have greater representation of TripTrix,” said Kolehmainen.
Improving the Guest Experience Through Smarter, Social Communication
Clear communication is the foundation of a great travel experience — and when it breaks down, it doesn’t just frustrate guests, it also impacts staff, reviews, and loyalty. Melanie Brewer and John Beuchert founded Away Together to improve the guest experience through smarter, more connected communication.
Away Together is a mobile platform that allows hosts to collect commissions through their own mobile application while allowing travelers to connect with each other and with their lodging host in real time. Guests can view and share local recommendations for restaurants, cultural events, and attractions, while also receiving real-time updates from property managers — no more missed announcements or paper slips under doors.
For hoteliers and event hosts, the most expensive room is the empty one. By helping hotels, resorts, and event organizers deliver better communication and personalized guest experiences, Away Together fills those rooms. The application supports local economies, boosts satisfaction, and provides hosts with flexible, easy-to-implement tools to maintain return trips and online reviews. Away Together also generates revenue through excursion booking captures as well as other revenue streams – without the expense of application development. The primary focus of Away Together is upsell opportunities and commission captures being focused and trackable building marketing efficiency and revenue.
“We’re huge believers that you can learn from anyone — whether it’s a janitor or a CEO,” said Melanie Brewer, Co-Founder of Away Together. “For us, Travel Tech’s Advocate Member Program is about honest feedback and meaningful connections. It’s putting us in the room with people who challenge us, support us, and help move our product forward.”
Entrusting properties to unknown guests was a fact of life for most property owners. Until DreamGuest gamified guest behavior.
Jason Scism, co-founder of DreamGuest, began thinking about these concerns following an unsettling camping trip on the Oregon coast combined with his daily living experiences at a golf and ski resort during the post-COVID boom. It became clear to Jason that, while most guests are courteous and pleasant to be around, there are some guests who need encouragement to be better and some bad apples who should be excluded from staying at properties until they get their act together.
Jason realized a critical tool was needed to support short and long-term lodging hosts of all types: the ability to learn more about their potential guests and incentivize and reward good behavior.
DreamGuest is a first-of-its-kind program that allows hosts to screen, incentivize, and reward considerate guests. By providing tools and opportunities for property owners to prevent disruptive individuals from staying at their homes and other facilities, DreamGuest serves as a safeguard empowering hosts to make informed decisions and reward good behavior. This not only protects the owners of properties but also the communities in which they serve.
“Throughout my career in Washington, DC, I’ve witnessed the power of trade associations to bring together diverse interests to achieve common goals. Now that I’ve dived headfirst into the travel tech community with DreamGuest, I was eager to join the Travel Technology Association to start working with my peers to combine smart policies with new and innovative travel solutions.”
We’ve all been there ― your flight’s canceled or delayed, your bag is lost, and you’re left trying to salvage your trip. Often, the last thing on your mind in situations like this is submitting a claim to ensure you’re properly compensated by the airline. Applying for flight compensation can be time-consuming and complex, varying by airline and geography.
Navigating this process can be stressful, and many passengers throw up their arms in defeat.
That’s where AirHelp comes in. AirHelp is the world’s largest tech company that helps passengers navigate through flight disruptions. They do the leg work for passengers and take the hassle out of applying for compensation. Since launching in 2013, AirHelp has served more than 2.2 million passengers worldwide.
AirHelp goes beyond just helping passengers navigate the current patchwork of rules and regulations around flight compensation. They understand the need for proactive advocacy and sound public policy and regulation to ensure the best travel experience possible. That’s why they’ve joined the Travel Tech Association (Travel Tech).
“By joining Travel Tech, we’ll be able to increase awareness of traveler rights and raise the voice of travelers with policymakers and regulators in the United States,” said Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO for AirHelp.
UCPlaces was born out of a need to streamline the touring experience. Uri Sperling, Founder and CEO, spent years traveling the world and dealing with the burdens of navigating the tour guide experience – it was expensive, it wasn’t customizable and tour times were often at the whims of the tour guide company.
Launched in 2020, UCPlaces was originally designed for tour guides to create and sell GPS-guided tours. In the years since starting his operation, Sperling has worked with tourism and service industry companies like hotels and airlines to craft tours all over the world. Users participate in the tour through their phones, which results in a fully customizable experience that focuses on the user journey. Using UCPlaces, travelers can take tours in almost any language, on their schedule and at their pace. “UCPlaces is not only a service provider,” Sperling said, “but a community builder where people can create, share and sell experiences, these experiences are what inspire travelers to go places to begin with.”
“We’re still a small company,” Uri noted. “We feel that we are spearheading new technology in the industry, but with the exponential growth of travelers taking these guided tours on our platform, we believe that in just a few years, almost every traveler with a smartphone will be using their phone to take guided tours and we’re excited to have the influence and might of Travel Tech in our corner.”
Have you ever tried to shepherd a high school marching band from South Dakota to Orlando, Florida? Kory Vrieze, a Director with Group Travel Odyssey (GTO) has firsthand experiences in just that. Having begun his career in public education, Kory quickly recognized the value of travel in the development of young minds. He believes it’s an opportunity every student should be afforded.
Unfortunately, group travel can be cumbersome, complicated, and chaotic. GTO applies technology to mitigate the chaos and streamline the group travel experience. By consolidating all aspects of group travel from marketing and accounting to tour operations and on-the-road management into one convenient, easy-to-use package, GTO puts all your trip information at your fingertips.
“It may sound corny but I’ve seen enough of the world to know that the U.S. gets a lot of things right – not everything,” said Kory. “I’m excited to add my and GTO’s voice to Travel Tech’s efforts in Washington, DC. It’s critical that our industry educates lawmakers on the immense power technology holds to open up the world of travel to everyone.”
Travel Tech Innovator Profile: Group Travel Odyssey
Wednesday, May 13, 2026 — The Travel Tech Association is launching the Travel Tech Angel Investor Network Brief — a monthly publication connecting investors with the founders behind Travel Tech’s Start-Up Member companies and the innovations they are bringing to the future of travel. The Brief is built around a simple belief: in early-stage investing, […]
