“The European Union could produce some of the biggest travel technology companies in the world, particuarly France and Spain, but companies do need to adopt a radically different approach to growth – othewise they stand to always be in the shadow of bigger US or APAC travel tech competitors” warned Morgann Lesné from travel technology investment bank Cambon Partners whilst speaking at the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS) taking place in Seville recently.

In response to anyone who might doubt the potential of Europe to produce travel technology giants, Morgann pointed out the “fantastic track record we already have” and highlighted that Booking.com is originally a Dutch company – as well as citing long-standing successes like Amadeus and HBX (previously Hotelbeds), as well as more recent major players like TravelPerk, Civitatis, eDreams-ODIGEO, Blablacar, Travelsoft, Hostaway, Lighthouse, D-Edge, and CDS.

Explaining what has driven this successfully and also makes Europe the perfect market for founding more giants, Morgann stressed that “Europe has a bigger and more diverse tourism economy – and not least legacy – than America or Asia, this is a huge advantage for testing ideas, finding first clients and very importantly finding talent” before pointing out another advantage Europe has generally: a lower cost base, particularly in Spain, than the US or parts of APAC.

During a debate titled ‘Will Europe become the travel tech leader?’ Morgann was interviewed on stage by Misa Labrile from the European Commission along with Suzanna Chiu from Amadeus Ventures and Bobby Demri from Roch Ventures.

“But there are nonetheless some factors that do hold back European travel tech businesses and we need to be honest about those and find ways to overcome them otherwise we’ll always be living in the shadow of American and Asian competitors” pointed out Lesné. “To build world leaders you raise capital and you need to be aggressive in M&A to speed up growth, the family business approach won’t work and too many European entrepreneurs are nervous about that sadly. In that respect the US has a massive advantage, it runs in their DNA to be both more ambitious and accept the need for financing to fund M&A – whilst Asian companies are even more willing to embrace risk.”

In addition Lesné – who specialises in advising travel technology companies around the world on both M&A activity as well as capital fundraising – highlighted that to become a truly major player companies need to expand beyond their home markets and enter both the US and APAC too. “Spain and France of course allow you to build great busines, but you need to be brave and more outside of your borders. That’s where you find out if you’ve got the magic or not”.

In response to questions regarding the current outlook for fundraising, which is universally accepted to be harder than ever for travel tech businesses, Lesné pointed out that actually this proves an opportunity for the brave. “There’s always investors willing to back bold entrepreneurs and the current lack of start-up funding means that there’s a lot of bargains to be had as these companies run out of runway and need to sell. Raise money and buy them up, there’s never been a better time and 2025 could be the biggest ever year yet for M&A in our space. As the Romans said, fortune favours the brave.”