Travel and Tourism Technologies Take Center Stage at GITEX North Star 2025 Startup Arena
The tourism industry in the Middle East and West Asia is witnessing remarkable growth, with just five countries in the region attracting more than 200 million tourists over the past year. This rapid expansion has paved the way for a new wave of innovation in travel and tourism technologies (Travel Tech), creating significant opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors, and encouraging bold decision-making in this dynamic sector.
At the North Star GITEX 2025 startup arena, one standout example of this trend was the Talk startup. The founders of Talk had previously worked on a project that reached more than 35 million users across the Middle East. Upon their exit from that venture, instead of receiving cash or tangible assets, they acquired source codes, intellectual property rights, technical know-how, algorithms, and exclusive licenses to utilize the technologies they had developed.
Building on these intangible assets, the Talk team has successfully developed a new business model leveraging advanced travel and tourism technologies, positioning itself as one of the most promising startups in this domain.
Mohammad Hossein Zohdi, co-founder of the “Talk Ecosystem,” and Mohammad Mahdi Didban, the company’s product manager, attended this year’s exhibition in Dubai, where they introduced their new venture and held meetings with potential investors and business partners.
Talk’s business model is built around a next-generation application that integrates messaging and social networking within the TravelTech landscape. The app delivers an innovative experience for Persian- and Arabic-speaking users worldwide by combining three core components:
- FinTech services for travelers,
- Connectivity services for travelers, and
- Tourism services for travelers.
The startup targets users of Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Sindhi, Kashmiri, and Balochi languages across multiple countries.
By embedding travel technologies into chats, groups, communities, and mini-apps, Talk users can plan, book, and manage their trips seamlessly. Additional features include eSIM activation, roaming package purchases, local payments via a multi-currency wallet, financial credit, and in-app support, all without leaving the messaging environment.
From the United States, the startup Timon focused on aggregating travel payments, showing strong potential if combined with other travel-related services.
Meanwhile, the Dutch startup Loook explored the concept of location-based travel storytelling, offering users personalized audio stories from brands and travel partners.
The French startup Smartrips showcased an AI-powered collaborative travel planning platform designed to save travelers both time and money by finding affordable flights, hotels, and crafting optimized itineraries.
Another American startup, Fluxir, introduced a Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) solution that simplifies visa and documentation processes for travel agencies, online booking platforms, and corporate travel managers. The platform provides guidance, auto-filling, and submission tools, along with notifications and a unified management dashboard or API access.
From the UAE, Ambitio focused on merging tourism with social media, enabling users to document and share their personal journeys, wish lists, and travel experiences through multimedia posts.
These companies represent just a few of the dozens of active startups in the Travel Tech ecosystem highlighted during North Star 2025. The exhibition clearly demonstrated that the future of this industry lies in integrated technology solutions—from travel fintech and location-based storytelling to visa automation—helping reduce costs, enhance the travel experience, and open the door for new market players
