The seventh edition of the Bavel Travel Summit reaffirms itself as a benchmark event, once again making Barcelona the meeting place for leaders of the travel sector and B2B (business to business) payments.
On the 14th and 15th of June, the Bavel Travel Summit brought together more than 160 travel industry professionals from 16 different countries. Those attending the Summit had the opportunity to experience a unique event in the sector, mixing presentations, round tables as well as participating in networking and “FUN-working” activities.
In total, 18 industry leaders participated in 13 conferences and debates, analyzing the most recent and significant trends experienced by the sector. 63% of those attending were directors and more than 80 meetings were confirmed in the speed networking sessions.
10 sponsors participated in the Bavel Travel Summit 2022, who made the event possible. Mastercard, Kantox, Amadeus, Nium, XanderPay, Wex, Diners Club International, Visa, Pax2Pay and Nuvei make up this group.
The need to reunite the industry
Given the circumstances caused by the pandemic as well as the stoppage in the activity experienced by many industries and especially the tourism industry, events such as the Bavel Travel Summit are an opportunity to give the sector a boost. In this case, this is all the more significant, coinciding once again with a boom in tourism.
In this sense, Spencer Hanlon, Global Head of Travel Payments, Head of EME (Europe and the Middle East) at Nium, commented: “we all need to return and connect with each other in order to meet the increased demand that is being experienced by the travel sector.”
“Reconnect with everyone we have not seen in the past 2 and a half years and see them, face-to-face, to discuss the trends in the sector but also to know how they have been doing”. This was the response of Marc Padrosa, Global Industry Director at Kantox, when asked about his participation in the Bavel Travel Summit.
The event included activities to encourage, even more, interactions as well as entertain the attendees. The Tapas Hunt (visiting a number of typical bars in the city for tapas), yoga and jogging activities, and the Haka show (a motivational Maori dance), are some of these events.
The age of automation and payment manager
Ana Arjones, Director – Market Development Travel, Enterprise Partnership at Mastercard, affirmed that “until now, payments have been managed manually, they required a lot of human intervention and automation is going to resolve this as well as free up a lot of time for companies to focus on their actual work”.
Xavier Ginesta, CEO of Voxel explained that the pandemic has forced the industry to digitize and affirmed that “in this new post-pandemic era, payments between companies in the tourism sector will be handled by ‘payment managers’“. He also explained that Voxel has spent these two years investing in innovation and developing Bavel Pay. This solution automates the entire payment process and provides greater agility, flexibility and meets all B2B payment requirements.
A good part of the sessions, like the one presented by Mike Carlo, Hedna Board Member and CEO of XanderPay, have agreed that “payment manager opens a door to innovation” and “the key is that with innovation and disruption there must be cooperation”.
Third edition of the Voxel Awards
The third edition of the Voxel Awards took place during the formal dinner that was organized by the Bavel Travel Summit. The awards, presented by members of Voxel and their clients, made a reference to the company’s four corporate values. The award-winning companies were: Anex Tour for “Challenge Maniacs”; DER Touristik for “FUNtastic Team Players”; TUI for “People Freaks”; and W2M Travel for “Change Lovers”.
This was the closing event of the Bavel Travel Summit 2022, of which Xavier Ginesta highlighted: “we have seen the power of collaboration in action” and “this has been the most inspiring event of all the events we have held”.
This is the highlights of what happened during this edition:
