The trip is undergoing a profound transformation. Never before have so many people wanted to travel nor have there been so many tools to make it possible. However, the real challenge for the sector is not only to accompany this growth, but to actively contribute to building a new way of traveling.
That was the central idea that World2Meet shared at the Talent Arena of the Mobile World Congress, where the group’s CEO, Gabriel M. Subías, presented The New Travel Project. A vision that is based on a clear premise: today the travel sector has the opportunity—and also the responsibility—to improve the travel experience for all the people who live it and make it possible.
World2Meet’s participation in the Talent Arena was structured around several initiatives: the keynote from its CEO, a round table on Digital Experience, the launch of an Open Innovation Challenge with university students and a conversation in The Nest space. In addition, the company participated as a partner of the Talent Arena and is part of the Mobile World Capital Business Council, from where it collaborates with the innovation ecosystem that meets every year in Barcelona.
The Talent Arena has established itself as one of the spaces dedicated to digital talent within the MWC, bringing together technology professionals, companies, institutions and educational centers. The 2026 edition has had more than 200 sessions and the participation of leading figures in the technological field such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Kate Darling, researcher at the Boston Dynamics AI Institute; Tim Serewicz, vice president of education at the Linux Foundation; or the entrepreneur and producer Steve Aoki.
In this context, the presence of companies from different sectors reflects how technological innovation is redefining multiple industries, including travel.
The trip as a collective experience
During his speech at the Talent Arena, Gabriel M. Subías reflected on how the trip is evolving. “Today more than ever we have the opportunity—and also the responsibility—to contribute to improving travel,” he said.
The starting point is to understand that travel can no longer be conceived solely as a transaction. It is a complex experience in which many people intervene: those who imagine it, those who design it, those who operate it and those who receive travelers at their destination.
Therefore, one of the principles of The New Travel Project is to expand the way in which the sector understands the customer. The customer is no longer just the one who buys a trip, but all the people who are part of the travel experience throughout its entire cycle.
Innovation as a driver of change
In this context, innovation becomes the engine that drives the evolution of travel.
For World2Meet, innovation does not just mean adopting new tools, but rather questioning existing models, experimenting with new ideas and continually learning to improve the travel experience.
The Talent Arena has established itself as one of the spaces dedicated to digital talent within the MWC
This approach is materialized in initiatives such as The New Travel Project, conceived as a project in continuous evolution that integrates vision, innovation and collaboration to design more coherent and relevant travel experiences.
Digital Experience: rethinking the entire journey
One of the concepts that articulate this vision is that of Digital Experience. This approach proposes analyzing the trip from a comprehensive perspective, observing the traveler’s entire journey and connecting the different moments that are part of their experience.
The goal is to design more fluid and coherent experiences throughout the entire travel lifecycle, connecting areas such as distribution, marketing, operations and technology to offer a more integrated service.
Talent and open innovation
World2Meet’s participation in the Talent Arena also included the launch of the group’s first Open Innovation Challenge with universities.
Students from 4 universities (ESADE, Tecnocampus, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and ESIC Business & Marketing School) participated in this initiative and worked on identifying real opportunities within the travel value chain. The teams developed proposals aimed at imagining how the travel experience can evolve in the coming years, subsequently presenting them to a jury made up of professionals from the sector.
This exercise reflects an increasingly widespread conviction in the industry: the future of travel is not designed by a single organization, but rather by collaboration between talent, companies and new ideas.
Towards a “Frontier Firm” of travel
In this transformation process, technology plays a relevant role, although from a different perspective than usual. The objective is not to incorporate more technological tools, but to integrate intelligence into the processes that make the trip possible. In this context, the concept of invisible AI takes on special importance: systems capable of improving operations and experiences without becoming a visible element for the user.
This approach connects with the Frontier Firm model, organizations that integrate data, automation and artificial intelligence transversally in their operation. In the travel sector, moving towards this model means using the knowledge generated by data to better understand the trip in all its phases and design more coherent, fluid and relevant experiences for all the people who are part of it.
The presence of World2Meet in the Talent Arena of the Mobile World Congress reflects the moment of transformation that the travel industry is experiencing.
