ANA Aeroportos de Portugal, part of VINCI Airports was an institutional partner of Startup Madeira in the Madeira Startup Retreat programme, supported by Turismo de Portugal (Tourism of Portugal) and by Nova School of Business and Economics.

In this programme, the ten participating start-ups from around the world, selected from among 65 candidates, were challenged to develop solutions that contribute to the promotion of tourism on Madeira Island.

As a corporate partner, ANA Aeroportos dedicated team members with various expertise to take part in a hackathon where a challenge was posed to the start-ups. Their role was to advise participants and answer their questions to make sure their proposals were adapted to operational needs.

Thus, between 26 and 28 February, 10 start-ups were devoted to developing solutions to address a specific issue: how to improve passenger support and communication processes between the multiple stakeholders (airport, passengers, hotels, tourists, airlines, travel agencies, local accommodation businesses, rent-a-car, etc.), particularly in times of operation constraints, such as events of climate change related to the winds which affect the airport activity, a recurring situation on Madeira Island.

The Travel ID project from the MyBaseCamp start-up was the one chosen by ANA Aeroportos de Portugal in the second hackathon of the Madeira Startup Retreat.

The idea behind the project selected by the jury will be to provide passengers with a unique travel ID where the customer will associate all of his/her bookings, enabling agile communication with the stakeholders (e.g., airports, airlines, hotels, restaurants, etc.)

The jury from ANA Aeroportos included several Departments from different activities, with active participation from Madeira Airport, directly targeted in this challenge, as well as the Aviation and Non-Aviation areas, and employees connected to the areas of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Communication.

Leveraging innovation from multiple sources, VINCI Airports is continuously seeking new solutions designed to enhance service quality, convenience and the overall passenger experience.  ANA’s participation to Madeira Startup Retreat enabled it to detect promising startups whose solutions respond to this objective.