Investors and startups could finally be realising what those on the periphery have noted for years – B2B is where the sensible money and effort works.

New businesses are emerging that try to conquer and disrupt the consumer travel space – but the trend appears to be shifting in the other direction.

At a basic level: travel startups that target the industry with services and tools and new ways of doing things are capturing the attention of investors, rather than those that are hoping that they can alter an existing method of planning or shopping travel online.

This is no more obvious that in Europe and, in particular, Germany, where a sea-change is taking place in the types of new travel businesses entering the sector.

Speaking at the ITB exhibition in Berlin last week, Uwe Frers, an entrepreneur behind brands such as Escapio and TripsByTips (both with exits), says the vast majority of travel startups that have emerged and are likely to succeed to varying degrees are from the B2B end of the spectrum.

The background to this alteration in emphasis on B2B from consumer-facing business comes as many accept that the ability to challenge the likes of large online travel agencies, especially in the hotel and air booking world, has diminished to the point of it being almost impossible.

The Priceline Group and Expedia Inc, with their respective marketing war chests in the combined $8 billion range a year, make any threat to their positions extremely difficult, not least because getting eyeballs to a product is an expensive business with so much traffic acquisition still coming via search engines such as Google.

Other types of consumer-facing businesses, especially in the planning end of the online world, face similar challenges, again due to the incumbents broadening their product range (TripAdvisor) or having established themselves earlier (GetYourGuide).

Frers notes one element that is an important consideration in the evolution of new businesses is that established players are generally “rather ignorant” of startups, whereas in other industries there is often some acceptance that they provide an opportunity for collaboration.

There are a number of startup-focused schemes – incubators, accelerators, funds – in the industry but, generally, startups are left alone, perhaps in the hope (a dangerous one) that they will just go away.

It appears the gradual switch from B2C to B2B took place in the last 18 months or so, after the last wave of startups found their feet and took on their second or third rounds of funding.

In Germany, brands such as FlixBus, GetYourGuide, Dreamlines and HomeToGo have established a foothold, also expanded internationally and are consumer-facing.

The exception is customer relationship management provider, TrustYou.

Frers says a particular attraction to investors used to be if a business had international aspirations from the get-go – a strategy that would often also signal to investors outside of the home market that the business had ambitions.

This counted for the likes of Swoodoo (later bought by Kayak) and Trivago (majority investment taken from Expedia) in particular, he says.

But, still, the emerging travel startups in Germany now are almost exclusively in the B2B arena, Frers says.

These include SnapShot (hotel analytics and platform), Distribusion (ground transport GDS), SuitePad (guest services), Voya (itinerary management), Geios (destination management), Conichi (beacon-based hotel app tech) and Door2Door (transport tech).

This is not to say that consumer-facing startups will now be a thing of the past, of course – yet even with the likes of travel giant TUI (now considered to be flat in terms of growth) unable to unseat a behemoth such as the Priceline Group, startups should – and seemingly have now done so – weigh up the likelihood of their ability to truly make a mark and, instead, consider if their service is better placed as part of the wider support ecosystem as a B2B product.

NB: Startups image via Pixabay.