Travolution: Europe's Travel Technology News Brand, From Travel Weekly to Travelsoft
Travolution is a London-based business-to-business media brand covering online travel and travel technology. Published at travolution.com, it reports on the digital systems, platforms and strategies that sit behind booking a holiday: online travel agencies, booking engines, payments, data, distribution, marketing technology and the suppliers who sell those tools to travel companies. If Travel Weekly, its founding sister title, serves the travel trade in general, Travolution serves the part of that trade concerned with technology and digital change.
The brand has lived several lives — launched as a magazine and website, developed inside Jacobs Media alongside Travel Weekly, and acquired in October 2025 by Travelsoft, the Paris-founded travel technology group, to sit within its Eventiz media and events division. Through each change of owner, its pitch has stayed consistent: to be the meeting point for buyers and suppliers of travel technology in Europe.
Overview
Travolution describes itself as a pioneering B2B title: the announcement of its 2025 acquisition called it the first global B2B media title of its kind dedicated to digital trends and insight for travel brands, technology developers and digital agencies. Its output combines a news website, analysis and interviews, a supplier marketplace, and a programme of live events headlined by its European summit and annual awards.
The readership is professional and senior: chief executives, technology and digital directors, commercial teams at tour operators, airlines, hotels and online agencies, and the technology vendors competing to supply them. That audience explains the brand's emphasis on market analysis, funding and mergers, product launches and executive interviews rather than consumer travel advice, of which it publishes none.
History and Founding
Travolution was founded by Travel Weekly in 2004. The brand's own account of its rebrand in 2021 adds human detail: it was founded by former Travel Weekly editor Martin Lane alongside publisher Simon Ferguson as a magazine and website dedicated to the online travel and technology sector, at a time when online booking was reshaping how holidays were sold. It pioneered B2B coverage of that shift and built an annual summit and awards programme alongside the publishing.
In 2009 the brand changed hands as part of a larger deal. Entrepreneur Clive Jacobs, founder of Holiday Autos, founded Jacobs Media Group that year with the acquisition of the Travel Weekly Group, including Travolution, from Reed Business Information. Under Jacobs Media the title sat alongside Travel Weekly, luxury title Aspire and later The Caterer, in what grew into Europe's largest B2B multimedia company for travel and hospitality. A rebrand and new website in 2021, as the brand approached its seventeenth birthday, added an online marketplace listing around 250 technology suppliers.
Ownership and Business Model
For most of its life Travolution's economics were those of Jacobs Media: advertising, sponsorship and events built around a free-to-read digital publication for the trade. The marketplace launched in 2021 extended that model, giving technology suppliers a searchable shop window aimed at buyers researching partners, while summits and business breakfasts monetised the community face to face.
In October 2025 ownership changed again. Travelsoft, founded in Paris in 2000 and operator of nine travel technology brands powering, by its account, around forty billion euros of annual bookings for partners in more than ninety countries, acquired Travolution from Jacobs Media and placed it with Eventiz, its media and events subsidiary. Both sides stressed editorial independence: Travelsoft's founder and chief executive Christian Sabbagh framed the deal as uniting technology, content and community, Jacobs Media group chief executive Duncan Horton described it as a natural evolution, and the editorial team remained in place under its existing editor.
Coverage and Content
News coverage follows the travel technology economy: acquisitions and investment among travel tech firms, product and platform launches, partnerships between suppliers and travel sellers, appointments of digital leaders, and the effect of wider technology shifts — above all artificial intelligence — on how travel is searched, sold and serviced. Sector reporting spans online agencies, tour operating, aviation, accommodation and payments.
Alongside news, Travolution publishes big interviews with industry leaders, market analysis and opinion, and practical content intended to demystify technology for buyers. Its stated mission, in executive editor Lee Hayhurst's words at the 2021 relaunch, was to bring buyers and suppliers of technology and digital services together and to provide transparency in a sector that can seem dauntingly complicated to travel companies. That explainer function — translating technical change into commercial implications — remains the editorial core.
Events: Summit and Awards
Events are not an add-on for Travolution; they are half the brand. The Travolution Summit, held in London, brings suppliers and buyers together with conference sessions and, in recent editions, arranged one-to-one meetings. Business breakfasts and similar gatherings run through the year, and under Jacobs Media the wider group was staging more than 160 events annually across its brands.
The Travolution Awards recognise innovation across travel and technology. The 2025 awards, held in London at City Central at the HAC with Mastercard as headline sponsor for a fourth year, were presented by comedian Andrew Ryan alongside editor Kate Harden-England. loveholidays was the night's biggest winner with four trophies, including Brand of the Year and an Achievement Award for its chief executive Donat Retif, while technology categories honoured firms including eviivo, DIGITRIPS, Trip.com and TProfile — a winners' list that neatly illustrates the brand's dual audience of travel sellers and their technology suppliers.
Audience and Reach
Travolution positions itself as Europe's go-to source for travel technology insight, market analysis, news and connections — the phrase its editor used when the Travelsoft deal was announced. Its reach is primarily British and European, reflecting its London base and its history inside the UK travel trade press, but the summit and awards draw entrants and guests from across Europe and beyond, and the 2025 change of ownership was explicitly framed around building a global travel tech media reference.
The audience's value to advertisers and sponsors lies in its seniority. Readers influence or control technology purchasing at travel companies, which is why suppliers sustain the brand through sponsorship, marketplace listings and event participation. The partnership with Eventiz — and Eventiz's French travel tech title Tom.travel, whose president described long-running discussions about bringing the two brands together — points to a more international, cross-market audience strategy under the new owner.
Editorial Voice
The voice is trade journalism with a technology accent: informed, commercially aware and focused on what change means in practice for travel businesses. Interviews tend to be with founders, chief executives and digital chiefs, and coverage treats disruption — new platforms, new payment methods, AI agents — as a practical management question rather than a novelty.
There is also a community tone that comes from the events programme. Editorials around the summit and awards speak of uniting the sector, celebrating innovation and helping professionals anticipate disruption, language echoed by the new owners in 2025. The brand presents itself less as an outside observer of travel technology and more as one of its institutions — a stance its longevity since 2004 supports.
Digital Presence
The website organises coverage by news, sectors and in-depth features, carries the supplier marketplace, and promotes the summit, awards and breakfast events. Social channels and newsletters keep the trade audience engaged between events, and video and interview content from live gatherings is republished online to extend their reach.
The 2021 rebrand and website relaunch were significant digital milestones, modernising the brand's look after sixteen years and building the marketplace of around 250 listed firms into the site. Under Travelsoft and Eventiz, the stated ambition is richer content, broader reach and more powerful events delivered through the group's wider infrastructure, with the website remaining the daily hub of the brand.
Notable People
Founding figures Martin Lane and Simon Ferguson launched the brand from within Travel Weekly. Clive Jacobs, who bought the group in 2009 and chaired Jacobs Media, was its owner for sixteen years, during which Duncan Horton rose to group chief executive and oversaw the 2025 sale. Lee Hayhurst served as executive editor and was the brand's public voice at its 2021 relaunch.
Kate Harden-England is the current editor, in post before the Travelsoft acquisition and retained afterwards to lead the brand, fronting the 2025 awards and articulating its ambitions under new ownership. On the buying side, Travelsoft founder Christian Sabbagh, Eventiz managing director Guillaume Poulain and Eventiz's president were the executives who explained the deal, underlining how much of the brand's value sits in its editorial leadership and industry relationships.
Recent Developments
The defining recent development is the October 2025 acquisition by Travelsoft, through Eventiz, ending sixteen years inside Jacobs Media. A subsequent big interview with Harden-England and the new owners, published within a month of the deal, set out plans for global growth and confirmed that Travolution would operate separately from the parent technology business under its existing management team.
Operationally, the brand continued uninterrupted: the 2025 awards went ahead in London with Mastercard sponsorship and a full technology and retail category programme. The new owners' stated goal — to make Travolution the most sought-after travel tech media reference, combining its heritage and editorial trust with global scale — now sets the agenda for a title that began in 2004 as a magazine about a then-new thing called online travel.
