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by Magnus Kunhardt on Jun 1, 2026 5:15:27 PM
Founding Head of Sales & Marketing
at Acai Travel
Can you give us a brief introduction of yourself, your background, and Acai Travel?
I started in the travel industry more than 20 years ago on the airline side. Early in my career I worked in account management before moving into global corporate sales for Etihad Airways. From there I became General Manager at Air Italy, which at the time was a joint venture between Meridiana and Qatar Airways.
Then the pandemic hit, and that completely changed the landscape. I was involved in liquidating Air Italy during COVID, which was an intense experience. At that point I started thinking differently about my future in travel. I still loved airlines, but I wanted to move into travel technology and focus on building solutions instead of selling airline products.
I joined a New York-based booking tool startup called PSNGR1. We won the BTN Innovate Award shortly after COVID and gained strong traction, but eventually the funding ran out. After that I joined a Swedish-founded travel technology company focused on content aggregation. That role exposed me to the European travel ecosystem, including rail, Deutsche Bahn, passes, NDC challenges, and the broader complexity of content distribution.
A little over two years ago I met Riky Vittoria, Acai Travel’s co-founder. He had previously founded 30SecondsToFly, an AI company that was later acquired by Amex GBT. We immediately connected around the idea that large language models could fundamentally improve the traveler experience and transform travel operations.
I joined Acai Travel shortly after that meeting. Since then the company has grown rapidly. We expanded from only a handful of customers to a much broader customer base across TMCs, airlines, wholesalers, and OTAs. Revenue has grown significantly and we’ve continued to expand our capabilities.
At its core, Acai Travel is an AI company focused on solving operational challenges in travel. But none of that works without strong industry partnerships. AI in travel only becomes valuable when it is connected to the broader ecosystem — GDSs, profile systems, connectivity providers, and operational tools.
What service does Acai Travel provide and what key problem does it solve?
When we looked at the market, we realized that most companies were focused on trip planning and booking creation. But the real operational complexity in corporate travel happens after the booking.
That is where Acai Travel focuses.
The biggest headaches for travel management companies come from post-booking servicing: disruptions, schedule changes, exchanges, cancellations, multi-airline itineraries, policy compliance, and all the operational complexity that surrounds those issues.
Acai Travel deploys AI inside customer service and operational workflows to either support the travel advisor as a co-pilot or fully automate interactions where appropriate.
For example, if a traveler needs to change a booking, the AI can:
- Identify the traveler
- Check the travel policy
- Access the traveler profile
- Understand airline and routing constraints
- Process the change request
- Communicate with the traveler
The goal is not simply automation for its own sake. It is about reducing repetitive and time-consuming work while enabling advisors to focus on more complex or high-value interactions.
This is especially important because the industry faces a growing labor challenge. Many experienced travel advisors retired during or after the pandemic, and the industry is not replacing them at the same pace. AI gives TMCs the opportunity to preserve operational expertise, support less experienced staff, and reduce dependency on highly specialized GDS knowledge.
It can also remove low-value tasks from the advisor workload, such as retrieving invoices, handling basic requests, or processing repetitive communications.
Where does your service fit into the TMC workflow?
Acai Travel primarily operates in the servicing and operational side of the TMC workflow.
When a customer request comes in, the system needs to understand far more than just the itinerary itself. It needs to understand:
- Who the traveler is
- Which organization they belong to
- Their role or traveler status
- Applicable travel policy rules
- Passport and visa restrictions
- Loyalty program preferences
- Routing feasibility
An experienced advisor often knows these things instinctively because they have worked with a client for many years. But scaling that knowledge operationally is difficult.
AI allows TMCs to operationalize that expertise.
The system can interpret traveler context, apply policy logic, and help advisors navigate complex servicing scenarios far more efficiently. Acai Travel can either assist the advisor in the workflow or fully automate selected interactions depending on the TMC’s operational model.
How do you integrate with Umbrella, and what is the benefit for the client?
A strong profile management system is absolutely critical for AI in travel.
Without centralized, structured, and up-to-date traveler data, AI systems struggle to build an accurate understanding of the traveler. That creates risk.
This is where Umbrella becomes extremely important for us. Umbrella provides a centralized traveler profile that allows Acai Travel to understand key traveler information, including:
- Airline loyalty programs
- Traveler preferences
- Passport details
- Visa and transit restrictions
- VIP status
- Corporate policy information
- Historical account context
That information directly impacts how AI handles servicing requests.
For example, if a traveler only has loyalty information with Air France-KLM, the AI can infer airline preference. If the traveler holds a passport that requires specific transit visas, the system can avoid proposing routing options that would create operational problems.
Without reliable profile data, AI may generate responses that appear logical on paper but fail in real-world travel scenarios.
Another major advantage is the ability to update profile information naturally within workflows. If a traveler tells an advisor they joined a new loyalty program, that information can be captured and updated efficiently.
The better the underlying data quality, the better the AI performs.
Do you see any major challenges in the industry, and do we have the tools to solve them?
From a macro perspective, one of the largest challenges right now is simply the cost of doing business, especially around fuel pricing and operational pressures.
But from a technology perspective, I am actually extremely optimistic about the future of travel.
I think we are entering a period where many long-standing barriers in the industry are starting to come down. We are seeing new players challenge legacy processes and rethink operational workflows.
Group bookings are a good example. Today, the process is still highly manual and fragmented. But it is entirely possible that future AI-driven systems will automate interactions between suppliers and agencies in ways that dramatically simplify these workflows.
Across the industry, almost every operational challenge now has companies actively trying to solve it. Not every company will succeed, but the pace of innovation itself is incredibly positive.
The key takeaway is that AI alone is not enough. Success depends on strong integrations, reliable data, and trusted partnerships across the travel ecosystem.
That is why partnerships between companies like Acai Travel and Umbrella are so important. AI can only deliver meaningful operational value when it has access to accurate, connected, and actionable travel data.