HBX Buys Bridgify as Travel Selling Moves Beyond Hotel Rooms

HBX Group agreed to buy Bridgify, an AI travel technology company focused on experiences distribution.

Bridgify helps match travelers with relevant tours, attractions, and activities. HBX said the company’s platform connects more than 1 million curated experiences with traveler profiles, using AI to make recommendations more personal.

HBX wants to sell more than hotel rooms

HBX is best known for Hotelbeds, its B2B hotel distribution business. A bedbank like Hotelbeds gives travel sellers access to hotel rooms that they can package, resell, or offer through their own platforms.

But HBX wants to become a broader travel marketplace. Bridgify helps with that strategy because it adds AI tools that can recommend the right experience to the right traveler.

The deal fits HBX’s wider packaging strategy

Bridgify follows HBX’s acquisition of full ownership of PerfectStay. PerfectStay helps airlines and major brands build dynamic holiday packages by combining flights, hotels, transfers, and activities in real time.

Together, the two deals show where HBX is going. PerfectStay helps create full travel packages, while Bridgify helps make the experiences part more personal. This can make HBX more useful to partners that want to sell complete trips instead of only hotel rooms.

HBX’s results show why automation matters

HBX reported its half year fiscal 2026 results on the same day as the Bridgify announcement. Total transaction value rose 17 percent to €3.8 billion ($4.5 billion), but revenue increased only 1 percent to €309 million ($362 million). Adjusted EBITDA rose 9 percent to €163 million ($191 million).

The company’s take rate fell to 8.2 percent, down 1.3 percentage points year over year. This means HBX processed more travel sales but kept a smaller share of those transactions as revenue.

Meanwhile, AI is moving from simple trip planning into the systems that help travelers search, compare, and buy travel products. Mindtrip recently launched Mindtrip Flights, allowing users to search, compare, and pay for flights inside one AI chat, using Sabre’s inventory and PayPal for checkout.

Photo by Jonathan Mueller on Unsplash