Industry Insights
Content Platform Pixi Makes Life Easier for Luxury Travel Pros
Too many tools, too little time – that’s what sparked Emma Squire’s big idea. What began as frustration quickly turned into innovation: with her new platform Pixi, the British travel expert is on a mission to simplify visual content for luxury travel pros worldwide. The result? Less admin, more wow.
by Jean-Claude Raemy
"Our business idea really started with a sense of frustration," says British travel entrepreneur Emma Squire. When she founded her travel agency ES Travel Design in the Cotswolds in late 2022, she quickly realized that sourcing proper imagery for advertising bespoke trips or designing itineraries was a fragmented and time-consuming process: "Travel agents often rely on multiple disconnected tools and platforms to manage image and video content, which leads to lots of administrative work and inefficiencies." She personally spent hours chasing images, waiting on responses, juggling WeTransfers, Dropbox links, WhatsApp groups, and outdated media libraries. Knowing that travel is an inherently visual industry where high-quality content significantly enhances marketing and engagement, Emma went looking for a better solution. But no luck. "There was nothing out there that addressed this need." That’s when the idea started to take shape: a centralized platform for image and video content, tailored to the needs of the travel industry. One everyday moment finally convinced her that her idea was not only necessary but viable. Trying to close a luxury Finland booking, she received a live video from a local hotelier showing the property and the journey there. She shared it in real time with her client. "That’s clearly what helped to get the client booking over the line!" Still, how to turn the entire visual content workflow of luxury travel advisors into one streamlined platform? Emma, who previously worked for London-based This Is Beyond – organizers of Pure Life Experiences, L.E. Miami, and other luxury B2B travel events – had learned much of her craft from ILTM founder Serge Dive. Now she turned to hotel industry veteran Alan Ball. His reaction? Immediate enthusiasm. "I’d pay for such a service in a heartbeat," he told her. Of course: for hotels, too, showcasing their offerings through sights, sounds, and atmosphere is essential – but doing so without a mountain of admin is even more so. Emma and Alan teamed up as business partners and spent four months conducting market research. Soon after, they secured half a million pounds in seed investment. "This money came mainly from companies in the travel industry, rather than from business angels," Emma notes. About six months later, on June 4, their platform – named Pixi – officially launched.
Pixi co-founder and CEO Emma Squire is taking the admin out of content planning.
The best news: the service is entirely free for travel agents. They simply sign up and undergo a quick verification process. "Two hundred agents signed up within four hours of the launch, and we’ve already reached 500 client agencies," Emma says. Today, users include luxury travel pros from the UK, Germany, France, Korea, the U.S., and beyond. But there’s still plenty of growth potential. And the platform? Think Pinterest but for the luxury travel industry. The main gallery offers a dynamic, ever-evolving stream of content from participating hotels. Thanks to embedded keywords and metadata, agents can search by tags or filters – or just browse for inspiration. They can "like" items to save them or download images, videos, and reels directly. No copyright concerns: hotels own the content and are responsible for ensuring it's free to use. Agents, meanwhile, agree to a few basic terms – for example, tagging the photographer when required. "The terms of use are very clear, so there won’t be any unpleasant surprise after using the materials in Pixi," Emma emphasizes. So far, around 50 hotels have uploaded their content. Among them are brands like Six Senses (for now, only the Maldivian properties) and Trump Hotels, as well as many independents, such as Åmot in western Norway or the Kasbah du Toubkal in Morocco. "We’re using novel AI services to deliver unique output, applying keywords and meta-tags to each piece of content if needed," says Emma. Uploading is as simple as drag and drop and even PDFs are accepted. Hotels can choose from three display options: "Small" for properties with fewer than 25 rooms (20 GB capacity), "Medium" for 25 to 85 rooms (50 GB), and "Large" for anything above that (100 GB). Each hotel pays a fee based on size. "We wanted an equal playing field where small independent luxury properties can compete with larger hotel groups," Emma explains. Group discounts are available, and there’s a 14-day free trial for newcomers. While LuxuryWise is speaking with Emma, Alan is already hard at work onboarding new hotel partners. The number of properties on Pixi is expected to grow rapidly. "There is huge interest," says Emma. And it’s not just the visuals that make the platform so compelling. Hotels can see which agencies are engaging with their content via an analytics dashboard – a useful tool for generating sales and marketing leads. There’s also the ability to restrict content access to specific agents, if necessary. Direct communication between agents and properties, however, doesn’t happen within the platform. All follow-ups take place externally via email. "There didn’t seem to be any need for direct interaction, as this would have meant yet another platform to monitor for agents and hotels alike," Emma explains. Both her and Alan are excited about what lies ahead for Pixi. What began as a side project has quickly grown into a full-time mission. And with the press showing increasing interest, media access might just be the next step. "That is a next step," Emma confirms. But first and foremost, she wants to firmly establish Pixi as the go-to platform for luxury travel advisors seeking optimized, accessible, insightful, and instantly valuable content. Hence the name Pixi – playing on both "pixels" and the idea of a "pixie": a helpful, behind-the-scenes force that makes the magic happen.
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