UN Tourism has invited startups led by women and based in the Middle East to take part in a competition to support women entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of sustainable tourism and technology across the region.

The second edition of its ‘Women in Tech Startup Competition: Middle East’ welcomes enterprises operating within the tourism sector and related industries, and offer sustainable solutions for people, the planet, and prosperity. They must also be an entrepreneurial project at an early stage, idea stage, or Series A stage of their journey.

Applications are open for the following three categories:  

People and Skills: this category calls for startups with environmental and sustainable approaches in education tech, social connectivity, wellness or health, with cross-cutting benefits with tourism. 

Green Travel Solutions: for startups that use environmentally friendly and sustainable approaches in green tech, green infrastructure, travel and logistics, urban development or rural development, with cross-cutting benefits with tourism.

Market Innovators: for startups working with emergent technologies applied to tourism.

UN Tourism has urged key global and regional partners and ecosystem collaborators to support the winning startups. Almosafer, Plug and Play, AIM, The Bench, Impulse4Women and Bilakatu will provide visibility, personalised mentorship, consultancy and access to potential investment to the best entrepreneurial solutions.

This year's applications will be processed through Plug and Play's open innovation platform, the largest in the world, and the finalists will be invited to join the global UN Tourism Innovation Network. 

The launch of the competition was announced at the AIM Congress, a leading investment forum held in Abu Dhabi from May 7-9, during a special UN Tourism Investment Forum session on ‘Investing in Innovation and Enabling Women Entrepreneurs’.

More than 140 startups and SMEs from 11 countries participated in the first edition of ‘Women in Tech Startup Competition: Middle East’