International TMC network Lufthansa City Center (LCC) is sharpening its focus on bleisure travel through a partnership with tech start-up Travelin.AI, which provides an online booking tool for blended trips and ‘workations’.

The agreement will see the Norway-based tech firm listed as a preferred supplier among the TMC’s international network and marketed to its 270 agencies in 100 markets beyond its HQ in Germany. 

Lufthansa City Center International managing director Martina Groenegres told BTN Europe that the agreement will see both parties “jointly promote the product to all agencies” with the OBT to receive “a comprehensive listing in our central intranet showing all features and benefits of the product”. 

Additional marketing and training activities “with suitable agencies” are also scheduled to take place in the coming months to introduce the technology across LCC’s network.

Travelin.AI’s cloud-based platform allows travellers to combine business and leisure trips while automatically separating the expenses.

The OBT, which launched just over a year ago, includes capabilities to book air and hotel for business and/or leisure travel, blended travel and workations. Travellers can select the desired travel type and then book the entire trip “within one-to-two minutes”, according to CEO Roy Golden. 

“We looked at how people live, work and travel and built the technology backwards,” said Golden. He added that travellers want a better booking and expense management experience and that current tech is “stuck in the 80s”.

The platform also includes the ability to add individual profiles for guest travellers (family and friends) who can be added to blended trips, while the workation feature allows travellers to tap into a travel budget attached to their compensation package – a feature that particularly impressed LCC, according to Golden.

“We built our own payment technology so the system can identify what is a business expense and what is leisure expense and separates them automatically with no financial burden to the business and zero intervention by the traveller,” he said.

The move comes as the LCC looks to enhance its tech stack, following a recent partnership with technology supplier TripStax. Groenegres said the network’s portfolio features long-standing agreements with traditional OBTs as well as “more agile platforms that have arrived on the scene over the last [few] years”.

Lufthansa City Center was ranked as the ninth largest European TMC network in BTN Europe’s list of the leading TMCs across the continent.