Controlá wins the Touristech Startup Fest 2026 at TIS in Seville

Controlá won the Touristech Startup Fest 2026, the startup competition of the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS), held from 6 to 8 October at FIBES Seville. We took the NEBEXT Award, given by the organisers of the summit. According to them, ours was the project with the highest jury score among the 40 finalists.

TIS is Seville's big tourism innovation event: its seventh edition brought together more than 8,000 industry professionals and more than 400 international speakers.

Why we won

We won with one concrete idea: control and automate hotel rooms with no renovation or building work, at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. We connect to the air conditioning, heating and PMS the building already has, so there is no need to replace equipment or close rooms to install.

At Sercotel Granada Suites, 28 apartments were connected in under three hours without opening the door of a single room. Today they run more than 750 automations a month, with zero complaints on Booking.

The pitch at TIS, with the Sercotel Granada Suites case.

Photo: TIS 2026, via TecnoHotel.

The two products

• Checkout Button: a button by the door that guests press on their way out. Housekeeping gets the alert, the PMS marks the room as vacant and the climate system switches off on its own. Between 65% and 85% of guests press it, across more than 5,000 checkouts.
• Automatic Climate: connects the air conditioning or heating to the booking. The room is ready before arrival, goes into standby when the guest leaves and raises an alert when something isn't heating or cooling properly, so it can be fixed remotely before the complaint arrives.

Checkout Button in hand, on the TIS stage.

The Ona Hotels case: same apartment, two days, 65% less air conditioning consumption.

The award

The Touristech Startup Fest takes place every year as part of TIS. In 2026 it recognised six startups, each with a different award (the full list is in TecnoHotel's article). Ours, the NEBEXT Award, is given by NEBEXT, the company that has organised TIS since 2020, and it includes a stand and a speaking slot at TIS 2027.

The same week, ILUNION Hotels and TecnoHotel named Tomás Kancyper, our CEO, one of Los 25 Más Innovadores del Sector Turístico 2026 (the 25 most innovative people in tourism).

Today we work with hotels, aparthotels and tourist apartment buildings such as Sercotel, Ona Hotels, Numa, Yurbban and Apolo Homes. More about who we are on About us.

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If you want to see what the jury saw, but with your own climate system and PMS, book a 20-minute call.