Tomás Kancyper, CEO of Controlá, among Los 25 Más Innovadores del Sector Turístico 2026

Tomás Kancyper, CEO and co-founder of Controlá, is on the list of Los 25 Más Innovadores del Sector Turístico 2026 (the 25 most innovative people in tourism), presented by ILUNION Hotels and TecnoHotel on 7 October at the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS) in Seville. Tomás founded Controlá in Barcelona in 2025, together with Ezequiel Vallejo.

Who chose the list

This is the second edition of the award (the full list is in Hosteltur's article), and the competition grew: more than 170 applications, up from more than 150 in 2025, from eight tourism subsectors and three countries. Applicants included hotel chains, independent hotels, tech companies, startups, destinations, universities and public bodies.

The jury was independent: María Velasco (head of R&D&I at SEGITTUR), Silvia Avilés (director of TIS), Pilar Górriz (head of innovation at Renfe), Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz (managing director of the Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero), Albert Pérez (co-founder of Hospitalidad Emprendedora) and Yolanda Aguilar (vice-president of the Mesa del Turismo). It assessed six things: innovative mindset, leadership, execution, use of technology, connection with the ecosystem and measurable impact.

The award winners on the TIS 2026 stage.

What Controlá does

We control and automate the rooms of hotels, aparthotels and tourist apartment buildings 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:

• 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.
• Automatic Climate: connects the air conditioning or heating to the booking and raises an alert when a room isn't heating or cooling properly, so it can be fixed remotely before the complaint arrives.

Of the six criteria, measurable impact is the one closest to how we work: we publish every case with the client's name and its numbers. At Sercotel Granada Suites, 28 apartments were connected in under three hours, and today they run more than 750 automations a month with zero complaints on Booking. At Ona Hotels, the same apartment used 65% less air conditioning with Controlá than without it, over two comparable days. And between 65% and 85% of guests press the Checkout Button, across more than 5,000 checkouts.

The honourees being presented at TIS.

Sercotel, also on the list

Within the list, the jury gave three special distinctions. One went to Luis Miguel Martín, CIO of Sercotel Hotel Group, for OpenStay Lab: the programme that in 2026 brought startup solutions to pilot projects in nine of the chain's hotels. Controlá was one of the four startups selected from 14 applications, and today Sercotel Granada Suites uses the Checkout Button and Automatic Climate.

The same week, first prize

At the same TIS, Controlá won the Touristech Startup Fest 2026, with the NEBEXT Award and the highest jury score among 40 finalists. We tell the story here.

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 how it would work in your hotel, with your climate system and your PMS, book a 20-minute call.