The immigrant story behind a Cyprus travel startup

Cypriot entrepreneur Elias Orfanou did not pick the easiest moment to start thinking about travel. In 2020, while the world was shutting down and tourism was being pushed into one of the darkest periods in its history, a university idea at UCLan Cyprus began to take shape. Five years later, that idea has taken him far from the classroom. Orfanou has left his job, moved alone to New York and rebuilt TravelX as a tour booking platform, with ambitions that now stretch well beyond tours into hotels, content, events, artificial intelligence and a wider travel ecosystem. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, Orfanou described a journey marked by early validation, repeated setbacks, two teams walking away and a decision to leave Cyprus rather than grow older wondering what might have happened if he had tried. TravelX began in Cyprus, 2020, where it won the Startup IdeaFest award for best entrepreneurial idea. The recognition gave Orfanou and his original team the confidence to take the concept beyond the university presentation. Then, almost immediately, the world changed. Just one month after they started working on the project, Covid-19 hit and the travel industry froze. Orfanou recalled the team being in shock, although they initially tried to laugh it off as “a test for us to see if we are really serious about this”. Another month into the lockdowns, he was the only one still serious enough to continue. The timing could hardly have been worse, but he saw something in the idea that he could not put down. With much of the world stuck at home, he began teaching himself what he did not yet know, coding, marketing, sales, customer acquisition, retention, startup growth and capital raising. It took him a year to build the first prototype. In 2021, a new team joined him and the vision appeared to have found fresh energy. But when Orfanou kept speaking about taking TravelX to the US, the plan began to sound unrealistic to those around him. One by one, the second team also walked away. For a time, he questioned whether they were right. He could not find a team in Cyprus ready to build at the same pace or believe in the scale of what he wanted to create. The turning point came in 2025, when he decided he would “rather try and fail than have regrets of not even trying” when he was older. Elias Orfanou He quit his job, left everything and everyone behind, and moved alone to New York. There, he met an engineer who believed in TravelX, and together they began rebuilding the platform. The original problem behind the company was simple and familiar. While working in hotels during his studies, Orfanou often saw tourists unsure of what to do during their stay. Hotels, meanwhile, could usually recommend only the tours offered by their existing partners. That experience led him to imagine a system where hotels could give guests a QR code linking them to activities from a wider range of local guides and providers in the surrounding area. He believes the IdeaFest judges saw that he understood the problem because he had lived it from the inside. At the time, he said, there was nothing quite like it in Cyprus. TravelX’s proposed difference from global platforms such as Viator and GetYourGuide was that it would be local, connected and closer to the people actually offering the experiences. Many of those guides had little or no online presence at all. But Orfanou believes the judges saw more than a business model. “The most important thing,” he said, was the passion behind it. That passion, he added, was what stopped TravelX from becoming another university project that disappeared once the presentation was over. It was the first time in his life, he said, that he had felt truly driven by an idea. Even before he stood in front of the judges, he could already see TravelX becoming something much larger. Years later, that feeling has not left him. At times, he said, it feels as though “I am being pulled by it instead of me pushing towards it every day”. New York became the place where he felt that ambition could breathe. Orfanou had tried to build the company from Cyprus, but increasingly felt he needed to be surrounded by people who saw the scale of the idea as possible rather than distant. In New York, feedback was faster, the market was tougher, and the pace matched the way he wanted to work. The city may be one of the most visited places in the world, but Orfanou found the same gap he had first noticed in Cyprus. Beyond the obvious landmarks and heavily marketed tours, there were hidden gems, independent guides and local experiences that were still difficult for visitors to discover. TravelX is now focusing on hyperlocal experiences outside the most crowded tourist routes, including neighbourhoods such as Astoria and Williamsburg. The aim is to give travellers access to activities they are unlikely to find through the biggest booking platforms, while helping smaller providers become more visible. Orfanou also wants to move away from the cold, transactional nature of tour booking. Too often, he said, a traveller downloads an app, books an activity, attends the tour and never opens the app again. TravelX wants to meet tourists while they are already at their destination, offering quick access to nearby experiences, instant booking and less friction. But building both sides of a marketplace has not been easy. Listing experiences was the simpler part, especially as TravelX targeted providers with limited online visibility. Reaching travellers through hotels proved harder. Many hotels already have partners, and building new relationships takes time. With no venture capital backing, the company also does not have the kind of advertising budget that would allow it to compete loudly across Google and social media. That limitation has forced the team to become more resourceful. It has also sharpened Orfanou’s view of trust, which he sees as one of the most important challenges for any young travel platform. Travellers, he said, need to recognise the company they are booking through, while reviews help them feel comfortable enough to complete a reservation. TravelX cannot yet compete with the name recognition of Viator or GetYourGuide, so it is trying to build familiarity in another way. For Orfanou, the principle is simple, “more content, more trust”. That is where the wider TravelX vision begins to matter. The platform is only one part of the plan. The upcoming TravelX show, future pop-up events and the annual TravelXpo are all intended to make the brand feel more familiar, more visible and more connected to the people it wants to serve. Storytelling, he believes, is not separate from the business. It is part of the business. Orfanou argues that “every company is a media company”, because marketing and sales alone cannot create the same long-term connection as a strong story. He points to Airbnb as an example of a company whose identity is closely tied to the story of its founders and how it was built. Through the TravelX show, he wants travellers and partners to share their own stories too, turning the company into something more than a booking tool. The goal is to build a community around travel, experiences and discovery, rather than simply capturing one transaction. His own story is also part of that identity. Orfanou sees being a Cypriot founder in New York not as a disadvantage, but as a source of energy. Arriving as an immigrant with a dream, he said, creates hunger, pressure and motivation. In his words, “diamonds are shaped by pressure”. New York has taught him that speed matters. Cyprus, however, still has value as a testing ground for new ideas. What he believes is missing is a stronger bridge between university projects and real international companies. Cypriot universities, he said, should do more to encourage students to build startups, experiment and learn from failure. Stronger links with investors, venture capital funds and experienced founders could help promising ideas move beyond competitions and presentations, first into the European market and then further abroad. Looking ahead, Orfanou imagines TravelX as a company that combines artificial intelligence, bookings, content, events and community. AI travel agents could eventually create full packages based on a traveller’s budget and preferences, arranging tours, accommodation, transport and other services. TravelXpo, meanwhile, could grow into a major travel event, while the brand could expand into magazines, travel programmes and social media content focused on hidden gems around the world. When he thinks back to the student who presented TravelX at IdeaFest in 2020, Orfanou said he would not have been surprised by where the idea is today. He had already seen it in his mind. His message to other young Cypriots waiting for the right moment, the right market or the right confidence is direct. “The perfect time is always now,” he said, explaining that confidence comes only after someone begins. “The sooner you start, the sooner you grow,” he added, because “it all comes after you start, and not by waiting”.