Leading Companies in Tours and Activities Emerge But There Is Still a Vast Sprawl of Competitors Below

While the emergence of TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide and, to a lesser extent, Airbnb, as well as some fairly large funding rounds, suggest that the pecking order in the tours-and-activities sector is finally coming into focus, there still is a vast sprawl of companies competing for relevance with myriad business models. Some focus solely on consumer bookings, others offer tours and activities tech, and still more offer a mix of both. TripAdvisor-owned Viator continues to stay ahead of Expedia as the largest direct-to-consumer marketplace for tours and activities. As of this autumn, Viator is hoping that travel agencies will start using its new booking tool to find tours and activities to sell to consumers. Dermot Halpin, president of TripAdvisor Attractions and Vacation Rentals, said: “We’re making foundational changes to our business, which support our very steep growth trajectory and extend our position in this space." Halpin added: "We’re seeing significant progress across the board – we’ve grown bookable supply by 25 percent this year, our customer satisfaction levels are at record highs, and our strong bookings and conversion growth continues. The improvements in this business were integral to the 31 percent, year-on-year growth, TripAdvisor saw in our non-hotel results last quarter." The largest activities marketplace outside of a publicly traded online travel company is GetYourGuide. It notched a milestone this summer: Nearly half of the 10 million tickets it has ever sold were purchased in 2017 alone, the company said. "We’re on track for our best year ever by far, thanks partly to accelerating growth in mobile," said co-founder and COO Tao Tao. Its recent partnerships with KLM and EasyJet, in which it helps the airlines sell tours as add-ons, are "already surpassing initial expectations," he added. In the next year, the Be