Tour Operators Are Travel’s Last Big Sector Ready for Digital Transformation
Skift Take
The tour operator sector feels like the hotel industry of yesteryear. With billions in market value hiding in plain sight, it seems primed to have its decade of intense innovation.
Peering in from the outside, it can appear that the multi-day tour sector is lagging in digital transformation when compared to almost every other sector of travel. We don't see the layers of digital infrastructure and we haven't seen the money that can flow with them. In airlines, hotels and even day tours and attractions, we've seen huge supportive industries pop up like res-tech, niche specific online travel agencies and Meta players.
In the multi day-sector, not so much. I set out to ask some of the leaders and emerging companies in the sector if they thought this perception was correct and if the factors the sector specifically faces make adoption, transformation and even disruption more difficult.
I was a little surprised to find agreement.
"I think that is a fair statement. We are tour operators, not technology companies, and when you look at the period pre-Covid, we (were) on a nice journey with good growth anyway," said Intrepid Travel CEO J