Articles tagged “tours and activities”

Tours-and-activities startups will be eager to see if in-destination apps from giants such as Google, Airbnb, and TripAdvisor will succeed in providing cost-effective customer leads.

Hong Kong-based Klook has selected the Americas as its first stop for expansion outside Asia. To beat the deeply entrenched competition, it will have to find partners that can adapt to the needs of Asian travelers.

Let's do some math, first: How do you calculate 20x growth when you're not given a baseline for comparison? Our guess is whatever that adds up to, it may not be very much.

Whoever said there's no money in tours-and-activities may want to have a chat with the folks at Battery Ventures, whose investment in GetYourGuide brings that startup's total funding to $175.5 million.

Klook's rapid growth suggests that a growing number of Chinese and other Asian outbound travelers want to travel independently, instead of in groups, and thus book their activities a la carte. That portends a sea change in the travel industry.

Group hikes, river cruises, and other multi-day tours are still primarily booked offline through travel agents or direct with the operators. But future bookings of these tours will likely be digital despite the complexity. It's a tough sector, and TourRadar hopes to be well-positioned as the trend gains ground.

Hyatt just launched another partnership for its loyalty program, signaling an interest in expanding further into the business of experiences.

There is still a ton of consolidation to come in tours and activities as smaller consumer and tech companies, in particular, will get bought up or fade into the waiting arms of the usual suspects, which will pick up some of the pieces.

Who needs middlemen distributors? TripAdvisor-backed Viator is hoping that travel agencies come directly to its new platform to find tours and activities to sell to consumers.

Context is a scholarly tour business betting that digital marketing will let it replicate its model profitably worldwide. Other experiential tour businesses will watch with a skeptical (but hopeful) eye.