Booking Holdings Buys Activities Distribution Startup FareHarbor
Photo Credit: Pictured are the co-founders of tours and activities booking software startup FareHarbor. CEO of FareHarbor Lawrence Hester is on the right, while brother Zachary is on the left. They founded the company in Hawaii in 2013 but on Thursday sold it to Booking Holdings. FareHarbor
Skift Take
Only a couple of years ago, the CEO of family-owned activities distributor FareHarbor said the company would never sell. But never say never. For Booking Holdings, this is further proof that the giant wants to be full-service.
In what looks to be the biggest deal yet in the tours-and-activities distribution space, Booking Holdings said Thursday that it will acquire U.S.-based, experiences booking-software provider FareHarbor.
The FareHarbor acquisition will help provide content to expand Booking.com's upselling of consumers on tours after the consumers have already bought another product from the online travel giant.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. FareHarbor, headquartered in Hawaii, claimed to have generated more than $50 million in revenue last year — roughly double the revenue of a year prior. It had more than 200 employees at the time of the acquisition and claimed to be profitable.
The price tag could be relatively “hefty” — as in more than $300 million — speculated one source who is knowledgeable about the tours and activities sector. The reason is that FareHarbor has a substantial footprint in the distribution and reservation management parts of the sector.
TripAdvisor i
