Skift Take
Tour operators addressing overtourism have essentially gone mainstream in recent years as more travelers have demanded alternatives to crowded city centers. In 2019, we will likely see more companies step in to do the right thing.
Tour operators are some of the largest contributors to overtourism as they bring busloads of tourists to the world's most popular destinations each day. While some tour companies have been working for years to better manage how and when they bring travelers to tourism hubs like Amsterdam or Venice, others have more recently shifted their strategies to ensure they have a positive impact on the places they do business.
Some companies like Trafalgar have changed their pricing model and have made peak season tours more expensive than off-season itineraries, while others such as Globus have created new itineraries that go to destinations in popular countries like Italy and the United Kingdom but take travelers beyond the gateways of Rome, Venice, London, or Edinburgh, and these kinds of strategies are beginning to become more widely adopted across the tours and activities sector as it looks ahead to 2019.
Trafalgar said it's in its second year of a new pricing structure that aims to incentivize travelers to book trips during less popular times of the year, and it's already seen success with the strategy as off-season travel is growing faster than peak season travel. The company offers lower rates worldwide during the offseason, and so far this year Trafalgar has offered more than 500 of these tours.
Of course, travelers have traditionally paid more for tours during peak periods than if they went in the off-season. But in the past two years, Trafalgar has made a concerted effort to price tours accordingly to help mitigate crowds and poor quality of life for residents.
"My call to action for all of us in the tourism industry is that we can’t take what we do for granted,"
