Day Tours Operator Context Adds Pre-Trip Virtual Learning

Online travel platforms that pay close attention to the unique curation of their tours and activities will own the longtail game of discovery.

That's the belief of Context Travel founder Paul Bennett, who, with co-founder and wife Lani Bevacqua, has been trying to differentiate and digitally scale the walking tours for nearly two decades.

Tours and activities fell by 77 percent during the pandemic, with a full recovery to 2019 levels expected by 2023, according to Skift Research.

While other online travel agents have shuttered the virtual tours they developed when global travel came to a standstill, Bennett said its virtual tours are helping to increase user engagement.

Founded in 2003, Context claimed to be one of the first tour companies to offer online booking. Now, Context Learning, a virtual experience product that offers online seminars with experts before and after in-destination tours, allows its customers to connect 365 days a year with Context Travel experts and not just once or twice a year when they are traveling.

Bennett, a work-from-anywhere acolyte, has spent around 10 years circumnavigating the globe with his family on a boat while building their multi-million dollar experiences brand. This immersive way of traveling and experiencing destinations has largely informed and shaped their business.

Most recently, he founded Cicero, a remote-learning education platform born out of the need to homeschool his three daughters as a digital nomad family pushing the blended travel way of life way before it became a trend. Bennett said, "enhancing the traveler journey and stimulating intellectual cu