Experiences

Operators of tours, activities, and attractions are taking a crash course in online classes, virtual tours, and digital souvenir sales. We doubt these efforts can fully replace the revenue of in-person experiences. Yet there are needs to fill. Many housebound people and remote teams could use the human connection, while many hosts are eager for income.

Airbnb initially made a pro-guest decision on refunds, but it now realizes its policy and its outreach to hosts was clumsy and unsatisfactory. Hosts still won't be pleased, but the optics and financials aren't as bad as before.

Whether building tours and activities or vacation rentals, acquiring companies soon find out that this stuff isn't as easy as it looked. From confidential internal documents obtained by Skift, it's clear Booking.com found out that scaling experiences on its own wouldn't be a cakewalk, and it's turning to Musement to kick off a preferred partnership strategy instead.

When Tripadvisor first started diversifying away from its hotel-auction business several years ago, it was mostly aspirational because its experiences and dining businesses were relatively small. Now there is a bit of revenue meat on those bones. Still, meaningful profits will be slow going in this competitive climate.

Tripadvisor is trying to squeeze more revenue and profits out of its newly restructured tours and activities business. There's a danger, though, that well-funded rivals might undercut Tripadvisor's efforts.

Question: At Tripadvisor, as a controlled company, what mechanisms did minority shareholders have to pressure Chairman Greg Maffei to make dramatic changes? Answer: Relatively few.

Experiences could become a big business for Airbnb, but a cautionary note is that competition from venture-backed companies is heating up. The sector leader, Tripadvisor, just took a step back to reboot its experiences strategy while laying off employees.

Travel advisors say this year's "wave season" is showing strong preferences for less-visited ports and immersive land experiences. There are also indicators that passengers are more likely to hold the cruise industry accountable on sustainability.

Flush with SoftBank and other venture capital money, GetYourGuide and Klook, as well as Airbnb and Booking.com, are nipping at Tripadvisor's heels in tours and activities. Tripadvisor will try to leverage its brand, Viator, which already had a following before Tripadvisor absorbed it, to keep the insurgents at bay.

Along with its dining reservations business, Tripadvisor's tours and activities unit had been a bright spot. But well-funded competitors such as GetYourGuide and Klook have tightened the race, and Tripadvisor is feeling it.