Articles tagged “attractions”

Virtual reality has been the next big thing for years, and it always will be. But despite skepticism, the technology shows a potential to help the travel sector in a few specific, high margin cases.

TUI/Musement's new strategic partnership with Booking.com has the potential to reshuffle the powers that be in tours and activities, especially in Europe. But TUI doesn't have a stellar track record in online offerings, and much of the promise will depend on its execution.

It is highly risky for Airbnb to pivot to compete directly as an online travel agency, and it needs to seriously think about whether its sharing model truly extends to the activity, experience provider because in reality it doesn't.

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.

For many players in Asia’s tours and activities space, dealing with mounting coronavirus cancellations is proving to be a pain point without the aid of robust technology systems in place. This crisis will be a sharp reminder that digitalization is the way to go.

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.

FareHarbor and Bokun act as if they're unstoppably on the way to becoming giants. But the market for booking systems for sightseeing and experience operators remains very much in flux.

Is everything on target in the evolution of Airbnb's Experiences business? It's clearly not profitable yet after three years, and the leadership change at the top signals problems. That doesn't mean it's fatally flawed although this isn't precisely the portrait you want to paint on the cusp of Airbnb going public next year.

TripAdvisor and Booking Holdings are seemingly playing nice and fair with the tours and activities companies for now, but what happens five years from now when competition gets more intense and extracting profits is more of a mandate? Will push come to shove?

Expedia and Ctrip are the two large online travel companies that have so far not acquired a technology partner to foster the growth of their tours and activities' businesses. GetYourGuide argues that these tech/connectivity companies should remain independent, but how long will it be before some of these smaller companies get scooped up?