Accelerate 2.0 to bring more tour operators onboard marketplace; Asia sees “enthusiastic bounceback”
Before she joined Tripadvisor in 2018, Sarah Dines, Chief Commercial Officer of Viator, spent most of her career in audio guide, including as CEO of Discovery Channel’s Antenna International as well as Detour, the audio tour startup of Andrew Mason (of Groupon’s fame) which shut down in 2018, after being acquired by Bose.
And so I had to ask her if she believed, with the advent of new technology, the fact that everyone has their own headphones today and the enhanced capabilities of smartphones, that now is the moment to say “the future is in audio tours”?
“I have thought so many times,” she said. “I am not yet willing to say this is the moment. But let’s see.”
The challenges remain. “There is a perception that audio guides are boring. Yes, stories are getting better. Detour was a geo-location wayfinder to guide you through physical spaces. But it’s hard to get people to show up with a fully charged battery, with their headphones and GPS on. Getting people to a place, with a fully charged phone, with a no-time start is extraordinarily difficult. Plus location services is a drain on the battery and has high data services charges.”
Sarah Dines: Asia looks set for an enthusiastic bounceback this year. “We have about twice the demand for Asia as we did this time last year (as a destination market).”
Recognising the limitations of that space, Dines felt it was time to move on and joined Tripadvisor/Viator as senior director of distribution in 2018. Today, as CCO of Viator, she oversees a marketplace of more than 300,000 products and the tours and activities market has of course changed considerably.
“There are more companies online, more are using res tech and the pandemic influenced it greatly. OTAs got better at solving friction points and social media such as TikTok made it easier for consumers to find experiences,” said Dines.
And Viator has grown on the strength of a growing tours and activities market globally. It’s become a major contributor to Tripadvisor’s revenues. In the third quarter 2023 financial results, Viator continued to show the most growth and its revenue is now inching toward surpassing revenue from the Tripadvisor Core, which includes hotel metasearch, subscriptions and display ads, Tripadvisor experiences and dining.
In the period from July through September 2023, Viator revenue came in at $245 million, up 41% year over year, and it accounted for 46% of Tripadvisor’s total revenue in Q3 of $533 million. Total revenue for the company was up 16% year over year.
Viator currently has about 300,000 products from 55,000 operators, and its gross booking value in Q3 was $1.1 billion.
Despite the strong growth, Dines said there was still a long way to go. “More tour operators need to adopt res tech or platforms for distribution. Logistics remain one of the biggest pain points – where’s the pick-up point, where is my guide? We are investing heavily in that tech, making sure the information is fed into the listing, that the listing has very accurate geo location data and we provide mechanisms to communicate with the operator if needed.”
It launched Accelerate 2.0 in December last year. “This product is driven by customer feedback. We surveyed 5,000 operators and learnt two things – one, they didn’t know what they were getting for what they were paying and two, how am I doing compared with my competitors?”
It’s an opportunity for operators to pay more for visibility, said Dines. In this interview with Arival, she said, “Accelerate 2.0 gives you a very clear picture of where you sit compared to your competitors in terms of the commission that they’re offering and the ad impressions that they’re getting for that commission.”
However, she emphasised “giving commission is not a way to buy your way to the top at Viator: the amount of impressions that you get is heavily influenced by the quality of the product.”
She told WiT, “Sort order is key,and as personalization gets better, we can surface more relevant products for the marketplace.”
It will step up its efforts in Asia Pacific this year. “We have been fairly successful, getting connections with the OTAs as well as with Chinese lifestyle brands such as Pinduoduo and Meituan.
Though it was slower to recover, Asia does now look set for an enthusiastic bounceback this year.
“We have about twice the demand for Asia as we did this time last year (as a destination market). Asian destination markets made up 5/5 of our fastest-growing destinations last year. Tokyo, in particular, grew at 800%+; Vietnam had two of the top 5; Asian destinations also made up most of the top-five best-rated destinations, with Taiwan taking the top spot.
“We have noticed interest in food tours – the unusual and new – and people love cooking classes in Asia, some of the most popular are udon and ramen classes.”
On customer acquisition, she said, “We’re focused on building awareness — of Viator, and of the category in general. It’s driving results in the form of brand health, brand search, and direct traffic.
“More than 90% of people want to price compare and 74% does not know it (OTA space) exists,” she said. “We want to educate people that Viator is the place to come.”
Having said that, Viator does work with content sites and influencers who drive “enormous amount of new customers”. “We have grown organically through our affiliate programmes.”
Back to audio tours – Dines has not fully given up on the space.
“The thing that makes audio guides great is the right storyteller and the compelling story. I don’t think AI is in a position to tell stories. For example, there’s a tour of the USS Arizona Memorial where the late actor Ernest Borgnine narrates the history and recounts the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor – that kind of authenticity cannot be replaced by AI.
“One of the things we are thinking about is ethical considerations of AI-generated content to make product listings seem more appealing. You could argue, there’s been Photoshop for many years and amateurs can enhance images – but there’s a line between fully AI-generated and human-enhanced content.”
