Tours and activities has been a notoriously difficult and fragmented vertical to crack. Merchants are still in the process of transitioning from offline to online, and consumers typically book activities in-destination.
Nevertheless, the sector is attracting investment. Phocuswright valued the tours and activities sector to be worth US$147b in 2017 with a growth rate of 9% per year. It’s predicted to reach US$183b by 2020.
There are plenty of players already in the space, from Viator to GetYourGuide and Klook making their names as go-to resources for pre-travel tours and activities bookings. Then there are also the B2B players like BeMyGuest and a host of local tours & activities startups coming up in markets like South Korea, Malaysia, Australia and Japan.
Nevertheless, users still face the task of trawling across sites, comparing the different deals and price points offered by different, competing agents. According to Expedia, it takes travellers an average of 38 websites and 45 days to plan a trip. Therein lies the opportunity.
One startup aiming to simplify trip planning is Tourscanner – a meta-search engine specialising in tours and activities, which recently launched its consumer service online.
The team at Tourscanner
The idea for TourScanner was born in the summer of 2017, as co-founder and CMO, Guillaume Picard and CEO, Simone Semprini could not understand why tours and activities didn’t follow the same pattern of technological development as flights and accommodation.
“We have been using meta-search engines for many years when booking our flights or hotel rooms such as Skyscanner or Trivago. But when it came to booking tours and activities, we ended up spending a lot of time browsing on multiple websites. It was just a massive effort and waste of time and even money.”
TourScanner allows travellers to search and compare tours and activities by aggregating offers from online marketplaces, and placing them on a single platform. It monetises through a simple referral commission model.
Said Picard, “Flights and accommodation search have all experienced the boom of meta-search creating multi-billion industries, tours are about to experience the same.”
TourScanner is “driven to be the Skyscanner of tours & travel activities. We aim to provide the best deals to travellers allowing them to save time and money when planning their activities for holidays online.
“At the moment, the majority of travellers are lost with the massive choices they get when searching the web. Additionally, we aim to offer the best price comparison tool for tours and activities, providing an easy-search tool so that travellers can save time and money.”
So far, reception has been positive. TourScanner has partnered with multiple leading OTAs like Viator, Tiqets or Headout, amassing over 500,000 tours and activities on its platform. More OTAs will be added especially in Asia and Australia to address the huge demand and exponential growth in the region.
“Some partners have been integrated worldwide on our platform; some are only integrated in some specific destinations as their integration is still under development.”
While it is still early days for the startup, TourScanner has plenty in the pipeline. TourScanner plans to continue building its catalogue of travel experiences by aggregating more OTAs every week, and it is also developing a B2B platform for larger partners like hotel companies and travel search engines.
“OTAs have been very responsive about TourScanner. As travel specialists, they understand the need of a search engine for this sector and the growth of TourScanner can be a benefit for all of them in terms of visibility and bookings,” said Picard.
When it comes to fellow competitors, Picard acknowledges PlacePass, especially after Marriott International invested in the business. Picard views this investment optimistically. To him, it acts as validation that the travel industry is making a more active effort to cultivate the tours and activities space.
Tourscanner has also gathered early interest, having already received angel funding. The startup is now seeking seed funding to accelerate the development of its B2B tools.
Lead image: Getty images
