As the Arival team prepared for our launch event in Asia Pacific to serve creators and sellers of tours, activities and attractions, we heard one refrain again and again from industry insiders: Asia is behind. Tour and activity operators are resistant to new technology. Attractions are hesitant to change their ways. Old school practices continue to dominate this sector.
However, the more our team dug in to trends across the region, the more we spoke to operators and distributors working in this sector every day, we began to take a different view. In fact, just look at some key facts:
- The first OTA for tours and activities was founded not in Silicon Valley, but here in Asia Pacific. That company was Viator.
- The first IPO for the online tours and activities sector also took place not in the U.S., not on Wall Street, but in Japan. VELTRA went public in December, 2018, and in case you haven’t been following, it’s stock has performed quite OK.
- The first startup in the sector to raise more than $500 million was Klook.
- Of the $1.2 billion investors have poured into the sector since 2017, more of that money (47%) has flowed to companies in Asia Pacific (47%) than to the U.S. (7%) or Europe (46%).
In fact, across a range of metrics, such as general online and mobile travel booking adoption, Asian travelers are well ahead of their U.S. and European counterparts, according to Phocuswright. And we see this as well with mobile booking for tours, activities and attractions.
From this standpoint, a big part of the future of tours and activities will be defined by companies in Asia. But perhaps a bigger question is whether tours and activities is, in fact, online travel’s next big thing, or just the latest fad? There has been plenty of fund raising, but there have been far fewer exits, and doubts persist as to whether this sector will follow in the footsteps of flights and hotels and migrate to majority online marketplaces.
At WiT Japan & North Asia held in June in Tokyo, I laid out the case for both narratives: is tours and activities online travel’s next big thing, or another overhyped fad? My presentation, embedded below, presents arguments and data points on both sides. Have a look, and you can decide where it’s head. And let me know what I missed.
EMBED DECK – https://www.slideshare.net/Arivaltravel/are-tours-activities-attractions-really-online-travels-next-big-thing
• Douglas Quinby is the cofounder and CEO of Arival
• Featured image credit: mihtiander/Getty Images
