Due to the internet revolution, the tourism industry has become more flourished and the travelers around the world are now more determined to see the unseen and know the unknown. And while the travelers are keen to opt for a holiday with different travel activities to their desired places, as an online marketplace owner, you have the opportunity to make some profit. Now tour and activity bookings on marketplaces are increasing. In spite of the absence of abundant sources and monetary support, you can create your marketplace.
Build a successful marketplace for activities and tours
To create a marketplace is an easy part of the business but to develop it into a successful one is not so easy. It needs some extra effort to make a successful marketplace.
Similarly, it has become a simple task to start an online travel marketplace but successfully running a travel activities marketplace is a difficult task. You have a lot of works to do. Prepare a well-planned strategy first and then start business. It is essential that you need to begin to connect with tour operators and activity hosts well before the launch of your marketplace. Keep in mind, activities have remained as attractions in the global travel, tourism and hospitality industry. There are many online travel marketplaces that are working on global level offering various tour and activities. Viator is a good example of such an online travel marketplace. These platforms keep tour and activity options in the one place for potential customers to compare their options in similar destinations. They also facilitate greater exposure for different businesses who would like to promote their tours and activities on a wider scale.
An overview of 6 travel activities marketplaces
Here are the 6 travel activities marketplaces dedicated to travel. Read about these 6 travel marketplaces and build a successful marketplace for activities and tours.
Airbnb
With the mission of creating a world where people can belong through healthy travel that is local, authentic, diverse, inclusive and sustainable, Airbnb started its sharing economy travel marketplace in 2008. Technology has been leveraged by Airbnb outstandingly to economically empower millions of people around the world to reveal and monetize their spaces, passions, and talents to become hospitality entrepreneurs through Airbnb’s accommodation marketplace. Travelers can have access to more than five million exceptional places to stay in more than 81,000 cities and 191 countries.
There are several keys behind Airbnb’s becoming quite a successful travel enterprise. It has managed through its design to take the risk and the edge out of the idea of meeting a stranger online and staying at their house. The marketplace focuses on showcasing the rentals. Moreover, the website is simple, elegant, clean, and every rental just looks good. A level of confidence is imprinted in the very way that the site looks, which, consequently, makes customers trust the services.
Airbnb has created a peer-to-peer model that has reduced any risks and helped make a good relationship between the seller and the customer. Its strategies work to everyone’s advantage. Airbnb has a history of significant development as trips marketplace that consists of experiences, places, and homes. Airbnb’s Trip Itinerary is a new feature which collates the user’s travel plan into one simple timeline, with a user-friendly and interactive feature that lets you add more experiences to it. Actually, innovation is the lifeline of online marketplace businesses and Airbnb has excelled at that.
Peek
Peek is a site people want to visit again and again. Peek is a one-stop shop to discover and book amazing activities, tours, and more. It is an end-to-end solution for tour operators. It launches as an answer to the question “what do you do when you get there” in only several places for now. The company has struck up relationships with vineyards, museums, and helicopter tour outfits, to offer up more than 500 travel activities. Peek is part booking agent, part tour book.
Peek helps ensure you’ll have the moments that make travel memorable. An unforgettable trip is built on the special experiences that someone shares with friends and family. They carefully curate their offering of high-quality activities, display them beautifully, and make them easily bookable online via computer, tablet or mobile phone. They are dedicated to making travel planning enjoyable, so anyone can focus on what matters – creating memories that will last a lifetime.
Peek only works with the highest quality sellers. The team of travel experts handpicks the best activities to provide a personalized selection of experiences that match the various travel styles of the customers. Peek provides one-stop-shop service and brings together all of the information you need in one place. However, you can use Peek’s Travel Guides if you’re visiting for the first time for an overview of the top things to see. By exploring the categories, you will find unique experiences and save yourself hours of phone calls with seamless online booking and payments platform. The customers can have a great experience with Peek.
Expedia
As the Internet began to change people’s lives one of the first obvious places it could do so was in travel. Expedia is a collection of world-leading travel brands. Expedia Group is the world’s travel platform, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes some of the world’s most trusted online travel brands. Expedia has an aim to bring the world within reach. The ambition Expedia right from the start was to become a giant important company that changed the industry that empowered hundreds of millions of people around the world that is what they set out to build.
Expedia Group powers travel to a highly valuable global audience of travel consumers, collaborating with the world’s leading consumer brands to provide incremental demand and direct bookings. Travel agents have direct access to one of the broadest selections of travel products and services on the world’s travel platform.
Expedia is the best combination of tech, travel, and hospitality. This great mix of sort of hospitality side of the travel industry and this determination and technology and there is a smarter answer to a problem and that they can build it and really have a huge scalable impact across the world. Expedia enables people to dream at home about their ultimate vacation and then with the touch of a button the travelers can book it.
Viator
Viator is an online travel activities marketplace working with tour operators to connect travelers with the best local tours and activities. These activities are provided through its main consumer channels, as well as many diverse affiliate partners, including airlines, hotels, and travel agencies. Viator has helped travelers discover millions of experiences in more than 1,300 destinations worldwide since their founding in 1999. Actually, Viator’s passion is to connect travelers to great experiences—from traditional sightseeing tours to once-in-a-lifetime moments.
Viator is a successful travel activities marketplace that makes it simple for travelers to find exactly what they want to do. Travelers can easily discover and book amazing experiences from a direct access to more than 100,000 bookable activities. There is chance for mobile booking and Viator permits travelers to plan in advance or book on-the-go to skip long lines and sold-out signs.
On Viator, you can book securely with the world’s largest travel site. Here, you’ll receive a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours in advance of most experiences. It also guarantees the lowest price and 24 hours multilingual customer care. Viator can help the tour and activity operators reach the customers they never could before. The tour operator can connect with their customers easily. It is simple to set up and easy to manage without any sign-up fees.
GetYourGuide
GetYourGuide is also one of the Internet’s largest booking marketplaces for travel activities that offer more than 25,000 attractions, tours, and activities in upwards of 2,400 worldwide destinations. This travel marketplace offers the customer a great variety of all suppliers and tours offered. As a result, the customer can compare different tour operators in the same destinations.
GetYourGuide is powered by a global team of over 400 travel experts and helps travelers find the best things to do wherever they are headed. The things that it offers include skip-the-line tickets to the world’s most iconic attractions, walking tours by top local experts, cooking and craft classes, immersive food and beverage tours, bucket-list experiences and niche offerings that you may not find anywhere else.
GetYourGuide is supposed to be on a journey to transform ordinary trips into extraordinary ones. It offers you guide, bringing your personal experiences. While you are on your travels, you will be guided to do the unique and unmissable things in your destination. It also has a booking app that is optimized for people searching for and booking tours whilst on the go. Their website is also very user-friendly and sees high traffic volumes. GetYourGuide is committed to creating amazing experiences and ensuring that you love where you’re going.
Musement
Musement is another online travel activities and tours platform that aggregates third-party activities and tickets for users to book online. Tour operators have access to upload and manage various activities through the platform. This Italian-based marketplace is simple and convenient, which was created for tour and activity operators all over the world to sell their products to travelers from anywhere, at any time.
Musement has one goal and it is to allow travelers to experience a destination like a local. Musement also lets travelers buy tickets to famous attractions, events, museums, and tours, all from their smartphones.It helps travelers get the best from destinations by providing a great choice of local tours and attractions bookable on multiple devices. More than just “things to do”, its range includes temporary, exclusive, hidden-gem and even free activities.
Though Musement has come into being very recently, it has already acquired a global following, probably because of its unique offering of activities and user-friendly market platform. There is secure booking with price match that saves time with simple data-protected payment. You can experience immediate confirmations, flexible planning with fast and hassle-free tickets/vouchers. It has reached a wider audience with Musement App. When you sign up with Musement, you can have your content translated into more languages for free. It offers amazing support 24 hours to help in giving advice with activities.
All of the above online travel marketplaces focus on user experience and have a dedicated support team on offer to both the consumers and the tour operators to promote a great online marketplace experience.
Remember, tour and activity bookings on marketplaces are increasing. To build a successful marketplace for activities, tours, experiences, and services, you will need to dedicate your marketplace to a specific niche in the form of geography, vertical and demographics. A solid understanding of online travel marketplaces is important and can help you make the best choice for your attraction, tour or activity business.
