The single most important tour and activity industry statistic for 2026 is this: only about 33% of experiences bookings now happen online, even though the sector is racing toward a $342 billion global market by 2029 — and within that online slice, online travel agencies (OTAs) have quietly overtaken operators’ own websites. In plain terms, demand for tours and activities has never been higher, but most operators are still capturing it through slow, offline, manual channels — and losing the digital share to marketplaces that charge 20–30% commission. This post pulls together the numbers that actually matter for a tour or activity operator in 2026: how big the market is, how travelers really book, what reviews are worth, how fast customers expect a reply, and what all of it means for the way you run your back office. Every stat below is sourced and linked.
How big is the tour & activity industry?
The tours, activities, and experiences sector is one of the fastest-growing corners of the entire travel economy. According to the landmark global market-sizing work from Arival and Phocuswright, the travel experiences market is surging toward $342 billion by 2029, and experiences have already surpassed pre-pandemic booking levels to become the fastest-growing segment of travel. (Arival / Phocuswright)
Independent market-research firms put slightly different numbers on the same trend, which is normal when the category is defined differently across studies. One vendor sizes the tours-and-activities reservations market at $172.96 billion in 2024, growing to $267.2 billion by 2030 at a 7.51% CAGR. (360iResearch) The adventure-tourism slice alone is forecast to reach roughly $1 trillion by 2030 at a 16.8% CAGR — a reminder of how much of the total sits in higher-value, experience-led travel. (Grand View Research)
The exact figure matters less than the direction: every credible source agrees the experiences category is expanding faster than travel as a whole. The strategic question for an operator isn’t whether demand is growing — it’s whether your business is set up to capture your share of it, or watching it flow to the marketplaces and better-organized competitors instead.
How travelers book tours: online, offline & mobile
Here’s the statistic that reframes everything else: only 33% of experiences bookings happened through online channels in 2025 — compared with about 64% for the travel industry overall. (Arival) Tours and activities are, by a wide margin, the least-digitized major category in travel.
That online share has been climbing steadily — from 17% in 2019 to 29% in 2021 to 33% in 2025 (Arival) — but it still trails hotels and flights dramatically. A big reason is fragmentation: more than 70% of tour and activity operators are small or micro businesses (Arival / Phocuswright), and many still take a meaningful share of bookings by phone, at the desk, or through walk-ups. As recently as 2024, direct offline channels still accounted for 16% of bookings. (Arival)
For an operator, this cuts two ways. The offline-heavy reality is why so many small operators feel buried in phone calls, sticky notes, and manual confirmations. But it’s also the opportunity: the shift online is happening whether you participate or not, and the operators who make it easy to discover, inquire, and book digitally are the ones capturing the growing share. This is the core case for a prebuilt, booking-ready website and a proper direct-booking engine rather than relying on a phone that only rings during business hours.
OTAs vs direct bookings (and the commission problem)
The most consequential shift in the 2025 data is who owns the online booking. OTAs — Viator, GetYourGuide, and the like — now capture about 37% of all tour and activity bookings, up from 33% in 2024 and just 24% in 2019. Meanwhile, bookings through operators’ own websites fell from 29% in 2024 to 25% in 2025. (PhocusWire / Arival) For the first time, marketplaces are pulling clearly ahead of direct.
Why does this matter to your bottom line? Because that share isn’t free. OTA commissions on tours and activities are widely reported at 20–30%, typically around 25% — and in 2025 Viator added a $29 per-product submission fee on top. (Bokun) GetYourGuide’s rates sit in the same 20–30% band, often starting near 30% and negotiated down at volume. (Samba) On a $150 tour, a 25% commission is roughly $37.50 handed over per seat — on a booking the OTA may have won only because it answered and confirmed faster than you did.
OTA booking vs direct booking — the operator's-eye view
| Plan | OTA booking | Direct booking recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 20–30% commission | 0% commission |
| Feature 1 | Discovery: strong — huge marketplace reach | Discovery: you must earn it (SEO, ads, social) |
| Feature 2 | Commission: ~20–30% per booking (plus fees) | Commission: none — you keep the full price |
| Feature 3 | Customer data: limited or withheld | Customer data: yours — name, email, phone |
| Feature 4 | Repeat/win-back: hard — it's the OTA's customer | Repeat/win-back: easy — you own the relationship |
| Feature 5 | Reviews: land on the OTA, not always your site | Reviews: you can request and route them yourself |
| See how direct booking works |
The takeaway isn’t “abandon OTAs” — they’re a genuine discovery channel, and 37% of the market is nothing to sneeze at. It’s that every OTA booking is a customer you don’t own and can’t easily re-market to, while every direct booking is full-margin revenue and a contact you can turn into reviews, referrals, and repeat trips. The economics reward operators who use OTAs for discovery but work relentlessly to convert and retain travelers directly. That’s exactly the gap speed to lead and local SEO are built to close.
Traveler behavior: research, mobile & last-minute
How travelers shop for experiences explains why the fast, mobile-ready operator wins. Google’s research on destination-activity search is the clearest window into intent: 70% of mobile travelers have researched travel on their smartphone, and one in three of them then called a business to book or learn more. Searches for destination activities have grown 40% year over year, and in the 12 weeks before a trip there are three times more “experiences” searches than hotel searches. (Think with Google)
Booking ahead also correlates with a more valuable traveler. Google found that people who book activities before they arrive spend 47% more on lodging and 81% more on transportation than those who wait until they’re in-destination. (Think with Google) In other words, the traveler filling out your form three weeks out is often your best customer — if you answer before they book elsewhere.
Two more behavior shifts operators should plan around:
- Booking is mobile-first. Across travel, roughly 59–63% of bookings now come from mobile devices in 2025, up from prior years. (Net Affinity) If your inquiry and checkout flow isn’t effortless on a phone, you’re leaking the majority of demand.
- Last-minute is rising. Skift reports 27% of hotel bookings were made within seven days of arrival in April 2025 (up 4% year over year), reaching 40% within seven days in the US in peak months. (Skift) Tours and activities skew even later — the “what can we do this afternoon?” search is pure last-minute intent, and it goes to whoever replies first.
And discovery increasingly starts on social: Expedia Group’s 2025 Traveler Value Index found 61% of travelers find trip ideas on social platforms (up from 35% in 2022), with 73% saying influencer recommendations have influenced their bookings. (Expedia Group) That’s why unanswered Instagram DMs and Facebook messages are lost bookings, not just missed pleasantries.
Speed to lead: what travelers expect now
If the market is growing, mobile, and last-minute, then response speed is the hinge the whole thing turns on. The most-cited research in all of sales operations — the Lead Response Management study behind Harvard Business Review’s “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” — found that contacting a lead within five minutes makes you about 21 times more likely to qualify it than waiting 30 minutes, and that the odds collapse further with every additional minute. (HBR)
The problem is that almost nobody actually responds fast. Analyses of inbound lead handling repeatedly find the average business takes dozens of hours — one widely cited figure is roughly 47 hours — to respond to a new web lead, while the buyer has long since moved on. (Yahoo Finance / lead-response research) Yet expectations run the opposite direction: per aggregated industry research, around two-thirds of buyers expect a response within 10 minutes, and Salesforce reports that when companies meet the bar for immediate response, 88% of customers say they’re more likely to buy again. (Salesforce)
This is the clearest, most actionable statistic in the entire data set: response speed is a competitive edge almost everyone leaves on the table. We go deep on the numbers and the fix in the speed-to-lead playbook.
No-shows & cancellations: the quiet leak
Filling a departure is only half the battle; keeping it filled is the other half. Cancellations and no-shows are among the most underestimated costs in travel. Skift called them “summer travel’s hidden hurdle,” reporting that travel management companies saw an average annual revenue loss of about 6.7% over five years from unaccounted cancellations and no-shows. (Skift)
The channel data is even starker. D-EDGE’s analysis of hotel bookings found cancellation rates ranging from 18% to 42% depending on channel and region — with OTA-sourced bookings cancelling far more often than direct ones. (D-EDGE) And across service industries generally, the average appointment no-show rate sits around 23% — a useful comparator for any business that books time-based slots. (SchedulingKit)
A departure with and without reminders
12 seats booked, deposit optional, one email confirmation. Two travelers forget, one double-booked, one 'thought it was Sunday.' The van rolls with 8 — four empty seats no walk-up will fill in time.
12 seats booked with a small deposit, then an automated SMS + email cadence: confirmation, 3-day reminder, 24-hour 'here's your meeting point,' morning-of nudge. The van rolls full — and a waitlist backfills the one genuine cancellation.
For a tour operator, a no-show is worse than a retail no-show because the seat is perishable: an empty spot on this morning’s departure can never be re-sold. Deposits, easy rescheduling, and a multi-touch reminder sequence are the proven counter — the mechanics behind cutting no-shows roughly in half and recovering abandoned bookings before they lapse.
Reviews & reputation: what a star is worth
Reviews aren’t a vanity metric in travel — they’re pricing power. A peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Hospitality Management found that improvements in a property’s online rating produce measurable increases in revenue and pricing power, with even small movements in average score translating into real profit differences. (ScienceDirect) The reputation signal a star rating sends does real work at the moment of booking.
Consumer research points the same way. Expedia Group’s 2025 Traveler Value Index found that for travelers under 40, positive reviews are nearly as influential as price in the booking decision, and that a large majority of travelers — around three-quarters, rising to 80% among under-40s — will pay more for lodging with better reviews. (Expedia Group / BusinessWire) When your rating and review volume beat the operator next to you, you don’t just win more bookings — you can often charge more for them.
The catch is that great trips don’t automatically become great reviews. The happiest guests are often the quietest; you have to ask, at the right moment, on the right channel. That’s the entire premise of review harvesting: a post-trip sequence that routes delighted travelers to public 5-star reviews while catching problems privately before they land online. The full playbook is in how to get more 5-star reviews and review response automation.
AI & automation in travel
The tools to fix all of the above are finally mainstream. Statista’s travel-technology tracking documents rapid adoption of AI across travel and tourism — from chatbots to trip planning (Statista) — and Booking.com’s Global AI Sentiment Report found that a strong majority of travelers are open to AI helping plan and book their trips, increasingly trusting AI assistants over traditional sources. (Booking.com) Per aggregated industry data, roughly 40% of travelers already use AI tools for planning, with a majority open to trying them — skewing higher among Millennials and Gen Z. (Travala)
On the messaging side, the numbers are why SMS remains the workhorse of confirmations and reminders. It’s widely reported that SMS carries a ~98% open rate versus roughly 20% for email, with most texts read within minutes. (Omnisend) That reach is what makes an automated SMS reminder and follow-up sequence so effective at cutting no-shows and reviving cold inquiries — the message actually gets seen.
For operators, the practical upshot is that travelers no longer find an instant, AI-handled reply strange — they expect it. An AI chatbot that answers FAQs and books at midnight, or an AI voice agent that catches the call you’d have missed, now reads as good service, not gimmickry.
Repeat customers & retention
The cheapest booking you’ll ever get is from a traveler who already loved a trip with you. The retention research is unusually consistent and well-sourced. Bain & Company’s foundational work with Fred Reichheld found that increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. (Bain & Company) And acquiring a new customer is widely estimated to cost 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing one, with repeat customers spending roughly 67% more than first-timers. (Invesp)
Yet tour operators are structurally bad at retention, because so many bookings arrive through OTAs that keep the customer relationship — or through offline channels where the contact details never get captured cleanly. That’s the hidden cost of the OTA share creeping to 37%: it’s not just the commission, it’s the lost ability to bring that traveler back next season at near-zero acquisition cost. Owning the contact and running lifecycle win-back journeys is how operators turn one great trip into a decade of them.
What the data means for operators
Put the whole data set together and a clear story emerges. Demand for experiences is surging toward $342 billion, but it’s shifting online faster than most operators are — and the online share is being captured by high-commission OTAs precisely because they answer instantly, confirm on the spot, and follow up automatically. The operators losing ground aren’t losing on the quality of their tours; they’re losing on the machinery around the booking.
Here’s how each statistic maps to a concrete move:
- 33% online, 70%+ micro operators → make it effortless to discover and book you directly with a booking-ready website and local SEO.
- 37% OTA / 25% direct → use OTAs for discovery, then convert and retain travelers directly so you keep the margin and the contact.
- 5-minute rule, 47-hour average response → answer every inquiry in minutes, 24/7, with an AI Caller, AI Chatbot, and instant SMS.
- 6.7% revenue lost to no-shows, 18–42% cancellations → deposits plus a multi-touch reminder sequence and waitlist backfill.
- Reviews nearly as influential as price → automate the post-trip review ask.
- 5% retention → 25–95% profit → run win-back journeys on every past guest.
None of this requires you to become a marketing technologist. It requires the system to already exist and simply be installed into your business — which is precisely what a done-for-you GoHighLevel snapshot is: the AI responders, SMS reminders, review harvesting, and win-back workflows the data says you need, set up in about 24 hours instead of built by hand over months.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the tour and activity industry in 2026?
The global travel experiences sector is on track to reach roughly $342 billion by 2029, according to market-sizing research from Arival and Phocuswright, and experiences are the fastest-growing segment of travel — already past pre-pandemic booking levels. Market-research vendors size the narrower tours-and-activities reservations market at anywhere from about $170 billion to $267 billion depending on definitions, but every credible source agrees the category is growing faster than travel overall.
What percentage of tours and activities are booked online?
Only about 33% of experiences bookings happened through online channels in 2025, versus roughly 64% for the travel industry as a whole, per Arival/Phocuswright. That online share has grown from 17% in 2019 to 33% in 2025, but tours and activities remain the least-digitized major category in travel — largely because more than 70% of operators are small or micro businesses that still take many bookings offline.
How much commission do OTAs charge tour operators?
OTA commissions on tours and activities are widely reported in the 20–30% range, typically around 25%, and in 2025 Viator added a $29 per-product submission fee on top. GetYourGuide's rates sit in the same 20–30% band. In 2025 OTAs captured about 37% of all tour and activity bookings — up from 33% in 2024 — while operators' own direct websites fell from 29% to 25%, which is why keeping and converting direct bookings has become a bigger margin lever than ever.
How fast should a tour operator respond to a booking inquiry?
Within five minutes. The Lead Response Management research behind Harvard Business Review's work found you're about 21 times more likely to qualify a lead contacted within five minutes than one contacted after 30, and the odds keep falling every minute after that. Since the average business takes dozens of hours to respond and around two-thirds of buyers expect a reply within 10 minutes, a consistent sub-five-minute response — which realistically requires 24/7 automation — is one of the cheapest competitive edges left in tourism.
Do online reviews really affect tour bookings?
Yes, significantly. A peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Hospitality Management found that higher online ratings produce measurable increases in revenue and pricing power. Expedia Group's 2025 Traveler Value Index found that for travelers under 40, positive reviews are nearly as influential as price, and a large majority of travelers will pay more for options with better reviews. Because your happiest guests are often the quietest, automating the post-trip review ask is the reliable way to build that rating advantage.
Why does customer retention matter so much for tour operators?
Because repeat travelers are dramatically cheaper and more valuable. Bain & Company's research found that increasing retention by just 5% can lift profits 25% to 95%, acquiring a new customer costs an estimated 5 to 25 times more than retaining one, and repeat customers spend around 67% more than first-timers. Operators who own the customer relationship — rather than losing it to an OTA — can rebook last season's guests at near-zero acquisition cost through automated win-back journeys.
About the author
Desmond Clarke is a GHL Agency Strategist based in Savannah, Georgia, who runs a boutique GoHighLevel agency for travel and hospitality clients — from harbor-cruise companies to multi-day expedition outfitters. He came up through paid media and conversion copywriting, so he reads every industry statistic through the lens of cost-per-booked-seat. He writes about turning data and agency tactics — speed to lead, direct-booking economics, review systems, and ROI reporting — into plain language any operator can act on.
Editorial note: GHL Tourism Snapshot is a GoHighLevel automation product, not a travel agency. We don’t sell, book, or guarantee any tour. Statistics are drawn from the cited sources and reflect industry or research-study figures; definitions and methodologies vary between studies, and your results will depend on your market, offer, and follow-up. Some widely reported figures (e.g. SMS open rates, AI-adoption percentages) originate in secondary aggregators and are labeled as such. Follow applicable consent rules — clear opt-in, easy STOP, sensible send hours — for all calls and messaging.
Related posts
- Speed to Lead for Tour Operators — why the first five minutes decide the booking, and the system that hits it 24/7.
- How to Get More Direct Bookings for Tours — win back the margin OTAs are taking with a direct-booking engine.
- How to Reduce Tour No-Shows — deposits and reminder sequences that keep your departures full.
- How to Get More 5-Star Reviews — turn happy travelers into the reviews that drive your next bookings.
- Repeat Bookings for Tour Operators — win-back journeys that rebook last season’s guests at near-zero cost.
Want the whole booking engine the data points to installed for you? See what’s included and the pricing, hire a dedicated GHL VA to run it, or talk to a real person about your specific tours.