Tours tips

British holidays group Saga Plc on Tuesday warned that its travel business could report a small underlying loss in 2022-23, before returning to a profit next year.

Tripadvisor’s national ad campaign touting its Viator tours and activities brand includes a spot called “Viator Makes Museum Tours Juicy Again.”

So much of travel marketing focuses on the transactional, with tons of airtime and budget given to selling hotels and other classic travel products. Yet a mammoth survey of 18,000 travelers underscores how experiences are rising in importance.

There are plenty of walking tours to Lower Manhattan. From Ground Zero Memorial Walking tours to Wall Street and Financial District tours, there’s a broad selection to book among online travel marketplaces like Viator and GetYourGuide. 

Saudi Arabia’s ambitious target to attract 100 million tourists a year, as part of its Vision 2030 to revive tourism, now has a new activities platform as part of its growth engine. 

Tea leaf-picking near Tokyo with views of Japan’s Mount Fuji, exploring breadfruit and banana plantations on Cook Islands in the South Pacific, or harvesting grapes in the Douro Valley in Portugal – annual harvests hold a seasonal promise for travelers who want to connect with their destination through a different, sensory experience.

Google has made the search and discovery of their tours and activities easier for tour operators by introducing a new carousel in its search results.

The appeal of France’s Paris or Portugal’s Lisbon often overshadows cities like Nice or Faro. However, lesser-known cities are seeing new demand as summer travel hits its stride.

The market for tours, activities, and experiences represents one of the most opportunistic and untapped prospects within the travel industry. It is highly fragmented, with a long tail of small suppliers, and it is rapidly shifting online. That makes it an attractive space for online intermediaries to consolidate market share from small offline players. 

In September 2021, Google launched an advertising product called Google Things To Do, which lists not only the top attractions in a city but also options to book tickets via direct sites or online travel agencies. As we show in the screenshot below, though Google displays paid sponsored listings near the top of the site, its main organic booking list prioritizes the direct website over the sites of aggregators such as Viator, GetYourGuide and Musement, to name a few. 

Chinese group tours are back in Japan but anyone banking on them arriving in droves and splashing around cash like they did before the pandemic is likely to be disappointed.

While you might have heard of North Dakota’s largest city, Fargo, from the Coen Brothers' 90s hit movie Fargo or the recent television series with the same title, the Midwestern city attracts hockey enthusiasts, college football fans, and those in love with the Great Plains to the Peace Garden State. With new hotel openings, the renovation of a Radisson Blu, and the opening of a community square—all taking place within the past two years, the city is reimagining its downtown area.

On the same day I was set to depart, I received an email telling me where in the world I’d be going. This was exactly what I’d been hoping for. The less I knew, the better.

The excitement started before I had even arrived in Gibraltar. As the plane steered towards the landing strip, the aircraft’s wing appeared to almost dip into the sea water. Shrieks of joy echoed around the cabin. “Dolphins, dolphins, look, there’s babies!”. All those without window seats on the right-hand side – including myself – were left feeling glum as we missed out on the preshow. But I wasn’t disappointed for too long. This 7-square-kilometre piece of land had plenty more surprises to come.

Many are aware of the VIP tours at Disney parks, but Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort also offer various levels of VIP tours daily.

With the launch of many new direct flights from the U.S. to Cuba, it may seem like the door to the formerly forbidden country is wide open for Americans. Unfortunately, that’s still not quite the case. Right now, you’ll still need to travel under one of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) 12 categories of travel, the easiest of which is a “people-to-people” Cuba educational tour.

Don’t have anyone to travel with, but not really up for wandering the world alone? You’ve now got a few new options.

DNA technology is increasingly changing the way we view the world, and now it may be changing travel. If you’ve ever considered taking a DNA test to uncover your heritage, or have gone down a records rabbit hole to find your ancestors, you can now physically follow your roots to the far-off destinations they’ll point you to.

E-bikes—electric-assist bicycles—offer hope for recreational cyclists who like the idea of a multi-day bike trip but who worry they’re not up to the challenge. But as more cycling companies mix e-bikes into their offerings, are they alienating their core customers?

You know about the celebrity chef restaurants, world-class residencies, and high-limit tables in Las Vegas. But there’s another side of Sin City just begging to be explored. On your next trip to this neon-draped desert city, check out these unique Las Vegas tours that’ll have you rethinking what a weekend in Vegas really means.

Thanks to its outstanding biodiversity, Tortuguero National Park (Parque Nacional Tortuguero) is among Costa Rica’s most visited national parks. One of the best places in the world to watch green turtles, a host of natural and cultural activities await travellers who make the epic journey to the park. Planning to visit? Discover the best Tortuguero National Park tours and activities. If you're ready to go here, maybe our 3-day trip to Tortuguero suits you.