The multi-day online tour segment is growing rapidly, with an annual growth rate of 26.6% over the last three years, reaching £12.1 billion in revenue in 2024, according to recent research by Arival. This trend is expected to continue in 2025, positioning multi-day tours as a key driver of growth for the travel experience industry.
Adalte, the leading B2B hub for the distribution of multi-day tours and package tours, points out that the main challenge in this sector has historically been the digital breach, i.e. the difficulty of managing and standardising complex tour content compared to unique and more standardised products such as hotels or flights. Multi-day tours require content uniformity, which implies technological aggregation, connectivity and product format standardisation.
However, as Davide Galleri, CEO and founder of Adalte, says, the digital divide seems to have closed, opening up a wide range of opportunities for the sector: ‘The message for the industry is clear: the gap has been closed. Multi-day tours are now digitally accessible, and the technology market is ready to support this segment,”. And adds: “Sellers are ready to distribute their products globally to all buyers, while they can easily integrate through a single API into their systems or access marketplaces with more than 5,000 tours bookable online. Growth opportunities are now tangible for all players willing to adopt the necessary technology,”.
Thanks to B2B platforms such as Adalte, standardised APIs and digital marketplaces, DMCs and TOs can now manage and distribute multi-day tours more quickly, easily and globally, closing the digital gap that historically complicated this segment. However, despite the favourable technological context, many players have not yet adopted digital distribution, leading many global OTAs and wholesalers to wonder when and how to invest in this segment.
“This paradigm shift is already reflected in Adalte’s growth over the last 12 months, where we have managed to connect and partner with over 70 Destination Management Companies (DMCs) and 200 Tour Operators (TOs) worldwide,” says Galleri. “Our providers are ready, and tour operators partnering with us are now fully prepared to distribute their products as consolidators acting as tour OTAs or enabling tech-equipped retailers to purchase their products online. The time for global distributors and OTAs to enter the multi-day tour market is now, and their entry will accelerate technology adoption, creating a virtuous cycle for the industry,” concludes.
The sector is beginning to show signs of specialisation.
Due to the complexity of multi-day tours, some tour operators already sell consolidated B2B products or act as OTAs. However, with the exception of a few pioneers, the major airlines and global OTAs still have limited offerings, focusing solely on accommodation and daily experiences.
In the future, it is possible to imagine marketplaces based on influencers or social travel phenomena. Moving from a niche to significant volumes requires professionalism, licensing and regulatory compliance, achieved through cooperation between traditional experts and digital distributors, or through powerful, API-driven marketplaces. Traditional commerce brings volume and experience, while the digital world brings reach and audience.
Simplifying Multi-Day Tour distribution
Adalte’s technology is designed to streamline the traditional multi-day tour distribution chain. For DMCs, the platform adapts to their operational needs, functioning either as a multi-channel content management system or as an API switch, allowing them to instantly syndicate inventory to hundreds of international buyers, ensuring maximum market reach and highly efficient channel management.
For sellers, Adalte provides a single, powerful API that grants access to a curated, diverse, and robust inventory of high-quality tours from the world’s leading DMCs, significantly simplifying procurement and enabling rapid product expansion.
“Our goal is simple: to make the online distribution and booking of high-quality multi-day tours fast and hassle-free,” said Davide Galleri. “For the first time in the history of our sector, a strong, technologically enabled cooperation between the traditional trade and digital distributors is the single best opportunity for the numbers of the segment to exponentially grow. Ultimately, where the distribution will go next is clear, but success will depend entirely on the actors” concludes.