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Arival CEO reveals four major themes impacting experiences industry in 2024. Arival CEO and co-founder Douglas Quinby kicked off the Arival 360 event in Berlin by revealing the four major themes of this year’s event:
- Opportunities and challenges– how authorities are responding to challenges like over-tourism and the environment – e.g. introducing fees, limiting tourist numbers – is creating a severe operating challenge for the experiences industry. In some popular locations, there are consequentially fewer tourists, sometimes with less money to spend on experiences because of pricey local authority tourism fees.
- How customers book– how people book is changing. “Offline bookings are steadily decreasing,” said Quinby. “However, compared with other parallel industries such as hotels, there are still a lot of bookings taking place offline. There’s still a massive part of our industry that is offline, unconnected. That’s what Arival is about – addressing that challenge and enabling connections.”
- How customers choose what to do– “In experiences, this is a complex and interesting topic. We have more than 150 categories of experiences. It’s hard to define what a tour is, as opposed to a hotel (e.g. a if you hear the term “3-star hotel”, it’s easy to imagine what the experience is like).” Quinby explained how there are many ways people discover experiences as a result, including social media, all of which need to be considered by tour operators as they are constantly changing. “TikTok was number 5 as a booking platform in 2023. In 2024, it’s number 2 after Google.”
- Artificial intelligence– “AI has had a profound impact on our industry, so we have to wonder what our industry will look like in the future, when everyone has this interactive, emotive, intelligent tour guide… that’s artificial”, said Quinby. “We’re seeing all sorts of really provocative applications for our industry. However, I’m extremely optimistic, because the one thing that sets our industry apart is something that can’t be replaced by technology. As it’s about connection with people, a place, a culture, everything you can touch and taste.”
New location for Arival 360 announced!
Arival was excited to announce it’ll be changing venue for its 2025 European event. For the first time, it’ll be brining Arival 360 to Spain, in the coastal city of Valencia. The event will take place over three days, from April 28-30, 2025.
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Source: traveldailymedia