Change take
Trip.com recently added attractions as a bookable category for travelers worldwide, and the partnership with Prioticket highlights the growing trend of B2B partnerships in the experience category.
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Online travel giant Trip.com Group is expanding its global reach through a partnership with booking system Prioticket.
Trip.com, the international brand of China's largest online travel conglomerate, now has access to all of Prioticket's products. The deal will help Trip.com expand its business in Europe, the United States and the Middle East. Trip.com's homepage now advertises “Attractions” as a “new” product offering.
According to Prioticket CEO Gert-Jan Ruiter, Prioticket is focusing particularly on Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London and New York.
“Trip.com’s decision to go into the experiences business is not surprising. Experiences represent one of the most opportunistic and untapped markets in travel today,” said Pranavi Agarwal, senior analyst at Skift Research, who wrote the 2023 Skift Research report on the Tours, Activities and Experiences Market.
Great deals on Trip.com
Trip.com and Prioticket have been linked for years, and Prioticket has been heavily integrated into Trip.com’s platform. Now Trip.com is looking west by integrating into Prioticket’s inventory and booking system.
“It made sense to optimize this and become a direct partner,” Ruiter said.
Trip.com will now have access to inventory including City Sightseeing Worldwide’s hop-on hop-off bus tours, Dubai’s Museum of the Future and Burj Khalifa tours, and the UK’s Harry Potter Studio Tours. Trip.com will also have access to Priotricket’s partners and over 50 other booking systems.
Broader industry trends
Trip.com’s partnership is one of many B2B deals emerging in the experiences industry, which experts say is part of the growing popularity of experiences, a trend that could help lower the barrier to entry for niche online aggregators.
The move didn’t come as a shock to experts, as the value of experiences continues to soar, with several B2B partnerships springing up over the past few years.
Major online travel agencies such as Booking and Expedia have partnered with TUI Musement and Viator respectively.
Ruiter added that Expedia also uses PriorityTickets for experiences.
Agarwal said B2B partnerships lower the barrier to entry because online aggregators can leverage their partners' existing inventory to drive sales.
She added that experiences are becoming an increasingly important factor for consumers in choosing a travel destination, making them an essential part of the offerings of major online travel agencies.
But experiences are still a small revenue stream for the biggest travel agents, accounting for just a few percentage points of total bookings.
“This is simply not a core focus for the major OTAs,” Agarwal said.