Some tours and activities operators are reporting sharp declines in bookings through online travel agencies (OTAs), even as their overall business grows.
The fluctuations are raising questions about how Viator and GetYourGuide rank experiences, the influence of paid visibility programs and whether artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how travelers find and book activities.
Both platforms say their rankings reflect customer demand and experience quality. Industry consultant Mitch Bach, however, believes changes in digital distribution are making it harder for smaller operators to predict their bookings.
Peter Fischer Flórez, a tour operator in Málaga, Spain, said his Viator bookings have fallen almost 35% year over year, while overall sales have increased approximately 20%.
“We're getting a lot more direct bookings,” he said.
Fischer Flórez has not changed his Viator listings or prices. A company representative suggested increased competition from new suppliers might be affecting his visibility.
He suspects travelers using ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools may increasingly find operators directly. His business has invested in search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO), and he reports more customer inquiries through WhatsApp.
Andrew Lamb, founder of Wales Outdoors, has also experienced fluctuations. After strong bookings in April and May, sales through GetYourGuide declined during the summer before recovering.
“September was our best month we've ever had,” Lamb said.
He questioned Viator's offer of additional visibility in exchange for raising his commission from 25% to 30%, saying he had not received evidence that the higher rate would deliver enough additional business.
“I'm not going to give them 30% when I can get away with 25,” he said.
Are OTA rankings becoming less predictable?
Bach, co-founder of TripSchool and a leader in the Tourpreneur community, said small operators have traditionally relied on availability, customer reviews and consistent service to improve their marketplace rankings.
That approach is becoming less dependable, he believes, as platforms experiment with advertising, influencer marketing and other customer acquisition strategies.
“A lot of their experimentation with marketing and sales is funneling down to the operators suddenly seeing either major boosts or sudden drops in their visibility,” Bach said.
He also said he has heard complaints about Viator's enhanced visibility program, which offers greater exposure in exchange for higher commissions.
“Just from the outside, from the anecdotal evidence I've been hearing, that's been a disaster,” Bach said.
He described operators losing most of their Viator bookings and failing to recover previous volumes after leaving the program. (These accounts are anecdotal and do not establish that the program caused the declines.)
Duncan Skehens, a spokesperson for Viator and Tripadvisor, said the platform's organic rankings consider relevance, competitiveness among comparable experiences and popularity with travelers.
“We do see operators going up and down the rankings fairly frequently. That's normal,” he said.
Skehens said organic rankings are “not based on revenue.” Although Viator offers commercial visibility tools, he said these “shouldn't really impact” the leading organic results.
He was unaware of any radical recent ranking changes. He recommended that operators maintain accurate descriptions, strong photography and positive customer reviews.
At GetYourGuide, Benedikt Berlemann, VP of supply and sales, said rankings are continually optimized using customer demand, sales performance, feedback and experience quality.
“The better the activity, the higher it will usually rank,” he said.
Berlemann rejected suggestions that the platform deliberately favors new suppliers.
“We are not picking favorites,” he said. “Our ranking should be 100% objective, based on the demand we are seeing and based on the quality of our experiences.”
He pointed to approximately 27% growth at GetYourGuide during the first half of 2026, saying the company had not seen evidence that ranking changes were hurting suppliers overall.
How AI is changing travel discovery
While operators question their visibility on established marketplaces, AI is introducing another way for travelers to discover experiences.
Phocuswright research found that 56% of U.S. leisure travelers are using AI for travel, as are 35%-40% of travelers in the U.K., France and Germany. GetYourGuide's Spring 2026 Travel Experience Trend Tracker, citing Arival research, found that 75% of travelers consider AI helpful when planning trips, specifically.
Adoption among operators is less advanced. GetYourGuide’s report found that 19% were actively using AI, 33% were testing it and 20% were researching its potential. More than half said clearer guidance would encourage adoption.
“I think we are beginning to undergo one of the biggest shifts in digital visibility that we have ever seen in our industry,” Bach said.
Berlemann estimated that approximately half of GetYourGuide's customers now begin their travel research with a chatbot.
“We are not necessarily winning in the discovery game,” he said.
The company's focus is on remaining a place where travelers complete their bookings, regardless of where they initially find an activity.
Berlemann said AI does not directly determine GetYourGuide's search rankings.
“We are not using AI to decide what is ranking higher or lower,” he said, although machine learning helps assess ranking performance.
Viator is also expanding its AI distribution partnerships.
“AI and LLMs indeed provide an increasingly useful set of tools for travel planning,” Skehens said in a follow-up statement.
“The way travelers discover and book experiences has always evolved, and our approach remains the same: making sure our market-leading catalog of experiences is available wherever travelers choose to plan and book.”
Viator became Google's first connected app for travel experiences in Gemini in July, following AI partnership announcements involving OpenAI, Claude and Alexa.
“It's still early days. Traffic from AI platforms remains relatively small, but we're seeing encouraging behavior from these travelers, who tend to arrive ready to book,” Skehens said.
What operators can do to improve visibility
Despite the growing use of AI, GetYourGuide's trend report suggests customer reviews remain important. Its proprietary research found that experiences with 15 reviews generated 10 times as many bookings as those without reviews, although the comparison does not establish causation.
Operators are also using AI to improve their listings. In a GetYourGuide survey of 505 suppliers, 84% reported positive results from AI-assisted product descriptions, 81% from website and blog content and 74% from SEO content.
These are supplier-reported outcomes, rather than evidence that AI-generated content receives preferential treatment in rankings.
For some operators, the greater priority is reducing dependence on OTAs.
Lamb has developed Tour Wales, a regional directory with approximately 350 participating tourism businesses. It charges an annual listing fee of £25 rather than taking booking commissions.
“The only way I can see all of us escaping from the dominance that the platforms, the big platforms have, is by creating a platform ourselves and working together,” he said.
Bach also recommends diversifying distribution through partnerships with hotels, destination management companies and other tourism businesses. Tourpreneur recently launched a directory to help its members establish B2B connections.
“One great partnership can transform your business and those are usually developed on a human level,” Bach said.
Berlemann expects AI platforms to become increasingly important advertising and referral channels for GetYourGuide, while Viator is positioning its inventory across multiple AI services.
For smaller operators deciding where to invest their marketing budgets, Bach advised caution.
“Be wary of anybody who thinks they know how this is all going to end up,” he said.