Startup Stage: Walkway helps activity providers grow through its AI-powered platform

Walkway

Walkway is a B2B SaaS company that provides pricing intelligence and competitive benchmarking for experience operators.

The company aims to help operators grow their businesses by aggregating real-time pricing, demand signals and competitive data across global booking platforms. 

What is your 30-second pitch to investors?

Tour and activity operators know their business inside and out — but when it comes to pricing, they've lacked reliable market data. Unlike hotels and airlines, which have had access to revenue management and competitive intelligence tools for decades, operators are left guessing or manually sourcing this information. Walkway changes that by offering the first artificial intelligence-powered growth platform for tour and activity providers. We help them price with confidence, track competitors, understand the market and uncover new ways to increase revenue.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

Business: Walkway is a B2B software-as-a-service company that provides pricing intelligence and competitive benchmarking for experience operators. The tours and activities industry is reaching an e-commerce inflection point, and data-driven tools will help operators win. Our customers range from independent tour operators to large-scale brands who use Walkway to understand market trends, optimize pricing and increase revenue.

Technology: We aggregate real-time pricing, demand signals and competitive data across global booking platforms, applying AI-powered insights and machine learning models to provide operators with the information they need to grow their business. Think of us as the Bloomberg Terminal for the experience industry — operators can log in, see where they stand in the market and adjust in real time.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

• Strengths:
  • First-mover advantage in AI-powered competitive intelligence for the experiences sector.
  • Industry expertise — our founding team has built and scaled companies in travel tech (Airbnb, Kayak, Regiondo, Rezdy).
  • Data moat — we’re building the most comprehensive pricing and demand dataset in the industry.
• Weaknesses:
  • Operator education — many businesses in this space have never used pricing intelligence tools, so we need to guide them on adoption.
  • Market fragmentation — tours and activities is highly fragmented, requiring a nuanced go-to-market strategy.
• Opportunities:
  • The experience industry is moving toward data-driven decision-making, but the right tools haven’t existed — until now.
  • Expansion beyond pricing — we can move into broader revenue management, dynamic pricing and AI-driven demand generation.
  • Partnerships — we’re already working with major platforms and operators. We’ve created a strong tailwind with an anchor partnership with Viator.
• Threats:
  • Big OTAs or booking software providers could try to build their own tools, though we believe we’re better positioned to remain independent and unbiased. Looking at other industries (e.g. air, hotel, short term rentals), data aggregation and associated decision logic is provided by companies who focus on this complex problem, not just pursue it as a feature with their larger enterprise.
  • Economic downturns impact travel, but demand for experiences remains strong post-pandemic.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

• For experience operators:
  • Guesswork related to growth — most operators don’t have the data needed to launch new products and optimize pricing with confidence. 
  • Lack of market visibility — they don’t know how they stack up against competitors.
  • Manual tracking & outdated methods — many still rely on spreadsheets and intuition.
• For the industry
  • No standardized pricing intelligence — hotels and airlines have had revenue management tools for years, but tours and activities have been left behind
  • Data fragmentation — pricing data is scattered across OTAs, making it impossible for operators to see a clear picture
  • Missed revenue potential — operators don’t know when to adjust prices to match demand, leading to underpricing or overpricing.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

We’re focused on a high-velocity B2B go-to-market strategy with multiple acquisition channels:

• Direct sales to mid-to-large operators — we’re already in discussions with global brands and have early traction with Viator.
• Strategic partnerships — a partnership with Viator allows us to get in front of thousands of operators. Viator shares our belief in the importance of revenue management and competitive intelligence tools for operators. They know that empowering operators to grow their businesses will help the industry to thrive. That’s why we are collaborating to build these products and bring them to the industry.
• Content and thought leadership — we want to position Walkway as the authoritative database for the experience industry, driving inbound interest through industry reports, webinars and case studies.
• Community and word of mouth — operators share best practices with each other, and as we prove value, word spreads fast.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

We interviewed 100+ operators across different segments — small, mid-sized and enterprise — to understand their pricing challenges. We ran early pilots with major operators, learning that those who deploy more variable pricing strategies are more profitable. We studied adjacent industries (hotels, airlines) to validate how data-driven pricing transformed revenue strategies.

How and when will you make money?

We operate on a SaaS subscription model with tiered pricing based on data access and features. We're already generating revenue from early customers. We have enterprise contracts with major operators and OTAs in the pipeline, and plans for expansion into additional AI-powered insights and premium data access.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

• Brent Boone, CEO – 13 years at Airbnb, on the founding team for vacation rentals, helped scale the category from Series B to IPO.
• Drew Patterson, co-founder, chairman – built and sold multiple travel tech startups, part of Kayak’s founding team.
• Emmanuel Gautier, co-founder, head of data and tech – led data teams at Regiondo and Rezdy, two major booking softwares in the tours, activities and experiences industry.

How are you addressing diversity and inclusion within your business?

We believe that a diverse and inclusive team leads to better decision-making and a stronger product. We are actively working to build a team that reflects the global nature of the experiences industry by prioritizing diverse hiring practices and fostering an inclusive culture.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Balancing product development with go-to-market execution has been one of the toughest challenges. In travel tech, having a great product isn’t enough—you need to build trust, industry relationships and a clear value proposition that resonates with operators who may not have used pricing intelligence tools before. Fortunately, our team has deep experience in scaling travel technology, but the challenge remains in educating the market and driving adoption.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of the lucky ones?

We know what the numbers say about the success rates of start ups. That’s why we are staying humble in the way we can deliver value to our users. We are staying focused on the problem, and relying on market timing, industry experience and execution to deliver our solution. The tours, activities and experiences industry is at an e-commerce inflection point, and operators need better data and tools to stay competitive. Walkway is solving a clear, well-documented problem, and we have the team, traction and technology to deliver real impact. 

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

Empowering operators with the data and tools they need—Walkway will be the go-to intelligence platform, enabling operators to take control of their pricing strategy with data-driven insights.

Reliable connectivity with OTAs and booking platforms—so operators can use Walkway to efficiently manage their pricing strategy across their most important channels

Expanding into AI-driven revenue optimization—Moving beyond pricing intelligence to provide dynamic demand forecasting and strategic revenue growth tools.

What is your end-game?

We’re building Walkway to be the definitive revenue intelligence platform for experience operators, helping them make smarter, data-driven decisions at scale. Our long-term vision is to be the central hub for optimizing pricing, demand and revenue management in this industry. Whether through independent growth, strategic partnerships, or acquisition, we’ll pursue the path that best enables us to drive lasting impact and innovation for our customers.