Tours and activities trends in 2025: Younger travelers, later bookings, AI

Travel’s tours and activities sector has been growing in recent years, and the space is continuing to evolve in 2025.

Industry leaders opened up about current trends during a studio interview with senior reporter Morgan Hines at Phocuswright Europe earlier this summer. 

Right now, experts said there are some key shifts tied to demographic, booking behavior and emerging technology, all of which could shape the future of the space.

Roisin O'Sullivan, global managing director of Walks and Devour, said there has been a change in the demographic of travelers who are booking experiences.

“There are a lot of younger people taking tours compared to pre-pandemic, certainly, which is creating a lot more price sensitivity in the market,” O’Sullivan said. “And so it's a lot of heightened competition. There are a lot of new entrants and a lot of new customers, which is fantastic.”

Craig Everett, co-founder and CEO of Holibob, said the booking window is consistently moving closer to the date of travel.

 

“We continue to see the kind of booking window get later and later,” he said. “We really try to communicate and help travelers find things, either just before they travel or when they get [to their] destination. But we see those conversion rates continuing to climb, in terms of the number of people who are buying one, two, three things in that very close window before they travel. So that's been quite interesting to see.” 

Ali Basij, founder, chief technology officer and CEO of Instahop, said artificial intelligence (AI) is this year's biggest trend.

“Probably similar to a lot of other platforms, everybody's asking us, what can AI do for us?” he said. 

Instahop, he said, is using an AI agent. And while it is helpful for customers, it has also prompted questions about why the agent provides certain recommendations, especially as travelers are often looking for “hidden gems.”

That’s something the industry is still navigating.

“It's a very difficult challenge,” Everett said. “It’s very difficult to understand why an AI recommended or a model recommended a certain product.”

The wide-ranging conversation also touched on the concept of original experiences, as touted by big-name brands such as Airbnb and GetYourGuide, autonomous experiences, the booking funnel and more.

Watch or listen to the full conversation below: