Musement is to provide Booking.com with over 70,000 tours, activities and attractions, in a deal to help build the hotel booking service's broader array of travel services.
The agreement with Musement-owner TUI is the first third-party agreement by Booking.com to secure inventory from an existing consumer-facing player and also a signal of the tour operating giant's intentions to expand its B2B operations in selling activities and attraction tickets via other brands.
The package is slated to start in July and Musement will be asked to expand its portfolio of products over the coming months, "taking into account the special requirements of Booking.com," a statement says.
Musement was one of Europe's modestly funded online travel agencies for tours and activities before becoming part of TUI empire in September 2018.
The Italy-based startup was bought for an undisclosed fee, although sources suggest the fee paid for the five-year-old business is in the "mid-range, double-digit" millions.
Prior to the acquisition, Musement had raised $16.5 million in investment over the course of a number of rounds up to Series C.
Booking.com's focus on activities has meandered in a number of directions since it first eyed the sector in April 2018 with its acquisition of FareHarbor.
The deal was initially seen as a statement of intent to build up its own distribution ecosystem and then sell on the front-end via Booking.com (something that was part of the brand's wider "connected trip" strategy).
But a deal in mid-2019 with tours and activities software provider and distributor Rezdy indicated that other providers of inventory would be required.