Tripadvisor's Viator to provide activity content to Booking.com

Booking.com has enlisted the help of Viator to bolster its portfolio of tours, activities and attractions.

Tripadvisor-owned Viator will share some of its 400,000 products to Booking.com's attractions booking section, as part of the Booking Holdings-run site's push to sell other products alongside accommodation.

The partnership will begin with content for North America and Europe, with other destinations to come over the course of 2021.

The deal marks another curious development in a sector that has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The collaboration between what were once considered big rivals in tours and activities comes after Expedia scaled back its Local Expert division in late-2020.  

Last June, Musement struck a deal 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.

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.

Tripadvisor bought Icelandic activities software supplier Bokun in April 2018.