Tripadvisor announced Tuesday that a selection of its tours, activities and attractions from its Viator and Tripadvisor experiences brands will become bookable on Airbnb later this year. For a struggling Tripadvisor, which owns the Viator and Tripadvisor experiences brands, this could be a major distribution deal alongside other ones it has with Booking.com and Expedia. For Airbnb, after first launching experiences more than a decade ago, the deal marks a break from its previous strategy. Airbnb had tried to scale its experiences business largely organically, without major partnerships or acquisitions, emphasizing bespoke, locally-hosted offerings that fit the Airbnb brand. Airbnb’s May 2025 relaunch expanded into some 3,000 landmark experiences across roughly 100 cities, done the Airbnb way with local guides, but the company has since narrowed its focus to perfecting the product in a single city, Paris. The Tripadvisor deal signals that Airbnb recognizes it must go more mainstream to achieve scale, even as questions remain about whether consumers broadly associate Airbnb with experiences beyond home rentals. The move mirrors Booking.com’s earlier pivot toward experiences partnerships with TUI’s Musement and Tripadvisor/Viator and its acquisition of Fareharbor. Similar distribution partnerships are becoming a common route for scaling experiences offerings across major travel platforms.
