Bike tour guides. Canyoning instructors. Winery hosts. Rafting companies. Family experience makers. More than 40 tour and activity operators from across Italy’s outdoor sector had made the trip to Riva del Garda. Not for the view of the lake, but because 2026 is the year easy growth runs out.
What unfolded at Grand Hotel Liberty was the kind of conversation the tours and activities industry rarely gets. Honest, data-led, and built around the questions operators are actually sitting with.
Not “how do we survive?” That chapter closed in 2024. But: how do we build something that actually performs?
Here’s what was said.
The Tours and Activities Market Is Back. Now Comes the Hard Part.
Let’s start with the good news: the global tours and activities industry has fully recovered from the pandemic, and then some. Global T&A revenues hit 107% of 2019 levels in 2025. The market isn’t just back. It’s bigger than it has ever been.
In Europe, the mix is increasingly international. Around 7 in 10 customers for outdoor operators come from abroad: travelers who flew in, planned ahead, and are choosing between you and a dozen alternatives they found online before ever landing.
But recovery and profitability aren’t the same thing. Tommaso Peduzzi, Regiondo’s Commercial Director for EMEA, made that distinction early and clearly. While 70% of operators are generating a profit, only about half are clearing a 10% margin, and a striking 1 in 5 operators doesn’t know their own profitability.
“The market has surpassed pre-COVID levels. But the operators winning today are the ones who have built the infrastructure to grow with it.”
The difference between an operator growing confidently and one who is busy but not profitable is almost always structural.
OTAs vs. Direct Bookings: The Channel Shift Reshaping Outdoor Tourism
One data point deserves a moment of attention: OTAs’ share of T&A bookings has grown from 24% in 2019 to 37% in 2025.
Direct website bookings, meanwhile, have drifted from 27% to 25%. Indirect online channels (resellers, partners, and OTAs) now account for 19% of revenue, up from 16% last year.
This is a signal that bookings are increasingly happening on platforms operators don’t own. When digital acquisition costs are rising, and the gap between operators who understand their channel architecture and those who don’t quietly widens.
A live poll in the room confirmed the picture: 60% of operators get 0–40% of their bookings from OTAs, relying heavily on direct channels. 35% get 61–100% from OTAs, relying on platforms they don’t control.
Both groups face the same challenge: building a resilient distribution mix before the market forces the conversation.
The operators navigating this best aren’t choosing between channels or avoiding OTAs altogether. They’re thoughtfully stacking them as discovery surfaces and incremental volume tools, while simultaneously strengthening their direct booking capacity.
The Outdoor Traveler Has Changed. Has Your Offer?
Ivan Proverbio from Freedome brought the numbers on Italy’s outdoor T&A market: €1.11 billion in 2025, up from €1.03B in 2023. Growth is coming from both participation and pricing. The market is expanding, and quality is being rewarded.
But the outdoor traveler of 2026 is not the same person operators built their businesses around five years ago.
When researchers asked travelers what motivates them to choose an outdoor destination, the top answer wasn’t adventure or physical challenge. It was “relaxing and reducing stress”, rated 4.2 out of 5. Outdoor activities in nature and unique places came second at 3.4. Pure sport was near the bottom at 2.3.
The modern outdoor guest wants to disconnect. To move through beautiful places. To breathe different air and come home feeling lighter. This isn’t a niche anymore. It’s the mainstream.
Marco Mason, founder of INUP Tourism and one of Italy’s most experienced tourism digital strategists, put the behavioral reality plainly: today’s outdoor traveler books a flight, a hotel, a ski pass, and a kayak tour in exactly the same way: on their phone, in minutes, comparing quickly and deciding fast. They’re comfortable with dynamic pricing. They expect every step of the Discover → Compare → Book → Share journey to be frictionless.
The question every operator in the room had to sit with: What’s your proposition on Google, right now, at the moment someone is deciding?
Six Steps From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
The central framework of the day came from Tommaso’s session: a clean progression mapping the journey from operational basics to durable profitability:
Booking System →
Digital Presence →
Multi-Channel Distribution →
Premium Products →
Pricing Strategy →
High Profitability
Each step enables the next. An operator without a booking system can’t build a meaningful digital presence. An operator without digital presence can’t scale distribution. An operator without channel diversification is leaving revenue behind that no pricing strategy alone can recover.
When the room was polled on their biggest growth driver for 2026, the answers fell into a clear order:
- Digital presence: 40%
- Multi-channel distribution: 30%
- Premium products: 15%
- Pricing strategy: 10%
- Booking system: 5%
The 5% who flagged booking system are arguably sitting on the most immediate lever of all, because everything above it depends on it.
What a Local DMO Can Do for Your Business
The day opened with Daniele Matteotti from Garda Dolomiti Azienda per il Turismo (the DMO for Garda Trentino), who offered a window into how destination and operator can work together at a level most operators haven’t fully explored.
Garda Trentino’s brand positioning resonated deeply in a room full of outdoor operators: “Best practice for an active, healthy and stimulating lifestyle that keeps you young, all year round.” Experiences that earn the Garda Trentino Experience badge get distributed through Gardatrentino.it, through Guestnet (a digital concierge platform used by 150+ local accommodations), and through widgets embedded in 30+ hotels, connecting with guests at the exact moment they’re thinking about what to do next.
The message wasn’t specific to this DMO. It was about what alignment with your local destination authority actually looks like: a distribution channel, a credibility marker, and a discovery surface, all in one. Most operators leave this relationship underutilised.
“In the Dreaming Phase, the Winner Isn’t the One With the Best Activity”
The most memorable moment of the day came from Michela Sacchitelli, Regiondo’s Customer Success Manager, who has spent more than five years working with operators from their very first booking through to compounding growth.
She detailed how many operators design for themselves, not for the guest journey, even though the guest journey is not the same as the operator’s process.
Her advice to operators was based on a three phase framework:
Dreaming → Booking → Sharing
On the Dreaming phase, Michela was direct:
“In the dreaming phase, the winner isn’t the one with the best activity. The winner is the one who is visible, credible, and reassuring at the moment of inspiration.”
“Se non sei qui, non esisti.” If you’re not there, you don’t exist.
This landed. The operators in that room had spent years perfecting their experiences. But the guest isn’t searching for quality ratings. They’re typing “cosa fare a Riva del Garda” or “rafting near me” into a phone screen at 10pm from a couch.
Being present means: Google (SEO and Google Business Profile), local DMO sites, travel blogs, tourist guides, and OTAs.
On the Booking phase, Michela had one rule the room wrote down: “Ogni ostacolo costa una vendita.” Every friction costs a sale. Booking must be immediate, mobile-friendly, visually reassuring, and embedded where the guest already is.
On the Sharing phase, the message focused on where most operators leave the most money behind. Smart follow-up emails with seasonal alternatives, return discount codes, referral incentives, responding to every review, and gift cards. All help turn one successful experience into new bookings.
The Numbers Worth Taking Into the Rest of 2026
- 107%: Global T&A revenues vs. 2019. The market is structurally larger than pre-COVID.
- 37%: OTA share of T&A bookings in 2025, up from 24% in 2019.
- €1.11 billion: Italy’s outdoor T&A market in 2025.
- 4.2 / 5: How highly outdoor travelers rate relaxing and reducing stress as a travel motivation.
- 22%: The share of operators who consider their own marketing very effective.
- 1 in 5: Operators who don’t know their own profitability.
What the Operators Said
“It was a great event. Tommaso’s talk was worth a full consultancy for most outdoor operators.”
“An extremely stimulating event, congratulations on the organisation and quality of the content.”
“Very interesting!”
Missed Outdoor Horizons 2026? The Full Event Pack Is Yours
Couldn’t make it to Riva del Garda? The complete event pack (slides, benchmark data, live poll results, and frameworks) is free to download. Everything from the day, without the ferry ride.
Inside you’ll find: the complete presentation deck from all five speakers, industry benchmark data on profitability and channel mix, the six-step framework from booking system to high profitability, live poll results from the operators in the room, and Michela’s guest journey playbook. Download all 77 slides.
Whether you were in the room or not, the conversation belongs to everyone building outdoor tourism in 2026.
Join Us At An Upcoming Meetup
Outdoor Horizons 2026 is one stop on a journey continuing across Europe through 2026.
