Janelle Visser

When most people picture adventure travel, they picture something physical. Hiking or climbing a mountain. Careening over rapids. Screaming down a zipline (in my case, usually literally). The kind of experience that gets the heart pumping, the adrenaline flowing, and reminds you you’re alive.

There are many types of tours – and many types of travelers. But what do travelers actually want from a tour in 2026? What is driving traveler choice? And how should operators be designing and positioning their products? Based on Arival’s latest consumer research across U.S. and European travelers, the answer is surprisingly clear. While the market is fragmented, traveler expectations around tours are not.

If connecting your reservation system to online travel agencies (OTAs) and other resellers (or vice versa) feels like it takes forever — months of back-and-forth with developers, stalled projects, and a different set of technical specs every time — you’re experiencing exactly the problem OCTO was built to solve.