TourScanner is the first meta-search engine for tours and travel activities. It functions like Skyscanner and Trivago but focuses on tours, activities and attraction tickets published online.
We have partnered with over 20 online travel agencies specialising in tours and activities, such as GetYourGuide, Viator and Groupon to name a few.
We have aggregated the largest catalogue in the world: over 1.5 million deals worldwide, and this number keeps increasing.
Using our website or app, you can see an entire list of products available in a city you want to visit. It’s easy for you to compare the prices and choose what you believe to be the best deal, helping you to save time and money.
How did you come up with the idea of the company?
I’m a passionate traveller and I’ve been using meta-search engines for booking my flights and hotels on a regular basis.
I realised there’s nothing yet that focuses on tours and activities. It’s time-consuming and difficult to compare offers, prices and availability when you’re looking at several websites.
I’ve also travelled to places where trips can only be booked locally, not online. I noticed tourists are having trouble negotiating the prices, especially if language is also a barrier.
In 2018, the online market for tours and travel activities was booming. New players were entering the market almost every month.
That’s when I thought about creating an online platform for anyone to compare tours in any destination, so they could book at the best price. Immediately, I studied the market and saw an opportunity. Then I created a business plan and the architecture of the website.
While developing the concept, I met my co-founders Guillaume Picard and Joseph Dimucci online through Angel list, who also shared my vision. We moved to Lisbon a month later, opened our office and the adventure started.
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How has the company evolved during the pandemic?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were on an upward trajectory. The business was doing well. Like many others in the travel sector, we felt the impact of the crisis strongly.
People stopped travelling internationally due to restrictions and the closure of attractions. Travellers were hesitant to plan a trip due to uncertainty. As a result, our sales took a huge plunge in the first months of the pandemic, but grew again little by little over the next two years.
We had to reduce expenses and postpone some major plans like hiring new members.
In terms of marketing strategy, because international travel was on hold, we decided to focus on domestic tourism to meet our customers’ current needs.
This experience has taught us many lessons and strengthened our resilience as a start-up company. We make a point of recognizing and appreciating our short-term goals, while moving towards the long-term ones.
We focus on the fact that people always want to travel and experience new things. This motivates us to adapt to changes and come up with more ideas on how to serve our customers better.
Since the reopening of international travel in early 2022, we have witnessed a very strong growth in terms of traffic and sales, February being our best month ever.
What can we hope to see from TourScanner in the future?
We look forward to seeing more countries opening up for international travel. Domestic tours have gone up in the past couple of years, and it will remain a growing trend. However, people always dream of travelling internationally, seeing new places and experiencing new cultures.
TourScanner will become more efficient and effective in helping people find good deals and the best offers when it comes to tours and activities.
The pandemic has particularly impacted small tour operators that didn’t have the financial support needed. We wish to help them by promoting their services through our website.
Finally, more and more travellers are using our services every day, which shows the product we have built is satisfying traveller demands and people are enjoying the app.
TourScanner will continue to develop new tools and grow the catalogue to grow globally.
