The paradox is plain to see: experiences are the most sought-after product by the modern traveler, and the hardest to find, purchase, and distribute at scale.
This is not a demand problem. It's an infrastructure problem.
According to joint research by Phocuswright and Arival, the global tours and experiences market will surpass $340 billion by 2029, making it the third-largest segment in travel after flights and accommodation. Growth is driven by a structural shift in travel priorities: today's traveler doesn't buy destinations — they buy moments. This preference cuts across all age groups and geographies, with Europe increasingly mirroring a global pattern in which experiences drive the booking decision more than any other factor (Skift Research, 2026).
The problem isn't downstream. It's upstream: the experience product, in most cases, is simply not structured to be distributed.
Skift's travel tech reporter Adriana Lee identified the central theme of 2026 with surgical precision: "The real AI battle in travel isn't booking — it's what comes before." (Skift, March 2026)
Whoever controls the discovery phase — inspiration, comparison, choice — controls the funnel. At ITB Berlin, executives from Booking.com, Sabre, and Skyscanner were explicit: the two main bottlenecks in agentic AI adoption are consumer trust and product technological readiness (PhocusWire, March 2026).
For experience operators, the implication is direct: a product without structured metadata, without real-time availability, without a format that automated systems can read simply does not exist for the new discovery engines. It can be extraordinary — and remain invisible.
When crisis hits — geopolitical disruption, mass cancellations, operational breakdowns — AI systems fall short and companies fall back on humans. Skift documented this without ambiguity: "In a Crisis, Travel Companies Count on Humans — Not AI."
This isn't a critique of technology. It's a precise operational principle: automation works where the process is structured and repeatable. The experience product lives in the territory of complexity and contextual judgment — but that doesn't make it incompatible with digital structuring. It makes it the ideal candidate for an infrastructure that automates the operational layer and frees the operator for what truly matters: curation, relationship, human value.
Any destination manager or incoming tour operator knows the fragmentation firsthand. Dozens of local suppliers — guides, boat operators, wineries, artisan workshops — each using different systems: Bokun, Regiondo, FareHarbor, or a spreadsheet. Every availability update, every price change becomes manual work multiplied across every single supplier. Multi-channel distribution is fragmented and impossible to scale.
The answer isn't asking suppliers to change their tools. It's building a connectivity layer that speaks to the channel managers they already use — Bokun, Regiondo, and others — aggregating product and live availability into a unified catalog.
But the most urgent challenge of the coming months goes beyond traditional channels. The new discovery engines are no longer just OTAs: they are Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini. AI agents are becoming the primary point of contact between the traveler and the travel product. Those who are not connected to these platforms — with structured content, LLM-readable data, and updated availability — will simply not be considered when an AI agent builds tomorrow's itinerary.
ExperienceHUB by Hubcore.ai is built on this logic: native connectivity with local suppliers' channel managers, distribution toward sector OTAs, embeddable booking widgets for direct discoverability, and a data architecture increasingly designed to be readable by major AI platforms. A solution built for DMCs, destination managers, and tour operators who assemble complex products from a network of local suppliers — and need to distribute them everywhere, without losing control or margin.
Flights and hotels have already been through this transition. Real-time availability, multi-channel distribution, connectivity with aggregators: once complex problems, now operational standards.
The experience market will get there. The question is not if, but who gets there first — and with what infrastructure already in place.
An experience that isn't structured digitally isn't an incomplete product. It's a product that doesn't exist, for anyone who matters.
Sources: Phocuswright / Arival Global Tours & Activities Report; Skift — "Travel's AI Future Is in the Missing Middle" (March 2026); Skift — "In a Crisis, Travel Companies Count on Humans — Not AI" (March 2026); PhocusWire — "Agentic AI in travel: Technology readiness and consumer trust" (ITB Berlin, March 2026); PhocusWire — "Travel's third-largest sector faces its defining decade" (March 2026)