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Industry brief · E-commerce & Experiences

Experiences, where our guests sell

Two Building Real founders sell experiences online. Karthik Srinivasan is building a marketplace for India's motorcycle tours, riding schools and stays, and Claudiu Petria co-founded Questo, an app for story-led city games played on foot. This brief covers what is happening around them in India and Romania, and in the global platforms and U.S. data that set the pace.

IndiaRomania
Checked 16 Oct 2026 · every figure linked to its source · next review Jan 2027

01At a glance

91.49 lakh

foreign tourist arrivals in India in 2025, down 8.1%1

12,38,659

motorcycles sold by Royal Enfield in FY26, a record and up 23%, including 11,07,343 in India2

Vehicle sales: a measure of India's riding base, not of motorcycle tourism
13.9M

arrivals in Romania's tourist accommodation in 2025, down 2.4%. Romanians made up 81.4% of them3

Collective accommodation only
60%

of internet users in Romania bought goods or services online in 2024, up from 17% in 2014, against an EU average of 77%4

2024 data; the base is internet users, not all adults
$924M

2025 revenue of Tripadvisor's experiences business, up 10%, on about 22.9 million bookings5

Company-reported segment revenue, not gross bookings

02Demand in India and Romania

India: flat spending, a pilgrimage-sized visit count

Phocuswright, which sizes the market by bookings, says India's travel market grew just 1% to $41.7 billion in 20256.

The Ministry of Tourism counted 428.7 crore domestic tourist visits in India in 2025, up 45.5% from 294.5 crore in 2024. The Ministry notes that the total includes visits during the 2025 Kumbh Mela, and Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for 155.7 crore7.

A visit is counted in each state a traveller goes to, so the Ministry's total is not a count of people. Bookings and visits measure different things and are not compared here.

Romania: fewer tourism nights, more online buying

EU tourism set a record in 2025 with nearly 3.1 billion nights spent in tourist accommodation (up 2.2%), while Romania was one of three countries where nights fell (down 1.7%)8.

Romania's B2C e-commerce reached EUR 12.9 billion in 2025, up 10% on 2024 and more than double the EUR 6.1 billion of 2021, according to the European E-Commerce Report 2026 by Ecommerce Europe and EuroCommerce9.

Tourism nights and e-commerce sales come from different bodies and measure different things. One does not explain the other.

03How AI and online booking are changing it

U.S. travelers are already using AI

U.S. travelers who used AI on at least one trip

First half of 2025
33%
Second half of 2025
43%
Past 12 months, early 2026
56%

56% of U.S. travelers used AI for planning, booking or in-destination help on at least one trip in the past 12 months, up from 43% in the second half of 2025 and 33% in the first half10.

In Phocuswright's U.S.-focused 2026 consumer research, 44% of travelers said they would book directly inside an AI platform and 40% said they would let an AI assistant book flights and hotels for them. Use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT for trip research reached 33%, five times the 2024 level11.

The platforms are testing the channel. Tripadvisor has launched its Viator app on ChatGPT as a proof of concept12.

Every AI figure here comes from U.S. or U.S.-focused research and covers travel in general, not experiences alone. None of the research we checked measures this for India or Romania.

Experiences are still booked mostly offline

Share of experiences bookings made online, worldwide

2019
17%
2025
33%
2029 (projected)
42%

Only 33% of experiences bookings were made online in 2025, against 64% for travel overall. The online share is projected to rise from 17% in 2019 to 42% by 2029, with online travel agencies the fastest-growing channel13.

The 2029 figure is a projection by Phocuswright and Arival.

04Where the money is moving

The category and the platforms

$271B

in gross bookings for tours, activities and attractions worldwide in 2025, projected to exceed $340 billion by 2029. That is an 8% nominal annual growth rate from 2023 to 2029, against 5% for travel overall14.

  • Tripadvisor. Its experiences business grew 2025 revenue 10% to $924 million on about 22.9 million bookings (up 16%), and contributed nearly 50% of group revenue and 30% of group profit5.
  • GetYourGuide. Its CEO said in October 2025 that the company had become profitable for the first time, on an adjusted EBITDA basis, with revenue approaching €1 billion over the past year and a record 10 million experiences booked in the third quarter15.
  • Klook. It raised $100 million from Vitruvian Partners in February 202516. It then filed in November 2025 to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLK; its filing showed gross transaction value up 36% to $2.5 billion in 2024 and revenue of $417.1 million17.
  • Airbnb. It relaunched Experiences, alongside a new Services category, on 13 May 2025, available in 650 cities at launch18.
The $271B is gross bookings for the whole category. The company figures are revenue, transaction value or booking counts, each defined by the company, so they cannot be compared with each other or read as shares of the category. GetYourGuide is private and its figures are unaudited.

Near our guests in India

  1. The Tarzan Way, a Noida travel startup that uses AI to build personalised itineraries, raised a Rs 2 crore seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures in June 202519.
  2. WanderOn, an experiential travel company, raised INR 54 crore in a Series A co-led by DSG Consumer Partners and CAAF, to build adventure, sports-led and wellness travel20.
Neither is a marketplace for riding businesses: WanderOn runs group trips and The Tarzan Way plans itineraries. They show where capital is going near Everything Motorcycling, not how its model will fare.

05What governments are doing

  1. India. In a June 2025 advisory, the Central Consumer Protection Authority asked e-commerce platforms to audit themselves for dark patterns within three months and to submit declarations of compliance21.
  2. India. As of November 2025, the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was delivering in nearly 1,100 cities and towns, with more than 344.5 million orders recorded and over 7.7 lakh sellers and service providers registered22.
  3. EU, including Romania. On 12 March 2026 the European Parliament approved the agreed revision of the EU Package Travel Directive; it still needed formal adoption by the Council23. Once the Council adopts it, member states have 28 months to write it into national law, followed by six months before it applies. Insolvency guarantee funds must refund travellers within six months, or nine in exceptional cases24.
  4. Ladakh, India. The Ladakh administration signed a three-year agreement with Royal Enfield and a local bike co-operative to make Ladakh Bike Week a flagship tourism event25.
  5. Ladakh, India. The first Ladakh Bike Week, organised by Ladakh's Department of Tourism, opened on 1 September 202625.

06Trends to watch

Experiences now carry the big platforms

Experiences contributed nearly 50% of Tripadvisor's group revenue in 20255. GetYourGuide's CEO says the company is now profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis15, and Klook filed to list in New York17.

Platforms are moving into a mostly offline category

Only 33% of experiences bookings were made online in 2025, against 64% for travel overall13. Airbnb relaunched Experiences in 650 cities in May 202518.

AI is becoming a way to book, in the U.S. first

56% of U.S. travelers used AI on at least one trip in the past 12 months10. In Phocuswright's U.S.-focused 2026 research, 44% of travelers said they would book directly inside an AI platform11. Tripadvisor has put its Viator app on ChatGPT as a proof of concept12.

A soft 2025 in our guests' markets

India's travel market grew just 1% in 20256, and foreign tourist arrivals fell 8.1%1. Domestic visit counts rose sharply, but the Ministry notes they include the Kumbh Mela7. Romania was one of three EU countries where tourism nights fell in a record year for the EU8.

A bigger riding base, and Ladakh is courting it

Royal Enfield sold a record 12,38,659 motorcycles in FY26, up 23%2, and India's motorcycle wholesales rose 6.6%26. Ladakh signed a three-year agreement with Royal Enfield to make Ladakh Bike Week a flagship tourism event25. These are vehicle sales and an event, not a count of riding trips.

07The problems our guests are solving

No website existed for his Ladakh ride. So he's building the marketplaceEP08
India

Karthik Srinivasan · Everything Motorcycling

No website existed for his Ladakh ride. So he's building the marketplace

In the episode, Karthik explains that when he tried to book a ride to Ladakh, the tours, schools and stays he wanted lived in Instagram messages and "DM for price" posts rather than on booking sites.

33%

of experiences bookings worldwide were made online in 2025, against 64% for travel overall13.

  • Ladakh. Ladakh received 4,05,085 tourists between 1 January and 31 August 2026 (3,71,739 domestic and 33,346 foreign), already more than the 3,35,872 recorded in all of 2025, a year in which arrivals had fallen27. Ministry of Tourism figures given in the Rajya Sabha show 3.04 lakh domestic and 32,034 foreign tourist visits in 2025, down from 3.37 lakh and 39,704 in 202428.
  • The riding base. India's two-wheeler wholesales rose 10.7% to 2,17,05,974 units in FY26; motorcycles rose 6.6% to 1,30,64,789 units26.
Ladakh's counts are all tourists, not riders: none of the sources we checked counts motorcycle tourists. Wholesales are factory dispatches of vehicles, not a measure of riding tourism.
Watch the episode →
The city-games founder who walked away after a million playersEP14
Romania

Claudiu Petria · Questo

The city-games founder who walked away after a million players

Claudiu says Questo got more than a million people playing across 1,000+ cities, with 35,000 local creators writing the quests29.

  • At attractions. More than a third of U.S. travelers (36%) and nearly three in 10 European travelers (29%) used a self-guided tour or mobile audio guide at an attraction in the past year30.
  • Out in the city. Just 13% of U.S. and European travelers report taking a self-guided tour via a mobile app in the past year, a share that has changed little since Arival began tracking it31.
  • Booking. Only 33% of experiences bookings were made online in 2025, and the share is projected to reach 42% by 202913.
These surveys cover U.S. and European travelers, not Romania, and say nothing about how Questo performed. They describe the market Questo had to create: self-guiding is common inside attractions, while touring a city through an app is still a minority habit.
Watch the episode →

See how these conversations connect on the Discovery Atlas →

08Sources

One research agent gathered 33 figures from government, regulator and established data sources. A separate red-team agent then reopened every source, checked each number, its scope and its date, and looked for newer or conflicting data. It kept 16 figures as written, corrected 14 and cut 3. Each figure above links to its source below, with the date it refers to.

  1. Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Statistics 2026 (Sep 2026) · 2025 calendar year
  2. Eicher Motors filing to NSE, 1 Apr 2026 · FY2025-26
  3. National Institute of Statistics (INS), via AGERPRES, 6 Feb 2026 · 2025 calendar year
  4. Eurostat, 20 Feb 2025 · 2024 data (Eurostat, Feb 2025)
  5. PhocusWire, 12 Feb 2026 (Tripadvisor Q4 2025 results) · FY2025
  6. Phocuswright, India Travel Market Essentials 2026 (Aug 2026) · 2025 calendar year
  7. Ministry of Tourism, India Tourism Statistics 2026 (Sep 2026) · 2025 calendar year (visits, not unique travellers)
  8. Eurostat, 4 Mar 2026 · 2025 calendar year
  9. European E-Commerce Report 2026 (Ecommerce Europe / EuroCommerce), via Romania Insider, 23 Sep 2026 · 2025 calendar year
  10. Phocuswright, Mar 2026 (U.S. travelers) · 12 months to early 2026
  11. Phocuswright, Jul 2026 (U.S.-focused research) · 2026 survey; stated intent
  12. PhocusWire, 12 Feb 2026 · Feb 2026
  13. Phocuswright with Arival, Feb 2026 · 2025 actual; 2029 projection
  14. Phocuswright with Arival, Feb 2026 · 2025 actual; 2029 projection
  15. Skift, 21 Oct 2025 · Company statement, Oct 2025 (unaudited)
  16. PhocusWire, 10 Nov 2025 · Feb 2025
  17. Skift, 10 Nov 2025 · Filing, Nov 2025 (2024 financials); listing not confirmed as of 16 Oct 2026
  18. PhocusWire, 13 May 2025 · May 2025 launch
  19. Entrackr, 5 Jun 2025 · Jun 2025
  20. Entrepreneur India, 20 Jan 2026 · Jan 2026
  21. Storyboard18, 22 Jul 2025 · Advisory dated 5 Jun 2025
  22. IBEF compilation (Sep 2026 update) · As of Nov 2025
  23. European Parliament (IMCO), Mar 2026 · EP vote 12 Mar 2026; Council adoption not confirmed as of 16 Oct 2026
  24. European Parliament (IMCO) · Agreement Dec 2025; EP vote 12 Mar 2026
  25. Indus Dispatch, 16 May 2026; Daily Excelsior, 2 Sep 2026 · MoU May 2026 (likely 15 May); event Sep 2026
  26. SIAM, via Outlook Business (PTI), 14 Apr 2026 · FY2025-26 (Apr 2025-Mar 2026), factory dispatches
  27. The Pioneer, 10 Sep 2026 (issuing department not named) · 1 Jan-31 Aug 2026 vs calendar 2025
  28. Ministry of Tourism reply in Rajya Sabha, via Kashmir Life, 31 Jul 2026 · 2025 vs 2024
  29. Building Real EP14, Claudiu Petria (guest's own account) · Guest's account, recorded Aug 2026; not independently verified
  30. Arival, 4 Aug 2026 · Past 12 months (2026 study)
  31. Arival, The 2026 Day Tour Taker (4 Aug 2026) · Past 12 months (2026 study)