In 2025, 37% of all tour and activity bookings globally came through online travel agencies — Viator, GetYourGuide, and similar platforms. That is up from 33% the year before. At the same time, direct bookings through operator websites fell from 29% to 25% in the same 12 months. The channel mix is shifting fast and it is shifting toward OTAs.
Most small charter and tour operators in Florida have zero presence on any of these platforms.
The objection is almost always the commission. Viator charges 20% to 30% per booking. GetYourGuide is in the same range. On a $300 charter, that is $60 to $90 going to the platform. That feels steep, especially if you are already paying FishingBooker commissions on another portion of your bookings.
But the math is worth doing from the other direction. A $300 charter that does not happen because a tourist could not find you through the platform they were already browsing returns $0. A $300 charter that sells through Viator at a 25% commission returns $225. If that tourist would not have found your direct website otherwise, you are comparing $225 to nothing.
Viator's parent company TripAdvisor gets over 35 million monthly visitors. GetYourGuide passed $4.8 billion in gross booking value in 2025. Those audiences are already looking for experiences in your market. They are not going to find your phone number through a Google search for "charter fishing Clearwater" if your digital presence is a three-page Wix site and a FishingBooker listing.
The inventory conflict issue is real but solvable. If you list available slots on Viator and accept direct bookings on your own site simultaneously, double-bookings happen. The fix is a channel manager. Bokun has the tightest Viator integration because TripAdvisor owns both platforms. Rezdy and Regiondo both connect to multiple OTAs through a single interface. You update availability once and it syncs across every platform. Most small operators have never heard of channel managers because nobody has walked them through how this works.
The experience operators who built deliberate OTA distribution strategies three or four years ago are now getting a meaningful percentage of their annual volume from platforms their competitors are not on. That is not luck. It is a distribution decision that compounds over time as your review count grows and your listing ranking improves.
Getting listed on Viator costs nothing to start. The commission only applies to bookings that actually come through. Setting up the listing is an afternoon. The cost of not doing it is the bookings you will never know you missed.
Michelle Onizuka is co-founder and Systems Architect at Onizuka Studio. She builds automation and AI systems for small businesses — including marine & outdoor rec operations across Tampa Bay and beyond.