TourRadar is a privately held global company headquartered in Vienna, Austria that operates an online marketplace and

internet booking engine A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinatio ...

, specializing in multi-day tours.

Product overview

TourRadar's global inventory includes over 40,000 different multi-day tours including those related to adventure, food, river-cruising, hiking and trekking, and several other types of travel styles.

History

Founded in 2010, TourRadar was created by

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

brothers Travis and Shawn Pittman and was inspired by their social travel website BugBitten. TourRadar was spun-out of Bugbitten in June 2010 and has since grown to include the ability to find, book and review multi-day tours. In June 2013, TourRadar announced a round of

angel funding An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

from investors including Erik Blachford, the former CEO of

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...

. In May 2014, TourRadar appeared on '' 2 Minuten, 2 Millionen'', and secured US$500,000 in funding led by former chief executives from Expedia and the HolidayCheck Group, as well as funding from a private Austrian investment company. In September 2015, TourRadar launched in North America, establishing an office in Toronto, Canada, and named Christian Wolters, former VP of Sales and Marketing at

Intrepid Travel Intrepid Travel is a small group adventure travel company in the world. The company offers more than 1,100 escorted tours worldwide with an average of 10 travellers per tour. Intrepid is a B Corporation (certification), B Corporation, certified ...

, as the company's North America Managing Director. In May, 2016, TourRadar raised $6 million in

Series A funding A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

. In September of the same year, the company announced that it would be adding river cruising to its catalogue of bookable tours. In October 2017, TourRadar completed a

Series B funding Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

round of $10 million. Later that year, TourRadar was named one of the top three start-ups in Austria by ''

Trend A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve shor ...

''. In June 2018, TourRadar raised $50 million in Series C funding, led by Silicon Valley growth venture capital firm, TCV, who previously backed Expedia and

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( ), based in San Francisco, California, operates an online marketplace focused on short-term homestays and experiences. The company acts as a broker and charges a commission from each booking. The company was founded in 2008 b ...

. The funding also included participation from existing investors Cherry Ventures, Endeit Capital, Hoxton Ventures and Speedinvest. In February 2019, TourRadar launched a contest called Tour the World which included a global search for two strangers willing to travel the world together for 50 days. The winners had their experiences documented by a film crew while they traveled to five different continents. In 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' gave TourRadar one of eight awards for the year's "worst customer service". TourRadar's employees had told a customer whose holiday was cancelled due to travel restrictions to agree to a credit note instead of a refund, then, after she claimed a refund through her credit card issuer, threatened to hold her responsible for cancelling her holiday and attempted to pressure her into dropping her claim. TourRadar stated that it had only provided "recommendations". Other similar companies were offering credit notes due to the

impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the tourism industry due to the resulting travel restrictions as well as slump in demand among travelers. The tourism industry has been massively affected by the spread of coronavirus, as many countries have i ...

, and travel bookers were themselves awaiting refunds from overseas tour operators and their vendors. In 2021, TourRadar announced its Adventure Booking Platform category which allows travel agents to earn a commission on multi-day tours. In 2022, TourRadar formed a partnership with Flight Centre to integrate its inventory and bookable online content into Flight Centre's Helio agent platform via API.

Corporate information

Offices

TourRadar has offices in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

;

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

; and Toronto, Canada.

References

External links

* {{Official website, www.tourradar.com Online travel agencies Austrian travel websites Travel and holiday companies of Austria Travel and holiday companies of Australia Travel and holiday companies of Canada Companies based in Vienna