With major online-travel agencies (OTAs) dominating hotel and flight bookings, new startups are now creating online and mobile platforms to connect tourists and OTAs with those smaller amenities often overlooked by visitors.

"The situation is clear what OTAs need for holiday packaging distribution…they only have limited offers from package providers," said Hernán García, CEO of travelPAQ at Berlin's ITB conference. 

Garcia's firm travelPAQ serves as an intermediary between holiday package providers in Latin America and OTAs seeking to capitalize on tourists seeking local amenities. 

It's a huge gap in the market, says Garcia: In 2016 in Latin America, 90 percent of holiday packages were sold offline.

"Tour operators have low participation in the online market," said Garcia. "Startups are the future in this industry…We strongly believe the know-how from tour operators is really hard to replace."

Leisure Kings is a mobile app with a similar premise currently operational in the Netherlands, Portugal and Hungary. 

Using existing concierge services as a distribution method, Leisure Kings connects local holiday package providers with existing concierge services. Since 2016, they've created a network of over 4000 local activities, tours and travel packages.

"The problem is that smaller activities, like walking tours or bike rental shops, are often overlooked by concierges, said Erik Kroon, CEO of Leisure Kings, at ITB Berlin. "Our platform tries to create a tool in which all parts can be connected."

By streamlining the process by which tourists can find locales, Kroon believes visitors can get more out of their travel experience.

"This new connection between smaller and larger operations is particularly interesting for tourists: They don't only want the large attractions. We connect visitors with the pearls of a city."

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