From Passion to Synergies of Scale

In travel, consolidation is happening everywhere.
Corporations, funds, and platforms are buying up small, independent tourism businesses, one by one.

Some say this is great. That travel needs to be “more professional.”

✅ Yes, I get the economies of scale.
✅ Yes, it can mean more revenue, more jobs,maybe even profitability.
✅ Yes, selling can be tempting. I know, and I even sometimes regret not selling those times I had a chance.
✅ Yes, it might look more professional on paper.

But more professional doesn’t mean better experiences.

And honestly? It’s getting boring.
The world becomes a little less exciting with every acquisition.

I can’t think of a single small travel business that became better after being bought. But I know plenty that lost their identity.

What started as passion becomes a product.
A personal story turns into a portfolio item.
Dreams get absorbed into dashboards.

They call it consolidation.
I call it industrialization. Assembly-line tourism.

And let’s be honest: this isn’t a surprise.

We’ve seen it before, in retail, in farming, in media. Now it’s tourism’s turn. This time at scale. At another level than we’ve seen before.
Ownership shifts from local hands to distant shareholders.
Decision-making moves from the dining table to the boardroom.
It’s not evil. It’s just how the system is built.
And unless we actively resist it, we’ll get more of the same: centralization, sameness, and volume-first thinking.

The logic is simple:
🏢 Capital flows to what’s already big.
📈 AI promotes what’s already popular.
🌍 Tourists follow what’s already visible.

It’s a self-reinforcing spiral, where magic is replaced by metrics.

And just to be clear: I’m not against big players.
Not against outside capital.
And certainly not against making things work financially.
Some large companies have done an excellent job preserving quality, character, and even improving what was there.

But when sameness becomes the norm, when every place starts to feel like every other, that’s when we’ve gone too far.
What we risk losing is the texture. The flavor. The reason we fell in love with travel in the first place.

To those still building something of their own, we see you. And we cheer for you.
The small and independent businesses are what make travel worth it. Don’t forget that.