Tour operators and activity providers have long absorbed 20–30% commission bites from dominant OTA platforms — a structural cost that erodes margins on already thin-ticket experiences. Montreal-based Thingstodomarketing.com is launching a specialized SaaS platform designed to route those bookings directly through Google Search and Maps instead, placing operators' own "Official Site" links front-and-center before a traveler ever clicks through to a reseller.
The platform's core product is its Google Things to Do (GTTD) subscription service, which automates the synchronization of operator listings and verifies that "Official Site" badges remain current and correctly attributed inside Google's tourism ecosystem. A companion GTTD Checker Tool lets operators scan their own URLs to surface gaps in their Google presence — functioning as both a diagnostic and a lead-generation mechanism for the platform itself. For operators willing to invest in paid placement, the company also manages GTTD Ads modules designed to secure premium search real estate against competing OTA inventory.
The Distribution Problem
The tours, activities, and experiences (TAE) segment has historically lagged hotels and flights in direct-booking adoption, largely because operators lack the technical resources to navigate channel APIs and Google's specialized integrations. That dynamic benefits aggregators like Viator and GetYourGuide, which command significant commission rates precisely because they absorb that complexity. Thingstodomarketing.com is positioning itself as the technical intermediary that closes that gap for independent guides, escape rooms, food tour operators, and similar experience businesses — a category that spans tens of thousands of small-to-medium operators globally who rarely have dedicated digital-distribution teams.
The platform also bundles a 24/7 AI-powered support agent alongside a searchable FAQ hub, an acknowledgment that the GTTD integration process surfaces persistent technical and compliance questions that small operators can't easily resolve on their own.
What's on the Roadmap
Thingstodomarketing.com is signaling further expansion beyond Google's ecosystem. Its announced roadmap includes a B2B Reseller Network intended to widen tour distribution across additional channels, and a Social Automated Poster that will sync tour content directly to platforms such as Instagram — reducing the manual workload for owner-operated guides managing their own marketing.
The combination of listing automation, paid search management, and social syndication puts the platform in a multi-tool position rather than a single-integration play. Whether that breadth becomes a competitive differentiator or a focus challenge will depend on how quickly the company builds adoption among operators skeptical of yet another marketing intermediary. Still, with the TAE segment increasingly flagged by hospitality investors as an underpenetrated direct-booking opportunity, the timing aligns with broader industry movement toward lower-cost, owned distribution channels.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
