What if the biggest thing holding multi-day tours back isn’t demand — but infrastructure?

In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, I speak with Thomas Bangert, founder of Travecta, about building the connectivity layer he believes multi-day travel has been missing.

Thomas has spent 26 years in travel, including more than a decade at lastminute.com, followed by roles with TripAdvisor and Amadeus, consulting work with companies including Sojern and PerfectStay, and time with Exoticca. Travecta is now his fourth startup.

The idea for Travecta came from trying to build another travel business and discovering a surprisingly fundamental problem:

There was no equivalent of a Hotelbeds, Amadeus or Duffel that they could simply plug into to access multi-day tour inventory.

Huge amounts of fantastic local product still live in PDFs, spreadsheets, emails, WhatsApp conversations — or simply inside the heads of local DMCs.

Travecta wants to turn all of that into structured, instantly bookable and globally distributable inventory.

We dig into:

🌍 Why so much multi-day tour inventory still isn't bookable online

🔌 How Travecta wants to become the infrastructure connecting local DMCs with OTAs, airlines, cruise lines and other global distributors

🤖 How AI can ingest a PDF or other unstructured tour information and transform it into standardized, distributable inventory

⚡ The challenge of moving traditional DMCs from "on request" bookings to genuine instant confirmation

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Why Thomas believes human-to-human trust remains critical — even as more of the infrastructure becomes automated

🔗 Why Travecta has been built MCP-native and is preparing for agent-to-agent travel commerce

💬 How future AI agents could potentially do far more than search — negotiating changes to itineraries, duration, inclusions and price

💳 Why the distributor remains merchant of record while Travecta essentially becomes the invisible "rails" connecting both sides

📄 How automated contracting could eliminate the enormous workload involved in hundreds of DMCs individually contracting with hundreds of distributors

🧩 Why personalization doesn't necessarily mean rebuilding an itinerary from scratch — Travecta can offer a "skeleton tour" with optional components layered around it

🏨 Why Thomas believes AI-created dynamic packages and locally crafted DMC tours will coexist, rather than one replacing the other

📦 And the fascinating longer-term opportunity to both bundle and unbundle multi-day tours — potentially allowing distributors to access individual accommodation or experience components from DMC inventory.

Travecta has already begun onboarding DMCs, with hundreds more going through its process, while the distribution side is being prepared for launch.

Thomas also makes a big prediction:

He believes consumer behaviour is heading toward agent-to-agent travel booking, and that within the next couple of years a significant proportion of bookings could happen this way.

If that happens, the companies controlling the structured, queryable and bookable inventory underneath those agents become very interesting indeed.

#AI #TravelAI #TravelTech #AIAgents #MCP #ToursAndActivities #MultiDayTours #DMC #TravelStartups #TourismTechnology #TravelDistribution

Hear the episode here.

In 2026 the podcast is now found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and now also YouTube (and if you hit subscribe there, you get it before everyone else). You can also catch up on the whole of Series 1 now also fully available in these channels.

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