Summer, Sports & Scaling Smart: Adapting to the Changing Market with Walks’ Roisin O’Sullivan

Summer, Sports & Scaling Smart: Adapting to the Changing Market with Walks’ Roisin O’Sullivan

In this episode of The Best Part of Travel, Roisin O’Sullivan, managing director of Walks and Devour, offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s shaping the travel experiences market this summer and beyond. With over 14 years at Walks, Roisin brings sharp insight on everything from the impact of large-scale sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup to the challenges of OTA relationships and the increasingly competitive environment in Europe. She shares why Walks is expanding into overnight tours, and what it really takes to build a talented leadership team.

Whether you’re a tour, activity, or attraction operator keeping an eye on what’s coming this summer, or a leader looking to grow and adapt your business, this conversation is packed with honest, practical perspective from one of the most experienced voices in the European experiences sector.

In this episode, we cover:
⚽️ The sporting event reality check: Why the Olympics didn’t deliver the tourism boost Walks and other operators expected in Paris — and what that means for operators planning around the FIFA World Cup events kicking off this week.
☀️ Summer outlook & market trends: What Roisin is watching heading into the season, from shifting regional demand to the potential impact of another hot European summer on travel patterns.
🌙 The pivot to overnight tours: Why overtourism-related challenges have made some day trips nearly impossible to deliver well — and how Walks is evolving some of their product offerings into multi-day trips to maintain the quality of their experiences.
🥊 Competing on OTAs: How Walks approaches an increasingly crowded and competitive distribution landscape, and why dependability and quality of reviews matter more than ever.
🤖 AI at Walks: How the team is using AI practically — and where Roisin pumps the brakes on the hype.
🙋‍♀️Women in leadership: How Walks built an almost exclusively female leadership team organically, by nurturing talent from within rather than hiring externally — and what other operators can learn from that approach.
🔎Leading with curiosity: Roisin’s advice to emerging leaders in tourism, and why an unplanned career path can often lead to the best outcomes.

Some resources and other things we mention:
🔗 2026 European Experiences Traveler Outlook report: https://arival.travel/research/2026-european-experiences-traveler-outlook/
🔗 The State of Multi-Day Tours (2nd Ed.) report: https://arival.travel/research/state-of-multi-day-tours-2nd-ed/
🔗 The Event-Driven Traveler report: https://arival.travel/research/the-event-driven-traveler/
🔗 Walks: https://www.takewalks.com/
🔗 Devour Tours: https://devourtours.com/
🔗 Upcoming Arival Events: https://arival.travel/all-events-dashboard/

The Best Part of Travel podcast is brought to you by Arival. Season Three is sponsored by Protect Group.

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