Not long ago, visiting a popular museum or landmark often meant planning weeks ahead or enduring a daunting wait at the ticket counter. Tiqets has upended that routine by putting instant, mobile tickets in travelers’ hands.
With Tiqets’ app or website, you can book an attraction at a moment’s notice and receive a QR code immediately – essentially a digital key that opens museum doors without delay .
Many seasoned travelers now use Tiqets by default for its convenience and trust factor, knowing that taxes and fees are included upfront and that support is just a tap away .
The platform’s emphasis on “mobile-first” convenience is “revolutionizing the way visitors discover and buy” attraction tickets .
Crucially, Tiqets specializes in last-minute access. In fact, 85% of travelers visit attractions when they travel – and many decide to do so spontaneously . Tiqets was built for those “let’s go now” moments. “We’re really focused on a niche where there is a lot of demand and a lot of last-mile complexity,” explains Tiqets co-founder Luuc Elzinga, noting that while many places can sell you a Louvre ticket in advance, Tiqets delivers one instantly to your phone – sometimes with an audio guide included .
This on-demand flexibility has changed traveler behavior: seeing a famous gallery or theme park no longer requires meticulous pre-booking – you can decide on the fly, confident that your smartphone will grant you entry.
The result is a more spontaneous, stress-free style of sightseeing. Travelers can wake up and choose an experience for that day, or even book tickets after arriving at a venue if inspiration strikes.
Tiqets’ CEO Laurens Leurink recounted that the customer who bought the company’s 30 millionth ticket booked just after midnight and, following their visit, used the Tiqets app to book another same-day experience .
In other words, once travelers see how easy it is, they often dive into more attractions. It’s a far cry from the old days of printing vouchers or standing in line – a shift that’s making cultural exploration as instant as hailing a ride.
What Sets Tiqets Apart from Traditional Players
Tiqets operates in a competitive tours-and-activities space dominated by global Online Travel Agencies like Viator (Tripadvisor’s activity arm) and GetYourGuide. But Tiqets has distinguished itself with a laser focus on museums, monuments, and attractions, backed by slick technology.
Unlike traditional tour vendors (and even its larger competitors), Tiqets was born in the smartphone era and built its service around immediacy and UX simplicity. The platform prides itself on a “smooth booking process and instant ticket delivery”, features that helped it quickly become a go-to for cultural attractions .
One key difference is how Tiqets integrates with venues. Many older ticket vendors required visitors to exchange a voucher for a physical ticket or imposed cutoff times for bookings. Tiqets, by contrast, partners directly with venues to make its e-tickets scan-and-go.
Venues around the world use Tiqets’ scanning app to validate tickets on the spot , so a traveler with a Tiqets QR code can usually walk straight to the entrance or security line .
The emphasis is on “skip-the-line” entry wherever possible – bypassing on-site ticket queues entirely . This not only saves time but also eliminates language barriers or currency hassles that travelers often face on official websites. For a few dollars’ difference, the skip-the-line entry and not having to navigate foreign-language booking sites can be well worth it, notes one travel guide, underscoring why many travelers are willing to pay a small premium for Tiqets’ convenience .
Tiqets’ specialization also allows it to offer exclusive inventory and curated combos. The platform often has tickets to “hidden gems” or special exhibits that aren’t available elsewhere . In some cases, if a popular attraction’s official tickets are sold out, Tiqets may still have availability thanks to reserved allotments – a useful hack for savvy travelers .
Additionally, Tiqets bundles experiences into city passes and combination tickets, letting users book, say, the Louvre plus a Seine cruise in one go . These features cater to today’s traveler who prefers one-stop, tailor-made solutions over piecemeal planning.
While GetYourGuide, Viator, and Klook also sell attraction tickets alongside tours and activities, Tiqets’ edge is that it started with a pure focus on venues and built deep integrations to make visiting those venues frictionless.
Tiqets attracted a $60 million investment from Airbnb in 2019 – a move Skift noted underscored “the growing importance of attractions—and the entire in-destination industry—in travel” .
Today, Tiqets claims to work with over 3,000 museums, landmarks, and attractions across more than 60 countries, balancing blockbuster sites with offbeat treasures .
Partnerships with Museums, Landmarks, and Local Attractions
Central to Tiqets’ success is its collaborative approach with the attractions industry. The company positions itself not just as a reseller, but as a partner to cultural venues large and small. “From the start in 2014, Tiqets]has connected millions of people to museums and attractions with instant, last-minute and mobile tickets,” the company proclaims, working with both hidden gems and top museums worldwide .
In practice, this means Tiqets often secures official or preferential arrangements – becoming an authorized seller for some of the world’s most popular sites. It proudly touts partnerships with icons like the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre Museum, Universal Orlando Resort, Tower of London, the Van Gogh Museum, and even the Vatican Museums .
If you’ve ever snagged a hard-to-get Vatican ticket through Tiqets when the official website showed none, that’s the strength of these ties in action.
Tiqets doesn’t stop at marquee attractions; it actively courts local institutions that traditionally lacked global reach. Its annual Remarkable Venue Awards shine a spotlight on outstanding museums and attractions in various countries, offering recognition (and free marketing) to venues that deliver great visitor experiences.
And in a post-pandemic world, Tiqets even helped venues experiment with new formats: it launched a “Tiqets Culture Festival” of virtual museum tours during COVID-19 shutdowns , and partnered with Sofar Sounds to host secret concerts in venues like historic San Francisco and London sites .
These creative collaborations blur the line between entertainment and culture, attracting younger, experience-hungry audiences into museums and landmarks.
The company also forges partnerships beyond individual venues — including alliances that tie into broader tourism initiatives. A recent example is Tiqets’ integration with Italia.it, the Italian National Tourism portal.
Through a government tender, Tiqets plugged its entire inventory of Italian museum and attraction tickets into the official country website . Early results showed significant interest from travelers in the US, Argentina, and Australia, even without dedicated marketing .
By embedding Tiqets’ booking tech, Italy’s tourism board hopes to highlight lesser-known sites and diversify tourism flows across the country . “Tourism is a strategic asset for Italy, and the digitalization of services is a key lever to make it more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive.
Partnerships like the one we have with Tiqets help us strengthen the nation’s competitiveness and showcase the richness of Italy’s cultural and natural heritage worldwide,” said Daniela Santanchè, Italy’s Minister of Tourism .
This sentiment echoes globally: destination managers see digital platforms like Tiqets as critical tools to spread visitor traffic beyond the usual hotspots and to modernize how travelers connect with culture.
Such partnerships extend Tiqets’ reach while benefiting the attractions themselves. Tiqets provides museums and sites with a ready-made international audience and a user-friendly booking interface that many smaller institutions couldn’t develop on their own.
It also offers tech tools – from the scanning app for entry to data analytics on visitor trends – helping partners manage capacity and improve service. According to Tiqets, venues can even leverage timed-entry tickets and dynamic pricing via the platform to spread visits throughout the day and reduce overcrowding .
By taking on the heavy lifting of ticketing and marketing, Tiqets lets curators and site managers focus on what they do best: delivering amazing on-site experiences. Little wonder the company has onboarded thousands of partners; as Tiqets’ own Chief Supply Officer Maarten Raaijmakers put it on the occasion of their 50-millionth customer, “reaching 50 million visitors… is an important part of our journey with suppliers of culture and remarkable experiences around the globe – together, we’ve inspired millions of travelers to discover all of the gems, landmarks and experiences our partners offer” . In short, Tiqets’ growth has been a shared success story with the world’s museums and attractions.
Changing the Tourism Economy
Beyond convenience for travelers, Tiqets and its ilk are having a noticeable impact on local tourism economies and cultural access. By lowering the barriers to visit museums and tours, Tiqets effectively stimulates demand for those experiences.
A traveler who might skip an attraction due to sold-out tickets or language hassles can now go – adding an entry fee, a café purchase, or a souvenir shop spend that the venue would have otherwise missed.
Multiply that by millions of users, and the incremental revenue for cultural institutions is substantial. Tiqets’ CEO notes that global attractions and museums represent a $60–80 billion market , a space previously fragmented by offline sales and under-digitized. Each step toward frictionless online booking helps tap more of that market.
Indeed, Tiqets reported that its business more than doubled from 2019 to 2022 in terms of volume, even in the wake of the pandemic . That growth hints at a broader shift: travelers are embracing digital booking for experiences as readily as they did for flights and hotels in years past.
Another benefit is how platforms like Tiqets can drive visitors to lesser-known attractions, distributing tourism more evenly. The Italia.it partnership is a case in point – early data showed strong international interest in experiences throughout Italy once Tiqets made them visible on the national portal .
By surfacing more options (and often packaging big-name sights with smaller ones), Tiqets encourages travelers to venture beyond the top 5 TripAdvisor-listed sights in a city. This aligns with many destinations’ push for sustainable tourism – easing the strain on overtouristed icons while boosting patronage (and pride) at under-visited gems.
As Tiqets CEO Laurens Leurink emphasizes, the goal is to help people discover “not only iconic landmarks but also the hidden treasures” of each destination . In practical terms, that could mean a traveler using Tiqets in Paris might not only climb the Eiffel Tower, but also end up at a niche art gallery or a quirky local museum they found on the app.
Local businesses benefit from these additional footsteps and the broader distribution of tourism dollars.
Crucially, Tiqets has also given attractions a way to bounce back from the COVID-induced slump. When travel reopened, many museums and theme parks implemented capacity limits and required advance reservations.
Tiqets was ready for this moment: its platform had long offered timed-entry tickets and real-time availability, making it easy for venues to manage visitor flow under new rules. Travelers, too, adapted to pre-booking time slots via apps. The net effect is a more organized and predictable pattern of visitation that can improve the experience for everyone.
And when capacity permits, Tiqets is there to capture last-minute visits that maximize attendance without extra crowding. This dynamic approach helps local attractions optimize their revenue and staffing, smoothing out peaks and troughs. It’s an example of how digital innovation — in this case, an app that sits between visitor and venue — can subtly rewire the tourism economy for the better.
A Decade of Growth
In just ten years (Tiqets was founded in 2014), the company has gone from scrappy startup to a major facilitator of travel experiences. As of early 2025, Tiqets has served over 50 million customers worldwide , a milestone that symbolizes more than just volume – it reflects a change in how people access culture.
The platform’s mission to “make culture more accessible” appears to be resonating: even after pandemic disruptions, Tiqets has sustained robust growth, selling its 30 millionth ticket in 2023 and rapidly climbing from there .
The company even achieved profitability by 2023, according to CEO Laurens Leurink, reducing its need for external funding and validating the long-term viability of its model .
This is no small feat in a tours-and-activities sector known more for heavy investment than profits – it suggests that Tiqets’ focus on efficiency and strategic partnerships is paying off.
Of course, Tiqets isn’t alone in eyeing the attraction-booking crown. Competitors like GetYourGuide have raised large war chests (and reportedly surpassed 80 million tickets booked as of mid-2025) while expanding into new product categories. Viator, backed by Tripadvisor’s reach, continues to be a household name for tours and tickets. A
nd Asia-based Klook has grown aggressively, branching beyond its home region. Yet, Tiqets has carved out its loyal user base by being the specialist for culture lovers. It benefits from a strong brand association with museums and heritage sites – a traveler who wants to “get into the Van Gogh Museum today” likely thinks of Tiqets first.
The backing by Airbnb signaled confidence in this niche, and so far Tiqets has leveraged that momentum to scale up wisely. The company raised a further €25 million loan in mid-2025 to refinance debt and fuel expansion , and it’s been exploring new technology like AI to enhance personalization and customer service (for example, suggesting tailored experiences based on a user’s interests).
As the travel landscape evolves, Tiqets is positioning itself not just as a ticket vendor, but as a curator of experiences. Executives speak of adding more editorial content, recommendations, and “curatorial capabilities” to the platform – essentially using data and local insight to help travelers find experiences they didn’t even know they’d love.
In an interview with Skift, CEO Laurens Leurink hinted that leveraging AI and new partnerships will be key to staying ahead in an industry that’s finally embracing digital at scale. Travelers’ expectations have shifted in the on-demand era, and the next challenge (and opportunity) is to make booking experiences as seamless as booking an Uber.
That means continuing to polish the user experience – instant confirmation, easy cancellation options, multi-language support – and ensuring that virtually any attraction a person might want to visit is just a few taps away.
Conclusion
Tiqets’ rise in the past decade encapsulates a broader transformation in travel. Just as online booking changed how we fly or where we stay, mobile ticketing is changing how we explore once we arrive.
By marrying technology with tourism, Tiqets has turned the humble attraction ticket into something fluid, flexible, and fun. Travelers can immerse themselves in culture without jumping through hoops, and museums and attractions can reach global audiences without losing control of their visitor experience.
In a world eager to make up for lost travel time, Tiqets is enabling more “yes” moments – yes to that gallery visit, yes to that last-minute skyline view – that collectively enrich our journeys.
As the company likes to say, it’s offering “more ways to culture” , and in doing so, it’s fundamentally changing the script for travel adventures. The next time you breeze past a long museum queue, smartphone in hand and ticket already in pocket, you’ll be living proof of how far this revolution has come.