Getting listed on a major online travel agency (OTA) is one of the most common distribution moves operators make — but it is not always a straightforward path. Different platforms have very different standards for what they will and won’t list, and understanding those differences can save operators significant time and effort.
Few platforms illustrate this more clearly than Civitatis, the leading OTA for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking travelers. By the company’s own account, it rejects between 70 and 80% of the tour and activity applications it receives. So what does it take to make the cut — and what does Civitatis’ approach tell us about where the broader travel experiences landscape might be heading?
In the season three premiere of The Best Part of Travel podcast, Arival CEO and co-founder Douglas Quinby sat down with Andres Spitzer, Civitatis’ newly appointed CEO, to find out.
The Open Bazaar vs. the Curated Platform
To understand Civitatis’ rejection rate, it helps to understand how Spitzer thinks about OTAs in general.
“The many global OTAs are what I like to think of as open bazaars,” he says. “They list everything. It’s up to the customer to sort the good from the bad.”
Civitatis takes a different approach, he explains. Rather than presenting travelers with hundreds of options for a single attraction, the platform aims to make those choices on the traveler’s behalf — surfacing a small number of options that meet its quality standards. The gap is significant: a search for Colosseum tours on Civitatis returns 37 listings, compared to over 500 on GetYourGuide and more than 1,000 on Viator.
For operators, this has direct implications. With fewer products competing for the same traveler, there is less downward pressure on pricing — and the operators who are listed tend to receive more concentrated, reliable volume. The flip side, of course, is that getting listed is considerably harder.
What Gets You Rejected
The most common reasons for rejection come down to two things: oversupply and poor destination fit.
On the oversupply side, if Civitatis already has sufficient coverage of a product in a given destination, additional applications for the same tour are unlikely to succeed — regardless of quality. “I don’t need another Colosseum tour,” Spitzer says simply.
Destination fit is perhaps the trickier of the two to navigate. Spitzer uses a memorable example: an operator in Tokyo offering a Spanish flamenco experience — however popular it might be among locals — would not make the cut.
“It doesn’t make sense for Civitatis to sell flamenco in Tokyo. Are you going to learn about Tokyo by going to a flamenco show? We reject that because we don’t think that’s going to make your trip richer.”
The underlying principle is that Civitatis is specifically in the business of helping travelers discover and connect with a destination — not simply filling a catalog with bookable inventory. If your product doesn’t serve that goal for the traveler, it is unlikely to serve Civitatis’ either.
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What Gets You In
So what do operators who succeed on the platform actually look like? Spitzer points to two qualities: operational excellence and cultural sensitivity.
Operational excellence covers the basics — punctuality, reliability, clear communication with travelers. But cultural sensitivity is where things get more specific, and it is central to what Civitatis is trying to deliver.
The platform is built around Spanish and Portuguese-speaking travelers, and the numbers behind that audience are significant. Spitzer cites research suggesting that some 33 million Brazilians have the financial means to travel abroad, but are deterred by language barriers.
Serving that traveler well, he argues, means more than offering a translation. It means tours conducted in the traveler’s native language — not as one of three languages running simultaneously — and guides who understand the cultural context their guests are bringing to the experience. “It’s not really enough to translate text,” Spitzer says. “We really want them to tailor the experience if possible.”
For operators outside Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets who want to attract those travelers, this is a concrete signal: language fluency and cultural awareness are the minimum requirement, not differentiators.
Rethinking the OTA–Operator Relationship
The conversation also tackles one of the most enduring challenges in the experiences sector: the tension between OTAs and the operators who supply them.
The trouble is, as OTAs seek to improve their platforms, policy changes that benefit travelers often create difficulties for operators. Spitzer doesn’t dismiss the tension — but he does reframe it. He argues that working with fewer, better-matched operators is itself a structural response to the problem: “We’re looking to make sure that we can provide the best way of visiting the Sistine Chapel… I don’t need to have 50 suppliers for that.”
Drawing on the concept of the flywheel, he contends that a curated approach ultimately benefits both sides. “The better we do one, the better we can do the other… it’s a virtuous cycle.”
Whether that holds as the platform scales — Civitatis has been growing at more than 30% per year in Latin America and is pushing deeper into markets like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina — is a question worth watching.
Hear the Full Conversation
The episode goes well beyond distribution strategy and experience curation. Spitzer also shares his perspective on how AI will transform travel discovery and personalization, what Amazon’s leadership principles taught him about building company culture, and his candid take on OTA investment and profitability across the sector.
Listen to the full conversation with Andres Spitzer on The Best Part of Travel podcast, available on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Header photo: Unsplash / Lisheng Cheng
