NAICS 56152Industry · 5-digitlocal market1 market record

Tour operators

SoftwareCorporate Travel Management Software 5615

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in arranging, assembling and marketing tours, generally through travel agencies. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 493
Under 10 employeesA: 67%
Establishments · USA: 2,533
Employment · USA: 23,663
Payroll · USA: $1.5B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–423648%

5–99519%

10–197615%

20–495712%

50–99153%

100–19982%

200–49941%

500+20%

Of 493 Canadian establishments with employees, 67% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

British Columbia17836%

Ontario15030%

Alberta5311%

Quebec5010%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Administrative and Waste Services, US · opened 2020

79.4%

1 year

63.6%

3 years

51.5%

5 years

37%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 561, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionlow capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 561 Administrative and support services

Janitorial, landscaping, security and staffing: low capital and easy to start, so margins are competed down to labour cost. Route density and contract retention decide the outcome.

Who sets the price: Tender and the client's procurement; labour is most of the cost.
The software it runs on: Workforce scheduling, route and work-order management, staffing front and back office.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 561520

Luxury Travel Advisory & Tour OperationsExecution decides

binding constraint: distribution

Luxury travel is the one part of the travel trade that grew rather than disintermediated — Virtuoso's network reports about $90B of transactions with sales up 12% in the first half of 2025 and hotel sales up nearly 30% year over year — but the demand reaches advisors through the consortium, not the market. Virtuoso, Internova and Travel Edge control supplier commissions, preferred-partner rates and the client relationships that make the model work, and a new advisor must join one to be competitive. That is a licensing arrangement wearing the clothes of a business. Note the contrast with the software screened at 561510, where published pricing shows the tooling around this trade is worth almost nothing.

NAICS 5615204 vendors named9 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 5615 Travel arrangement and reservation services

Corporate Travel Management SoftwareOne thing must be true

binding constraint: incumbent vulnerability

Incumbent Navan and Amex GBT

Heavily funded on both sides, with SAP Concur bundling expense and travel into ERP relationships already signed. The category's revenue depends on booking commission, so it is exposed to both travel volume and supplier margin — two things the vendor does not control. Sourced update: both ends now disclose, and the challenger has filed its first 10-K. Amex GBT turned $2.718B of FY2025 revenue into $532M of adjusted EBITDA and $111M of net income. Navan grew 31% to $702.3M in the year to 31 January 2026 and lost $398.0M — a loss that widened from $181.1M mostly on one-off items rather than on the operating line: $118.0M to extinguish the Vista facility at IPO and $182.1M of stock-based compensation, against an operating loss of $196.9M. On the company's own non-GAAP basis the year was near breakeven. Gross margin improved to 71%, but the revenue is still commission on $9.1B of gross booking volume, which is the exposure the screen is about.

NAICS 56153 vendors named7 sourced figuresOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 4

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
Lindblad ExpeditionsPrivate	Tour operators561520	$771M	1/4
InternovaPrivate	Tour operators561520	—	2/4
Travel Edge NetworkPrivate	Tour operators561520	—	3/4
VIRTUOSOPrivate	Tour operators561520	—	4/4

Who works here

The occupations employed in Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Security guards and related security service occupations Mostly one sector 69.7%

Contractors and supervisors, agriculture, horticulture and related operations and services Mostly one sector 67.9%

Logging, forestry, landscaping and other related labourers Mostly one sector 56%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 16.8%

Service supervisors Mostly one sector 14.2%

Tourism and amusement services occupations Mostly one sector 12.9%

Educational and employment counsellors Mostly one sector 8.5%

Logging and forestry workers Mostly one sector 6.4%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 6.3%

Roofers, glaziers, painters, decorators and floor covering installers One industry 4.7%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 29.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 15%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 13.5%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 6.6%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 5.1%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 4.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 4.5%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 4%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 4%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 3.9%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 56152. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
561520	Tour operators	493	Luxury Travel Advisory & Tour Operations

Alongside it, under 5615 Travel arrangement and reservation services

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
56151	Travel agencies	2,102	Travel Booking & Itinerary Management Software
56159	Other travel arrangement and reservation services	502	screened at 5615