WeTravel has acquired Tourwriter, a New Zealand-based travel technology company specialising in software for luxury tour operators and destination management companies, as the travel payments and booking platform expands its presence in the custom travel market.
The acquisition brings together WeTravel’s payment infrastructure and travel management tools with Tourwriter’s software for companies that design tailor-made trips for individual clients. The companies will continue operating as separate platforms, with WeTravel planning to invest in Tourwriter’s product development, including global payment options and artificial intelligence tools.
The deal follows WeTravel’s $92 million Series C funding round, announced nearly a year earlier. The company raised the funds from Sapphire Ventures, Left Lane, Base10 and Cross Creek to support its expansion and development of technology for businesses operating in the travel experiences sector, a market valued at $271 billion in the cited industry research.
The acquisition reflects a growing focus on the technology needed to manage customised, multi-day travel. Unlike operators selling places on fixed itineraries, bespoke travel companies build trips around individual clients, often coordinating accommodation, transport, activities, local suppliers, payments and changing prices across multiple destinations and currencies.
WeTravel already serves operators offering both scheduled departures and customised trips across the Americas and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region last year also brought it into a market where Tourwriter was founded and developed its business.
Tourwriter adds a customer base and software platform built specifically for bespoke travel businesses. The company provides tools for creating itineraries, managing supplier information, calculating trip prices, preparing quotes, handling bookings and coordinating financial administration.
“From the first time I met Glenn and the team, it was clear Tourwriter is a special organization, with deep expertise and strong product-market fit,” WeTravel CEO Ted Clements said. He added that the company intends to support Tourwriter with its engineering, product development and payments infrastructure, beginning with global payment options and AI tools.
Sapphire Ventures, an investor in WeTravel, also pointed to the operational challenges facing multi-day travel businesses. Operators frequently manage multiple currencies, incoming customer payments, supplier payouts and itinerary logistics through separate systems that do not always work together. Tourwriter’s long experience in the bespoke travel sector was a key part of the strategic rationale for the acquisition.
The companies’ announcement comes amid reported growth in demand for customised luxury trips. According to WeTravel’s 2026 Annual Trends Report, which draws on more than one million bookings made through its platform and thousands of survey respondents, 56% of operators reported greater interest in custom luxury bookings in 2025 than in the previous year.
WeTravel also reported that bookings among its established custom and luxury travel organisers increased by 16% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. The total dollar value of those bookings rose by 31%, suggesting that the segment’s growth extended beyond the number of reservations.
However, tailor-made travel can create considerable administrative work for operators. Preparing a single quotation may require checking seasonal supplier rates, converting prices into a client’s currency, calculating commissions and destination-specific taxes, and setting payment schedules. After a booking is confirmed, the operator may need to collect deposits months before departure and pay multiple suppliers in the currencies they use.
When these processes are spread across spreadsheets, separate quoting systems and online banking platforms, staff can spend substantial time transferring information between tools instead of working directly on customer itineraries and service delivery. Integrating these functions is one of the operational challenges the acquisition aims to address.
WeTravel’s existing platform combines itinerary creation, trip building, online bookings and task management with multi-currency payment processing, deposits and payment plans. It also offers supplier discovery and management, as well as supplier payouts. Its virtual and physical payment cards are available in more than 40 countries, according to the company’s announcement.
Tourwriter has developed a more specialised set of tools for companies that create individualised travel experiences. Its software includes digital itineraries, supplier databases with rates and seasonal information, pricing and quotation functions, margin and commission calculations, booking management, invoicing, accounting and analytics.
Tourwriter’s origins date back to 2003, when co-founder Glenn Campbell developed the first version of the software to run his own inbound travel operation. He co-founded the company around that prototype the following year. The announcement describes Tourwriter as having more than two decades of experience and says its software supports bespoke travel operators in 35 countries.
Clements said the combination would allow the companies to address different parts of the same operational problem. Tourwriter has concentrated on the detailed processes involved in creating customised trips, while WeTravel has developed payment and management tools for the wider multi-day travel sector.
“Together we can give operators their days back to build custom experiences, and let the tools handle the rest,” Clements said.
For Tourwriter, the acquisition is intended to support the continued development of its products for the luxury travel sector. CEO and co-founder Glenn Campbell said the company remained committed to helping luxury travel businesses improve profitability and serve their customers more effectively.
Existing Tourwriter customers will remain on the same platform, with the same team, pricing and support arrangements. WeTravel said it plans to introduce additional global products, payment options and AI capabilities to the Tourwriter platform over the coming months.
Campbell will continue leading Tourwriter, and its team of nearly 30 people will remain based across New Zealand, London and other locations. The team will join WeTravel’s wider international organisation, which has more than 400 employees and offices in Australia, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands and the United States.
The immediate change for customers is therefore not a new booking system, but the prospect of additional technology and payment capabilities being introduced to the software they already use. The longer-term outcome will depend on how effectively WeTravel integrates those capabilities while maintaining the specialised tools and support that bespoke travel operators rely on.
