How to Build a Big Business With Small Group Tours

How do you grow without losing what makes your company — and your experiences — special? This question, or some variation of it, was a common theme among sessions and conversations at the latest Arival event: scaling without losing quality, expanding while keeping things authentic and personal, building up sustainably. 

In LivTours’ case, their challenge was how to scale while keeping true to a core tenet: keeping group sizes to a maximum of six. At Arival 360 | Valencia, Angelo Carotenuto, Founder of LivTours, shared an inspirational talk on how they did it. LivTours has grown significantly — from one guide per day in the early 2010s to 350 guides across 26 destinations and growing in 2025 — but not without significant challenges along the way. 

Carotenuto shared some of the key factors behind LivTours’ growth, and how staying focused on their purpose has been instrumental to their success. We’re sharing some highlights below — Arival Insider Pro Access members can watch the full session on-demand here.

1. Differentiate Yourself By Finding Your Purpose

For any company in tourism, differentiation is a challenge, particularly when so many companies are trying to do similar things and visit similar places. The first big growth spurt LivTours experienced, shares Carotenuto, happened after they decided to focus on small groups — with a max of six people. 

This focus also allowed them to narrow in on their audience. “We realized we were actually speaking to what we now call the affluent traveler,” says Carotenuto. People “who don’t mind spending 10 or 15% extra for a little bit more space, a little bit more magic.”

2. Involve Every One of Your Stakeholders in Your Purpose

While LivTours’ focus on small groups led to growth, this growth soon plateaued and they realized they needed to do more to continue scaling. With the help of a consultant, they understood their “value proposition doesn’t come to life until the actual tour happens,” and in order to change that, they needed to involve all of the stakeholders in the process, from agents to suppliers to tour guides to, eventually, clients. 

This helped them realize that, for them, another key factor was that they are a family-owned business. Reshaping their website, marketing and communication around this enabled them to embed a greater sense of their purpose among their stakeholders — and led to another significant phase of growth.

3. Stay Loyal to Your Purpose & Invest in Your Guides

After a period of rapid growth, LivTours found themselves asking, can we stay loyal to our purpose and run groups of eight or ten? They went back to their stakeholders: past guests, staff and guides, “and the main answer was, no way Jose. If you do groups of eight, we may not book with you again.”

Rather than expanding their group size, LivTours doubled down on groups of six, and on their purpose. One of the key factors that enabled them to do this, Carotenuto shares, was investing in their tour guides — with workshops to empower their guides, with regional budgets for guide enrichment including yoga and theater, with a mentorship team for guides, and “the biggest parties ever” to thank their guides.

 All of this led to where they are today – with 350 guides a day leading tours across 26 destinations and growing. Learn more and watch the full presentation from Angelo Carotenuto here!

Learn More About Growth With Arival

Growth was an important theme of the Arival 360 | Valencia conference. See the full list of theater sessions, available for Insider Pro Access members, on-demand here. Even better, join us at an upcoming Arival event to learn more about how the leading tour companies strategies for growth, and more from other travel industry professionals.