In the last year, a growing number of travel companies have found themselves facing pressure from an increasingly influential force: activist investors.
Last week, Travel Weekly revealed that a number of roles had been made redundant at Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). The move was the latest consequence of changes set in motion after Elliott Investment Management disclosed a stake of more than 10 per cent in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in February. In a letter to the board, Elliott argued that NCLH had “fallen from a best-in-class cruise operator at the time of its initial public offering to a clear industry laggard, suffering from inconsistent strategy, weak execution, inaccurate guidance and poor cost discipline.” The pressure was swift. By March, NCLH had reached a cooperation agreement with Elliott that saw four long-time board members step down and five new independent directors installed.
EXCLUSIVE: Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) makes number of trade roles redundant
Elliott’s founder Peter Singer is regarded as one of the world’s most formidable activist investors – a reputation built over decades of campaigns against some of the largest companies and even sovereign governments. Elliott had previously pursued similar campaigns against Southwest Airlines, reshaping the carrier’s board.
Closer to home, Webjet Travel Group found itself in a prolonged leadership dispute driven by well-known corporate figure Gary Weiss. A consortium including Weiss’s vehicle Ariadne Australia and private equity firm BGH Capital had previously lodged a non-binding indicative offer of 80 cents per share in May 2025, which Webjet’s board rejected as undervaluing the business. A separate push to install two consortium-aligned directors – including Weiss’s son Daniel – was abandoned in November after failing to attract sufficient shareholder support. The pressure nonetheless produced results: Weiss was appointed as a non-executive Director of Webjet Group in May 2026, with Ariadne Australia holding a 5.01 per cent stake and the broader consortium controlling 18.28 per cent of the company’s issued share capital. He has since been appointed Interim Chair.
So why is travel catching the eye of investors hoping to shake things up, and what does it mean for the industry?
According to Skift, activist shareholder campaigns in the travel sector remain relatively rare – but in the last two years, funds have launched campaigns against some of the industry’s biggest names. The post-Covid period created textbook conditions for activists, unfolding in three phases: pent-up demand from 2021 to 2023 made even weak operators look strong; the subsequent slowdown exposed those that were poorly run; and now a reckoning is under way between companies that have genuinely performed and those that have not.
The pattern is visible across the sector. Starboard Value took a 9 per cent stake in Tripadvisor in July 2025, calling the company ‘undervalued,’ and escalated pressure through early 2026, calling for a management overhaul and the potential sale of the entire company. The resulting cooperation agreement gave Starboard-backed directors board seats and launched a formal review of strategic options – including the potential sale of Tripadvisor’s European restaurant booking platform, TheFork. That review concluded just last week: Tripadvisor announced it has agreed to sell TheFork to American Express for $700 million in an all-cash deal, allowing it to focus on its experiences strategy through Viator.
Meanwhile, at Marriott Vacations Worldwide, Impactive Capital’s involvement preceded the November 2025 ousting of president and CEO John Geller, who resigned at the board’s request – with an Impactive-backed director already installed on the board by that point.
With the sector’s overall fundamentals remaining strong, investors appear to be using industry-wide growth as cover to identify companies that are failing to keep pace. The message is increasingly clear: in a travel sector buoyed by demand, underperformance is becoming harder to hide and activist investors are betting they can unlock value by forcing change.
