UK SIC 2007 · 79901
Activities of tourist guides (SIC code 79901)
Activities of tourist guides is UK SIC code 79901. It sits in division 79 (Travel agency, tour operator and other reservation service and related activities) of the SIC 2007 list. On the August 2026 Companies House register, 2,843 active UK companies list 79901 among their SIC codes. 1,074 of them list it first.
Division 79: Travel agency, tour operator and other reservation service and related activities
Division 79 splits the travel trade by who carries the risk. Agencies under 79110 sell travel provided by others. Tour operators under 79120 contract and package it themselves. Code 79909 collects other reservation services, from booking platforms to ticket agencies. Tourist guides have their own code, 79901. The public record mixes long-established shopfront agencies with a big wave of home-working franchise agents. That is why many entries show a home address and no premises. Read that, rather than filtering it out.
Related SIC codes
Who prospects SIC 79901 companies
Suppliers to travel work these codes for bedbank access, booking technology, merchant payment services and specialist insurance. ATOL consultants and trade associations target new tour operators, who face financial protection duties that agencies do not. A fresh 79120 incorporation is a strong sign that licensing help will be wanted. Marketing services do well with homeworker agents, where the poor-website filter shows real unmet need rather than a dead company. Travel is seasonal, so timing outreach around booking peaks is worth the effort.
Lead generation for commercial & B2B services →How to read SIC 79901
SIC 79901 is a five-digit code, and the digits are not arbitrary. The first two, 79, are the division, travel agency, tour operator and other reservation service and related activities. Add the third and you have group 799; the fourth narrows it to a class, and the fifth to the subclass, which is the level Companies House actually asks a company to pick. The whole division sits under section N, administrative and support service activities, the broadest tier there is. Reading a code left to right therefore goes from a whole sector down to one activity.
More on how SIC 79901 is built
A company chooses its own codes when it incorporates and can change them on any confirmation statement. It may list up to four, and Companies House does not check whether they are right. That is why 79901 is worth reading as a claim the company made about itself rather than as a verified fact, and why the first-position and any-position counts above differ.
Measured on the August 2026 register, the busiest registered-office post towns for 79901 are London (856), Edinburgh (97), Glasgow (66), Manchester (49) and Birmingham (33). Those are registered-office locations, which is where the paperwork sits rather than necessarily where the work happens, so treat them as where to start looking rather than as a service area.
Using SIC 79901 as a filter
2,843 companies is 0.05 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register, and ranks 79901 4th most used of the 4 codes we track in division 79. That is the pool before any filter. Whether it is a big market for you depends on what you sell, but it is the number every other filter on this page cuts down from.
More on filtering by SIC 79901
Only 1,074 of the 2,843 companies carrying 79901 put it first. The other 1,769, 62 per cent, list it behind another code, which usually means the business does more than one thing and files 79901 as a sideline. A search that matches the first code only will miss most of this population, so match on any of the four SIC positions and use a second filter to tighten it.
The population is concentrated: the five busiest post towns hold 39 per cent of it, and London alone accounts for 30 per cent. If you sell nationally, those five towns are most of the market. If you sell locally and you are not in one of them, expect a much smaller pool and widen the radius early.
In practice the code on its own is rarely the whole filter. Pair 79901 with an incorporation date to catch companies in their first months, when they are still choosing suppliers, or with a filing deadline to reach them while the year end is on their mind. A worked example for this code: 79901, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days, which turns a 2,843 company pool into a list you can write to in an afternoon. Add the poor-website filter if what you sell is a website, or a recent change of officer if you sell to whoever just took the job. Every company you pull carries the Companies House record, the director's name, a verified website and a verified email, and the ones we cannot complete are not charged.
Where SIC 79901 clusters in the UK
ACTIVE COMPANIES BY REGISTERED-OFFICE POST TOWN · COMPANIES HOUSE REGISTER, AUGUST 2026
SIC 79901 companies, as leads
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About SIC 79901
How many UK companies use SIC code 79901?
2,843 active UK companies list 79901 (Activities of tourist guides) among their registered SIC codes. Each company may register up to four. Of those, 1,074 put it first. The figures come from the August 2026 Companies House register snapshot, and count active companies only.
Do I need an ATOL before registering a travel SIC code?
No, the two are unrelated. Companies House accepts any SIC code without checks, chosen at incorporation or on the confirmation statement (CS01). An ATOL comes from the Civil Aviation Authority. You need one before you sell flight-inclusive holidays in the UK. Many agents avoid holding their own by working under a host or consortium. That is a regulatory decision, not a registration one.
Should my business register as a travel agency or a tour operator?
Pick the code that matches your contractual role. Use 79110 if you sell arrangements as an agent for suppliers. Use 79120 if you contract the parts and package them under your own name, which brings package travel duties with it. Businesses doing both can hold both codes. A company may declare up to 4, and can switch or add codes at any confirmation statement without approval.
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