Market Sizing Isn’t Just for Investors—It’s Your Travel Tech GTM Launchpad
- amanda9019
- Mar 29
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 31
Market sizing is often treated as a back-of-the-napkin exercise to impress investors. But TAM, SAM, and SOM can also be practical tools in the go-to-market (GTM) playbook. This article reframes market sizing as a GTM driver—clarifying where to play and what to prioritize. You’ll see how TAM fuels vision, SAM sets direction, and SOM becomes the foundation for scalable execution.
When I first started working with travel tech companies on go-to-market execution, I noticed a recurring reaction from some founders when I asked about their market sizing efforts. TAM, SAM, SOM? That’s the “investor deck calculations,” right?
For many, market sizing is seen as a funding necessity—a numbers exercise played out for VCs, banks, and other financial suitors. It can feel disconnected from the immediate need to generate demand and scale revenue, especially when early assumptions are quickly battered by real-world market conditions.
But when done right, market sizing isn’t just about impressing investors. It’s the cornerstone of GTM clarity. It enables leaders to set realistic goals, rally teams around a common purpose, and define where to focus limited resources. In fact, it’s the launchpad for the entire GTM execution plan.
So, what does market sizing actually involve? Market sizing is the activity of estimating the scale of TAM (Total Addressable Market), SAM (Serviceable Available Market), and SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market).
TAM: Total Addressable Market
Think of TAM as your dream scenario: if you had no competitors, your offering was perfectly priced, and you captured 100% of the market. Let’s say you offer a hotel booking tool. Market research might estimate the global hotel and hospitality management software market at USD $4bn. That figure becomes your TAM—the theoretical upper limit of your revenue potential.
Of course, no company captures 100% of its addressable market, but it is the ‘seed’ for GTM strategy. It’s the starting point for accessing viability and forces early conversations about your place in the wider ecosystem.
It has wider benefits for travel tech GTM execution, too. Defining your TAM means you have to dream big. Why not use that dream to align your product, stakeholders, and brand behind a powerful sense of purpose? When done right, corporate decks, journalist interviews, and analyst briefings can all benefit from some of the blue-sky thinking and storytelling your TAM exercise can inform.
When done right, corporate decks, journalist interviews, and analyst briefings can all benefit from some of the blue-sky thinking and storytelling your TAM exercise can inform.
SAM: Serviceable Available Market
SAM brings market sizing closer to the real world. It reflects the portion of your TAM you can realistically serve today—after factoring in constraints like language, geography, regulations, or product limitations. Importantly, it’s also a critical step in assessing the viability of your go-to-market approach. By identifying your SAM, you begin to understand not just how big the opportunity is but also whether it’s reachable, worth pursuing, and aligned with your current capabilities.
For example, if your hotel booking platform supports only European languages, you might identify Europe’s mid-market hotel groups as your SAM—valued at around USD $500m. That clarity allows you to confidently invest in regional teams and prioritize features to meet the needs of that market.
SAM helps you decide where to play and allows leadership to begin allocating budget, resources, and development priorities accordingly. For instance, you might set up a local sales and customer success office or prioritize building out local payment capabilities.
SAM helps you decide where to play and allows leadership to begin allocating budget, resources, and development priorities.
On a practical level, insights from your SAM can guide GTM teams to think about:
Channel partner activation and enablement
Key features and benefits to emphasize in demos and decks
Stories and proof points that will resonate in that specific market
SOM: Serviceable Obtainable Market
SOM is the sweet spot. Based on your sales and marketing capacity and the competitive landscape, it reflects the portion of your SAM you can realistically win in the short to medium term. Focusing on the competition forces a realistic examination of where your product wins and falls short and how to close those gaps.
Continuing our example, you might project that, given unique features and pricing, your sales team could win 60 mid-sized hotel groups across Western Europe over the next 3 years. With an average deal size of USD $500k, your 3-year SOM would be ~USD $30m.
Commercial leaders set revenue targets at this stage, and GTM teams are charged with developing actionable plans to realize the commercial objectives. It’s the launching pad for target account definition, creating the GTM toolkit, and the campaigns that will support the delivery of the commercial objectives, including:
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) development
Sales enablement content and training
Value-based messaging and positioning
Account-based marketing (ABM) plans
Content aligned to the buyer journey.
Mitigation might involve refining your positioning, prioritizing certain features, or developing enablement materials that help sales teams address objections head-on.
It’s the launching pad for target account definition, creating the GTM toolkit, and the campaigns that will support the delivery of the commercial objectives.
From Market Sizing to Travel Tech GTM in Action
In B2B travel tech, markets are niche, and the length of sales cycles can make it hard to grow quickly. Market sizing brings valuable focus, clarity, and alignment to GTM efforts and even supports execution tactics. Rather than leaving market sizing on a slide for your next funding round, use it to inspire stakeholders, prioritize your efforts, and measure success.
If you’re a founder, GTM strategist, or marketing lead in travel tech, I’d love to hear how you’re approaching market sizing and what you have learned.
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