How To Start Selling On Viator

Distribution • How-to • December 29, 2017 • Rebecca

How would you feel about reaching 340 million customers internationally and 175,000 travel agents? You can, if you start selling on Viator.

Viator is a leading platform for tour research and booking. It offers tour operators an ideal platform to serve customers from all over the globe. With 17 years in the field of travel, the tour marketplace is equipped with experience and customer insights to help you take your tour retail to a whole new level.

Why should you be selling on Viator?

1. Reach a much larger audience

Viator is the go-to tour marketplace for travellers looking to book their next travel or adventure. Viator sees 10 million unique visitors every month, amplifying exposure of your listing that result in greater number of bookings.

2. Integrate with TripAdvisor

Viator is a TripAdvisor company. By listing on Viator the availability of your tours is automatically shared on the TripAdvisor network with a “check availability” or a “book now” button. This makes it convenient for interested tourists to book trips with you. If your holiday booking system is integrated with APIs to Viator, all bookings will directly be recorded by your online tour booking software.

3. No fees for signing up

When you register on Viator’s tour marketplace,  you don’t have to commit to a payment in advance. They deduct a commission only when you sell tours, based on a certain percentage fixed between them and your business. As per our understanding, the standard commission charged by the tour marketplace is around 20%.

4. You can automate bookings through a 3rd party distributor

With your online tour booking software directly connected to Viator, you can give real-time availability of your trips. This allows you to maintain an automated and integrated source of bookings, without having to manually enter booking details in the system. It also speeds up payments and gives real-time booking confirmation to customers and resellers.

How to join Viator through Vacation Labs?

Viator offers a widened distribution channel to tour and activity operators resulting in greater conversions to business. Vacation Labs has integrated its online tour booking software with Viator to help you manage your tour bookings with this extensive tour retail platform.

Once you’ve created your products through the Vacation Labs booking engine, you can log into the system backend and add Viator as your marketplace. To do this –

Step – #1

Select the ‘Distribution’ tab on the backend and select marketplaces from the options on the left.

Step – #2

Click ‘Add’ under the Viator option.

Step – #3

Add the tours you want to share on Viator and click ‘Start Selling on Viator’

Step – #4 in case you DON’T have a Viator account

Click the ‘Register on Viator option’. It will redirect you to Viator’s supplier registration form.

Step – #4 in case you have a Viator account

Click the ‘Request a Connection with Viator’. You will receive an API key which you will need to submit to your Viator account manager. (The time frame for the completion of the connection process is solely dependent on the marketplace. Each tour supplier is handpicked Viator travel specialist)

Step – #5

Request to receive notifications via email even if requests coming in through Viator fail.

You can keep adding tours to be shared on Viator even before your connection with the marketplace is complete. Once a connection is established, you will be able to see bookings from the marketplace and the number of trips shared and trip requests as well.

Points to note when selling on Viator

1. You must create tours on Viator separately

When you add tours to Viator through your online booking engine, you only integrate your inventory. You will need to login to your Viator account and add detailed descriptions of your tour, with images, to make your listing more appealing to potential customers, ensuring they don’t get lost in research. 

2. You need to convert prices

Once you list your products on the tour marketplace, you will need to convert the price of your product to USD. 

3. You must allow advanced reservations for more bookings

Provide booking in advance for at least a year to help tourists plans their holidays better. This is something you can take care off Also, set cut-off times in your holiday booking system as close to the tour kickoff, to attract any last minute reservations.

4. Your pricing needs to match

Your tour prices on Viator must match the prices mentioned on other channels, like your website. However, the selling price of your tours can be lower than the actual price while selling on Viator.

5. You must allow auto-booking

The tours you set up with the Vacation Labs system must all be in the booking mode, not enquiry more also they should allow automated confirmation.

6. You must recheck listed tour details on Viator

Ensure you provide correct prices and trip information on the platform. This will prevent unnecessary cancellations. Make it a point to check your listings once your Vacation Labs account is connected with Viator.

For more insights on how to increase your bookings through Viator, gives us a call or sign up for a free trial of our software. We are experts at tour management and we’d like to help you!