Most of my winter bookings are in the Caribbean, and I've had two clients get their boat tours cancelled because of bad weather in the same week. Both got refunded and were fine with it. What I'm confused about is the commission side. I book most excursions through viator agent program and a few through getyourguide. I know cancelled bookings don't earn commission, but how does that show up on the statements? I've checked mine and tbh can't tell what's what. Both clients also wanted something else to do that day. Managed to find a cooking class last minute, but that was pure luck. Do you guys usually have backup activities ready in case tours get cancelled, or just figure it out when it happens?

Viator hasn’t paid our small tour company since July — even after completing verification. What now?

I run Cultiva Tours, a small family tour company in Prague that provides a livelihood for four guides. Our Dresden & Bastei tour has a 4.9/5 rating from 138 reviews on Viator, yet we’re still waiting to be paid for months of tours we’ve already delivered.

Around 90% of our clients book through Viator. We also get bookings through GetYourGuide and a few directly, but those can’t keep us afloat alone.

Viator had been reviewing our details for over a year while continuing to send payouts. Then suddenly, payments stopped pending further verification. What should have been a straightforward check of basic company details dragged on for four months.

OWL, their payment provider, finally confirmed verification was complete on November 5. Yet the next payout cycle passed without our money arriving. Our July–October payouts are still outstanding, with no clear payment date.

Months of support chats, formal complaints and escalations to “senior management” have achieved nothing. We’re using family savings and loans to keep operating and pay our guides. The financial pressure and constant stress are exhausting.

Guests paid. We delivered the tours. We’re paying interest while waiting for our own money.

Has anyone dealt with this and actually got paid? What finally worked?

Filip — Cultiva Tours
Our website · Tripadvisor profile

Hello everyone!

I am a travel and tours professional based in Lagos, Nigeria, and I am opening my services to individuals, groups, and corporate organisations looking for reliable travel planning and coordination across Africa, particularly Nigeria and other African destinations.

Whether you are:
• Planning a trip to Nigeria for business, tourism, or leisure.
Looking to explore African countries.
• A corporate organisation needing travel coordination for employees, executives, or business teams.
• An individual looking for assistance with flights, accommodation, itineraries, tours, and general travel arrangements.
• Planning a group trip, holiday, or business visit.

I would be happy to help.
I offer travel planning, itinerary development, accommodation coordination, tour arrangements, group travel planning, and travel management support.

Being based in Nigeria means I can also help with local coordination and on-the-ground travel arrangements.

If you are planning a trip to Nigeria or anywhere across Africa, feel free to reach out.
I am happy to connect, answer questions, and help you plan a smooth travel experience.

**Location:** Lagos, Nigeria

**Specialisation:** African Travel | Nigeria Travel | Corporate Travel | Individual & Group Tours
You can reach me via DM.

Looking forward to connecting with travellers and organisations!

Hey everybody, I haven't seen any posts about this yet so wanted to bring it to the sub's attention.

A few days ago, OpenAI released a Beta for ChatGPT Business Profiles. By creating or claiming your profile, you can manage some of the details that ChatGPT shows about your business, add contact information and a website link, and see insights into how often you are mentioned or clicked on. In general, it largely resembles a Google Business Profile, but just through ChatGPT. Just another way to add credibility to a channel customers might find you in.

You can find it under "Business" in the ChatGPT sidebar. As an FYI, access is rolling out in tranches, so you might be put on a waitlist for a little while.

Hello, I recently booked a tour via tripadvisor. I was supposed to be picked up at my hotel at 8am. The day of the tour, a guy called me via WhatsApp at 7:30 a.m (30 minutes before the start of the tour), telling me that he can not come to pick me up in my hotel because it is outside the pick-up area. I told the guy that's ok but if he can refund me for the tour that has not even started. He told me he can't and to contact Viator directly. So I contacted them and I just got that answer "After a thorough review, we regret to inform you that we’re unable to issue a refund for this booking, as the operator has not approved it." What can I do to get a refund? If the operator accepted my booking knowing in advance the name and location of my hotel, why can't they reimburse me?

I’ve been running my numbers again and I think I’ve been getting my tour operator pricing strategy backwards for a while. I set a retail price that felt right for my city, then worked out what I keep after the marketplace cut, and the answer was less than I’d like on the days I pay a guide.

Thing that gets me is the commission comes off before anything else. Fuel, the guide, entry tickets where I have them. So a price that looks fine on the listing page is a different number by the time it reaches me.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether people build the tour operator commission in from the start and just carry the same retail across Viator and their own site, or price direct lower and accept the marketplace version looks more expensive. Both feel like they have a downside.

For anyone who’s been at this a few seasons, how did you land on your net rate, and did you ever go back and raise it?

Small agency, me and a couple of independent contractors. Everyone uses whatever itinerary app they started on and it’s a problem the second a client gets handed between us. So I’m picking one tool for all of us. It’s between Travefy, Tern and TravelJoy at this point. Hotels and flights are easy, every tool handles those. Tours are where I keep getting stuck. Last week I built a Lisbon and Porto trip and spent most of an evening copying meeting points and what’s included by hand from a few different sites into the doc. One of my ICs showed me that in Travefy she pulls the Viator product details into the itinerary using the product code, no copying everything by hand, and that was the first time I actually leaned one way. Before I commit, how does TravelJoy's Viator integration compare, and does Tern have anything similar for activities? For people doing mostly cruise, is the Project Expedition integration with Tern worth considering too?

I don’t need the perfect tool. I need the one where tours aren’t a manual job.

I used to work for a luxury inbound travel company, but now I want to guide people around Tokyo for fun (tips appreciated) just because I enjoy it.

Does anyone visiting Tokyo need someone to show them around? Do people use Reddit for that?

Hey there,

I'm looking to travel to Kyrzygstan in july 2027. I'll be going alone but i'm too much of a nervous person to be arranging every activity for myself so i prefer a pre-arranged guided group tour. when looking around i am totally overwhelmed by the amount of tour providers available. providers like G-Adventures seem very 'international' and catered to westerners wanting to visit so i think i prefer supporting a local company. what are some good local guided tour companies? so far ive been looking into Eco Valley Tours & Kyrgyzest, which seem good.

anyone with experience here?

Hi everyone!

I'm an independent app developer, and I'd like to share something I've been working on.

I developed GuideCast, an offline audio guide app that allows tour guides to communicate with groups of tourists in real time without an internet connection or mobile data.

The idea is simple: Turn smartphones into a wireless group audio guide system!

Here's how it works:

🎤 One guide speaks, and everyone in the group listens in real time.

📱 Supports mixed groups of iPhones and Android phones.

📡 Uses a portable Wi-Fi router and a high-output power bank. No internet connection or external server is required.

🎧 Tourists listen through their own smartphones and earphones.

🔊 Successfully tested with 37 iPhones and Android phones receiving audio simultaneously.

📶 Successfully tested at distances of approximately 50 meters (164 feet).

🌡️ No overheating issues were observed on the guide's smartphone during testing.

👥 Depending on the router's performance, the system could potentially support up to 50 devices.

🌍 No international mobile data or roaming charges for audio streaming! Tourists can listen to the guide without using mobile data, even when traveling abroad.

🌐 Supports 20 languages, making the app accessible to tour guides and travelers from different countries.

📦 Compact and portable: The router and power bank together take up roughly 15 × 10 × 7 cm (5.9 × 3.9 × 2.8 inches) of space, based on an approximate size estimate.

The system offers an alternative to expensive dedicated wireless tour guide equipment. All you need is a portable Wi-Fi router, a high-output power bank, and smartphones.

I believe GuideCast could be useful for walking tours, museums, historical sites, group excursions, factory tours, and educational activities.

GuideCast is available on both platforms:

📱 Android (Google Play)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.guidetour.myapplication.ui.guide

🍎 iPhone (App Store)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guidecast-wifi/id6770045066

I'd genuinely love to hear from people working in the tourism industry.

Do you currently use wireless audio guide equipment for your tours? Would you consider using a smartphone-based alternative that works without internet access?

I'd really appreciate your feedback, especially from professional tour guides!

Thanks for reading!

Started running small boat trips out of Catania, Sicily earlier this year, so this is my first winter dealing with all this. wind comes up, we cancel, and then I spend the evening messaging people about refunds. didn't expect this part of the job to be so frustrating.

a lot of my bookings come through Viator or another online travel agent, so when the weather turns bad, I have to deal with cancellations there too. the traveller gets refunded which is fair but I've still lost the day and sometimes the fuel if we went out and turned back.

what I can't work out is how to word the policy so people understand before they book that weather is weather half of them think I'm being cautious to save money and being fairly new to this, I'm not always sure how to handle those conversations.

how do you deal with it, offer a reschedule first or just refund and move on? would appreciate hearing how more experienced boat tour operators handle this.

I'm playing for a while now with the idea of trying to move from laminated pictures to short animations and other things shown on a reliable, sturdy and super bright screen to show guests/clients. Does anyone work like this or has tried it and perhaps decided it doesn't work?

The lose idea is to test this with an extremely bright, reliable tablet, perhaps a Samsung and combine it with an extra battery with cooling mounted to the back, use a strap to hang it on the shoulder, add a small "sun protector" and micro-adjust stops on tours to be able to use it whenever possible in the shade.

Other options, better equipment or doomed to fail?

Grateful for any input!

Best, graudesch

I am a solo traveler looking to book a tour next year to a region where having a tour guide is required for the visit. I’m planning to join a group tour for the cost savings and the companionship of being part of a group. I’m reading a lot of your reviews as I research which company to book with.

One thing I’ve seen with some frequency is complaints about tour members who are always late impacting the experience for everyone, and how the tour guide and company handled this. I’m talking about multi day tours where a few group members are late every morning, and late rejoining the group after stops, so by the end of the day stops have to skipped or shorted to keep the tour timing correct.

As a guide, how do you think this should be handled? What does good look like? I’m not sure the tardy party can be kicked off the tour, but could that happen? FWIW I am extremely punctual, but realize others aren’t and would like to know how a tour guide/ tour company should handle this so I can calibrate my expectations.

Thanks!

Ciao a tutti! Lavoro in un tour operator da un po' di anni e con il team stiamo realizzando una piattaforma pensata per i tour operator (in particolare per la gestione delle risorse, della biglietteria, dei tours in partenza, assegnazione guide e controllo margini/costi).

​Prima di lanciare le prossime funzionalità, vorrei capire da chi lavora nel settore quali sono le cose che odiate di più nei gestionali tradizionali che usate oggi? Qual è la funzione di cui non potreste fare a meno nel vostro lavoro quotidiano?

​Se qualcuno volesse darmi un feedback ne sarei felicissima.

had a guest turn up in sandals for a walk that goes uphill on loose stone. she wasnt annoyed at the hill, she was annoyed that nothing told her. went back and read my own description after and she was right, i say moderate walking and nothing else. same with the one who thought lunch was included because the photo has food in it. so ive been rewriting the listings. problem is every time i add a warning the thing gets longer and i assume people stop reading. and on viator tap the first lines are what shows in the preview, so i dont want to open with what the tour isnt. how specific do you get? do you put the hard stuff up top or bury it in whats included?

started with one city walk that i ran myself. added a food one, then a day trip out of the city, and now i have drivers and two other guides involved. the guiding part is the easy bit. what i did not expect is how much time goes into keeping availability straight across the places people book. someone books a day trip on viator tap for a date the driver already told me he cant do, and i only find out when i open the calendar at night. also the quality is not the same anymore. my own tours get the good reviews, the ones i hand off get fine but not great.

To all travel agents, are you familiar or has anyone used Truevail to build their website, create email newsletters and social media marketing? How is it working for you? Did you generate leads? I'm planning to register but I can't seem to find legit reviews about it and I don't want to waste my money for nothing.