Viator is a popular travel site with hundreds of millions of monthly visitors and an expansive partner network (with airlines, hotel chains, rideshare companies like Uber, and more). Tour operators interested in driving new business often use Viator to promote their tours and activities to customers booking vacations and things to do. 

Both Bókun and Viator are Tripadvisor companies, so we put together this guide to explain how to get started on Viator, the Viator + Bókun partnership, and how our platforms work together. 

Before we dive into the steps to sell tours on Viator, here’s a quick background on our systems and how they complement each other.

The overview

• Viator is an online travel agency (OTA) where tourists research destinations, attractions, tours, and activities, and book things to do. Tour operators can list their products on Viator to receive bookings from travellers on their site. 
  
  
• Tripadvisor is also an OTA, but tourists can use this site to research and book all aspects of their travel, from flights and lodging to car rentals and activities. Tripadvisor is part of Viator’s partner network, so the tours and activities you list on Viator may also appear on Tripadvisor. 

• Bókun is a booking management software for tour operators. You use our system to manage back-office operations and maintain a centralised booking calendar. These tools are recommended as you start selling tours on OTAs because they let you view and manage bookings from all of your distribution channels (Viator, Tripadvisor, partners, your website, and offline) in one system. They also have convenient features like availability management to save time and avoid double bookings as you grow your distribution network. 

We have a preferred partnership with Viator; you can connect the platforms to manage Viator bookings in our dashboard and synchronise availability across sites. We waive Bókun booking fees on Viator reservations and offer extra perks (like four free monthly product checks) for Viator users. 

In addition to Viator and Tripadvisor, Bókun connects with countless other sites (GetYourGuide, Tiqets, Klook, Expedia, etc.). Tour operators can promote their experiences across dozens of OTAs — reach millions of potential customers — and manage bookings in one system. 

This way, you can reap the full benefits of selling on Viator while also growing your sales channels with other platforms. 

When the goal is to book out your calendar, you want to give yourself as many opportunities as possible to get your name in front of customers researching travel, tours, and activities.   

Read more: How to Sell Tours Online: 2 Methods + Tips to Increase Bookings

How to become a Viator supplier & start selling tours

Anyone can create a Viator account and sell tours on their platform — you don’t have to be a certain business size or meet a number of monthly bookings to use the platform. Small one- or two-person teams and global tour companies use Viator’s website to promote their business. 

Note: Viator has certain restrictions on the types of tours and products you can list, so all experiences meet their safety, ethical, and legal standards. (In addition, it’s also worth noting that some experiences may require you to have public liability insurance.) 

For example, tour guides who sell hunting experiences or tours where attendees are in direct contact with (wild or captive) animals can’t list those tours on Viator. Another example: Viator works with rental providers and allows you to list things like jet skis or ATVs, but they would not let you list a car or bus because a car rental is not an “experience.” 

You can read more about product acceptance criteria here. 

The steps to list & sell tours

The first step is to create a supplier account on Viator.com.

Then, Viator’s account set-up tool will walk you through the following steps — you’ll have to answer a couple of questions about your tour business, and then it’ll prompt you to link Viator with your Tripadvisor profile. If you don’t already have one, it’ll also guide you through that setup. 

This allows customers to read about your business, view and book tours, and leave reviews for you on Tripadvisor. 

Note: Bókun also connects with Tripadvisor to display customer reviews on your website.

The next step is adding products (aka creating your Viator listings). You can add and edit product listings anytime in Viator’s Management Center. 

Viator requires you to meet and maintain a “good” product quality standard so that listings give customers a fair preview of the experience you offer.

For example, all products must have:

• Future availability 
• Complete product details 
• A minimum of two high-quality photos 
• <5% supplier cancellation rate 
• 3+ average star rating 

Viator also offers a Badge of Excellence for tour listings that meet a higher quality standard. Tours with the Badge of Excellence are recommended more often and have higher booking conversions, so this extra legwork in building high-quality tour listings can make a significant difference in how much business you see from Viator. 

You can earn this badge by: 

• Including more (6+) images with listings
• Lowering your cancellation rate (<2%)
• Providing mobile tickets for customers
• Earning 15+ reviews on your listing
• Offering a standard cancellation policy 
• Connecting Viator to booking software (like Bókun!) so that reservations are instantly confirmable or adding booking cutoffs of less than four hours

You can also see personalised tips to improve product listings and achieve an “Excellent” product quality level within your Viator Management Center. 

Now, this is where the review and approval process comes into play. 

The Viator team reviews new products to confirm listings meet their guidelines. Viator charges $29 for each product quality check. 

If products are approved, they’re instantly displayed on the Viator site for customers to book. As mentioned above, Viator may also promote your tours on Tripadvisor and across their partner network to help you get found and booked more often. 

Then, Viator provides you with a booking calendar to manage new reservations in their dashboard. They also offer tools to manage availability and respond to customer inquiries. 

However, Viator’s booking management tools only let you view new bookings from their site — this is where Bókun complements Viator.

Viator lets you promote products to millions of travellers, while Bókun provides the tools to manage your staff, schedules, and operations. Not only that, but our centralised booking calendar lets you leverage all the benefits of selling on the Viator platform and explore other OTAs. 

How Viator & Bókun work together

As explained earlier, Bókun is a booking management software for tour operators and activity-based businesses. Our system keeps you and your staff organised as you explore new sales channels and sell tours on multiple sites. It includes:

• A centralised calendar to manage all bookings — new reservations from Viator (and all other sales channels) populate here in real-time. 
  
  
• Booking widgets to enable direct bookings from your website. (Or a custom website builder to create a bookable site.)
  
  
• Product management that includes price and availability management — you can manage availability on Viator from the Bókun calendar, and availability will automatically update as users book tours (from Viator or any other site).   
  
  
• Channel management with access to dozens of OTAs — in addition to our Viator partnership, we also waive Bókun booking fees on reservations from GetYourGuide.
  
  
• Bókun Marketplace — a network of over 27K suppliers and resellers — where you can partner with hotel chains and resorts, attractions, travel agents, other tour operators, and more, to promote each others’ products and earn new bookings. 
  
  
• Reporting tools to measure the success of sales channels, determine which tours are most popular, and track revenue. 

Watch this brief overview video to learn more about Bókun booking software:

Here are some of the benefits of our partnership with Viator: 

1. Viator users can auto-import product listings from Viator to Bókun — then, Viator tours and activities are automatically listed on your website so customers can book with you directly. This promotes consistency and significantly reduces administrative burden when creating and managing a booking website. 
   
   
2. We never charge Bókun booking fees on Viator (or GetYourGuide) bookings, so you can minimise costs while testing new sales channels. 
   
   
3. We also promote cost savings by offering Viator users four free monthly product checks (a $116 value). 
   

How to get started

Joining Viator (and selling tours across other OTAs) is a no-brainer for business owners who want to expand their reach — and utilising booking software is the best step in maintaining organisation as you grow. 

Otherwise, you have to manage Viator and every other sales channel independently — you have to jump between platforms to check calendars and consolidate bookings into a central calendar. Then, you have to manually update your availability on each site as you receive new bookings. (You can see how this could easily lead to headaches and issues like overbookings.)

Aside from maintaining organisation, booking software like Bókun provides tools to help you increase bookings and revenue. Connections with OTAs and the Bókun Marketplace help you fill up your booking calendar; we also provide upselling tools, dynamic pricing, and other advanced features to help maximise revenue from bookings and increase overall earnings. 

Follow the steps above to get started on Viator. If you’re also interested in trying our booking software in combination with Viator, you can explore the platform free for 14 days. After the 14-day free trial, you can opt into a Pro subscription to access all features.