Travel Affiliate Networks for Tour Guides to Connect with Partners

As a tour operator, you’re always looking for new ways to reach travellers and fill more seats. Travel affiliate networks offer a powerful solution: connect with travel bloggers, influencers, and content creators who already have the attention of your ideal customers.

Unlike traditional advertising, where you pay upfront with no guarantee of results, affiliate marketing is performance-based. You only pay commission when affiliates actually earn bookings for you. It’s a low-risk way to expand your reach and tap into audiences you might never connect with on your own.

Here’s how affiliate networks work:

• You list your tours on an affiliate network or platform
• Travel bloggers, influencers, and website owners browse available experiences and select ones that fit their audience
• Affiliates promote your tours through their travel-related content — blog posts, social media, newsletters, and websites
• When their followers book, you get the reservation, and they earn a commission

Pretty straightforward, right?

The key here is choosing the networks that make sense for your business and growth goals. Some affiliate networks are absolutely massive, containing thousands of affiliates who promote all types of travel services. Others are smaller, more specialised networks that focus on particular areas of travel or specific types of tours and activities.

Plus, networks differ in their commission rates, application processes, and the types of affiliates they work with.

So we’ve put together a guide to the 7 best travel affiliate programmes tour operators use to grow their bookings. We’ll cover how each one works, what it takes to get started, and what you can expect in terms of commissions and affiliate reach.

1. Bókun
2. Tripadvisor
3. Viator
4. GetYourGuide
5. Expedia Group
6. Manawa
7. Travelpayouts

We kick off our guide by explaining how Bókun’s affiliate programme works so you can learn about this growth opportunity within our platform.

To learn more about our system and its all-in-one toolkit, start a 14-day free trial.

Bókun’s Affiliate Programme

Bókun’s affiliate programme allows tour operators to work with any business or professional of their choosing — they don’t need to go through a lengthy application process or pay a monthly fee to be accepted into our system. It’s super flexible, so you can partner with whomever makes sense for your business.

You can partner with:

• Other businesses in your area: Nearby restaurants, hotels, resorts, attractions, or even other tour providers

• Social media influencers and content creators: Creators who share travel content

• Travel bloggers and digital nomads: Creatives, writers, and videographers who feature destinations and experiences

• Travel agencies and advisors: Both traditional agencies and independent travel planners who curate trips for clients

• Destination management companies (DMCs): Agencies that book experiences for visitors to your area

• Corporate travel coordinators: Companies that book team-building activities or client entertainment

• Tourism boards and visitor centres: Organisations that promote activities in your region

• Niche communities: Photography groups, food enthusiasts, adventure clubs, or special interest communities aligned with your tours

You can reach out (via email or DM) to anybody you’re interested in working with to establish these partnerships.

The other cool thing about Bókun is that you can negotiate commission rates with each partner — we don’t make you stick to one specific rate. You can decide what makes sense for each partner or the product(s) they’re promoting, and what you’re comfortable with paying out to partners.

Then, after you’ve established partnership terms, you can add affiliate partners to Bókun and keep track of your entire network.

First, you’ll navigate to Settings > Sales settings > Referral tracking on the side menu, and click “Add.” Then, you’ll include:

• A title for the seller (their name or company name)
• An identification number — for finance purposes (e.g. kennitala in Iceland)
• The seller’s email address
• The seller’s commission (in %)
• Any applicable taxes (note you must first create taxes)

We also provide a Weekly Reports box that you can check to send affiliates updates on their sales and commissions. These reports automatically send each Monday.

Next, we provide tools for affiliates to make bookings for you:

• Unique tracking links: They can embed the tracking code on any website page where travellers can find your tours. This link then redirects potential customers to your site to view availability and complete the booking process.

• Dedicated booking engines: Affiliates can embed an online booking tool directly on their site so customers can browse your products and availability, and instantly reserve tours.

Regardless of the option you choose, you can track exactly where bookings originated and which affiliates draw in the most business for you. We provide a dedicated report to track affiliate performance — under Reports > Referral tracking Sales > Affiliate sales report.

You can also learn more about our Referral Tracking here.

How to Join

All Bókun users have access to the Referral Tracking affiliate tools and our complete Marketplace — there is no extra application or charge to join.

When you join Bókun, you receive our all-in-one tour operator software that has everything you need to:

• Sell tours online directly from your website
• Reach global audiences via OTAs, partners, and affiliates
• Keep an organised, up-to-date booking calendar — with reservations from all sales channels (online and offline)
• Automate availability updates
• Manage all of your products and resources
• Schedule staff and keep your team connected
• Maintain a comprehensive customer contact book, automate email communications, and power retargeting campaigns
• Streamline customer check-ins and provide five-star experiences
• Report on business operations and see precisely where your bookings and revenue come from

Our START plan includes all of our core features and benefits (listed above) for only $49/month — and we offer the lowest booking fees among competitors at 1.5%.

You can learn more about our platform by starting a 14-day risk-free trial here.

Commission Overviews

You’re 100% in control here — choose the commission rate that makes sense for each affiliate and specify that in Bókun when adding affiliate details.

Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor is one of the most recognised names in the global travel space, with ~490 million unique monthly visitors. It’s known for its massive reach across tours, travel experiences, and accommodations, along with a trustworthy review database and online booking options (via Viator).

In fact, Tripadvisor, Viator, and Bókun are part of the same ecosystem!

• Tripadvisor serves as a travel directory where global audiences can research destinations, accommodations, and activities.

• Viator is an online travel agency (OTA) that lists tours and activities and provides fast, simple booking options. It’s the distribution platform behind Tripadvisor’s tours and activities marketplace.

• Bókun is the tour operator software to manage all bookings and back-office operations.

With Tripadvisor being such a well-known industry name, its affiliate programme is one of the first that travel professionals — like travel agencies, DMCs, influencers, bloggers, marketers, and content creators — turn to when they want to monetise their recommendations.

Affiliates can browse millions of hotels, tours, and activities to promote, and find options that make sense for their content, audiences, and locale. The Tripadvisor affiliate programme is available across 40+ countries and in 60+ languages.

After affiliates apply to the programme and get accepted, they can access trackable links for any Tripadvisor listing they want to promote. Then they can place these links in their content and earn commissions when someone clicks through and completes a booking.

Now, Tripadvisor gives affiliates a ton of flexibility in the travel services they can plug into their audiences. However, it does not provide tour operators the freedom to choose which affiliates promote them — they add their business to Tripadvisor (more on this below), and any affiliate can find the listing and begin promoting their tours and experiences.

How to Join

1. You add (or claim) your business listing on the site. We wrote a whole guide on how to do that here: How to add your business to Tripadvisor.

2. Then, you must join Viator so travellers can actually book your experiences from Tripadvisor. We also wrote a guide on that here: How to sell tours on Viator.

3. After you’ve made your Viator account, you can link it to your Tripadvisor business page and display booking links right on your profile. Travellers can book right from that widget or click over to Viator to complete their bookings.

Commission Overviews

Viator takes a 20% commission from any booking you earn from their platform. They keep about 12% and pass roughly 8% to the affiliate who referred the customer.

Viator

While Tripadvisor and Viator work hand in hand, Viator also offers an affiliate programme.

Viator is one of the most popular OTAs around, showcasing tours, travel experiences, and things to do in destinations around the world. Tour operators can list their experiences here to reach global audiences, and travellers can easily research vacation plans and make bookings online.

As we explained above with Tripadvisor, Viator offers more flexibility to affiliates than to tour operators. After affiliates join the programme, they can browse all the experiences listed on Viator and promote the ones they like. But this is still hugely beneficial to tour operators because Viator’s affiliate programme is one of the largest in the tours and travel niche — with countless creators needing high-quality experiences to recommend to their audiences.

How to Join

Tour operators can join Viator’s platform by creating a supplier account and adding products for affiliates to promote.

Note: You must adhere to Viator’s product quality standards to be listed on the site.

When adding tours to Viator, we suggest going above and beyond the typical standards and creating detailed listings for all your experiences. Standout listings receive Viator’s Badge of Excellence, and these listings are most likely to be plucked by affiliates for promotion.

You can earn this badge by:

• Including 6+ images with listings
• Providing mobile tickets for customers
• Earning 15+ reviews on your listing
• Lowering your cancellation rate (<2%)
• Offering a standard cancellation policy
• Adding booking cutoffs of less than four hours
• Connecting Viator to a booking platform (like Bókun!)

Viator provides a product quality grade so you can see when your listing is rated Excellent. The platform also offers personalised recommendations to improve listings, so you can see if you need to add more details or images.

Commission Overviews

As explained in our Tripadvisor section above, Viator takes a 20% commission on all bookings earned through the platform. They keep 12% of this and pay affiliates 8%.

GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide (GYG) is another hugely popular OTA — it was founded in 2009 in Zurich, Switzerland, to simplify the process of discovering and booking high-quality tours, activities, and experiences. In the past 15+ years, GetYourGuide has grown to offer more than 110k experiences in over 10k cities, including traditional tours, unique classes, local events, and activities.

GetYourGuide’s affiliate programme is free to join and spans globally, including travel agencies, influencers, bloggers, publishers, marketers, and more. Affiliates receive access to all the tours and activities listed on the site, with unique tracking links, banners, widgets, and APIs to promote experiences to their audiences and receive commissions.

Tour operators benefit passively. Like Tripadvisor and Viator, affiliates can choose which tours to promote; once you’re listed on GYG, you’re automatically accessible to their entire affiliate network. Any global affiliate can choose to promote your product if they think it fits their audience, and earn commissions when travellers book.

How to Join

Tour operators can easily become a GYG supplier by creating an account and adding product listings. The platform is free to use; you only pay commissions when bookings come through.

We wrote a guide outlining all the steps to join GetYourGuide’s platform here: How to become a GetYourGuide supplier.

Commission Overviews

GetYourGuide takes a commission of 20% to 30% on each tour or activity booked through its platform. They pay about 8% of that to the affiliate who referred the booking.

Expedia Group

Expedia is another goliath in the global travel tech industry — its directory includes millions of hotels, flights, car rentals, vacation packages, and activities. Expedia Group also owns a variety of other sites, including Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

Its affiliate programme lets travel websites, bloggers, agencies, and influencers earn commissions by promoting Expedia experiences. Affiliates receive access to banners, tracking links, widgets, search boxes, API, and white-label booking solutions to promote products from Expedia’s inventory.

For tour operators, Expedia works similarly to Tripadvisor, Viator, and GetYourGuide: operators list products, and affiliates select what they wish to promote — driving bookings through tracked links that generate commissions.

Expedia is free to use for both affiliates and tour operators.

How to Join

Tour operators can join Expedia’s network by completing the application on this page. After you submit your application, an Expedia team member will reach out to let you know if you’re approved.

Once you’re accepted into the programme, you can create product listings and submit them for approval. Expedia uses an algorithm to review listings automatically, so they generally appear on the site within 24 to 48 hours. (If, for some reason, your product is not approved, Expedia will provide feedback on what you need to fix.)

After your products are listed in Expedia’s inventory, affiliates can begin promoting them to their audiences.

Commission Overviews

Tour operators pay Expedia a commission of 15% to 30% per booking. Expedia then pays affiliates about 4% or 6% of this.

Manawa

Manawa is an OTA dedicated to outdoor adventures and excursions; it’s where travellers can book with tour operators offering action-packed, adrenaline-pumping experiences, from bungee jumping and kayaking to hiking, paragliding, and snowmobiling. Overall, Manawa features over 8k activities across 900+ destinations.

Manawa’s affiliate programme is free to join and connects travel bloggers, influencers, and content creators with outdoor activity providers. Affiliates get access to tracking links, promotional tools, and an affiliate dashboard where they can monitor their performance and commissions.

Like the other OTAs in this guide, affiliates can browse Manawa’s inventory and choose which activities to promote based on what fits their audience and content. So once you’re listed on Manawa as a supplier, you’re automatically accessible to their entire affiliate network. Any affiliate can discover your activities and begin promoting them to their followers.

Again, what differentiates Manawa is its focus on outdoor and adventure experiences specifically. If you operate hiking tours, water sports, mountain excursions, or other action-oriented activities, Manawa’s affiliate network is particularly well-suited to your niche. Their affiliates tend to be outdoor enthusiasts and adventure travel bloggers who create content for audiences already interested in these types of experiences.

How to Join

Tour operators can join Manawa by becoming a supplier on their platform. You can sign up through their website to add your outdoor activities and adventure experiences to their marketplace. The application process only takes a few minutes, and once approved by Manawa’s team, your activities go live on the platform.

Once your activities are listed, they become available for Manawa’s network of affiliates to discover and promote.

Commission Overviews

Manawa charges tour operators a commission on every booking earned through the platform, but Manawa’s site does not disclose this fee publicly. You have to contact them to learn more about commission models.

We can see that Manawa affiliates earn 8% to 10% per booking.

Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts is one of the most extensive travel affiliate programmes because it partners with 100+ travel brands — including many of the OTAs we’ve mentioned above: Tripadvisor, Viator, GYG, and Expedia, as well as Klook, Tiqets, Booking.com, Agoda, and many more.

It serves as a centralised solution for content creators (travel bloggers, marketers, social media personalities) to connect with a variety of brands and access a large inventory of products to promote. And it’s entirely free for affiliates to join.

How to Join

Travelpayouts works a bit differently for tour operators — you don’t join the platform directly. Instead, you join the OTAs that Travelpayouts partners with. So by joining some of the names we’ve discussed above, your products are already available for Travelpayouts affiliates.

You can view all of the OTAs that Travelpayouts partners with here (we’ve already filtered the list for tour operators). Then you can pick and choose which sites you want to join.

Commission Overviews

Tour operators pay a commission fee to the OTA where the booking was made (which we’ve covered in the sections above). Out of that commission, affiliates typically earn about 8%.

Getting Started

Now that you’ve seen what’s out there, it’s time to decide which affiliate programmes make sense for your tours.

Some operators join multiple networks to maximise exposure — they list experiences on big OTAs like Viator and GetYourGuide to reach thousands of affiliates (and join Travelpayouts), and work directly with niche bloggers or local partners.

Others prefer a more focused approach, sticking with one or two platforms that align best with their target audiences.

Affiliate marketing creates a win-win situation: tour operators gain access to new customer bases without upfront advertising costs, while affiliates build passive income streams by sharing experiences they genuinely believe in. It’s a performance-based approach that rewards both parties.

If you’re looking for maximum control over your affiliate relationships, Bókun is one of the top affiliate programmes for tour operators. You can partner with anybody you want and negotiate commission rates that work for each partnership. Everything runs through one dashboard where you can track performance, manage payments, and maintain your entire network.

Ready to get started? Redeem your 14-day free trial of Bókun (no credit card required) and see how easy it is to grow your bookings.