Are you considering adding tour affiliate programs to your website? Looking to understand the difference between the Viator and GetYourGuide affiliate programs? Considering Urban Adventures, City Discovery, Eating Europe, or Tour Radar? I put together a table that compares the high level details of each program to help you decide which route to take. I’ve also included more detail below about my own experience with each program. Please note:
- Data current as of June 26th, 2018.
- All currency in USD unless stated otherwise.
- EPC = EPC is a common term used by affiliate programs. According to Commission Junction, EPC is the Average Earnings Per One Hundred Clicks. EPC is a relative rating that illustrates the ability to convert clicks to commissions. It is calculated by taking commissions earned/paid divided by the total number of clicks times 100. I have only provided this figure for those programs that report it.
- If you find any inaccuracies in this table, please contact me.
- Note that SaS below stands for ShareaSale.com.
Tour Affiliate Programs
| Tour company | # of tours | # of countries | Commission | Cookie length | 7 day EPC | Payment terms | Can you control look and feel of display widget? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viator (Direct) | 60,000 | 150+ | 5% | 0 days | Monthly payment minimum of $50. Payment based on customer’s travel date—not purchase date. | Yes, easy to apply design scheme and CSS. | |
| Viator (Share a Sale) | 60,000 | 150+ | 4% | 30 days | $33.12 | SaS monthly payment minimum is $50. | You can control height and width and number of tours through SaS Make a Page. Clunky looking. |
| GetYourGuide | 30,000 | 110 | 8% | 31 days | 5th of each month. 50 GBP/USD/EUR minimum. | You can control number of tours. Very professional looking. | |
| Urban Adventures | 1209 | 97 | 10% | 6 months | Monthly payment minimum is $150. | No widget. | |
| CityDiscovery (SaS) | 8000 | 110 | 8% | 30 days | $38.59 | SaS monthly payment minimum is $50. | You can control height and width and number of tours through SaS Make a Page. Clunky looking. |
| EatingEurope (SaS) | 20 | 5 | 6% | 30 days | $13.18 | SaS monthly payment minimum is $50. | You can control height and width and number of tours through SaS Make a Page. Clunky looking. |
| TourRadar (CJ.com) | 1 million departures | 200 | 5% | 90 days | $73.02 | CJ monthly payment minimum is $50. | No widget. |
| G Adventures (Awin) | 6% | 90 days |
My Experience with Tour Affiliate Programs
Viator Affiliate Program (Direct)
I started out as a Viator affiliate ages ago. I signed up with them directly and made close to zero money. And that’s when I figured out that if you go directly through Viator, there’s no cookie! That means if someone doesn’t purchase their tour immediately after visiting your website, you get nothing. So I decided to remove all the links. Before I move on to Viator via Share a Sale, it’s also important to note that I found the Viator interface clunky — to get the links to tours you wanted, you had to work with this huge spreadsheet. I also found their support to be non-existent. In short, I do not recommend signing up with Viator directly. Keep reading!!
Viator via Share a Sale Affiliate Program
Once I figured out that Viator via Share a Sale had a 30 day cookie, I signed up immediately. I didn’t mind that it was only a 4% commission given the 30 cookie. The Share a Sale interface is so much better than the direct Viator interface. This is an interface that is built for scale! It was really easy to find the tours that I wanted and create links. However, I find the Viator widgets via Share a Sale to be quite ugly and unprofessional looking. (Yes, deep links are better for conversions but still.) In short, I have been pretty happy with Viator via Share a Sale! Sign up for a Share a Sale account here.
GetYourGuide Affiliate Program
I started noticing a lot of websites using GetYourGuide so I signed up and guys, I totally fell in love. The GetYourGuide interface is very easy to navigate and more importantly, you can actually email them and they respond!! I love GetYourGuide. It is still early days but in my first few months, my conversion rate was about 3% which is great. I love the 8% commission and I love the 31 day cookie! In short, GetYourGuide is awesome. My only caution is that I still think the Viator name is more familiar to travelers so I do think there’s some hesitation about booking via GetYourGuide. Update January 2020: I believe GYG is now doing tiered commissions so your experience may vary depending on your traffic volume.
Urban Adventures Affiliate Program
I personally book a ton of Urban Adventures tours when I travel. There’a nice level of consistency. So I was excited to get an Urban Adventures affiliate. I will still always promote Urban Adventures but because they are not in a lot of cities, there’s just a smaller number of sales that you can make. I love that 10% commission and six-month cookie though!
City Discovery Affiliate Program
I unfortunately have not made any money through City Discovery but nor have I spent a lot of time promoting tours from City Discovery. The commission and cookie are very generous so I need to perhaps spend more time on this. City Discovery is also run through Share a Sale, which is quite convenient. Sign up for a Share a Sale account here.
Eating Europe Affiliate Program
Despite Eating Europe only having tours in a few places, I actually managed to make a sale or two from them! They are also run via Share a Sale. I think your target has to be pretty highly concentrated for Eating Europe to work for you but if you blog about food and travel, it’s a great option. Sign up for a Share a Sale account here.
Tour Radar Affiliate Program
Tour Radar is one of my all time favorite websites…I love just dreaming of the places I will go! I can spend hours browsing all the site’s tours. I have CJ.com so I just added Tour Radar there. I added a few links to my website and I seem to have already sold two tours, which was very interesting??!! I almost can’t believe it. I think Tour Radar is a great affiliate to use if you actually book a tour through them.
G Adventures Affiliate Program
Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot about the G Adventures Affiliate Program beyond what I have read online. I do not currently use their platform but I wanted to mention them because they are similar to Tour Radar.
