GetYourGuide vs Viator: Which OTA Is Better To Grow Your Business

If OTAs have their place in your sales channels, you might be weighing up your options between GetYourGuide vs Viator.

Both marketplaces are well-known and offer real opportunities to grow your tour business and reach more customers. They have large customer bases and are a trusted source of tours and experiences all over the world. 

So, which one is better to help you connect your offerings to more travelers?

We have done a GetYourGuide vs Viator comparison to help you understand which marketplace might work for your company. With the right information, you can focus your efforts on the platform that best supports your sales strategy. 

GetYourGuide Overview

GetYourGuide is an online platform where you can sell your tours to travelers who are looking for experiences all over the world. 

The platform works with professionals and businesses that offer single and multi-day tours, attraction tickets, transfers, city cards, and memorable travel experiences.

Travelers trust the platform and can use it to book tours in advance or on the spot. They can filter the recommendations and search for specific activities to match their interests and travel dates. 

When selling on GetYourGuide, they will promote and distribute your tours to their partner network. Plus, if your business has received eco-awards from an approved agency, they will promote it on their site as part of their mission to support responsible tourism.

Viator Overview

Owned by Tripadvisor, Viator is a massive online marketplace that offers more than 354,000 bookable experiences. 

Travelers can book your experiences directly from Tripadvisor, Viator, or their partner sites. That gives you a potential reach of approximately 455 million website visitors. 

Just like GetYourGuide, Viator helps travelers find tours and experiences that match their interests in their location. 

One of the benefits of using Viator to sell your tours is getting a free listing on Tripadvisor. You can use this to collect traveler reviews and build your online reputation.

GetYourGuide vs Viator: OTA Reviews & Comparison

Now, we’re going to run through some considerations that might impact your decision to sell on the platforms. This should give you a good feel for both Viator vs GetYourGuide. 

Platform Fees and Commissions

Both platforms charge a commission for every tour booked and are priced relatively similarly. In general, you can expect to pay between 20 to 30% of your sales price to them.  

Looking at this in more detail, on Viator, you pay a 20% standard commission. 

When creating your listing, you have to advertise your lowest price to not undercut them on your website. And as of August 1st, 2021, there is also a $29 product quality review fee to pay for each new listing. 

According to the President of Viator, this fee is to cover the cost of having a team member review the listing as part of quality control. They also work with the tour operators to make the listing as good as it can be. 

You might fare better with GetYourGuide as you can negotiate the fees you pay. Your Account Manager will set your charges based on location, booking volume, and type of activities that you offer. 

Partner Networks

When comparing GetYourGuide vs Viator, it’s worth considering the size of their respective partner networks. These consist of resellers who promote and distribute your products to their own audience, giving your tours a wider reach. 

GetYourGuide has approximately 30,000 partner agents.

While Viator has a network of around 175,000 travel agents across the globe. 

As you can see, the latter can distribute your tours to a larger customer base, offering the potential for more bookings. 

There is also Viator’s connection to Tripadvisor to consider. Thousands of travelers visit TripAdvisor to read reviews, which it can then direct to Viator.

Receiving Audience

A major consideration between GetYourGuide vs Viator is the audience that each platform serves. You want to make sure that your tours are seen by the right people and not just a lot of people. 

While both platforms do operate around the globe, each attracts traffic from specific countries. Depending on where your ideal client is from, this might impact which one you list on. 

Viator’s top traffic currently comes from the U.S. (47%) and the U.K. (6%). Then Spain, Canada, and Germany each make up 4% of its traffic.

On GetYourGuide, those figures are the U.S. (41%), U.K. (8%), Germany (5%), Canada (4%), and Spain (2%).

These fluctuate, so it’s worth checking in on the current figures which you can access in the links above. 

Also to consider is that Baby Boomers and Gen X tend to use OTAs the most for trip planning. Plus, research shows that Baby Boomers are also the most active on review sites, such as TripAdvisor. This means you might get more traction selling on online marketplaces if your target audience is one of those generations.  

Additional Policies

When comparing GetYourGuide vs Viator, you’ll need to understand each platform's additional policies before listing. 

Neither one offers liability coverage, so you will need to hold the correct insurance to protect travelers, your guides, and your business.

When it comes to cancellations, most listings on GetYourGuide have a 24-hour full-refund policy for cancellations. This could be a good reason for people to book tours through GetYourGuide. But, it could also result in more cancellations or inconvenient last-minute changes for your business. 

Viator provides several cancellation policies but recommends implementing the standard 100% refund at least 24 hours in advance for the best customer experience. 

Other policies include an all sales final with no refund policy. There are also moderate and strict policies that allow full refunds either four or seven days in advance, respectively. 

Final Thoughts

So, out of GetYourGuide vs Viator, which one comes out as the winner? 

Ultimately, this depends on your tour operator business and target audience. 

A sales strategy usually includes experimentation and optimization to see what works, so you can always try them both out to see which is a better fit for your brand.