Managing Promotions in TourCMS

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Where do I find it?

PRODUCTS > TOURS > AGENTS > PROMOTIONS

What does it mean?

GetYourGuide "Deals" are targeted discounts applied to your standard tour prices based on specific booking scenarios. Previously managed manually within the GetYourGuide portal, these promotions can now be controlled via the TourCMS API.

By leveraging this integration, you can automate three primary types of promotions:

• Standard deals: A flat-rate discount applied across the full time range of departures.

• Early bird: Discounts (e.g. 10%) for customers booking at least X days before travel.

• Last minute: Discounts (e.g. 20%) for customers booking within Y days of travel.

Currently, only Get Your Guide uses deals or promotions. However, if another OTA offers them, our system is ready to support it for other agents.

What should I do?

Getting started with Promotions

To enable promotions in TourCMS, please contact our Support team to initiate the internal setup.

Once our team confirms your account is ready, you can begin the implementation process. This is divided into two stages:

1. Initial system configuration: Preparing your account settings.

2. Promotion creation: Building and launching your specific offers.

First configurations

Before creating deals, you must enable the functionality for the relevant channel:

• Navigate to the Channel manager tab > Sale prices, deposit & booking fees and enable the Promotions option.

To access the promotion management interface, navigate to your Tour Agent tab > PROMOTIONS.

Note: This page appears only if you have at least one channel with active promotions and the mapping assistant configured. Contact our Support team here if you do not see this tab.

Once the tab is visible, you can start creating your promotions.

Bucket management

You can create, edit, or delete "Promotion Buckets." These are configured similarly to your standard agent price-by-rate buckets.

To create a bucket, click Create new Bucket and a pop-up window will appear.

Fill in the following fields:

1. Bucket name: Your internal reference for this group (e.g., "Top Agents Promotions" or "GetYourGuide Bucket").

2. Supplier reference (Optional): An optional field to store an ID if this bucket corresponds to one in your own reservation system.

3. Agents: In most cases, select "Selected agents only". You may optionally create one "Default bucket" per tour, which applies to all agents not explicitly placed in another bucket.

4. Selected Agents: If not a default bucket, select the agent(s) this rule applies to. (Note: Each agent can only be added to a maximum of one bucket).

After creating the bucket, use the action buttons to delete or manage buckets and promotions. To edit the bucket, click Manage Bucket.

Creating promotions

Once you have created a bucket, click Manage Promotions to access the creation form. This section allows you to add specific deals and incentives to your buckets.

To configure a new promotion, complete the following fields:

1. Promotion Name: Enter a descriptive title for internal reference, such as ‘Summer Promo’.

2. Promotion Type: Choose from the following options:

• Standard: A regular discount applied to the bucket.

• Early Bird: Offers a discounted rate for customers who book well in advance.

• Last Minute: Provides a reduced price for bookings made shortly before departure.

3. Mapping Type: This allows you to limit the promotion to specific departure types. Note that if the Mapping Assistant is incomplete, an alert will be displayed.

4. Dates Configuration: Define the specific date range during which the promotion will be active.

5. Discount Percentage: Enter the discount value as a positive integer. The system automatically treats this as a percentage reduction; do not enter negative numbers.

6. Maximum Vacancies: Set the maximum number of seats that can be sold under this promotion. Leave this field blank if there is no limit. This field is only used for GetYourGuide (GYG) promotions; for all other OTAs, leave it blank.

For Early Bird and Last Minute deals, a Notice Days field will appear. This defines the eligibility window for the offer:

• Early Bird Example: If you set the notice days to 30, only bookings made 30 days or more before the departure date will qualify. A booking made 29 days before departure would not be eligible.

• Last Minute Example: If you set the notice days to 1, only bookings made within 24 hours of the departure date will qualify.

Once you have finalised the details, click Add Promotion.

You can view and edit your active offers at any time by returning to the Manage Promotions section.

Good to know

Please keep the following operational constraints in mind to ensure a smooth setup:

• Mapping lock: Once a promotion is created, the Tour Mapping Assistant will be locked. If you need to modify your mapping, you must first delete all active promotions for that tour.

• Manual clean-up: We recommend removing any deals manually configured in the GetYourGuide portal before enabling the TourCMS sync to prevent pricing conflicts.

• Synchronisation: Allow for a short propagation delay for changes to reflect on the GetYourGuide marketplace.

Using promotions for API bookings

API Reference: Get Tour Promotions

You can apply TourCMS promotions to bookings created via our API.

When an API booking is created, a list (bucket) of promotions can be sent with the request. Any promotion in that list that is valid for the departure date will be applied to the booking. The applied promotions will be:

• Visible when creating a show booking

• Returned in the booking start response

• Recorded in the booking audit trail

The booking audit trail has been enhanced to show detailed promotion information for each affected component, including:

• Promotions applied – Names of the applied promotions and their individual discount percentages

• Total promotional discount applied – Total discount percentage applied to the component price

• Affected component ID – ID and name of the component where the promotion was applied

• Previous price – Component price before the promotion

• Post‑promotion price – Component price after the promotion

Configuring promotions correctly for API bookings

To ensure promotions work as expected for bookings created via API, make sure that:

• Vacancies are left blank for all promotions that should be usable via API.

• Any promotion type can be used; there is no restriction on promotion types.

• Promotion names and dates are consistent:

  • Do not create two promotions with the same name and overlapping date ranges in the same bucket.

  • This will prevent the system from deciding which one to apply and can cause the booking to fail.

Invalid configuration example (❌):

• Promotion A: same name as Promotion B (GENIUS1), and their date ranges overlap → invalid.

Valid configuration example (✅):

• Promotion A and Promotion B share the same name (GENIUS1), but their date ranges do not overlap → valid.

Understand how dates and notice days work

• Promotion date range applies to the departure date, not the booking date.

  • Example:

    • Booking made on 20‑03‑2026 for a departure on 25‑03‑2026

    • Promotion valid from 17‑03‑2026 to 19‑03‑2026

    • Result: the promotion will not be applied because the departure date (25‑03‑2026) is outside the promotion period.

• Notice days are calculated from the booking date to the departure date.

  • Make sure your promotions’ notice day settings match how far in advance customers usually book.

FAQs