Viator (article)

www.viator.com

Overview

Viator, a TripAdvisor company, is one of the world's largest distributors of tours & activities. They contract directly with Suppliers for their offerings on Viator.com and their other websites.

If you are not currently a Viator Supplier, please complete Viator's New Supplier Survey and enter TourCMS under the reservation system section. Viator will review your submission and reply as appropriate if they are interested in adding your offerings to Viator.

The TourCMS connection to Viator:

• Gives Viator access to your TourCMS availability
  When you close a date/time in TourCMS, it automatically closes on Viator
• Enables Viator to ask TourCMS "Can we sell XYZ on this date"?
  If TourCMS says no, Viator won't sell it
• Receives bookings from Viator into TourCMS
  No more entering bookings yourself manually. This also immediately reduces your remaining availability on that date

Tour descriptions, images, prices, and contract terms are not handled by Viator API at this time and so are not impacted by this TourCMS/Viator capability.

Note: TourCMS works with Viator using departures (in TourCMS), not freesale or hotel product types.

In more detail

Voucher redemption

The TourCMS voucher redemption validation tool (within the operational TourCMS ipad app) can scan Viator vouchers and confirm validity.

Pickups

Viator does not send the time of selected hotel pickup so we have to currently bring a pickup as a pickup request rather than mapped to a route & time. This will likely be reviewed (by TourCMS and Viator) in the future.

An alternative, if you have a short list of hotel pickups, is that you can use tour grades; one tour grade per pickup point. These pickup points can have times. Probably only useful if you have five or fewer hotel pickup locations.

Cancellation

In most cases where Viator cancels a booking it will be automatically cancelled in TourCMS, TourCMS will also email/SMS any staff configured to receive booking cancellations.

In some edge cases Viator Customer Service staff may still choose to send cancellations separately, additionally, some legacy Viator systems are unable to send cancellations via API. In these situations, Viator will send a cancellation notice via email which will need to be handled manually.

A booking cancelled in TourCMS does NOT automatically cancel in Viator. Please contact Viator customer services to initiate a cancellation and customer refund.

Adding & removing dates

Viator check every 12 hours for newly created/newly opened dates however a closing date in TourCMS immediately takes it offsale on Viator.

Viator only tours

Tours set to Private in TourCMS can be mapped in Viator as with any other tour, there is no difference. This means you can have a tour bookable on Viator that is not in the TourCMS API.

Importantly, this means that it is not possible to switch a tour off on Viator simply by setting it to "Private" in TourCMS, instead you should contact Viator and amend the mapping.

Troubleshooting

To see more information on exactly what Viator are sending go to the Audit trail on a booking in TourCMS, there you can see the full XML that Viator sent.

Setup

Project process

1. You have a commercial deal with Viator to distribute your products via them (See information about becoming a new supplier, above).
2. Set up your products on the Viator Supplier extranet
3. Contact Palisis support (support@palisis.com) saying you wish to route to Viator via TourCMS. If you have multiple channels please do also state which channel you would like to use.
4. TourCMS will request your API key from Viator Sydney office (not market managers) and advise you an Invite code to connect your channel to Viator in the TourCMS Marketplace.
5. Map your products on Viator Supplier Extranet to TourCMS

Important notes

Channel choice impacts:

• Tour list (the tours Viator are selling)
• Bookings will come in via this channel
• Prices (when Viator start to take prices)

Exchange rate: Do ensure that there is an exchange rate configured in TourCMS for the currency that you agreed on commercials with Viator. i.e. if you have agreed on terms in USD but you are trading in EUR, TourCMS needs to know your desired USD to EUR exchange rate

Travel agent connection: The bulk of the connection will be configured by TourCMS support, however you must ensure you leave the Viator agent as a Trusted travel agent so bookings come in immediately confirmed.

Email

• Tour operator notifications (sent to you) - When Viator turn on sending to receive new bookings via API, they will no longer send new booking notifications to you via email. Add your email address to the Viator configuration screen (In TourCMS) to receive an email that is similar to the one Viator previously sent. Or if you just want the booking to appear in TourCMS (no notification), leave the field blank. NOTE all regular TourCMS notifications (flags) can be set just like any other bookings - e.g. SMS, Email, Flag - however that functionality does not distinguish between a Viator and a non Viator booking.
• Customer notifications (sent to your customers) - TourCMS has globally turned off the Viator travel agent from sending new booking notification emails TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. This is because Viator will send an email to your customers (sent via their own system), rather than you, and we don't want the customer to receive two emails at the same time.