Channel manager (OTAs)

One calendar for every channel

Selling on marketplaces brings travellers you would never reach alone, but each marketplace has its own calendar. Update one and forget another, and two people turn up for the last seat. The Channel manager keeps one calendar in Tourtify. Every sale, hold and change is pushed out to your channels, and their bookings take seats under the same locks as your direct sales, so seats never oversell across channels.

It connects to GetYourGuide and Viator through their supplier APIs, and to resellers that use OCTO, the open standard for tours and activities, such as Klook, Headout, Tiqets, Musement, Civitatis and KKday. Each reseller enables the OCTO connection on their side. The plugin is available from the Growth plan.

Controlling what each channel can sell

Each connection has its own inventory rules. A buffer keeps some seats away from a channel entirely. An allotment caps how many it can sell. A cut-off stops it selling close to departure; the stricter of the tour's and the channel's cut-off applies. Say a departure has 16 seats, 6 are already sold and you set a buffer of 2 and an allotment of 6 for a reseller: it can sell at most 6 of the 10 left, and never the last 2.

You map each tour option to the channel's product and its traveller types to the channel's categories (adult, child and so on); Tourtify suggests mappings. You can push prices or not, pause a connection or disconnect it. Every change is recorded in the audit log, and anything that changes what a channel may sell is pushed straight away. If you switch the plugin off, every channel is told the departures are closed, so nothing is sold that Tourtify can't see.

Channels hold seats in their cart before confirming. Set how long, 30 minutes by default; GetYourGuide always gets at least 15.

Money and reporting

Commission is recorded on each booking. Under the commission model the channel sells at your price and keeps a percentage. Under the net model it pays the net it reports, or your price less the agreed percentage when it reports none. A $100 sale at 25% commission is recorded as $100 revenue, $75 owed by the channel and $25 commission as an expense. A cancellation or change moves both to the new amounts.

The channel report shows bookings, travellers, what travellers paid, commission kept, net owed and cancellations per channel, beside your own website and staff sales, so the real cost of each channel is plain. A health view shows pushes, inbound requests and open problems for the last 24 hours.

Marketplaces without an API connection

Some marketplaces have no supplier API for small operators, or a connection may not be live yet. For these, forward their booking emails to your Inbox address. Tourtify reads booking and cancellation emails from GetYourGuide, Viator, Klook, Airbnb Experiences and Booking.com attractions, finds the tour, departure and travellers, and makes the booking so the seats are held. Anything it can't place with confidence stays in the Inbox with the reason, never as a guessed booking.

Because you have to close dates in those marketplaces by hand, Tourtify emails the owners when a departure sells out anywhere, and again when seats come back. A few times a day it also checks each connection: carts that were never confirmed are expired, and a channel booking you cancelled in Tourtify while the channel still shows it is flagged for you to cancel there too.

Setting up Channel manager (OTAs)

1. 1Turn on the Channel manager. Switch the plugin on from Plugins (Growth plan and above).
2. 2Connect a channel. Open Channels and connect GetYourGuide, Viator or an OCTO reseller.
3. 3Set the commercial terms. Choose the commission or net model and the agreed percentage.
4. 4Set inventory rules. Add a buffer, an allotment and a cut-off where you need them.
5. 5Map your tour options. Link each option to the channel's product and its traveller types to the channel's categories.
6. 6Forward emails from other marketplaces. Send booking emails from marketplaces without a connection to your Inbox address.