How do partners send me booking requests?
Booking partners such as DMCs, travel agencies, tour operators and hotels can find you and send you booking requests through their partner portal. Here is how partners find you, the three types of requests you can receive, and how to reply.
✨ Key Takeaways
Partners find you by place, date, start time, duration and language.
You can receive three types of requests: Apply & Select, First come, first served and Direct booking.
All requests land under Bookings, in the Pending tab. You also get them by email, and on WhatsApp if you have turned that on.
You can receive partner requests before you have connected your bank account. Partners can pay you by invoice.
How partners find you
Partners have two ways to book guides:
Create a request: the partner sets the place, date, language, start time and duration, and offers their own price. You show up if you have added that place to your profile, for example in a tour, in your Custom Tours or in your location settings.
Book a guide: the partner books you at your own price. This is based on the durations you offer in Custom Tours. If you offer 3-hour Custom Tours, partners looking for a guide for 3 hours can see you and your price. To show up here, you need to activate Custom Tours.
Partners can also browse guide profiles and book your Signature Tours. Those show up as direct bookings.
💡 Not connected to Stripe yet? Logged-in partners can still find you and send you requests. Your profile is then marked Invoice only, which means the partner pays you by invoice.
Where you find your requests
All requests start on your Bookings page. A number next to Bookings shows when a request needs your attention. You also receive requests by email, with a link to your dashboard, and on WhatsApp if you have enabled it. You can apply to a request directly from WhatsApp.
Open the Pending tab to see your requests. You can see which partner sent the request and click their profile to read about them. Click More details to see everything, including the meeting point, a map, notes and the payment method.
The three types of booking requests
Apply & Select
The partner invites several guides to apply and then chooses who gets the job. Partners often use this when they want to compare experience, special interests, ratings or price.
Apply to the request if you want the job.
You get a notification when the partner has decided, whether you were selected or not.
Your application stays in Pending until the partner decides. You can withdraw it at any time before you are selected, for example if you get another booking in the meantime. Once you withdraw, the partner cannot select you for that job.
First come, first served
Marked in purple. The request goes to several guides, and the first guide to accept gets the job. Partners use this when they need a guide quickly, for example for a last-minute booking.
Accept as soon as you can if you want the job.
You get an instant message telling you whether you got the job or someone was faster.
Direct booking
The request is sent only to you. You can accept or decline it. If you decline, the partner goes back to search for another guide.
Your price or theirs?
Requests made with Create a request use the partner's price. Requests made with Book a guide use your own price. Both can be sent as Apply & Select or First come, first served, and the request clearly shows whose price it is.
Apply & Select and First come, first served requests go to several guides at once. That can be two guides or hundreds, depending on how many match the place, date, time, language and other filters. Direct bookings go only to you.
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