GetYourGuide and Viator are the largest marketplaces for experiences and activities in the world. For many activity businesses, they represent a vital sales channel, especially for reaching international guests.
But selling through these platforms involves more than listing a product and waiting for bookings. Here is what you need to know.
What is OTA distribution?
OTA stands for Online Travel Agency. These are platforms that sell travel and experience products on behalf of operators. GetYourGuide and Viator are the two largest in the experiences segment.
When you connect to an OTA, they display your products to millions of travellers. You get access to a global audience that would be difficult to reach on your own. In return, you pay a commission per booking, usually between 20 and 30 percent.
The technical backbone for most OTA connections in this industry is the OCTO API, a standardised protocol that handles product data, availability checks and booking confirmations between your system and the marketplace. When your booking platform supports OCTO natively, connecting to a new OTA becomes a configuration step rather than a development project. That matters when you want to test a new channel quickly without spending weeks on custom integration work.
Why it is worth it
Say you run a RIB safari in Lofoten. Norwegian guests might find you through Google or local tourist offices. But the tourist from Germany planning her trip? She searches on GetYourGuide.
OTAs give you visibility where the customers actually are. They handle marketing, payment and often customer support. For many activity businesses, OTA bookings account for 30 to 50 percent of revenue during peak season.
There is also a compounding effect. GetYourGuide and Viator use algorithms that reward operators with strong reviews and consistent availability. The more bookings you fulfil successfully, the higher you rank in search results on those platforms. That means early momentum matters. An operator who starts with well-structured product listings and accurate real-time availability can climb the rankings faster than competitors who list products but leave availability management to chance.
The big challenge: overbooking
Here is where the problem comes in. You sell through your own website, through GetYourGuide, through Viator and maybe through a local partner. All channels have access to the same capacity.
Without a central system that syncs availability in real time, you risk selling more seats than you have. This is not a hypothetical problem. It happens. And it is expensive, both in money and reputation.
Imagine you have a 12-seat RIB safari at 14:00. Eight seats sell on your website, and moments later Viator confirms four more. That fills the boat. But if GetYourGuide still shows four seats available because the sync is delayed, you could end up with 16 confirmed guests for 12 seats. Now someone has to be cancelled, refunded and apologised to. Platforms penalise operators who cancel confirmed bookings, so repeated overbookings can push you down in search rankings and cost you future revenue.
Manual vs. automatic syncing
Some operators solve this manually. They log into GetYourGuide after every booking and adjust availability. That works at low volume, but it is time-consuming and error-prone.
A better solution is a booking system with direct integrations to the OTAs. When a booking comes in, regardless of channel, availability is updated automatically everywhere. Product information, prices and capacity stay in sync without you lifting a finger.
The difference becomes obvious during peak season. An operator running three daily departures with bookings coming from four different channels might process 50 to 80 bookings per day. Updating availability manually after each one takes two to three minutes per booking. That adds up to over two hours of pure admin work daily, time better spent greeting guests or planning tomorrow. Automatic syncing eliminates that entire task and reduces the chance of human error to near zero.
What to look for in an integration
Real-time syncing: Availability should update immediately, not with a delay.
Two-way data flow: Bookings from the OTA should appear in your system automatically, with all necessary guest information.
Pricing control: You should be able to set different prices per channel without having to do it manually on each platform.
Per-channel reporting: You need to know where bookings are coming from and what each channel costs you.
How OTA distribution affects your resource management
OTA distribution is not just about selling more tickets. It affects your entire operation. Every booking that comes in through GetYourGuide or Viator claims real resources: guides, boats, equipment and your time slots. Without a direct link between your OTA bookings and your resource management, you risk the system accepting bookings you do not have the capacity to deliver.
A concrete example: you have two RIBs and three guides available on a Saturday. The morning tour is fully booked through direct sales. If your OTA is not connected to your resource management, it may still show available seats because it only counts seats, not available guides or boats. The result is an overbooking caused not by a lack of seats, but by a lack of staff.
The best booking systems solve this by letting OTA availability be driven by actual resources. When a guide reports an absence, capacity is automatically reduced across all channels simultaneously. That gives you confidence that everything you sell can actually be delivered. For more on how this fits together, see our guide to online booking.
Optimise your channels with data
Being visible on multiple OTAs is just the starting point. The real value lies in understanding which channels are actually profitable. Not all bookings are worth the same after commission, processing fees and customer support costs are deducted.
With good per-channel reporting, you can compare net revenue from GetYourGuide against Viator and direct sales. You might discover that GetYourGuide delivers more bookings, but Viator has a higher average order value because customers more frequently book for entire groups. This insight lets you adjust pricing, allocate more capacity to the most profitable channels and invest your marketing budget more wisely.
A common strategy among experienced operators is to use OTAs to fill the off-season and remaining capacity, while prioritising direct sales during peak season for better margins. With a system that gives you a full overview of all features, you can make these decisions based on numbers rather than gut feeling.
Get started without losing control
OTA distribution is not something to fear. It is an opportunity. But it requires that you have a system that keeps up with your bookings.
Start with one channel. Set up an integration that syncs automatically. When you see it working, expand to more. The most important thing is that you always have one place showing your actual availability, regardless of where the booking came from.
A practical first step: pick the OTA where your target audience is strongest. If most of your international guests come from Germany, the UK or the US, GetYourGuide is a natural starting point. Connect it through your booking system, run it for a few weeks and review the data. Look at conversion rates, average booking value and how the commission compares to your own acquisition costs. Once you have a baseline, adding Viator or a regional partner becomes a much more informed decision.