Viator's New Product Acceptance Criteria and Quality Standards, Explained

Our new Product Acceptance Criteria and Quality Standards were designed to help you create products that are desirable to travelers. Check out the details about what they entail and how you can meet them below.

We’re reimagining the future of our business with the goal to position Viator as the marketplace with the highest-quality experiences available for travelers.

In Viator’s 25 years, we’ve gone from a highly-curated selection of tours and activities, to the largest online platform for tours, activities and experiences.

We heard from operators, like you, that this open marketplace created an environment in which it was hard to stand out. Similarly, travelers were overwhelmed by choice.

Looking ahead, we’ll strike a balance between quantity and quality. We’re not reverting to a curated selection of bookable products, but we’ll find a balance between a highly curated shopping experience and an unfettered marketplace.

With our focus on quality in mind, we want to outline the different requirements necessary to publish your product on Viator. From now on, all bookable products must meet Viator’s Product Standards in order to be listed on Viator.

These Product Standards consist of:

Now, let’s discuss the differences between Product Acceptance and Quality, and how it affects you.

The first requirement to meet when listing your product is meeting our Acceptance Criteria.

Once you’ve met the Acceptance Criteria, the next step is to meet our new Product Quality Standards. These quality standards are a transparent and robust set of criteria that will help establish quality benchmarks for all your products listed on Viator.

For us, quality means providing an excellent experience both on and off the site; complete and accurate listings that lead to more bookings, and memorable experiences that lead to great reviews.

Here are some key areas these new standards touch upon:

- A new set of product content standards, such as quality photos, and product descriptors.
- A new set of post-sale operational standards, like courtesy best practices for managing travelers and cancellations.
- More detail on our safety, ethical, and legal standards.

Additionally, there are now two levels of product quality: Good and Excellent. Your product will be considered Good or Excellent depending on the degree to which it meets these standards. To remain active on Viator, your product will have to maintain at least a Good rating.

In the coming months, we will announce exciting new incentives for keeping your product at the Excellent level, so stay tuned for more information.

Here is a snapshot of the standards in an easy-to-digest chart format:

blog_product_standards_cancellation policy_3

The criteria you see above were selected based on data about what leads to more bookings. For instance, products with ten photos have nearly 160% more bookings on average than those with only one photo. And, products with a cut-off time lower than 2 hours saw 50% higher conversion rates than those with a 25-48 hour cut-off time.

You can see more detail on our standards and each criterion here.

We encourage you to review the standards, and align existing and planned products with these standards. If your products don’t meet these updated standards yet, don’t worry. We’ll be in touch over the coming weeks and months to provide guidance on improvements needed and how you can meet these standards.

The world will travel again, and when it does, we can’t wait to connect millions of travelers with the amazing experiences you offer. Research shows that travelers want high-quality products, and when you align with these standards, you’ll be taking a big step towards attracting more travelers and potential bookings.