A new program to help you stand out from the crowd — on your terms, under your control, and where it matters.
Attractions, tours, and experiences receive near-perfect scores from travelers. On average, they’re rated four-and-a-half out of a possible five stars.
You, our operators, delight travelers. You’re behind the stories they’ll tell next month, next year, next decade. You create lifelong memories.
But despite this resonance, it’s hard to stand out. That’s because our industry is large and growing–where travelers once had two or three options for a cooking class, or three or four for a sunset cruise, they now have ten, twenty, or maybe even thirty choices.
Getting noticed? It’s hard. And that’s why we created Viator Accelerate.
Your feedback is our foundation
You asked us for more exposure – and Accelerate is our answer. The program lives to help businesses stand out on their own terms, under their control, and where it matters.
- Accelerate allows high-quality products to reach more travelers. In exchange for raising the commission above the minimum rate by as little as 1%, eligible operators receive more exposure on Viator – and without any upfront costs.
- It delivers highly contextual ads, to a highly-targeted audience of interested and engaged travelers. Display ads show your product to travelers shopping for similar or nearby experiences. The ads are designed to deliver key decision-making information quickly: an image, product name, rating, and price.
- It meaningfully grows bookings. Program participants initially can expect bookings to be 15% higher than they would be without Accelerate – and the benefits may become deeper over time. Our marketing algorithms, including those which determine our sort order, tend to award highly-booked products with greater visibility. This, in turn, delivers even more exposure and bookings. And with our tools and dashboard, you’ll easily be able to track impact.
A boon to bookings
The program first rolled out as a pilot in select North American and European markets in late 2021. While participants can expect to see 15% growth in bookings on average, some early participants saw results far beyond this:
“I am very happy with this new method of promotion and I am convinced that the boost in visibility will be increasingly useful in an expanding market such as Florence. On our own, we have already received good results with a 71% increase in bookings and 32% increase in page views.”
Gray Line of New Orleans also took part in the pilot. Their director of sales and marketing said the program provided an effective, affordable means of gaining exposure:
“With marketing budget cuts, we wouldn’t have been able to put dollars on the front end to get the kind of exposure we’ve gotten from Viator Accelerate.”
Built-in Transparency
Viator is as much a tech company as it is a travel company. That means we have a deep appreciation for transparency and data-based decision-making – and we’ve built that into Accelerate in two ways:
- To determine if the program is right for you, our ‘Visibility Score’ tool provides an indicator of a product’s current visibility relative to its competition on Viator. It helps you understand how Accelerate can grow your product’s exposure.
- To track ongoing impact, we’ve also built the ‘Viator Accelerate Insights’ dashboard. It shares key metrics including visibility, bookings, and page views versus the competition.
We’re empowering operators to opt-in, opt-out, dial-up, or dial-down their participation at any time, and make those decisions based on cold, hard facts.
A partner through it all
We’re excited by the program’s initial success and encouraged by its ongoing performance and positive feedback. Most importantly, we’re remaining attentive and responsive to our operators’ experience and input, ensuring Viator remains a driving force behind their growth.
The last year has taught us that the desire to travel is potent, and the demand for it is relentless. As our industry continues to recover and reshape, this program aims to help great products rise above and get in front of more travelers, more often.
Learn more about your eligibility and how Viator can help your products stand out from the competition.
