A
Affiliate Partner
A partner using the v1 or v2 API to display Viator products and availability. Unlike merchant partners, affiliate partners send their users to viator.com to make a booking, where traffic and bookings are tracked for 30 days via an attribution cookie. Affiliate partners earn a percentage of each booking.
Age band
Age bands categorize travelers by age. For example, a museum tour may have separate rates for adults and children. Age bands and passenger mix are set on a per product basis, meaning that they will have different definitions across different products. For example, product A may define an adult as a person aged 18-60, while product B considers an adult to be aged 12-99.
All sales final
Products in this category cannot be canceled or amended without incurring a 100% penalty; i.e., the refund amount will be zero. Around 10% of products fall into this category.
Attraction
A major tourist attraction, such as a museum, public square, or geographic landmark. In Viator’s taxonomy, attractions are located within destinations, and always include geospatial coordinates.
Please note that in the context of Viator’s partner APIs, ‘destination‘, ‘location‘, and ‘attraction’ each have distinct definitions.
Availability schedule
A structured outline of the future availability of a product. Availability schedules are composed of one or more ‘seasons’, each of which describes the availability and pricing for a product for a particular period of time.
B
Bookable item
A ‘bookable item’ is a specific tour or activity session that is uniquely identified by the combination of its product code, product-option name, departure date, and start time (if applicable).
Booking date
The date on which a booking is made (not the date on which the tour or activity operates).
Breadcrumb
Clickable navigation aid displayed on the search-results and product-display pages designed to inform users as to their location on the platform. Breadcrumbs typically include a location and/or category hierarchy.
C
Cancellation policy
The policy governing refunds if a booking of a given product is cancelled. There are three cancellation policies: standard, all sales final, and custom.
Custom cancellation policy
A non-standard cancellation policy designed by the tour operator themselves. Custom cancellation policies typically offer partial refunds where the amount refunded depends on how much time remains before the start of the tour or activity.
D
Destination
The city, region, or country in which a product or set of products operates. Locations always include geospatial coordinates. Some products may be related to multiple destinations.
Please note that in the context of Viator’s partner APIs, ‘destination’, ‘location‘, and ‘attraction‘ each have distinct definitions.
F
Freesale
Legacy term for ‘instant confirmation‘ products.
I
Instant confirmation
As long as there is availability, bookings made to instant confirmation products will be accepted instantly, with no input from the tour operator needed. This means that the traveler should receive their voucher as soon as the booking is made.
Formerly known as “freesale” products.
See also: manual confirmation products.
L
Location
In the context of the Viator Partner API, a “location” is a location in a geospatial sense, identified by its location reference code, which can be used to retrieve metadata about the location from the Viator Partner API or Google’s Places API.
Please note that in the context of Viator’s partner APIs, ‘destination‘, ‘location’, and ‘attraction‘ each have distinct definitions.
M
Manual confirmation
Manual confirmation products are those that only operate at the discretion of the supplier, who must confirm or reject each booking request manually. Once a booking requested is made, it will remain in a ‘pending’ state until actioned by the supplier or the time-out period (72 hours) is exceeded. The customer is only charged once confirmation is received.
See also: instant confirmation products
Merchant Agent Partner
Merchant Agent partners are identical to Merchant partners, but are invoiced the recommended retail rate minus a percentage in commission. This should be considered a specialty partner type for a small minority of partners whose accounting systems happen to be more amenable to this model.
Merchant Partner
An API partner using the v1 or v2 API to display and book Viator products as the merchant of record. Merchant partners own the customer relationship; i.e., the partner takes full responsibility for all financial records and transactions carried out by their users, as well as providing customer support with regard to providing general assistance, processing cancellations and refunds, and liaising between suppliers and customers when the need to communicate arises.
Merchant total price
The amount that Viator will invoice a merchant partner for a given booking, including the transaction fee.
N
Net rate (merchant net rate)
The amount that Viator will invoice a merchant partner for a given booking, excluding the transaction fee.
O
On request
Legacy term for ‘manual confirmation‘ products.
P
Passenger mix
The number of passengers in the group and their respective ages for which a booking or enquiry about a potential booking is made.
Also referred to as “pax mix”
Product detail page (PDP)
the PDP shows all product details for a single product, and allows users to check product availability, choose a bookable item, add it to their shopping cart and proceed to the checkout page.
Sometimes referred to as a “product description page.”
Product
An experience (tour or activity) that is bookable with Viator and has its own Product Display Page (PDP) on the Viator site. Each product may comprise slightly different variants (product options) that encompass different start times, classes of accommodation, itineraries, food provisions (e.g. with or without lunch), or any other difference relevant to the experience.
R
Real-time availability
Real-time availability stands in contrast to the availability schedule in that it reflects the actual availability of the bookable item in the present moment for the passenger group intending to make a booking. A bookable item may be available according to its availability schedule, but unavailable in terms of real-time availability; for example, on account of having sold out.
Recommended retail rate
The price of a bookable item on the Viator.com site. This price is communicated via the API, and merchant partners are encouraged to charge users this price.
S
Search results page (SRP)
The SRP shows a list of products that match the given search criteria. On the Viator site, SRPs include options to filter search results, as well as suggestions for similar products.
Standard cancellation policy
Products that adhere to this category of cancellation policy can be canceled up to 24 hours before the travel date (local supplier time) and a full refund will be issued to the customer. However, a 100% cancellation penalty applies for cancellations submitted less than 24 hours before the start time. Most products (about 85%) fall into this category.
T
Tag
Each product is categorized according to its content, features or theme via a tagging method for each attribute. These attributes are referred to as ‘tags’ and each one has a corresponding numeric identifier by which it is referred to in the API. Most products have multiple tags. Tags are only available in version 2 of the Viator Partner API and replace the category hierarchy used in version 1 of the API.
Tour grade
Legacy term for “product option.”
Travel date
The date on which a booked experience takes place.
Tripadvisor Reviews
Reviews of a given product submitted by Tripadvisor users as opposed to Viator customers. Tripadvisor reviews may be submitted by users of the site in general, not just those who have purchased a particular experience. Therefore, Tripadvisor reviews are considered unverified compared to Viator reviews, which require the reviewer to have purchased the product that is the subject of the review.
V
V1 API
Version 1 of the Viator Partner API, which is used by partners who began developing their API implementation prior to the release of, and are yet to migrate to, the v2 API.
V2 API
Version 2 of the Viator Partner API, which was initially released to merchant partners in Q4 of 2019. It is the latest iteration of Viator’s Partner API solution.
VAPI
Internal shorthand name and acronym for the Viator API (v1 API)
Viator branded affiliate (VBA)
This term refers to the type of affiliate account used by partners implementing the v1 API for affiliates
Viator Reviews
Reviews of a given product submitted by Viator users who have booked and experienced said product. Viator reviews are submitted by users who have realized a booking of the product in question and are thus considered verified.
See all: Tripadvisor reviews
Voucher
The ticket which the traveler will present to the tour operator. Different tour operators may accept paper and/or electronic vouchers. To ensure tour operators recognize partner bookings as valid, partners may not change elements of the vouchers outside of what can be customized through API requests or on the partner account.
VPP
Short for “Viator Partner Program.”