The global travel and tourism industry was a $7.6 trillion industry in 2016. Popular travel destinations include France, Spain, the United States, China, Italy, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Here are 10 great tourism affiliate programs to corner some of the massive leisure markets:
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Tourism Affiliate Programs
- Big Bus Tours
- Urban Adventures
- Weekend in Italy
- Be Live Hotels
- Central Park Sightseeing
- Pestana
- Cookly
- Hotelopia
- Eurail
- TripAdvisor
Big Bus Tours
- URL: Big Bus Tours Affiliate Program
- Commission: 10%
- Cookie: 28 days
Big Bus Tours was established in London over 25 years ago and has grown into the world’s largest operator of open-top sightseeing tours. They are currently operating in 20 cities including Paris, Vienna, New York, Dubai, Sydney, and Hong Kong. They also offer complementary experiences like river cruises, entry to local attractions, and walking tours.
Affiliates earn commissions on 18 destinations. Big Bus Tours uses Commission Junction to manage their affiliate program. Affiliates have access to a great selection of marketing materials and tracking tools on their easy to use affiliate dashboard.
Why Should You Promote Big Bus Tours: Largest open-top sightseeing tour operator, in 20 cities around the world, great commission rate
It’s important to note loyalty/cashback affiliates earn 8% commissions and Voucher/Coupon/Discount affiliates earn 5% commissions.
Urban Adventures
- URL: Urban Adventures Affiliate Program
- Commission: 10% on confirmed bookings
- Cookie: 6 months
Urban Adventures is a new style of travel experience for those who like to get off the beaten path and connect with the destination. Experiences can range from a couple of hours to an all-day adventure. They allow tourists to explore interesting places, meet locals, and really discover the culture and environment.
They manage their affiliate program in-house. Urban Adventures provides their affiliates with banners, direct links, embedded links, and white label affiliate options. They automatically send you the link and coding information you need to get started earning great commissions right away.
Why Should You Promote Urban Adventures: Unique travel experiences, in 150+ cities, easy to use marketing materials
Affiliates earn a generous 10% commission rate with an extremely long 6-month cookie life so they can convert more leads.
Weekend in Italy
- URL: Weekend in Italy Affiliate Program
- Commission: 10%
- Cookie: 45 days
Weekend in Italy is a leading ticket site for attractions, museums, special events, and tours throughout Italy. Their primary audience is independent travelers who like to make their own travel arrangements but they also cater to travel agents that resell their services. They offer over 600 service along with free city by city itineraries and travel tips.
Their affiliate program is powered by Commission Junction. Weekend in Italy provides their affiliates with marketing materials like banner ads and text links along with reporting tools. Affiliates are encouraged to reach out to their affiliate partner manager if they have any questions or concerns.
Why Should You Promote Weekend in Italy: Top attraction ticket website, over 600 offers, generous commission rates
Affiliates earn 12% commissions per action for total sales amounts equal to or greater than $1000.
Be Live Hotels
- URL: Be Live Hotels Affiliate Program
- Commission: 6.5%
- Cookie: 30 days
Be Live Hotels is owned by Globalia, Spain’s first tourism company. They have 31 hotels around some of the main tourist destinations in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean area. They have 6 different concepts to fit your needs including experience, city center, adults-only, and family.
Their average booking value is $926 with no seasonal variation. They offer consistent sales throughout the year. Be Live Hotels uses ShareASale to manage their affiliate program. Affiliates have access to creatives, tracking tools, and their data feed to help them promote.
Why Should You Promote Be Live Hotels: Run by Spain’s first tourism company, 31 hotels to promote, very high average order value
Affiliates can promote their luxury hotel experiences that are a good value for the money.
Central Park Sightseeing
- URL: Central Park Sightseeing Affiliate Program
- Commission: 10%
- Cookie: 60 days
Central Park Sightseeing has been the industry leader in Central Park activities and excursions since 2009. They offer activities that help enhance your experience while visiting Central Park. Available services include walking tours, horse carriage rides, bike tours, bike rentals, helicopter tours, and more.
Affiliates can sign up with ShareASale, Commission Junction, or PepperJam. Central Park Sightseeing offers their affiliates a great selection of coupons, offers, text links, banner ads, and product data feeds. They also provide all the tools needed to get started including a professional affiliate manager to answer any questions.
Why Should You Promote Central Park Sightseeing: Top Central Park activities and excursions, lots of different experiences, frequent offers, and coupons.
Affiliates can promote their services anytime they write about New York City tourism.
Pestana
- URL: Pestana Affiliate Program
- Commission: 6%
- Cookie: 30 days
Pestana is the largest Portuguese tourism and leisure, group. They have more than 90 hotels in 15 countries across Europe, America, and Africa. Their facilities include 4-5 star hotels, beach resorts, all-inclusive hotels, city hotels, luxury hotels, and more. They also offer a large selection of activities like golf, fishing, safari, horse riding, nightlife, and more.
Their average order value is $744. Pestana uses ShareASale to manage their affiliate program. Affiliates have access to their portfolio of over 90 hotels, a wide variety of marketing materials, and reporting tools.
Why Should You Promote Pestana: 4 brands to promote, over 90 hotels, large average order value
Affiliates earn a very generous commission rate with high average order values and no seasonal variation.
Cookly
- URL: Cookly Affiliate Program
- Commission: 5-10% based on destination
- Cookie: 45 days
Cookly is the leading cooking class booking platform. They offer more than 500 cooking classes in over 50 culinary destinations around the world and counting. The culinary tourism industry increases by 7% each year. Their sales alone have grown by 1200% since 2015.
Their average basket size is $100. Cookly uses Commission Junction to manage their affiliate program. They provide their affiliates with a great selection of creatives and marketing tools on CJ’s easy to use affiliate dashboard.
Why Should You Promote Cookly: Top booking platform for cooking classes, over 500 classes around the world, fast-growing culinary tourism industry product
Cookly has been featured on Lonely Planet, Travel + Leisure, Tasting Table, and other media outlets which have helped increase their brand awareness.
Hotelopia
- URL: Hotelopia Affiliate Program
- Commission: 7.5%
- Cookie: 30 days
Hotelopia is one of the top online travel agencies. They offer reservations for hotels, transfers, and tickets to activities. They currently offer bookings for over 60,000 hotels in 7,500 destinations around the world. All of their hotel listings include detailed descriptions, information, images, customer reviews, and maps to learn more about the area.
Affiliates can sign up for the Hotelopia affiliate program on ShareASale. They provide marketing tools like banner, logos, widgets, text links, API with XML connectivity, CSV static feeds, and deep links. Hotelopia also provides white-label opportunities for some partners.
Why Should You Promote Hotelopia: Top travel agency, over 60,000 hotels, great selection of marketing tools
It’s important to note they only accept incentivized traffic from cashback and loyalty/reward affiliates.
Eurail
- URL: Eurail Affiliate Program
- Commission: 3%
- Cookie: 30 days
Eurail offers a range of discounted train passes to Non-European train travelers. They sell approximately 100,000 passes each year with U.S. sales making up around 60% of the total passes. Travelers can choose from 1st or 2nd class along with a range of different passes.
Their average order value is $750. Eurail uses Awin to manage their affiliate program. They provide their affiliates with optimized marketing tools like banners, text links, widgets, along with reporting tools to track their sales and commissions.
Why Should You Promote Eurail: #1 Rail Pass, high average order, optimized marketing tools
TripAdvisor
- URL: TripAdvisor Affiliate Program
- Commission: 50%
- Cookie: Session
TripAdvisor is a trusted source for travel advice. They are the world’s largest travel community. Users can access over 600 million reviews along with travel listings that cover approximately 7.7 million accommodations, experiences, restaurants, and airlines. They also compare prices from 200+ hotel booking sites to help travelers find the lowest prices on the right hotel for them.
They use Commission Junction to power their affiliate program. Affiliates have access to great marketing tools like real-time reporting and deep linking to more than 500,000 hotel/city pages. TripAdvisor is constantly adding new products and promotions to help increase conversion rates.
Why Should You Promote TripAdvisor: World’s leading travel site, continuous product launches, lots of new promotions
Affiliates earn at least 50% commissions on the revenue generated from commerce links or ads throughout their site.
Affiliate Website Ideas
Now that you’ve discovered 10 great tourism affiliate programs, it’s time to pick a tourism niche to focus on. You could target bus tours, Big Bus Tours offers open-top sightseeing tours and experiences in 20 cities. Affiliates earn 10% commission on sales.
Day tours are another niche idea for people looking for things to do in the city they are staying in. Urban Adventures offers day trips for people looking to get off the beaten track and experience the local culture. They offer 10% on all confirmed bookings.
You could also target culinary tourism. Cookly offers more than 500 cooking classes in 50+ culinary destinations around the world. Affiliates earn 5-10% commissions based on the destination.
There are really an infinite amount of niches out there that you could target under the umbrella of tourism. My advice is to think about WHO you want to make your website for, instead of WHAT you want to promote.
Boost Your Affiliate Earnings
These 10 affiliate programs are just the beginning of what's possible. There are hundreds of ways to earn affiliate commissions with your website, including product reviews, top 10 lists, how-to guides, and more
But what about traffic and conversions? How do you make sure your affiliate links get clicked?
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Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. My name is Nathaniell and I'm the owner of One More Cup of Coffee. I started my first online business in 2010 promoting computer software and now I help newbies start their own businesses. Sign up for my #1 recommended training course and learn how to start your business for FREE!
How To Start A Travel Blog
Muhibul
I find very few people are talking so intellegently and you put all the good opportunities about travel affiliate sites. I was searching to learn & starting my own travel affiliate website. Your guide on this topic helped me to learn some solid thing about travel affiliate program. Thanks Nathaniell!
Nathaniell
You’re welcome Muhibul
Cody C.
Hey Nathaniell,
Thanks for putting this awesome list of tourism affiliates together. Lots of great knowledge.
Gray Line also just launched an affiliate program for their sightseeing and tours as well.
https://www.grayline.com/affiliateinfo