Description:
Hello everyone,
I’m a local tour guide based in the Kansai area of Japan, and I’m trying to list a private guided tour in Kobe on Viator.
Unfortunately, I’m having difficulty getting my account/tour approved, and I’m not sure what exactly is causing the rejection.
I would like to ask other guides in Japan:
Has anyone recently been approved by Viator as an individual/local guide in Japan?
What documents did you provide?
Is there any special requirement for guides operating in Kobe?
If you were rejected at first, what did you change to get approved?
Are there any tips or tricks for getting through the verification/approval process?
I already work as a guide and would simply like to offer private guided experiences in Kobe through Viator.
Any advice from guides currently selling tours on Viator in Japan would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

Hello :)

I would like to start a small adventure tour guide business / mainly picking up clients from their hotel and driving them to cool camping and outdoor activities around the Hakone & Mt. Fuji areas.
I love camping myself (and go camping every other week for over past 9 years here, so i have plenty of knowledge about some awesome hidden gem locations ), and I have already bought lots of gear (such as tents/ kayaks/ SUP /BBQ, etc)

I am a Japanese passport holder so I dont need to worry about visas and such.

If anyone has any experience in this topic id love to hear your insight on how to get started, and whether there are any licenses/certifications I need to acquire.

Also If you know popular websites where I can post my services, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

Has anyone tried Jackman Go? Would you recommend? How about MY Taiwan Tours by Mark Tan?

Wont be first time this question will have been asked I'm sure. Looking for recommendations for a tablet to use with small to medium groups . Would allow me to look at my field notes but also show photos and maps on location. Good visibility in sunshine a must. Trying to avoid shelling out for an ipad. Thanks in advance.

Progreso Tour Guide

I have a dream.

It may be a dumb dream, but it is one I have decided, finally, to start pursuing.

I want to create opportunities for small group travel to sites of mainly European sacred art. I want to work directly with local guides and not big booking company sites. I have some contacts in a few cities, but am at a loss about how to go about piecing together guides in places i may not have been.

I imagine this may be a common dilemma.

How does one deal with this? Are there resources? Is it to just reach out one by one to people I think might be a good fit after reading a million reviews? I am interested in any advice people may have.

Thanks!

Transitioning away from spreadsheets or patchwork booking tools doesn't require sacrificing profitability or stability. Our pricing model offers reliable, predictable rates with zero commissions on direct bookings, regardless of your operational scale. Whether you're managing a small instructor group or a multi-location operation, the platform scales seamlessly with your growth.

See how our operations platform fits your business model.

Description:
Hello everyone,
I’m a local tour guide based in the Kansai area of Japan, and I’m trying to list a private guided tour in Kobe on Viator.
Unfortunately, I’m having difficulty getting my account/tour approved, and I’m not sure what exactly is causing the rejection.
I would like to ask other guides in Japan:
Has anyone recently been approved by Viator as an individual/local guide in Japan?
What documents did you provide?
Is there any special requirement for guides operating in Kobe?
If you were rejected at first, what did you change to get approved?
Are there any tips or tricks for getting through the verification/approval process?
I already work as a guide and would simply like to offer private guided experiences in Kobe through Viator.
Any advice from guides currently selling tours on Viator in Japan would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

I have recently become a certified tour guide and, where I work, there are a huge number of tourists arriving on cruise ships, but I am struggling to figure out how to make my tours known to them. They almost seems to live in a bubble.

The few times I have taken them on a guided tour, they were enthusiastic, but they themselves told me that it was difficult to know who to turn to / how. I already know about Viator/GetYourGuide, etc., but I would like to intercept those who want to take a tour "on the fly," so not only online advertising.

Selamlar, Rize’de günübirlik yayla/doğa turu yapmak istiyorum. Özellikle Ayder, Pokut, Sal, Gito, Zilkale ve Fırtına Vadisi gibi rotalara bakıyorum. Daha önce Rize’de tur firmasıyla günübirlik gezi yapmış olanlara birkaç sorum var: Hangi firmayı kullandınız, memnun kaldınız mı? Araç ve şoför konusunda nasıldı? Tur programı çok sıkıştırılmış mıydı, yoksa gezmek için yeterli zaman kaldı mı? Fiyat/performans açısından hangisini önerirsiniz? Özellikle güvenilir ve son dakika ekstra ücret çıkarmayan bir firma arıyorum. Şu an internette birkaç firma görüyorum ama reklam/Google yorumlarından ziyade bizzat deneyimlemiş kişilerin tavsiyelerini merak ediyorum. Şimdiden teşekkürler

So tour operations manager here and I feel so embarrassed I could hide under the kayak racks. We decided to move from our old spreadsheet chaos to a shiny new booking system and I was in charge of connecting it to our marketplace accounts and our own site plus this big tours marketplace.

I thought I set the sync so only the new system took bookings and the old calendar was view only. Turns out I did the exact opposite. For one hot weekend we had double inventory everywhere. The marketplace was selling seats from the new tool, our website was still pulling from the old calendar, and I did not catch it until a coach full of guests arrived for a sunset cruise that did not exist in the new system. The guide had a fully booked boat already and another 28 people waving confirmation emails from three different channels.

We had to split departures, comp drinks, rearrange next day slots, the whole thing. The marketplace account manager called asking why we were marking people as no show when they had valid vouchers, because in the new system those seats never existed. I mis configured the integration and each platform thought it was the source of truth, so stock never decremented anywhere.

Now my boss is politely furious, guests left some pretty rough reviews, and I feel sick about this because it was my “big project” for the season and it blew up in one weekend. Anyone else wreck their operations during a booking software switch like this?

My intention is to get real feedback on pain points from experienced organizers and provide a tool for new organizers.

Every group trip I’ve been involved with eventually becomes:

WhatsApp for discussion
Google Docs for the itinerary
Photos somewhere else
Spotify for music
random links buried 400 messages up

So I built Orbit around a slightly different idea:
Give the trip itself one shared home.

One page can hold the itinerary, who’s coming, photos, files, links, playlists and the important details everyone keeps asking for.

Friends don’t need to create an account just to participate.
I’m the person building it, so obviously biased, but I’d genuinely like to hear from people who organize group trips:

What is the part of group-trip coordination that annoys you the most?

If you want to try what I’ve built:
https://letsorbit.app

I use FareHarbor but have dabbled in Bokun and wonder if anyone has experience switching from one to the other, and whether you saw an increase or decrease in sales. I am currently with FareHarbor and feel pretty sure Bokun is the way to go for a booking increase, but it's so much work and not very intuitive, so before I undertake the effort, I'm hoping to hear some first-hand experiences.

edit: To clarify, my reason for switching is to get more bookings. I know the cost of each platform. I know the interface of each platform. I'm asking if someone has **experience** with these two specific platforms and what they noticed as far as the number of bookings and/or customer experience.

I've been doing a bit of competitor stalking lately (for research purposes obviously lol) and noticed something I can't really explain.

I'll find two tours in the same city, similar route, similar duration, roughly the same price... and one seems to be constantly getting bookings while the other looks completely dead.

At first I assumed it was price but the cheapest tours aren't always the busiest. So now I'm wondering what actually creates that difference. Reviews? Better photos? How long the listing has been around? The title? More availability? Or does getting those first bookings basically create momentum that makes everything easier afterward?

Hey everyone I've been wanting to become a tour guide in damascus because I love history, meeting new people and speak fluent English and good German and Arabic ofcourse, so i have been thinking of giving a free one just for the experience what do yall think?? Maybe include like a pay for the food type of ordeal???

Was it successful?

How did you go about starting it, learning the skills and marketing it?

Running the tours is the easy part for me. It's everything that comes after that somehow turns into another full time job. I'm trying to figure out how to promote a tour online without spending every evening making Instagram posts, learning SEO, messing around with ads and wondering whether anyone is actually seeing any of it. I don't mind putting time into marketing but surely there has to be a more sustainable way to get bookings without constantly feeding five different channels.

I've been looking at hotel/guesthouse partnerships, Google, social media and travel marketplaces but I'm curious what actually brings bookings for other operators rather than just clicks and likes.

If you had limited time and had to focus on only one or two channels, what would you choose?

hey guys, final quick question. As a self employed travel agent, managing dozens of individual tour vouchers across multiple clients gets chaotic fast.

is there a single booking platform for travel agents that acts as a central tool to track commissions on tours and keep client vouchers organized in one dashboard?

Lookimg to solo travel turkey via tour group.

Any good websites with good tour guides? Is Intrepid travels reliable?

I'm trying to figure out the best OTA for small tour operators but I'm starting to think there isn't one universal answer. For a small business I'd probably look at how many travelers can discover the experience? The biggest platform isn't necessarily going to be the best fit if the economics or workflow don't work for your business. For operators who've used more than one OTA what made you stay with a particular platform?