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Who do you use to book hotels for your tours?
Who do you use to book hotels for your tours?
was posted by James Mortimer
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Featured on Oct 27, 2025 (10 months ago).
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We are getting more and more requests to include hotels in our multi day tours in the UK.
Its not something we have focused on in the past, but it seems though we are going to have to look into this. Just wanting to see if anyone in the Travel Massive community can supply, advise or help with this situation for us 😀
We usually contract directly with the hotels, or, if it is a chain like IHG/Accor you can request through their groups desk.
I've sent out some emails to the chains so far IHG being one of them - good to know I've started on the right foot thanks Sandra :-)
Try also reaching out via Social Media. In my experience, you'll get the reply faster.
ha ha isn't that the truth, how the world has changed :-)
Not a bad one, though. Imo, not only your potential client can get a quicker answer to what they are looking for, but also are immediately launched into anything business relate and up to date with the latest. So, more info = more vfm.
Hope I make sense. :D
We do many single day tours, but have various multiday offering and also do a lot of custom tours - if you want to check us out before replying here are our current tours bestuktours.com/tours/
We book hotels directly. I reach out to them, ask for STO/Nett rates, book provisional holds for my guests (depending on the destination -- can be 2 weeks to a couple months.
ah ha, that's a good trick of the trade, thank you so much, going to sound awfully professional asking for STO/net rates now :-)
Lots of people use nett and not net. Weird, I know. Here's a sample email that I send - obviously, you'll want to write up a little story on yourself. I know folks are busy, but I also want them to take me seriously.
"Hello - I own a safari company based in Texas and also serve as Malawi's first and only Honorary Consul in the United States. I typically organize trips to Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Madagascar, (and occasionally, France and the Galapagos) but my clients have been asking me to organize trips to _ _ _ _ Many years ago I visited your hotel I remember the superb service and location. Can you please send me your STO/NETT Rates? I'm looking at organizing a _ _ _ _ next year. Here's my website: mysafari.org
Best Regards,
Jordan Price
Thats super helpful, thank you ever so much :-)
Do you do "city break" type tours? I'm just thinking about my clients with long layovers at LHR?
We do indeed, these are our day trips in the UK: bestuktours.com/tours/discover-the-best-of-england/ happy to jump on a discovery call to see how we could make something mutually beneficial work
Hi there!! We work directly with each hotel, signing contracts with them. Although, if you have A LOT of requests, it can be faster for you using something like Ratehawk.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, seems like a lot of people just book direct so this seems to be the easiest way currently, we are not going to have thousands, but will take a look at Rate hawk (assume this is a comparison type site?) we also have an affiliate account with Expedia that we are exploring + an IHG have an affiliet program too, which we will look at too... :-) have you used rate hawk yourself?
Hi James, I have two businesses: a Travel Agency in the UK via the Advantage consortium, and a UK representation agency for Inbound Tour Operators in the UK.
There's three main ways the Travel Agency can access Hotels:
- Direct Contracts - works best when you can get at least 50 room nights per year in any particular hotel
- Bedbanks - the go-to: RateHawk mentioned below, but also - BedsOnline, Stuba and Expedia TAAP have a strong UK hotel range
- Consortium 'Global Accomodation Programme' - ready to go deals with the chains like Accor, Marriott, Hilton, IHG and in some cases Premier Inn and Travelodge - predominantly used by Business Travel TMCs
When combining with other travel products, they often have package rates.
Potentially a bigger question though - if you're combining with accommodation, do you have the set up ready to go for the UK Package Travel Regulations? My UK representation agency helps global Inbound Tour Operators sell to the UK market - being UK based and place of sale is the UK means its the same solution - happy to chat!
Daniel
Hi Daniel, that is really really helpful, thank you so much - we wont be booking for big groups, they are usually 4-8 people max at a time - as you mentioned we have an affiliate program with Expedia + just looking at IHG & will check out Bedbanks - bed online and the other you mentioned. would love to have a catch up with you, to be honest maybe this is just something we can pass to you to arrange, that would save us the hassle, if you fancy having a chat fill out the contact form here and the CRM will pick it up and wiz it over to me for a call: bestuktours.com/contact-us/
We also book directly with the accommodations when we do tours in Morocco. I have had an occasional company not want to give us Sto/Nett rates, but most of the time it is not a problem.
Thank for your reply, I'm looking at various hotel booking systems, but seems like a lot just book direct, have you ever used any sort of system like Ratehawk, booking.com etc
I have not used RateHawk. I have used booking.com on several occasions and Expedia. Affilate programs are good, but sometimes it is a lot of work to join everything. For me with small groups and smaller accommodations that are independently owned, it works better to book direct.
In the US, I have worked with companies like IHG and Hilton, and it is relatively easy to get a contract with them if you can meet the requirements. Just read the contracts carefully.
I think working with a travel advisor/agent or advisor as Daniel mentioned above might make it easier to start, especially if there are things within the regulations you are not familiar with. I had to meet with attorneys and insurance representatives to sort things and make sure I was setting things up correctly.
Hi there! We personally work with hotels in Nepal and Bhutan through direct partnerships and contracts. Still, if you're dealing with a large volume of inquiries, using a local tour operator or partner platform may be quicker.
Thank Kul, we have been trialing ratehawk so far so good, we did a like for like comparison on a tour and they were 25% cheaper on net rates than booking.com
We use Ratehawk a lot for tailor made self drive tours and here in Iceland we a system called Travis that many Icelandic accommodation use and that allows us to get direct contracts and online bookings.
We will connect our new Booking system via API with Ratehawk to allow Clients to book their self drive trip directly online on our website.
We always go direct first. We run custom multi-day road trips across NZ, and nothing beats picking up the phone or emailing the hotel manager directly to lock in a trade rate. Building that direct relationship is everything. If your guests need a last-minute change while they're out on the road, a manager you actually know will always sort it out way faster than a massive corporate booking site.
Funnily enough, a lot of our absolute favorite accommodation spots have actually been recommended to us by our guests themselves.
Thanks Josh, I like the idea of going direct, the issue is that when you have multiple day & multiple clients it gets messy to manage, i set up with rate hawk at the moment, so far they have been great, although, they messed up a transfer for a client whcih was embarrising, but it wasent a simple A to B, it was picking up at silverstone and the client had to walk an hour to get the transfer which dosent bode well for high net worth clients... thank you for your comment though :-)
Good question — this comes up a lot as tours get more multi-day itineraries baked in. A few approaches that tend to work well depending on your volume:
Direct hotel contracts/rates — If you're running the same routes repeatedly (which most multi-day tour operators do), it's worth reaching out directly to 5-10 properties on each route and negotiating net rates. Takes more upfront legwork, but margins are much better than OTAs long-term, and you get a real relationship for group bookings, last-minute changes, etc.
B2B wholesale platforms — Hotelbeds, TBO Holidays, and RateHawk are the big ones for tour operators. They give you net/wholesale rates (not retail), decent global inventory, and API access if you want to eventually automate it into your booking flow.
Booking.com Partner/Affiliate program — Fine for one-off or ad hoc bookings, especially in regions where you don't have volume yet, but the margins are thinner since you're paying closer to retail.
DMC partnerships in-region — If you're operating in areas where you don't have boots on the ground, partnering with a local DMC or ground operator who already has hotel relationships can save a lot of hassle. At Gnade Safaris we lean on this for a lot of our East Africa routes — having someone local negotiate and vet the properties saves us from surprises on group check-ins.
Honestly, the mix that works best is: direct contracts for your highest-frequency routes, and a wholesale platform as backup/fill-in for everything else.
Thanks Aron, appreciate you taking the time to respond :-)
My advice on this one is to look at bedbanks as a starting point given you mostly sell day tours and volume is still building.
Direct contracts can be an absolute winner but I suspect with proving volume and needing to have a wider range a bedbank would be a good place to start.
I would look at Webbeds, BedsOnline, GoGlobal (Stuba incl).
I regularly work with clients on this type of venture, so of course tech comes into it but I’d say for now looking for businesses like the above with booking portals is the right place to start.
Cheers James, much appreciated forthe recomendations :-)
One thing I’d add: for small custom groups, the hard part is not finding a rate — it’s service recovery when something changes on the day.
I’d use direct relationships for the core hotels on your most frequent routes, then keep RateHawk/bedbanks as an overflow option rather than the primary source of truth.
Before confirming, get these points in writing: nett rate and inclusions, release period, rooming-list deadline, single/child/guide policies, and one named after-hours operations contact.
For groups of 4–8, I’d shortlist 2–3 preferred properties per stop, build a direct relationship with at least one, and use the platform only to fill gaps. That gives you flexibility without being stuck when a late arrival, room issue, or last-minute change needs a human fix.