Utilizing API connectivity

FareHarbor can help you get connected with online travel agencies you may already be partnered with. Review our list of API Partners. Once you’ve been approved to work with a partner OTA and your tours/activities are fully built for sale on their platform, we’ll use an API to “map” your FareHarbor inventory with the distribution channels you’ve specified.

To get started with the API integration, fill out a Connectivity Request Form.

Once the mapping process is complete, the connected OTA will be able to automatically receive information about your activities and offer live availability to your customers.

When a customer makes a booking on one of these websites, the booking is sent directly to your FareHarbor Dashboard and includes an affiliate tag so you know exactly what partner the booking came from. Like online bookings, you will receive a customer’s email address and phone number with API bookings.

When viewing a customer’s booking, make sure to look at the activity log for details surrounding the booking’s history:

The booking comments section is also where you can find additional customer information collected by the OTA:

It’s important to remember that each OTA is different and sends different information through the API.

If you have specific questions about what information you can expect to see on your API bookings, feel free to contact the Connectivity team.

Booking Notes

Additional information collected by Viator and GetYourGuide at the time of booking will now be easier to find in your FareHarbor Dashboard. To enable this feature check your advanced company settings under Bookings –> Field mapping options for Viator & GetYourGuide –> Include in booking notes.

The following information will show on the FareHarbor booking overlay, in the booking notes section of your manifest, and on booking notification emails for Viator and GetYourGuide bookings sent by FareHarbor.

Viator

• Supplier note
• Required info (questions and answers)
• Special requirements
• Pickup point
• All travelers’ names
• Language code
• Language options

GetYourGuide

• Comments
• All travelers names and their phone numbers
• Hotel name

Please note that these fields must be added to your products in your Viator or GetYourGuide supplier account(s) for this information to be sent through to FareHarbor.

Map to custom fields

Detailed information submitted from Viator and GetYourGuide can also be passed directly into custom fields for individual customer types or the whole booking in your Dashboard. These fields must be added to your products in your Viator or GetYourGuide supplier accounts for this information to be sent to FareHarbor. To enable this feature check the company’s advanced settings under Bookings –> Field mapping options for Viator & GetYourGuide –> Map to custom fields.

The following custom fields will be mapped if sent from GetYourGuide or Viator:

• Comments
• Full Name
• Customer Phone Number
• Height
• Weight
• Date of Birth
• Special Requirements

Custom fields mapped from GetYourGuide and Viator

Information detailing the internal name, accepted field types, and description of the custom fields that may be mapped from GetYourGuide or Viator can be found in the table below:

Custom field	Internal name	Field type	Description
Comments	Comment, Comments	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG: The Comments field value is passed exactly as submitted by the customer. Viator: Not applicable
Full name	Name, Full name, First name, Given name, Last name, Surname	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG: Primary customer name only. Additional customer names will not be mapped to custom fields. Viator: Includes all travelers’ names, linked to CustomerType (Adult, Child, Youth, Infant, Senior)
Customer phone number	Phone number, Phone, Cell phone, Mobile phone, Contact phone	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG and Viator: Customer phone number value is passed exactly as submitted by the customer.
Height	Height,Height (cm), Rider Height, Passenger Height, Height (ft), Customer Height	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG and Viator: Customer height is provided if applicable and is passed as a value in centimeters or feet/inches.
Weight	Weight, Weight (kg), Weight (lbs), Weight (lbs.), Passenger Weight, Rider Weight, Customer Weight	Text input, single line, multiple lines, quantity, or dropdown	GYG and Viator: Weight may be passed as a value in kilograms, stones, or pounds. Weight values passed with the quantity field type will be stripped of measurement units.
Date of birth	Date of Birth	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG and Viator: The Date of Birth value is passed exactly as submitted by the customer.
Special Requirements	Special Requirement, Special Requirements, Comments, Comment	Text input, single line, or multiple lines	GYG: Not applicable Viator: The Special Requirements field value is passed exactly as submitted by the customer.

Note: Custom fields’ internal names are not case sensitive.

In order for dropdown and quantity field types to map properly, the FareHarbor custom field name must exactly match the relevant Viator or GetYourGuide field. Custom fields using the dropdown field type will maintain the unit of measurement passed along with the value while custom fields using the quantity field type will be stripped of their corresponding unit of measurement. The quantity and dropdown custom field types are currently only available for the Weight custom field.

Map to Transportation/Hotel Pick-up

Overview

This guide explains how to map custom fields and transportation/hotel pick-up information from Viator and GetYourGuide (GYG) to FareHarbor bookings. Automating these mappings reduces manual effort and ensures accurate data is readily available in the booking details.

Prerequisites

1. Feature Access: Ensure the feature flag for mapping transportation custom fields is enabled. This can be found in the company’s advanced settings under Bookings –> Field mapping options for Viator & GetYourGuide –> Map to transportation custom fields.
2. Viator or GetYourGuide: Must be collecting a pickup location in Viator or a traveler hotel in GYG to have the mapping work.
3. Transportation Module Configuration (Best Option): Add the transportation module custom field to the item whole booking fields.
4. Custom Field Setup: Add the transportation-flavored custom fields to the item whole booking fields.
   • Ensure that the custom fields have the correct internal name (see below).

Mapping Overview

Supported Scenarios

• Viator: The traveler selects a pickup location during checkout. This location is sent via the Viator booking endpoint as the traveler’s hotel.
• GYG: Similar to Viator, GYG sends traveler hotel information as part of the booking.

The mapping process automatically links this data to the corresponding FareHarbor custom fields.

Maps to these Custom Field Types:

• Text
• Extended Option (dropdown)
• Transportation Module (specific for routes and stops, using the default route added to the availability)

Custom Field Internal Names (case-insensitive matches; no extra characters):

• Transportation
• Lodging
• Hotel
• Where are you staying?
• Lodging Name
• Hotel Pickup
• Hotels
• Hotel name
• Pickup Location
• Pickup
• Pick Up
• Pick-up
• Pick Up Location
• Transpo
• Shuttle
• Hotel/Lodging

Transportation Module: Routes and Stops Mapping

• Default Route: If availability has a default route, the system maps the stop matching the traveler’s hotel.
• Calendar-Based Routes: If no default route exists, the calendar start time determines the route, and the stop matching the hotel name is selected.
• Caution: If no route or stop matches are found, no data is added to avoid errors.

Common Use Cases

Example 1: Hotel Name to Transportation Field

• A Viator booking includes “Radisson on Flagstaff Gardens” as the traveler’s hotel.
• The system maps this hotel name to the “Lodging” custom field in FareHarbor.

Example 2: Pickup Location Mapping

• A GYG booking includes “Hilton Waikiki Beach” as the pickup location.
• The “Pickup Location” field in FareHarbor automatically updates with this data.

Benefits of Automated Mapping

1. Efficiency: Reduces manual data entry and follow-ups.
2. Accuracy: Ensures correct information is added to booking manifests and confirmations.
3. Seamlessness: Improves client experience by integrating OTA data directly into FareHarbor.

Additional Resources

• Transportation Basics in FareHarbor
• Updating Pickup Routes and Stops
• Custom Field Setup

For further support, contact FareHarbor Support.

Disabling custom field mapping

If you would like to disable this feature, you can do so in the Advanced Company Settings of your dashboard under the Bookings settings by deselecting Enable Viator/GetYourGuide custom field mapping. Here you can also disable the specific field mapping separately from the booking comments mapping.

All updates to existing OTA bookings including rebooking, cancellations, and refunds must be processed directly through the OTA and your supplier center. The API will automatically update your FareHarbor booking record to match.

Cancelling or rebooking an API booking manually in FareHarbor and not on the OTA doesn’t update the OTA booking.

You can also learn more about managing your Viator bookings here and about managing your GetYourGuide bookings here.

Performing the following actions on items or availabilities that are used in API mappings may cause booking errors for connected OTAs:

• Items
  • Archiving items or changing the booking status to private
  • Combining items in FareHarbor
• Customer types / ticket types
  • Adding or removing customer types
  • Duplicating customer types (for example, if you’re creating seasonal or new year rates)
• Availability updates
  • Changing the time of an availability
  • Creating new availabilities (Non-Duplicated)

How do I make sure I’m not breaking anything?

Be on the lookout for Dashboard warnings when making these types of changes.

If you’ve made any of the changes listed above, please reach out to the Connectivity team so we can update mappings and ensure that your API connections are still working seamlessly.

Can I email customers directly from my FareHarbor bookings?

Most OTAs will send customer’s email addresses through the API that will show on your FareHarbor bookings. Some OTAs (i.e. Viator) choose to send a “traveler protected” email address that is randomly generated at the time of booking. This email address can still be used to contact customers directly and is valid for 30 days post activity date. Any communications sent to this email address will be automatically forwarded to your customer’s personal email address. Some other OTAs (i.e Airbnb) prefer that all communication happen within their portal, therefore Airbnb bookings will not receive any emails sent from the Dashboard.

Connecting a new tour item

If you have an existing API connection with a partner and create a new item in FareHarbor that you’d like to get connected, the first step is to build the item in the OTA. Once your product has been built, please reach out to the FareHarbor Connectivity team and we will help you finalize the connection.

Pricing

Customers booking through an OTA will pay the price listed in the OTA. However, it’s a good idea for your pricing in FareHarbor to match so you can accurately report on your affiliate bookings in FareHarbor.

GetYourGuide now offers the ability to connect FareHarbor pricing to your GetYourGuide products, but not all API connections pull pricing from FareHarbor. Any price changes made in FareHarbor will need to be manually made to your Viator and Expedia products, along with some other OTAs. Please note, OTAs that require manual pricing updates do not include taxes automatically. The price you set in the OTA system will need to be tax inclusive. If you’re ever unsure if you need to update your pricing in another OTA’s system, please feel free to contact the Connectivity team.

For Dashboards with dynamic pricing rules, note that for any OTAs that do not pull pricing from FareHarbor, your dynamic pricing rules will not show on the OTA’s website.

Payments and refunds

All API bookings require payment to be collected in full by the OTA. This means that refunds must also be handled by the OTA. Cancelling and/or refunding a booking in FareHarbor does not cancel/refund the booking for the customer.

Customers must contact the OTA they booked through to make changes to bookings or to receive refunds for cancelled bookings.

Custom field information & OTA Bookings

Custom Fields set up in FareHarbor are not populated on the OTA partner’s book form, or rather they are not “pulled” via the API connection.

Additional customer information like pickup points, special requirements, and traveler names collected by Viator and GetYourGuide at the time of booking can now be found in booking notes in FareHarbor.

For most other OTAs, additional information will be sent through in the booking comments. Read more about “Receiving API Bookings”.

How do I get that information into my actual custom fields?

If you need customer information collected by the OTA to populate your FareHarbor custom fields, so that it’s visible on your daily manifest, you can add custom-field information to an existing booking (without having to rebook).

Please note, select OTA partners can connect to some FareHarbor custom fields. For example, Expedia, and some other API partners, can connect to FareHarbor’s transportation module.

If you have questions about whether an OTA can connect to certain custom fields, please reach out to the OTA or the FareHarbor Connectivity team for more information.

Enabling SmartWaiver on OTA bookings

Since SmartWaiver is a custom field, you can enable “SmartWaiver” as a whole-booking custom-field on the booking overview.

From there, you can manually send the booking confirmation email so that customers can access the SmartWaiver ahead of time. Otherwise, you can pull up SmartWaiver when your customer arrives and they can sign the waiver in person.

Learn more about using SmartWaiver.

API bookings & communication (confirmation, reminder, follow-up)

FareHarbor reminder and confirmation emails can be sent automatically for API bookings.

Contact Support to request enablement of automatic confirmation or reminder emails for future bookings received via API.

Please reach out to the Connectivity team for assistance if guests are not receiving automated emails.

For additional questions regarding communication capabilities with API bookings for all of our OTA partners, please reach out to the FareHarbor Connectivity team.

Open Hours

The Open Hours setting located in your Dashboard company settings will only be displayed with a select group of API-connected partners. Please note, not all OTAs use this feature, feel free to reach out to the FareHarbor Connectivity team with further questions.

Open hours allow select OTA partner platforms to list your company’s operating hours for tours using a general-admission style of booking. Open hours will not be displayed anywhere else except through an API connection.

Failed or incorrect API-confirmed bookings

If you receive an email confirmation for a failed API booking or suspect that your API connection is broken, please reach out to the Connectivity team.