In this guide
Recommendations and partnerships can introduce your travel business to people who already have a reason to trust the introduction. Give those people a useful website page and a straightforward way to contact you. Start with one relevant relationship and a clear customer benefit.
Choose a partner with a relevant audience
Look for a business or organisation whose customers have a natural connection to your specialism. A wedding business and an experienced honeymoon adviser might create a planning session. A local club might value practical guidance on organising a group trip. These are examples to adapt, not a reason to promote holidays outside your expertise.
Ask three questions: would the audience value our advice, can we deliver what we promise, and can both sides manage the work? A large audience is not enough on its own.
Create a useful introduction
Illustrative example: a honeymoon adviser and a relevant wedding business.
A planning question both understand
Agree an activity that helps couples consider dates, budget and the kind of trip they want.
A matching honeymoon planning page
Explain the service and identify the business that handles the booking.
Let interested people enquire directly
Use a readable web address alongside any QR code. Keep ongoing marketing permission separate.
Give people a useful reason to visit
Create a page that matches the introduction. It could contain the advice from an event, a planning checklist or an explanation of your service for that audience. Include a relevant enquiry route and the name of the business handling the booking.
For an in-person event or printed material, use a QR code alongside a readable website address. The code should lead to the specific page, not an unexplained homepage. Test the printed version with a phone before ordering a batch. A short, ordinary URL also gives people an alternative if they cannot scan it.
A simple public invitation:
Planning [type of holiday]? Our guide explains [specific planning decisions]. Visit [website address] to read the advice or ask [business] about your plans.
Agree the arrangement in writing
Record the audience, activity, dates, responsibilities, approved wording, costs, any referral payment, cancellation arrangements and review date. Decide who answers enquiries and how the partner will report results. Do not imply endorsement, membership or a formal partnership without agreement.
Keep commercial relationships clear. Paid or affiliate promotional content needs to be recognisable as advertising where the rules apply. Use a clear, prominent label rather than relying on a vague relationship statement hidden elsewhere. Check any supplier-provided price or offer before repeating it, and correct or withdraw it when it becomes inaccurate.
Let new customers approach you directly
Do not ask partners or customers to upload friends' contact details. Give interested people a route to make their own enquiry and choose any ongoing marketing they want. Keep a request about a particular holiday separate from newsletter permission.
Be careful with electronic referral schemes. Actively encouraging someone to forward your promotional email or text can make you responsible for instigating that marketing. The usual soft opt-in does not solve this for the friend's details. Use the public website, appropriate in-person activity and permission-checked communications instead of a forward-to-a-friend campaign.
For joint email campaigns, check the actual permissions and responsibilities with the partner. Their existing customer list is not automatically available for your marketing. Avoid exchanging lists simply to make the campaign easier.
Handle recommendations fairly
When someone contacts you following a recommendation, ask how they heard about the business and record the source without making the enquiry harder. If you choose to offer a referral reward, publish clear eligibility, qualifying-booking and cancellation terms. Keep referral rewards completely separate from reviews: never offer a reward for a Google review or a positive rating.
Agree the arrangement before launch
Put the practical and commercial details in writing.
Audience, dates and responsibilities
Name the people approving wording, answering enquiries and managing changes.
Costs, rewards and cancellation terms
Make any relevant advertising or commercial relationship clear to customers.
How people choose to contact you
Check joint marketing permissions; avoid forward-to-a-friend email or text schemes.
Enquiries, bookings and contribution
Include staff time and fees, then review the relationship on the agreed date.
Review the value of the relationship
Use a consistent campaign link or an optional source question to help identify the response. Record useful enquiries, quotes, bookings, staff time and all fees or rewards. Judge the result against the contribution retained by the business, not the total holiday value.
Meet the partner after the agreed test. Keep the useful parts, change what caused confusion and stop if the audience or economics are wrong. A modest partnership that generates suitable enquiries can be more manageable than a large promotion that overwhelms the team.
Your first task
Choose one suitable partner, one useful page and one agreed activity. Write down responsibilities and measurement before committing money or sharing customer information.
Further reading
Sources and further help
Use the official guidance below when checking settings, eligibility and responsibilities. Platform features and rules can change.
