How to Become an Expedia Local Expert Supplier (And Whether You Still Need To)

Expedia has a tours-and-activities supplier program — it's just not where Expedia has been putting its energy. Since 2019, the company has leaned on supply-feed partnerships with Viator and GetYourGuide rather than growing its own direct-signup network, and that choice shapes almost everything about whether going direct is worth your time.

This article starts with that market structure, because it changes the question you should be asking. Most guides to "becoming an Expedia supplier" open with the signup form. We're opening with why the form matters less than you'd think, then covering the signup, the commission, the audience mismatch, and what to do if you decide direct isn't worth it — which, for most operators already listed on Viator or GetYourGuide, it isn't.

How Expedia ended up outsourcing its tour and activity supply

Expedia's activities business has a stranger history than most operators realize. It started in 2004 as Activity World, a Maui-based concierge-desk operator running kiosks in Hawaiian hotels. Expedia rebranded it Local Expert in 2006 and expanded it to over 100 hotel and retail locations, mostly in Hawaii and Orlando — at its peak, that offline kiosk network accounted for roughly half of Expedia's activities revenue.

The timeline since then explains where things stand today:

• 2017 — Expedia's combined "Things to Do" and Local Expert businesses generate over $500 million in bookings, less than 1% of Expedia Group's total gross bookings that year. Activities were never a priority line of business.
• 2019 — Expedia signs a supply-feed deal with Viator. Inventory from Viator-listed operators starts appearing on Expedia's marketplace automatically, no direct signup required.
• December 2020 — Expedia shuts down the offline Local Expert concierge business entirely — the hotel desks and kiosks in Hawaii, Orlando, and other resort markets close for good, with an Expedia official citing the state of the business post-COVID.
• September 2021 — Expedia strikes a parallel feed partnership with GetYourGuide, which said publicly it would “handle all of the technical and operational distribution with Expedia, meaning suppliers will not incur any new complexities with their bookings.”
• December 2025 — Expedia announces the acquisition of Tiqets, a museums-and-attractions platform in 60+ countries and 1,000+ cities — more evidence that Expedia's activities strategy is built around short-duration attractions, not multi-day tours.

The pattern across five years is consistent: every time Expedia had a choice between building direct supplier relationships and buying distribution through someone else's feed, it bought the feed. The practical result: if you already list on Viator or GetYourGuide, some of your inventory may already be flowing onto Expedia's “Things to Do” marketplace — no separate application, no separate commission negotiation, no separate payout cycle.

Is a direct Expedia relationship even still relevant for your business?

This is worth answering before you spend an afternoon on a signup form. Two questions decide it.

Do you already list on Viator or GetYourGuide?

If yes, check Expedia's “Things to Do” listings for your destination before doing anything else. There's a real chance your products are already there, reaching Expedia's travelers through the feed, without a direct relationship. In that case, signing up directly adds a second (or third) supplier relationship on top of one that's already working — a separate negotiation, a separate listing format, a separate payout timeline, and a real risk of your products showing up twice with different prices and different cancellation policies. That's a support problem, not a growth lever.

Is your core product a multi-day trip?

Expedia's activities surface is built around single-day inventory — the listing tools don't have a multi-day category, and the traveler behavior on the platform (more on that below) doesn't match how multi-day trips get booked. That doesn't make a direct relationship worthless, but it does mean the incremental upside is smaller for a 14-day trek than for a half-day excursion.

If you're not on Viator or GetYourGuide at all, or you run high-volume day tours in a resort destination Expedia's audience actually shops from, direct is worth reading further for. Otherwise, skim the rest of this for context and skip to what to do instead.

Getting a direct Expedia supplier account, if you still want one

The program runs through two separate portals, which is itself a sign of how little Expedia has invested in this side of the business. The legacy Local Expert Partner Central handles existing accounts. Expedia Group's newer activities partner page is where new applications start — multiple booking platforms that distribute to Expedia report that the legacy portal isn't accepting new self-service signups anymore.

Assuming your interest form leads somewhere, here's roughly what the process looks like.

Find the current entry point and submit business details

Start at Expedia's activities partner page. You'll select your country and provide business details and a product description. This form routes to a human on Expedia's activities team, not an automated approval queue — so treat it as the start of a sales conversation, not a checkbox to tick.

Expect a slower, human-routed response than Viator or GetYourGuide

This is where Expedia diverges most from the other two OTAs. Viator runs a self-serve application with a 5-10 business day review. GetYourGuide approves automatically in minutes. Expedia routes every application to a regional activities team, and response times vary — operators report anywhere from days to weeks, and if your destination isn't a current coverage priority, the application may go unanswered entirely. That silence is itself useful information about how much Expedia actually needs your inventory.

Work out your commission with a person, not a rate card

Unlike a published percentage, your rate here is a negotiation with Expedia's regional team. Your leverage depends on your inventory volume, destination demand, and — critically — whether Expedia already has your area covered through the Viator or GetYourGuide feeds. Rare inventory in a high-demand destination negotiates a better number. Supply that duplicates what Expedia already gets from the feeds doesn't.

Set net rates and build listings inside a single-day-shaped tool

Expedia uses a net-rate model: you provide your base price, Expedia adds its markup on the consumer side and keeps the spread, and you don't see or control the retail price unless you check the live listing yourself. Building the listing itself — titles, photos, pricing, availability, cancellation policy — runs into the same limitation every time for multi-day operators: the category picker has no “multi-day tour” option. A 14-day trek technically fits into the form, but the tooling was built for something else.

Go live and get paid on Expedia's monthly cycle

Payouts run monthly, processed on the first business day of the following month, with funds landing within 30 days of processing. No listing fees, no subscription — you only pay when a booking is actually delivered.

A note on where things actually stand. Multiple independent sources — including booking platforms that distribute to Expedia — report that the legacy Local Expert Partner Central hasn't been actively onboarding new direct suppliers. The newer partner page accepts interest forms, but not every application results in an actual account. If you submit and hear nothing back in two weeks, that's consistent with what other operators are seeing, and the sections below explain why it may not matter much either way.

What Expedia actually charges

Expedia does not publish a rate. Booking platforms that integrate with Expedia report a negotiated range of 15 to 30 percent, with some operators citing rates up to 35 percent in competitive destinations. The exact number is whatever the regional activities team assigned to your account agrees to.

The model is net-rate, not percentage-off-retail: you submit a base price, Expedia marks it up for the traveler and keeps the spread, and you receive your agreed net rate. There are no listing fees, no subscription, and no paid-placement product inflating the effective number further.

That range is wider than Viator (20-30%, typically around 25%) or GetYourGuide (20-30% by country), which means two operators running identical trips in the same destination could land $675 apart per traveler on the commission line alone — entirely a function of negotiation leverage. On a 30-traveler departure, that gap is $20,250.

Expedia's negotiated 15-30% commission on a $4,500 multi-day trip ranges from $675 to $1,350 per traveler. The rate depends on what the regional team agrees to — and your leverage in that negotiation depends heavily on whether Expedia already has your destination covered through its supply feeds.

For the worked math on how Viator and GetYourGuide commission structures compare, see our Viator supplier article and our GetYourGuide supplier article.

Why Expedia's traveler shops differently than a Viator or GetYourGuide traveler

Expedia sells tours and activities as part of a flight-plus-hotel package. A traveler arrives to book a flight to Lisbon and a hotel for the weekend, and the “Things to Do” tab appears after those are already selected — it's an upsell surface, not a discovery surface.

That positioning works fine for a day-tour operator. The traveler already has dates locked and needs something to fill a Tuesday afternoon; a $100 cooking class fits that purchase moment cleanly.

It works against a multi-day operator. A traveler booking a 14-day trekking expedition starts researching months out — comparing operators, reading itineraries, asking people who've done it. The trip itself is the purchase decision; flights and hotels follow it. Expedia's “Things to Do” is built for the reverse sequence: accommodation first, activity second. Multi-day trips are the vacation, not the add-on filling a slot in one — and that mismatch matters more for how you price and market a $4,500 trip than it does for a $100 add-on.

When a direct Expedia relationship still makes sense for a multi-day operator

Three operator profiles where signing up directly is worth the negotiation:

1. You run high-volume day tours or excursions inside a package-holiday destination. If a meaningful share of your inventory is shorter excursions in Hawaii, Cancún, Orlando, or similar destinations where Expedia's flight-plus-hotel audience concentrates, a direct relationship gives you rate control the feed doesn't. Negotiate hard — that inventory is exactly what those travelers are shopping for.
2. You aren't on Viator or GetYourGuide at all. If your products aren't reaching Expedia through either feed, a direct relationship is the only path onto the marketplace. Check Expedia's “Things to Do” for your destination first — your products may already be there without you knowing it.
3. You need control over the retail price shown across platforms. Under the supply-feed model, Expedia sets the retail price based on its agreement with Viator or GetYourGuide, not your preferences. If price parity across your own site and every channel matters to your strategy, a direct relationship gives you negotiated control over what Expedia shows. Whether that's worth the operational overhead depends on how much volume actually comes through Expedia in the first place.

Recognize your operation in one or more of these? A direct Expedia relationship may be worth the negotiation. None of the three? Direct booking is the stronger investment of your time.

What to build instead of a direct Expedia listing

For most multi-day operators, the stronger move isn't a fourth OTA relationship — it's making your own site the place travelers book. Three pieces, in order of leverage:

Your own website as the primary booking channel. Multi-day travelers research for weeks before committing — real photos from real departures, honest itinerary pages, destination guides written by someone who's led the trip. The money you'd otherwise hand to an OTA, whether as a direct commission or buried inside a feed agreement, goes further here because the channel compounds with every booking instead of resetting.

Past-traveler referral programs. Costs nothing, converts better than paid marketing. A multi-day trip builds a real relationship over days or weeks — that relationship is the highest-quality referral source your business has. The question is whether you're asking for those referrals systematically.

A booking setup built for direct, multi-day sales. Deposits and installment payments, your own Stripe account so the money is yours from the first payment, and channel sync so your Viator or GetYourGuide listings stay in step with your own calendar — native, not bolted together with a Zapier workflow and a shared spreadsheet. Samba runs $0/month, your first $10,000 in bookings free, then a flat 2% per booking after that — no contracts, no setup fees.

Further reading: zoom out to the full OTA supplier guide, benchmark negotiated rates against the 2026 OTA commission rates reference, skim 10 OTAs beyond Viator and GetYourGuide, follow the cross-platform 8-step listing checklist, and work through the OTA vs direct booking math.

Samba is that setup. All of the above in one place. Free to start. No setup fees. No contracts. Get started free.