Working with travel trade

What is commission?

The what is commission fact sheet explains the benefits of incorporating a commission structure into your product pricing as a way to promote your business to new customers. Learn how to incorporate the right amount of commission in your prices and how much money you make if you pay commission on a sale.

Working with distribution partners

Learn how to sell your tourism product to both domestic and international customers through the travel distribution system with the working with distribution partners guide.

The guide covers the role of local and inbound tour operators, retail travel agents and visitor information centres, wholesalers, and online travel agents. Learn how to choose the right distribution partner for your tourism offering, how to approach them and get the most out of your working relationship.

Pricing calculator

The helpful pricing calculator tool can help you calculate the market or gross price of your tourism product.

Follow the steps in this interactive tool to set up a sustainable pricing structure by incorporating all fixed, variable, profit margin, average commission and GST costs into your product pricing.

For best results, we recommend viewing in Google Chrome or downloading a copy to your computer. 

Rate sheet examples

Got a commissionable product? Then it’s time to prepare a rate sheet to provide to relevant distribution partners who will on-sell your tourism product/s on your behalf. Rate sheets should be a single page of easy to read and important booking information, without any marketing jargon.  

To get you started, we’ve created some examples for  Accommodation, Attraction and Tour.  When offering your rates to a partner, simply hand them a single sheet which shows the rate of commission you are willing to offer. Note that each of the templates include a separate page for each proposed rate (inbound at 25%, wholesale at 20%, online at 15% and retail at 10%). You may wish to offer a different commission rate to any of the above. See the What is commission fact sheet to work out how much commission you could expect to incorporate into your pricing structure.

Attending trade events

Trade events are a forum to meet key distribution partners and develop or enhance business relationships. The Attending Trade Events guide includes an overview of the range of trade events offered, the benefits of attending events, as well as useful strategies and tips to ensure you maximise the return on your investment.