Affiliate Disclosure
In plain English: this site earns a small commission when you book a tour through GetYourGuide via one of our links. You don't pay anything extra. Our editorial selection is independent of commission rates. Here's exactly how that works.
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The affiliate relationship
Catamaran Excursions participates in the GetYourGuide Partner Programme. Every "Book" button and every direct tour link on this site routes to GetYourGuide as a tracked referral. If you book a tour after clicking through, GetYourGuide pays us a small percentage of the transaction.
You do not pay any additional fee. The price on GetYourGuide is the same whether you reach it through our link or directly. Our commission comes out of GetYourGuide's margin, not your wallet.
What this changes — and what it doesn't
What it doesn't change: editorial selection, ranking, and commentary. We do not accept payment from any tour operator to rank them higher, write a favourable review, hide bad reviews, or feature them on the homepage. The "Editor's picks" on every country hub are chosen by rating × review volume, period. Commission rates do not factor in.
What it does change: we have an obvious commercial interest in this site existing. We're incentivised to write content that's actually useful enough for travellers to come back, recommend the site, and book through our links rather than going direct. If the editorial quality drops, the model fails.
What we earn (typical ranges)
GetYourGuide commission rates vary by tour category, region, and seasonal pricing. As a rough order of magnitude, expect single-digit-percentage commissions on the booking value. We don't publish exact figures because they change and aren't ours to publish.
How rankings are determined
- Comparison tables are sorted by the column you click — rating, reviews, or price. Default sort is rating descending. No commission weighting.
- Editor's picks ("The three to book first") pick the top three by a blend of rating and review volume within the relevant set (homepage or country hub). No commission weighting.
- Similar tours on each tour page surface the top three other tours in the same country by the same blend. No commission weighting.
- Filterable offer grids default to rating-descending order. The user can re-sort by rating, reviews, or price asc/desc. No commission weighting.
Tours we don't include
We exclude tours where the source data looks unreliable (implausibly-low prices that suggest a scraping artifact). The current exclusion list is hard-coded in our build script and documented in the source. If a tour is missing that you think should be here, email us.
What we don't do
- We do not write sponsored content disguised as editorial.
- We do not accept payment from operators to be listed.
- We do not promote any operator we wouldn't recommend to a friend.
- We do not invent reviews or aggregate review counts from multiple sources to inflate them — every rating + review count on every page comes directly from GetYourGuide's verified guest reviews on our most recent data refresh.
Compliance
This disclosure is made in accordance with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255), the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority guidelines on affiliate disclosure, and equivalent rules in other jurisdictions where applicable.
Contact
Questions about our affiliate relationship: hello@catamaran-excursions.com.