The Tour Guy is a small-group tour operator, formerly The Roman Guy, running guided walks, skip-the-line and restricted-access museum tours, food and wine experiences and day trips across more than 50 destinations in Europe and the United States, from the Vatican and Colosseum to the Louvre and Versailles. For operators, it brings an affluent, mostly American audience of more than one million travelers served, planning European city trips, with partner products selected alongside its own departures.

Connecting The Tour Guy to Ventrata syncs your availability and prices and delivers bookings, changes and cancellations with tickets issued automatically.

To learn more about partnering with The Tour Guy, visit thetourguy.com.

Primary website	thetourguy.com
Tags	Operator Reselling Others
Destination markets	🌎 Global
Source markets	🇨🇦 Canada · 🇺🇸 US
Specialties	Affluent American travelers on European city trips
Connection features	Availability Sync · Pricing Sync · Bookings Sync
Ventrata Booked GMV (last 12 months)	US$1M+
Ventrata Booked Suppliers (last 12 months)	10+
Developed by	The Tour Guy (using Ventrata's OCTO API)

This reseller connection lets you sell your products through The Tour Guy without managing availability, pricing and bookings by hand. Features of this connection include:

Availability Sync – The Tour Guy checks your live availability in Ventrata.
Pricing Sync – The Tour Guy gets your prices from your reseller pricing in Ventrata.
Bookings Sync – bookings, updates and cancellations from The Tour Guy are created in Ventrata instantly, and customers get Ventrata tickets.

Creating The Tour Guy Connection

🔐 Required Role Permissions: See Connections, Modify Connections, See Connection Key

Before you begin:

You must have a commercial agreement with The Tour Guy for them to sell your products. To inquire about partnering with them, contact them via thetourguy.com.
You must have The Tour Guy created as a Reseller in Ventrata with their pricing (retail, wholesale/commission) defined correctly. Note that this API connection requires that the reseller is set to the "Bill to my account" settlement method.

In Ventrata Dashboard, go to Connections → Connections, click + New Connection, and select The Tour Guy from the list of partners.
Select The Tour Guy Reseller from the list of your resellers (must be created before creating a connection). The connection will inherit the reseller's configuration like pricing, allowed destinations, products, etc.
(Optional) You can also set the connection Name of your choosing, which may be helpful if you plan to have multiple The Tour Guy connections and would like to differentiate between them more easily in the future.
Press the Create Octo Connection button.

📗 TIP

If needed, you can also allow or disallow products or destinations on the connection level, in addition to what you have configured on the reseller.

Mapping Products to The Tour Guy

Securely share the OCTO API key shown on the connection you've created with your contact at The Tour Guy and ask them to map your products using Ventrata's OCTO API, with pricing (octo/pricing) enabled. Typically, it takes no longer than a few business days for The Tour Guy's team to complete this.

Your Ventrata configuration is complete. You do not need to take any further steps.

📗 TIP

The Tour Guy can access all products enabled on the connection, but you can also provide the Product and Option IDs from the connection page when contacting them to specify what to map.

Managing The Tour Guy Connection

Allow or disallow products: limit which destinations, products and options The Tour Guy can access. See how to allow or disallow products.
Rename the connection to tell several The Tour Guy connections apart.

Connection Features Detailed

This section is for anyone who wants to know exactly how the The Tour Guy connection works: which Ventrata OCTO API calls The Tour Guy makes, when it makes them, and what that means for you. Each call links to Ventrata's API documentation.

In short: The Tour Guy pulls everything it needs from Ventrata. It reads your products, checks your availability and prices, and sends bookings and cancellations. Ventrata doesn't push changes to The Tour Guy, so anything you change in Ventrata reaches The Tour Guy the next time it checks.

Timings are typical for The Tour Guy and rounded, and they can change if The Tour Guy changes how it syncs.

Product Mapping	❌	You can't map products from Ventrata. The Tour Guy maps them on its side, through your account manager or The Tour Guy's portal. This works as follows: Get Products (`GET /products`) – when The Tour Guy sets up your connection, and whenever it refreshes its listings, it reads every product enabled on the connection, with its options and units (ticket types such as Adult or Child). Get Product (`GET /products/{productId}`) – The Tour Guy re-reads a single product to pick up changes to its options, units, booking cutoffs and settings. Mapping on The Tour Guy's side – The Tour Guy links each Ventrata option and unit to its own listing and ticket types. Your The Tour Guy account manager does this for you, or you do it in The Tour Guy's own portal if The Tour Guy offers one. You only share the connection's API key. Typically with The Tour Guy: The Tour Guy reads your full product list every few minutes. It re-reads each product about every 8 hours. What this means for you: The Tour Guy can only sell what it has mapped. When you add a product, option or unit in Ventrata, The Tour Guy may see it on its next refresh, but it won't sell it until it's mapped. So tell your The Tour Guy account manager whenever you add one.
Content Sync	❌	The Tour Guy doesn't read your product content from Ventrata. The Tour Guy uses the descriptions, images and other content set up on its own side, so update your content with The Tour Guy directly.
Availability Sync	✅	The Tour Guy checks your live availability in Ventrata. Ventrata doesn't push availability changes to The Tour Guy. This works as follows: Availability Check (`POST /availability`) – The Tour Guy sends a product, an option and a date or date range. Ventrata answers with each bookable day or time slot, its status (`AVAILABLE`, `LIMITED`, `SOLD_OUT`, `CLOSED` or `FREESALE`), the remaining vacancies, the booking cutoff and an `availabilityId`, which The Tour Guy needs to book that slot. Availability Batch (`POST /availability/batch`) – availability for many products in one request, designed for background syncs. Check at booking – when a customer books, Ventrata checks capacity again before it creates the booking, so The Tour Guy can't overbook a slot that has just sold out, even if its stored availability is slightly out of date. Typically with The Tour Guy: Availability Check: The Tour Guy checks your products around the clock, usually starting about 6 months ahead and covering 5 days per request, looks up to about a year ahead and re-checks the same product and dates about every 3 hours. Availability Batch: The Tour Guy checks your products around the clock, usually starting about 6 months ahead and covering 5 days per request, looks up to about a year ahead and re-checks the same product and dates every few minutes. Checks are spread evenly around the clock, which points to a scheduled background sync rather than live customer searches. What this means for you: when you close a date, change capacity or sell out in Ventrata, The Tour Guy shows it after its next check. For dates it checks regularly, that's within about 3 hours. Dates further ahead are usually checked less often.
Pricing Sync	✅	Your prices come back with every availability check, once The Tour Guy asks for them with the octo/pricing capability. This works as follows: `octo/pricing` capability – The Tour Guy asks for prices by adding `octo/pricing` to the `Octo-Capabilities` header of its requests. Without it, Ventrata sends availability with no prices at all. Availability Check (`POST /availability`) – with pricing on, each day or time slot comes back with your price per unit (ticket type): the retail price the customer pays and the net price you invoice The Tour Guy, both from the reseller's pricing in Ventrata (retail and wholesale/commission). Group prices – when The Tour Guy also sends how many people of each unit type are booking, Ventrata prices that exact group. This matters for Booking Size fares and other group pricing. Booking Reservation (`POST /bookings`) and Booking Confirmation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/confirm`) – the booking comes back with its final retail and net price, so the booking in Ventrata always records the price it was sold at. Typically with The Tour Guy: The Tour Guy requests `octo/pricing` on all of its availability checks, so it sells at your Ventrata prices. The Tour Guy sends the number of people per unit type, so group prices are calculated for the actual booking. ‼️ IMPORTANT – Ask for pricing to be enabled. When you ask The Tour Guy to map your products, ask them to enable pricing (`octo/pricing`) as well, or switch it on yourself if you map in The Tour Guy's portal. Otherwise it may be off, and The Tour Guy won't receive your Ventrata prices. 📗 TIP – If prices on The Tour Guy look wrong, check the The Tour Guy reseller's pricing in Ventrata first: that's what The Tour Guy reads.
Promotions Sync	❌	Your Ventrata promotions don't apply on The Tour Guy. Prices on The Tour Guy don't include promotions you create in Ventrata. Set up any promotions with The Tour Guy directly.
Bookings Sync	✅	Bookings and cancellations made on The Tour Guy are created in Ventrata instantly, and customers get Ventrata tickets. This works as follows: Hold: Booking Reservation (`POST /bookings`) – when a customer starts checkout on The Tour Guy, The Tour Guy sends the product, option, chosen slot (`availabilityId`) and one unit item per person. Ventrata checks capacity again and creates an `ON_HOLD` booking, which holds the places while the customer pays. If there's no longer room, Ventrata rejects the hold. Confirm: Booking Confirmation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/confirm`) – once payment goes through, The Tour Guy confirms the hold, with its own booking reference and the customer's contact details. The booking becomes `CONFIRMED` in Ventrata, and Ventrata sends back your booking reference and the tickets (one per person) or a voucher (one per booking), depending on how your product is set up, each with a QR code and a PDF link. The Tour Guy gives these to the customer, who shows them at your entrance like any Ventrata ticket. Expire: if the customer doesn't finish paying, The Tour Guy never confirms, and the hold expires on its own and frees the places. Cancel: Booking Cancellation (`POST /bookings/{uuid}/cancel`) – when a customer cancels on The Tour Guy, The Tour Guy cancels the booking in Ventrata. Ventrata accepts this only if the booking can still be cancelled and the option's cancellation cutoff hasn't passed. Otherwise it rejects the request, and The Tour Guy has to contact you. Change: The Tour Guy doesn't use Booking Update (`PATCH /bookings/{uuid}`), so a change most likely reaches Ventrata as a cancellation plus a new booking. Typically with The Tour Guy: The Tour Guy doesn't set a hold time, so the default hold time applies. A typical The Tour Guy booking is for about 3 people. ‼️ IMPORTANT – Bookings sync one way, from The Tour Guy to Ventrata. If you cancel, change or rebook a booking from The Tour Guy in Ventrata, for example in the Dashboard, The Tour Guy isn't notified. Contact The Tour Guy so the booking is cancelled or changed on their side too, or ask the customer to cancel through The Tour Guy.
Pickups/Dropoff Sync	❌	The Tour Guy doesn't send pickup or drop-off details with its bookings. If your products include pickups, check with The Tour Guy how it collects pickup details, or arrange them with the customer.
Custom Questions Sync	✅ / ❌	The Tour Guy sends answers to your booking questions with its bookings. This works as follows: `octo/questions` capability – The Tour Guy reads the questions set on your products and sends the customer's answers with the booking, where you see them in Ventrata. Typically with The Tour Guy: The Tour Guy sends answers to your booking questions.
Extras Sync	❌	Extras and add-ons can't be booked through The Tour Guy. Customers can only book your main products and options on The Tour Guy. Sell extras separately, for example on arrival.
Redemption Sync	❌	Redemptions aren't reported to The Tour Guy. Ventrata doesn't notify The Tour Guy when a ticket is scanned or redeemed. The Tour Guy only sees a redemption if it reads the booking back from Ventrata.
Pass Walkup Scanning Sync	❌	The Tour Guy pass holders can't be scanned at your entrance without a booking. Customers from The Tour Guy need a booking made through The Tour Guy before they visit.
Gift Card Sync	❌	Ventrata gift cards can't be sold or redeemed through The Tour Guy. Gift cards bought in Ventrata can't be used on The Tour Guy, and The Tour Guy can't sell Ventrata gift cards.

✅ supported · ✅ / ❌ limited · ❌ not supported

Good to know: limits and details of the The Tour Guy connection

Delays: availability and prices reach The Tour Guy only when it checks, so there's always a short delay after you change something in Ventrata.
Cancellation cutoff: The Tour Guy can cancel over the API only before your option's cancellation cutoff. Later cancellations have to be agreed with you.
What The Tour Guy can see: only the destinations, products and options allowed on the reseller and the connection, and enabled for sale on the Direct API source. See how to allow or disallow products.
Tickets: The Tour Guy issues the Ventrata tickets or voucher it gets on confirmation, so your usual scanning and redemption work as normal.
Test bookings: The Tour Guy can send test bookings while it sets up the connection. Test bookings don't use your availability and aren't invoiced.

FAQs

No products are displayed on the connection page.

Verify which destinations, products, and options are allowed on your reseller and connection. Next, confirm that your products and options are enabled for sale on the Direct API source. If the issue persists, contact our Technical Support.

My Ventrata products use Booking Size fares, and pricing isn't working correctly on The Tour Guy.

After every fare change, update the product mapping to ensure the partner tier counts are synced with Ventrata. Ensure the fare is enabled for sale over Direct API.

📚 More about Ventrata connections

Partner Information

The Roman Guy, Inc.

1200 Brickell Avenue, Suite 1950

Miami, Florida 33131, United States

thetourguy.com

Ventrata Partner ID: b30d069f-35d9-44ab-a2fd-90d16a1e137b

The Tour Guy: Reseller Connection