Short version. One link per partner or placement, a reward per counted confirmed booking, a budget you lock, and a live view both sides read.
Travel is sold by people who have been there
A hotel or a tour operator gets most of its direct bookings from recommendations: a travel creator's reel, an agent's WhatsApp, a vlog with the property in the background. Online travel agencies take a commission for the same thing with none of the warmth. A referral programme lets the property pay the recommender directly, per confirmed stay, and see which recommendation actually filled the room.
The economics favour direct bookings strongly. An online travel agency's commission on a stay is a large slice of the room rate, for a customer who has no relationship with the property. A creator or a past guest who sends a booking on a link costs a reward you chose, and the guest arrives already trusting the place. The property keeps the customer, the email, the second stay.
Setting up for a property or an operator
The booking page (or the enquiry page, if you book by conversation) is the landing page. The result is a confirmed booking, reported by your booking engine or marked when the payment lands. Creators, agents and past guests each get a link; a QR in the room or on the bill invites guests to refer the next one.
Rewards for high-value, low-volume results
Travel results are rare and valuable, so rewards are larger: hundreds of rupees per confirmed night, or a fixed amount per booking. The platform's 15% comes on top, from the budget you locked. Because bookings are confirmed days or weeks after the open, the reward is held until confirmation and reversed if the booking is cancelled, which keeps both sides comfortable with larger numbers.
What creators need from you
A page that loads fast on a phone with the price visible, a ready-made message with their link, and the certainty that a booking from their audience will show up on their screen. Give them those three and the rest follows. Creators see opens by platform and city, which also tells them which of their posts is working.
Agents are different from creators and both work well. An agent sends a few high-value bookings a month and wants a clean record of each; a creator sends many opens and a handful of bookings and wants to know which post did it. Both get their own link and their own live view, and the property sees them side by side.
Seasonality and budgets
Lock a budget for the season and let the campaign pause itself. Turn on automatic top-up during peak weeks so a good week does not stall. Close the campaign at season end and the unused budget returns to the wallet.