The issue explained:
We’ve received several reports where guest who made booking with the Viator system were not able to follow the prearrival links to complete waivers ahead of their trip.
We've investigated this and can confirm that the pre-arrival link emails that are being sent by Wherewolf are functioning correctly and include fully working links. You can verify this yourself by creating a test booking in your reservation system (ie Fareharbor, Rezdy etc .. not Viator) using your own email address and reviewing the email you receive from us, the links will work as intended.
In Viator’s case, they act as an intermediary between you and your guests, which means Wherewolf sends the waiver link to Viator rather than directly to the guest. Viator then reformats and forwards that message through their own system. Unfortunately, this means we have no control over how Viator presents or modifies the links in their forwarded emails, and this reformatting is likely causing the issue.
Its important to clarify that Wherewolf has no affiliation, integration or partnership with Viator — we simply receive bookings made through their platform via supported integrations (such as Fareharbor, Rezdy etc). Our system always sends emails to the address included in the booking; if that email is one generated by Viator, then the links will pass through their system before reaching the guest.
Here is a diagram to explain where the problem areas are occurring:
What are Viator doing to resolve this?
Wherewolf continues to report these issues to Viator support and account managers explaining the impact it has on operators. Viator has acknowledged the issue and say they have added it to their roadmap to resolve but provided no eta. Below is the last update we received from their team:
Our team (Viator) is aware of the issue and it is currently on our roadmap to be addressed.
I personally (Brittney W - Senior Destination Manager) am not responsible for managing the engineering team or their pipeline's timeline... I am happy to share your contact details with that team so they have them on hand. They will be able to reach out to you directly if they have any questions or require further information.
It is worth repeating that Wherewolf does NOT have an integration, partnership, contract or subscription with Viator. Viator DO NOT communicate bookings to Wherewolf directly, instead they. communicate with the reservation systems who in turn pass the data onto Wherewolf. It's for this reason that we recommend that those affected (activity operators using Viator), as paying customers/revenue generators for Viator and those subscribed to use their services, raise these issues directly with Viators account managers/support to add weight and urgency to this activity.
How to report the issue:
We recommend that you report these issues to the viator team so that they understand the significant impact that this is having on your business.
Feel free to use this template as a draft and send to viators support team by logging in here: https://www.viator.com/support (or emailing directly to you account manager if you have a direct contact).
Subject: URGENT - major disruption to operations
Viator Support/Account manager,
Over the last few months our customers have been reporting frustration in not being able to follow/click links in the emails that Viator has been sending them. It appears that operational emails we send out are having their hyperlinks stripped and formatting changed by Viator before they are passed onto the guest.
Intrusively modifying the emails we are sending in this way is impacting our operations and causing unnecessary levels of confusion for our guests and additional admin work for our team.
Please can you ensure the emails that are being forwarded to the guest through Viator retain their original formatting and all hyperlinks are honoured.
I look forward to hearing from you, please let us know if you have any questions that would support this being resolved asap. Thanks,
Short-term measures:
- Guests can copy and paste the link into their browser to open the waiver manually
- Forwarding the affected email to another address often restores the clickable links
- Your team can also manually retrieve and share the guest’s waiver link by following [this guide]
What about SMS Pre-arrival messaging?
If your bookings contain a valid mobile/cell phone number that is capable of receiving sms messages and wish to send pre-arrival messages via sms instead of email then we can arrange this for you. Simply contact support@getwherewolf.com and we will assist with reviewing the eligibility and setup.