A few tour guides have asked me “Why don’t you charge commission?”

Charging tour guides commission is a smart business model and we considered it for Synotrip. It’s much easier to make money in the short term by charging commission.

So, why no commission?

Our dream is to make it as easy as possible for trippers to plan their trip and meet tour guides that suit their needs.

To do that, we need to eliminate the middlemen between tour guides and trippers! By charging commission, we wouldn’t eliminate the middlemen - we would become them, taking a piece of the pie with each transaction.

It’s not just about being idealistic do-gooders though. Synotrip is built in a way that motivates growth.

Because we don’t charge commission, and won’t force tour guides to pay commission in the future, tour guides can gain a long term benefit by posting unique, interesting content on Synotrip. When content is posted, it helps the author attract potential customers. The content is associated with that tour guide account indefinitely.

That’s why there are power users on Synotrip that post hundreds of high quality, interesting Listings, Articles, photos, etc. That’s why there are tour guides on Synotrip that are able to gain full-time employment solely from Synotrip. That’s why there are tour guides that have obtained so much business through Synotrip that they’ve gone on to hire others and create their own agency!

It’s a virtuous cycle and the Synotrip community continues to grow. While two years ago we’d be happy to get 40 new posts by tour guides per month, we now regularly get about 40 posts per day.

But what do you think?