How do we at TravelLocal choose our local partners?

TravelLocal was founded on the following beliefs: that customers will have a better travel experience by connecting directly with local travel agencies, and that it's important for the maximum tourist spend to stay in the destination. This ensures that tourism benefits the destination, its local economy, and the local people.

With this in mind, we strive to work only with locally owned travel agencies that are registered in their destination and pay local taxes. Similarly, the local experts from those agencies should be based in the country to provide our customers with the best up-to-date local knowledge and expertise. After all, this is at the core of our brand: plan and book your holiday with a local.

“Travel with Local Companies Worldwide” – which is shortened to our brand name, TravelLocal. This is our mission. Therefore, almost all of our travel partners are locally owned, employing locals and promoting community engagement. However, we make exceptions when necessary, such as in cases when local registration isn't viable or when partners provide multi-country trips. We want to ensure fair employment standards and leverage regional expertise. But one thing remains consistent: whether the local expert is based in the country or in a neighbouring country to your desired destination, all of them work with their local knowledge and enthusiasm.

Many of the local experts from our partner agencies have accepted our invitation to meet us in our office in Berlin

To which criteria do we pay close attention when choosing our partners?

All of our local partners have to go through an onboarding process before joining us. Among other things, we look closely at language skills, expert destination knowledge, and their passion for delivering great customer service. Once we’re confident that they’re a good fit and we've tested their skills, they enter into a binding contract with us before getting in contact with any travellers.

We pay close attention to the following criteria:


  1. Local knowledge and expertise
  2. Locally owned and registered
  3. Local expert is in destination
  4. Local office and bank, paying of local taxes
  5. Customer service and experiences, language skills
  6. Reputation and reviews
  7. Interesting, creative product aligned with our TravelLocal brand
    1. Tailor-made, authentic and local
    2. Off-the-beaten-track areas and good coverage of the highlights
    3. Itinerary for customers in a good format
  8. Full country coverage
  9. Responsible tourism
    1. Commitment to sustainability and supporting local community projects
  10. Capacity and size
  11. Partnership with us and agreement of Terms & Conditions
We believe and trust our local experts after checking their skills during our onboarding process

Want to learn more about our commitment?

Find out more about People & Society on our homepage by clicking here.

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