Confirmations

How to get tour guides to confirm tours, and what to do when one does not answer

Updated 31 October 2026 by Ravid Efroni, founder of GuidePing, which sends guide offers on WhatsApp. Read the tool comparisons with that in mind.

Short answer

Send each tour to one guide with a clear deadline, and decide in advance what happens when the deadline passes: ask the next guide in a fixed order, and stop asking a set number of hours before the start so there is time for you to step in. Shorter deadlines for tomorrow's tours, longer ones for next week. Write the rules down once; then the evening is about the one tour still open, not about scrolling through chats.

Why guides do not answer

Most silence is not refusal. From the guide's side, the usual reasons are simple:

The offer was in a group chat, so each guide assumed someone else would take it.
The message was missing something needed to decide: end time, language, number of guests or meeting point.
The guide was on a tour with the phone in a pocket, and the message got buried under others by the evening.
There was no deadline, so "I'll answer later" felt fine.
The guide was waiting to hear from another operator for the same slot.

Each of these has a fix that does not depend on the guide being more organised.

A playbook you can copy

1. One tour, one guide, one message

Send the offer to one person, not a group, with the company name, date, start and end time, tour, language, guests and meeting point, and ask for YES or NO. A guide who has everything in one message can answer between two tours.

2. A deadline per offer

Our suggestion as a starting point, to adjust with your guides:

Tour starts	Time to answer	Then
In more than 24 hours	2–4 hours	Next guide in your order
In the next 24 hours	30–60 minutes	Next guide, or several at once
Within your stop time (e.g. 3 hours before)	No more offers	It comes to you

3. A fixed order of who is asked

Decide per tour who is asked first: the guides who know it best, then others with the language. Skip guides on a day off or with another tour at that time, and spread the work so the same two people are not asked every time.

4. How deep to go

If three guides in a row say no for the same slot, the slot itself is probably the problem (a holiday, a big event). That is the point to step in personally rather than work down the whole list.

5. Confirm in writing, with a calendar entry

A yes should get a confirmation the guide can find again, ideally with a calendar link. A time change needs a new yes; a cancellation should release the guide clearly, so they can take other work.

6. Talk to the guide who keeps going silent

Silence that repeats is a conversation, not a reminder setting. Ask whether the offers come at a bad time, whether they still want this tour, or whether they would rather set fixed days off. A guide who replies NO quickly is more useful than one who replies YES late.

Same day: the guide cancels this morning

When a guide cancels a few hours before the start, the order changes. There is no time for one guide at a time.

01Ask several guides at once who speak the language and have no tour at that time, and say the first yes gets it. Tell the others straight away when it is taken.
02Phone the two or three guides most likely to say yes rather than waiting for messages.
03Ask the guide who cancelled whether they know a colleague who can step in. Check the replacement knows the tour and the meeting point.
04Set a time to stop looking, for example one hour before the start. After that, decide yourself: lead it, merge it with another departure, or cancel.
05If you cancel, tell the travellers through the platform they booked on as early as you can, and follow that platform's refund rules.
06Afterwards, note who stepped in. They go higher in your order next time.

What scheduling tools do when a guide is silent

TourDash's confirmations page says: "If a guide hasn't confirmed within the window, the manager sees it immediately"; the page describes no step after that (TourDash). TripWorks describes guide alerts as notifications, without an accept or decline step (TripWorks). automate.travel describes ranked dispatch where the first guide to accept gets the tour, through its web portal, web push and email (automate.travel).

Seeing an unconfirmed tour quickly is useful. It still leaves the next step, asking someone else, to the manager. All 18 tools side by side: tour guide scheduling software compared.

The same rules in GuidePing

01Booking emails are forwarded from your inbox, so each tour is on the board as soon as it is booked.
02The tour is offered on WhatsApp to the first guide in your order who speaks the language and is free.
03You set the time to answer, with a shorter time for tours in the next 24 hours.
04No answer in time: the next guide is asked, or silence counts as yes if you chose that.
05A set number of hours before the start, GuidePing stops asking and messages you.
06At 18:00 you get one message: every tour tomorrow is confirmed, or the one tour that still needs you.

Guides answer in their own words in any language, and nothing needs to be installed. More on the WhatsApp side in tour guide scheduling on WhatsApp.

Questions

How long should I wait for a guide's reply before asking the next one?

A common split is a few hours for tours more than a day away and much less for tours in the next 24 hours. Pick numbers your guides can live with, tell them, and apply them the same way every time.

Should I ask several guides at once?

For tours far ahead, one at a time is fairer and avoids two guides keeping the same slot free. For a gap tomorrow, asking several at once with first yes wins fills it faster. GuidePing lets you set this per tour.

Can silence count as a yes?

Only if your guides agreed to it. In GuidePing you can choose that no answer counts as yes; the guide is then told they are booked and can still reply NO.

What if a guide replies with a condition?

Treat "yes if I finish by 12" as a question, not a yes. GuidePing never books a conditional reply; it goes to you and the offer stays open.

What about a guide who cancels the evening before?

A NO after confirming releases the guide, and the tour goes back to the next guide in your order. If it is past your stop-asking time, it comes straight to you.

See it with your own tours

Forward one booking email, a guide gets the offer on WhatsApp and answers in their own words. 30 days free, then €99 a month. No card.

Start free pilot

Sources

Features and prices are what each vendor published on the date read. Check the vendor before you decide.

Tour guide availability calendar (free template)
For freelance guides: one sheet of free days for every company you guide for, a free template, and how to share it read-only.
GetYourGuide commission for suppliers
The 20% to 30% rate, the 2% for twice-monthly payouts, the 25% fee when you cancel, payout dates, VAT and a worked example.
Tour guide scheduling software compared
18 tools side by side: how each asks a guide, whether it asks the next guide on its own, and what it costs.
Assigning guides to Viator bookings
Viator has no guide field: how bookings reach you, its response and cancellation rules, and an order that gets every tour a guide.