Your past travel could fund more travel!

Creating a City Unscripted experience is a great way to earn a passive income from your past travel experiences whilst providing real value to new travelers across the world. It’s also an exciting new way to connect with communities.

City Unscripted are transparent with our fees and why we have them, meaning you can set pricing strategies that work for your experience and you.

How much does CU charge?

The delivery of an experience on City Unscripted requires 3 parties to ensure its quality delivery. The charging policies are set up to reflect this and work on the overall transaction price of the experience sold. You can find out more about setting your prices and best practices here.

From this overall transaction price we draw:

• Creator fee
• Host delivery fee
• CU logistic fee

Unlike other platforms we do not add on a service fee for the guest on top of the experience price, rather we prefer to offer a simple single price so the guest is clear what they are paying from the outset. Within this single fee you may include the price of additions.

Creators will typically earn on average 15% of every delivery of their experience. (Exact fees may vary and breakdowns are included in the Creator Agreement and discussed during onboarding). So, if the experience transaction is priced at £500 the Creator will earn £75 fee from the experience with the remainder distributed to those who will operate and facilitate the experience happening on the Creator's behalf.

There is no upper earning limit placed on Creators so the more experiences sold, the more earning potential the Creator has.

Fee breakdown

We do everything we can to ensure Creators keep a larger portion of their earnings. Like you we are committed to quality so all experiences are hosted to ensure their operation and that they are delivered to the highest possible standards. This is part of our commitment to you.

Creator fees

This fee reflects the Creators efforts to build and promote the experience. It takes Creators time to plan, review and refine all experiences made, there is huge value in qualified travel know-how that helps others have an amazing experience. It is important to City Unscripted to have the very best, authentic experiences from the best Creators. This is a mutually successful collaboration.

Host delivery fee

Professional Hosts are retained to deliver your experience as you have set out and to the highest quality. So you don’t have to. As you can imagine this is a significant charge, it is the Host that is on the ground and putting in the hours to deliver the experience. We only work with the best of the best and Hosts are specially selected to ensure ours and your good reputation is protected. We do not leave this to chance by recruiting less than awesome people.

City Unscripted logistic fee

This logistics fee is taken to keep everything running smoothly. This includes:

• Customer service and managing bookings on the Creators behalf
• Recruitment and training of high quality Hosts
• Marketing to guests via social media and other platforms
• Insurances to ensure everyone is kept safe

And much more

Booking fee

We are transparent with our fees and show the guest an additional booking fee. This is to ensure we are able to manage and offer a great booking and check out experience whilst not deducting money from the Creators or Hosts.

If you have further questions our Onboarding team will be more than happy to walk through specifics relating to your specific experiences during onboarding.

Wondering how you will get paid is a fair ask. City Unscripted makes it easy to receive your monthly payout and to have a continuous stream of income from the travel experiences you create. Most creators build experiences that have both long and short lead times meaning they earn a fee every month, rather than single bumper pay days.

The City Unscripted way of hosting, means you do not have to participate in the experience once built, therefore the earning potential is truly uncapped. The money you earn is with you sooner, most often within the same month.

You can choose how to receive the money earned from the sale of your experiences. Our current payout methods include:

• Bank Transfers
• Others available on special request

Transaction fees may apply to some methods and other options can be considered (depending on where you are based), these will be discussed during onboarding.

The payout method you select during onboarding will apply to all future payments unless expressly changed by you.

How much you will get paid

Your payout will be the agreed % of all of your experiences enjoyed by guests during that month. Less any pre-agreed discounts or deductions.

Occasionally bonuses will be offered but these are subject to separate agreements. The specific bonus amounts will be visible in your Creator portal or through your CU account manager.

When you’ll get paid

The money you earn from your experiences is released to you every calendar month, payouts are released on the final day of the month and in some cases are accessible to the Creator immediately, the transfer speed is bank account dependent but typically no more than 7 days. Payout statements are shared with you at the time of release by City Unscripted.

For the first payout you must be listed as a Creator with a live Experience for a minimum of two weeks and have earned a payout value of more than £100 before a payout will be processed.

Contact your account manager for further information.

Listing your experience on City Unscripted is totally free and fees are only taken once a sale occurs. Whilst Creators are ultimately responsible for the promotion and success of their Experience listings City Unscripted are active and supportive in ensuring your success.

Creator Promotion

Assess your market

Your past travel experiences should be the basis for the Experiences you Create, it is also the simplest place to begin as you have likely already done most of the work. You know your community best, what is it that you are best known for? What would they expect from you? What would they like to participate in? Answering these questions before you decide on building your Experiences will help you craft something great and desirable.

Unique experience

Craft your Experience with the knowledge of your community and in your signature style. Remember guests are buying your experience but they are also buying you. Your Experience page should be clear and attractive with high quality imagery and video that tells the story of the Experience. City Unscripted will be a guiding hand on how best to set duration, travel needs etc to ensure that all experiences are practical and can be offered as products. There is no limit to the amount of unique experiences you can create.

Distribute on your channels

Your Experience should be highly relevant to your community. Use this to your advantage by linking your Experience landing page in your bios and driving people to your Experiences from relevant content. People finding your experiences will add real value to their travels.

As your Experiences will be offered to your community you should use them to build relationships and celebrate the experiences of those within your community. City Unscripted will provide UGC back to the Creators and also encourage shares from Guests to increase the awareness of your Experiences.

You never know when a member of your community will be traveling or able to recommend you to someone who is. Therefore frequency and consistency is key.

City Unscripted offer Creator training programs where marketing your experiences is covered in depth. Speak to your account manager to be included in the next cohort.

Creator pages

Creators all have their own landing pages where all your Experiences are listed as well as specific Experience pages which are in depth and transactional.

Marketing support

City Unscripted are continuously promoting the brand and the products in our mission to become number one in the travel experiences space. Select Creators are offered the opportunity to benefit from this specific promotion, such as: Inclusion in PR, partnership creation, advertising campaigns and experience features. These opportunities are reserved for exclusive City Unscripted Creators as the rewards are often significant and at no extra cost to the Creator.

CU promotion

City Unscripted have a robust annual brand promotion plan across many high reach platforms, that Creators will indirectly benefit from. Especially the traffic and awareness this activity drives. Creators are encouraged to keep their experiences up to date and pages attractive to really capitalize.

Cross promotion/CRM

We’re always looking for ways to provide value to our Guests travel experiences. Therefore we regularly suggest Experiences to Guests from a range of Creators via cross promotions or inclusion in our CRM. This is using our proprietary data to increase relevance. Creators will earn from the transaction regardless of whether they drove the traffic or not.

Affiliate networks

From time to time we will include Experiences in our external network feeds, allowing other businesses or brands to promote and sell the experiences. Creators can opt out of this 3rd party inclusion via your account manager.

Other promotion methods can be put in place or shared. Your account manager will gladly discuss opportunities further.

City Unscripted has operated thousands of travel experiences across the globe for more than 9 years. We have always been committed to the highest standards and most authentic experiences. We know that the Creators identity is their brand and as such, together we protect the high standards we collectively want to be known for

Best setup

We work directly with the Creators to ensure their experiences are set up and designed to optimise for their delivery. We use our years of experience to help in the design: this could be considering things such as distances or inclusions, ensuring they are applicable and accessible to most guests as well as clarity of expectations so there are no nasty surprises (only good ones).

Hosting

Hosts are an essential part of any experience and are fundamental to the positive feelings a Guest is left with afterwards. We are proud to retain a high satisfaction score but this does not just happen. We recruit the best Hosts according to strict criteria and evaluation. Our Hosts are then enrolled in constant training to ensure their skills are sharp and they deliver the most engaging experiences. Hosts are constantly evaluated against performance. When you create your Experience you will inform us as to the best type of Host to deliver your experience. This will cover things such as knowledge, demographic and personality. City Unscripted will use this information to match only appropriate Hosts to deliver your experience, leaving you confident it will be delivered as you intended.

Our quality commitment

We commit to always striving for the highest quality for both City Unscripted and the Creators. This takes hard work and persistence. Guests are surveyed for satisfaction and review at the end of every Experience, these reviews also include Host and delivery feedback. Reviews of the Creators Experiences are shared cooperatively for transparency and to spot any issues that may be occurring.

Consistent poor reviews on the Experiences or delivery concerns will be fully investigated by City Unscripted and the necessary action will be taken. If you have any quality concerns please make your Account Manager aware immediately.

Customer service

City Unscripted customer service is offered 365 24/7. This level of service ensures Guests are able to receive the support they need at any time. Whether that be pre or post booking or even during the experience. You can rest assured knowing that the Guests who have purchased your experience are being well looked after.

Hosts are an essential part of having and delivering a great experience. They guide the experience as you have intended it and their expertise or support gives a deeper experience. They make sure you don’t miss the unmissable and often remove the hassle of a travel experience, such as navigating the Japanese metro to make it on time or speaking to restaurant owner to get that special menu that is reserved for a select few.

Choosing and matching a Host.

When you create your experience one of the key considerations is the type of Host that is ideal to deliver your experience. This is different to who you are. It is your chance to imagine the best type of person and the best kind of knowledge, the type of person you wished you had during your own experience. By letting us know who this person is, City Unscripted can find them from our qualified pool and ensure they are matched to your experience. Hosts are singularly matched to every experience booked, only from your approved list.

Quality of Hosts

City Unscripted will only work with the best Hosts and each Host commits to continual investment in their learning and development. Host performance is monitored and reported on enabling us to make quality claims to Creators and provide peace of mind around the delivery.

Want to find out more about Hosts or how to become a Host yourself? Check out the Host information.

Have you had a great travel experience that the world needs to know about? Seen things that blew your mind or tasted something that can only be described as flavor heaven? Are you a connoisseur of the hidden gem or seeker of paths less traveled? Think it's time you shared this with others? Then we want to hear from you.

Anyone is invited to apply to become a City Unscripted Creator and receive the great support offered in getting you setup and selling.

What makes a good Creator?

A good Creator has a story to share. Successful Creators usually have an audience of more than 1,000 to share with, either on social media or within closed groups such as blogs or email. The communities the Creator comes from is specific to the topics they build their Experiences around and they can easily be called an expert or enthusiast.

Quality of Hosts

City Unscripted will only work with the best Hosts and each Host commits to continual investment in their learning and development. Host performance is monitored and reported on enabling us to make quality claims to Creators and provide peace of mind around the delivery.

Approval and Onboarding

Quality of offering is important to both Creator and City Unscripted, to protect this applications are approved before Creators are on boarded. City Unscripted will communicate with you throughout so you are never in the dark as to the stage of your application. All Creators are on boarded by the City Unscripted team, answering any questions and providing a quick and seamless way to get your first Experience listed

What is an experience

An authentic experience is a mirror of a past travel adventure you will have undertaken. An experience created on City Unscripted can be thought of as you recreating your special moments and putting them into a product, so others can follow in your footsteps. You are bringing to life a particular place or thing in a way they simply could not on their own.

For example, creating a street food experience where you take in the best foods a particular market has to offer and understand how each of the tasty dishes are created.

Experiences are hosted to maximise the enjoyment and time spent and to ensure delivery and satisfaction is as designed.

Creating an Experience

Creating your experience on City Unscripted is a simple guided process and we work together with you to break down your past travel adventures into productised offerings that a Guest can buy and enjoy. City Unscripted will share best practices with you but often most of the work has already been done by you as you created the original trip and created what should and should not be tried. Together we put it in the right format and create attractive assets to make the Experience desirable on the City Unscripted website.

Remember, there is no limit to the number of experiences you can create.

How to set your price

Setting an Experience price can be complicated, you want to ensure it is accessible whilst at the same time being able to guarantee quality and satisfaction. The price should be set according to the level of experience you are building, the time to complete and its depth of Guest and Host involvement. Prices are usually per person but do not always increase in a linear fashion as the cost to deliver is not as simple as per person. Your Experience may also attract a premium to reflect your brand but this is a personal choice. City Unscripted Account Managers will support you along the way to ensure a competitive pricing strategy and adjust if required.

How do you work out availability?

The best experiences are available and relevant year round. Though we understand that from time to time experiences are seasonal or reflective of a particular time period. Think Christmas markets or Cherry Blossom season. Working with a City Unscripted Account Manager we will determine when your experience should be able to happen, this will be different to when it is on sale as this will remain year round.

Content

Experience content comes in two forms, the content used for the set up will be that which you or City Unscripted already have to create the experience page. This will be authentic video and imagery of your past travel adventure to which this new Experience relates. Once the Experience begins to be enjoyed by Guests we will ensure that content is also fed back to you from real Guests. This content will be approved for use on your own channels or to refine and update the Experience page with Guest content.

How is the Experience purchased?

You design the Experience top to bottom and collaboratively we produce all the assets to list it for sale. City Unscripted will then list the experience on our various channels and you will be provided with a direct Experience link or a link to your collection landing page. The Experience or group of Experiences can be promoted by you. A Guest is able to review the Experience and buy directly from the City Unscripted website. The Guest chooses a date and time, selects the amount of people to enjoy the Experience and then easily checks out. Secure payment is completed there and then and the Guest is booked on the Experience. All the logistics and fulfillment is handled by City Unscripted.

Refining

Working with City Unscripted, Creators can constantly refine their published Experiences to improve their appeal. It is also important to feedback data both ways to ensure a new product is developed in line with Guest desires.

Creating and optimizing an Experience on City Unscripted should be fun and simple, providing excellent travel Experiences for the world. We will work together at every step to get you setup and improve once running.

Get started now.

Experiences are usually a good fit for City Unscripted when they are made from travel adventures you have done personally. This way future guests benefit from your insight and testing and can maximise their trip time with positive activities.

City Unscripted Account Managers will walk you through your past adventures and how to best make them into Experience products but typically we will look at Experiences that can be completed in under 3 hours, are packed with engaging content and are relevant to a particular place or thing.

Guests like variety, therefore different themes or takes on classic Experiences can be well received but also specialist Experiences that suit your specific expertise or niche will likely do well. I.e. A photography or film experience around Berlin.

If your travel adventure spanned many days and different destinations it doesn't mean this isn't a fit, it likely just means you have multiple Experiences you can create from a single adventure. Think of it as bite sized Experience chunks.

What doesn’t fit well

We will always work with you to try and create the best Experiences from your past adventures. There are some typically problematic areas we come across though that make Experience delivery difficult. These include;

• Places where long queues are expected or large crowds meaning lots of time waiting around vs on an activity
• Lots of travel in between locations (unless the travel itself is part of the Experience) this is time consuming, often problematic and costly for Guests.
• Ticketed locations or limited availability restricts the availability potential of the Experience
• Lack of theme or purpose to an Experience means that Guests do not really know what they are buying and as such satisfaction is much lower.

City Unscripted Experience offerings are unique and allow you to create an immersive experience for your audience that previously would not have been possible.

Experiences are designed to be simple and enable you to earn money from your past travel adventures to fund new ones. Our payout shares are incredibly competitive and successful Creators are able to earn a significant monthly passive income or more considering the earning potential is not capped. Once the Experience is created you can sit back and earn, happy in the knowledge our experts are operating on your behalf.

We fully manage and host your experience on your behalf, creating an engaging and immersive experience which is way beyond following an itinerary or plan. We help Guests to have an excellent experience and come back to you time and time again.

Alongside your own promotional efforts: City Unscripted is committed to an intensive brand marketing plan and uses multiple platforms and strategies to bring new Guests to the website. These Guests can search for experiences appropriate to them.

Search results will return both City Unscripted Experiences and Creator Experiences (where each is relevant) giving the Guest ultimate choice and the opportunity to discover and purchase your experience, increasing your reach and potential.

Further benefits of creating an Experience with City Unscripted:

• Full set up support
• Customer service
• Booking management
• Platform management
• Marketing of your experience
• Collaborative marketing support
• Inclusion in email marketing to City Unscripted guests
• Sales by association
• Exposure to new travel and niche audiences

City Unscripted believes in a truly collaborative approach, with this in mind we have sought to minimise the effect cancellations have on Creators at every point. We have many safeguards in place to reduce cancellation rates that creators will benefit from. Creator managers will work with you to reduce or mitigate any cancellation concerns you may have.

We choose fairness when it comes to cancellations and do not enforce any ongoing penalties or reductions owing to cancellations. At this stage City Unscripted have no plan to pass on cancellation deductions/charges to the Creators in later months.

Minimising Cancellations

We understand that cancellations are an inevitable part of our world and as such we have many systems and procedures in place to minimise their effect. Collectively we work to manage Guest expectations and position the experiences accurately to reduce overall cancellations by Guests.

If you are experiencing a lot of cancellations

If a Creators cancellation rate is deemed to be high, then Creator Managers will work with that Creator to take appropriate action.

Cancellation rate averages are regularly reviewed.

Negative events during Experiences are extremely rate but we understand that peace of mind is important, especially when a reputation is aligned with experiences. City Unscripted take this consideration very seriously and have numerous protections in place for Creators, Hosts and Guests alike.

Insurances

We have complete Operator Insurance in the location of activity. This insurance extends to our partners with whom we build experiences in cooperative fashion.

All Hosts retain exclusive insurances for on the ground peace of mind against any rare incident that may occur.

Planning

During the experience build phase we will review the locations and activities for safety and potential areas of conflict or concern. Much of this can be remedied by discussion but on the rare occasion it cannot, City Unscripted may exclude a potential inclusion on the grounds of safety or protection.

Code of conduct

All Guests and Hosts are bound by a Code of Conduct during the Experience, this is agreed to at the time of purchase. All parties are aware they are acting as ambassadors for their countries or own cities, they represent the business but most importantly they represent themselves. Therefore we expect high behavior standards that incorporate respect, patience and compassion for others and the locations of the Experience.

Host validation

All Hosts have had their identity verified and have been rigorously approved before they are able to Host an Experience. Hosts are monitored regularly and reviews are sought on the Host after every experience. This is just one measure we use to ensure consistently high delivery standards.

Creator approval

Like Hosts, all Creators are approved to work with City Unscripted. This ensures we work with quality and authentic Creators that share our values. Our reputation in this regard is of the utmost importance and we work to protect this. You can be assured that you are associating with a positive brand that seeks to do good in the world.

Reviews

Reviews of Experiences and Hosts can only be left by genuine experience takers whose accounts have been validated. This means only those who have purchased the Experience and taken it are included. This gives a distinct credibility to reviews received and allows us to take action on any noticeable patterns or feedback.

Round the clock support

We have round the clock customer support on standby and dedicated Account Managers for Creators. Meaning you are never too far away from support should you need it.

These protections mean you can Create and promote in confidence. Reach out to us to get started today.