For travel affiliates, Australia is a top tourist destination, no matter what your niche audience is. Australia has it all. Some are looking for an epic road trip, others want island cruises, then there are students keen to explore the land down under on a working visa.
Making money from a travel blog focusing on travel affiliate programs for Australia is easier done than you may imagine.
Australian Travel Website Ideas
There’s car rentals, motorhome rentals, bike rentals or you could promote golf resorts in Australia earning commissions from the booking and on shipping the clubs overseas to save people money on airfare.
For ideas on a site topic, it could be focused on full-fledged experience tours such as Safari trips, or island hopping between any of the thousands of islands.
Did you know Australia has 8,222 islands?
And there’s 10,685 beaches so plenty of opportunities for surf affiliates.
Not all travelers are looking for adventure though, and you may find opportunities with things like yoga affiliate programs for people who want to have a relaxing, zen-like experience in this beautiful country.
In 2018, there were an average 1,000 tourists touched down somewhere in Australia every hour. The top six countries people arrive from are New Zealand, China, the US, UK, Japan, and Singapore – in that order.
The year before that, tourism in Australia brought in a staggering $41.3 Billion. Money is spent getting there and then, on the experiences happening around the country.
By far, the most popular tourist destinations are Sydney and Melbourne. But that’s only where people arrive.
Australia has one of the most efficient internal flight networks in the world. Just in Sydney alone, there are over 34 flights daily leaving for Brisbane.
Once there, honeymooners and those on romantic getaway breaks can take a dinner cruise on the Brisbane River.
Now, in the tourism industry, affiliate marketing is only one method of earning from a blog. Travel writers and travel bloggers can and are invited by brands who will sponsor their trips.
Ever wonder how influential travel bloggers can travel the world and get paid?
They get their travel sponsored by brands and tourist boards including flights, accommodation and their meals. That doesn’t pay the bills though.
In return for sponsored trips, bloggers provide the media coverage.
How you provide that coverage can be done through a blog, YouTube channel or your social media channels. Affiliate marketing is actually a great way to fund your trips until you gain enough clout to get the perks of being a social media influencer.
However, you don’t need to travel around the world to make money from a travel website.
It’s possible to run a profitable hotel comparison site, flight fare comparison site just on internal flights or even focus on bucket list activities.
Plenty of people with a bucket list will have something there for Australia. Just search for Aussie bucket lists and you’ll find hundreds of things people want to do in the land Down Under.
Visit all the states, explore the National Parks, take one epic road trip in a motorhome across Highway 1 (14,500 km), or see the Great Barrier Reef (it can be viewed by flying over it, sailing on it or snorkeling in it)!
Australian Travel Affiliate Programs
- Isango
- I Want that Flight
- Rail Trails
- Go City | Go Sydney Card
- Bikes Booking
- Online Republic
- Hostel World
- Urban Adventures
- Send My Bag
- Experience Oz
- eDreams
- Cudo
- Lonely Planet
1. Isango
Isango is an experience tour operator with international tours and plenty of activities and lists of things to do in Australia.
One of the easiest ways to get traffic to a travel blog is to cover listicles. i.e:
- The Top 13 Places to Visit in Australia
- Top Attractions in Sydney
- Best Events in Brisbane this Winter (Australia’s Summer)
Isango is how you monetize that content.
As an example, you could write about visiting the Australian Outback at Ayers Rock, where you’d be stargazing at the most epic nighttime skies in the world.
The only place you’ll see the sky come alive at sunset.
The Isango affiliate program pays 6% up to 10% commission and they have multi-currency data feeds you can use on your website to promote various destinations.
With over 12,000 experiences to choose from, you’ll be able to tailor the data feeds to Australian destinations.
If you want to expand your site to cover different countries in the future, there’s plenty here to broaden your travel destination guide site.
Sign up to the Isango Affiliate Program here
2. I Want that Flight
I want that flight site is a search engine for flights and there’s plenty of those taking off around Australia.
To make this more appealing, don’t focus on promoting it as a flight search engine. Tie it into a themed holiday because there’s so much to do and plenty of cities with different experiences.
To fit the most into an Australian holiday, tourists can take advantage of Australia’s internal flight network. It’s super-efficient and even cheaper using this flight search engine in advance.
Think honeymoon’s in Australia and the not-to-miss locations in the Land Downunder. Australia is far more than beaching holidays and surfing.
There’s wildlife, scorched outback scenery, island hopper tours from various ports across Australia, safari tours – the list goes on.
Getting around to fit in as much as possible is best done on cheap flights. This is the search engine to find them.
It covers international flights too so your peeps can even book their return flights on here.
It’s usually cheaper to arrange your own travel and accommodation than it is to book a package holiday.
Listen up though, before you get a shocker of a surprise and start sending angry emails to your account manager.
I want that flight is an affiliated website. On their affiliate page, it states you’ll get “70% of any commissions” generated. That’s not a 70% commission rate.
It’s 70% of another affiliate programs commission rate.
As an example, someone books a flight with Tiger Airlines generating the I want that Flight website a 5% commission, you’d be paid 70% of the 5% commission from the sale they made with your help.
For example’s sake, the airfare is AUD 100. You’d be paid 70% of $5 so $3.50. Not AUD 70.
The 70% of their commission also includes the sales of package holidays, hotels, car rentals, and even their AdSense clicks.
With decent targeting of an Australian tourist audience, there’s potential for some good earnings here.
Join the Flight Travel Affiliate Program here
3. Rail Trails Australia
Rail Trails is a not-for-profit organization that exists to promote the use of abandoned railways as walkways for hikers, routes for cyclists and they can be used by horse-riders too.
The online store has rail trail guides selling from $16 to $40 paying 5% commission.
There are also membership options for the Rail Trails magazine but it’s unlikely tourists will be interested in a subscription, and for those visitors, back issues can be ordered.
While the 5% commission on digital download guides isn’t a lot, where the money for affiliates come in is in the aftersales.
Anyone buying a Rail Trail guide for cycling or hiking the trails are interested in either hiking holidays or cycling holidays.
Promoting the gear after a guide sale is how you can increase your earnings.
Sign up to become an Affiliate of Rail Trails here.
Hot Tip: As an affiliate of Send My Bag, you can earn money when people ship their bikes to Australia to cycle the trails.
4. Go City | Go Sydney Card
The Go Sydney Card is a digital access pass that’s downloaded to smartphones and used as a prepaid ticket to various attractions throughout Sydney.
Customers can buy an explorer pass covering around 20 popular tourist attractions around Sydney, or they can build their own experience pass from a list of 36 attractions, each having cheaper tickets than paying at the gate.
With an average order value of $350, there’s some good earning potential here, especially since you’re able to help your readers save up to 45% and get to skip the line at various attractions throughout Sydney.
As a Go City affiliate, you can earn 6% commission on either the explorer passes or custom-built passes and the cookies last for 90-days so it’s not a hit-or-miss sale like booking.com where cookies expire after just one day.
There’s plenty of time to run promo campaigns, especially if you’re a flight affiliate with people on your email list that’s booked tickets to fly to Sydney.
This is how you can save them some money once they’re there and make some extra commissions in the process.
Sign up the Go City Affiliate Program here
5. Bikes Booking
Bikes Booking is run through TravelPayouts.com which operates a similar structure to I want that flight program. They’ll pay you 80% of the commissions they generate.
It’s a type of affiliate arbitrage model.
By grouping affiliate commissions together, they’re able to drive more converting traffic to businesses, bumping their commissions to a higher tier, then they pay you a percentage of their earnings.
Bike Bookings state they pay 4% commission if your site makes under 500 bookings per month. Over that, they pay 5% commission.
Bikes include cycles, scooters, motorbikes (including Harleys) and quad bikes.
For keen bikers visiting Sydney Australia, a must-experience would be the Great Ocean Road.
Expect to earn an average 3% commission on bikes booked. And if you decide to expand your site to different territories, Bikes Booking have other cities too.
Join the BikesBooking.com Affiliate Program here
6. Online Republic
The Online Republic affiliate program covers car rentals, motorhome rentals, and the Cruise Sale Finder brand.
As an affiliate, you get access to XML data feeds that let you showcase various offers for Australia, which you can customize to cater to motorhome rentals, car rentals or cruises.
Cruises in Australia is a growing industry. Business Insider reported in 2018, that cruising in Australia is a $5 Billion industry.
CruiseSaleFinder.com is run by Online Republic and they’ll provide a widget for your site visitors to search for cheap cruises around Australia, make the bookings, and they’ll handle the order fulfillment.
Here’s a video from OnlineRepublic.com’s affiliate manager explaining the program they have for affiliates.
If that sounds good to you…
Contact the Online Republic Affiliate Team here
7. Hostel World
Hostel world has the largest search engine for hostels worldwide.
Given Australia is a popular destination for backpackers and stays that are longer than a fortnight, such as those traveling Australia on a working Visa, they need budget accommodation.
Especially those only traveling with a holiday visa, because they’ll need to make their savings last.
As a Hostel World affiliate, you get tools such as banners, search widgets, XML data feeds and an account manager to help with your promotions.
The cookies last for 30-days and they’ll pay around 25% commission.
The commission is like most booking engine affiliate programs – a commission of the websites commissions. In the case of Hostel World, they’ll charge around 12% booking fee to hostel owners, and pay affiliates up to 25% of that fee.
While Hostel World is a search engine with the largest pool of hostels in the world for budget travel, not all the top results are the best. It’s a pay to play database where the chain hostels always rank prominently.
As a travel affiliate, it’ll help you stand out by finding the best deals and informing your audience about those.
Smaller hostels that are better rated could be as far back as the third page, just because they don’t have the budget to pay for featured placements.
Not to be overlooked is the affiliate programs exclusivity agreement.
When you’re accepted into the Hostel World affiliate program, you cannot advertise any competing hostels. Hotels, yes, but no hostels and that will likely extend to any budget travel search engine.
If you’re displaying AdSense on your site, that may need disabled to prevent competing hostels advertising alongside Hostel World accommodation.
Sign Up the Hostel World Partner Program here
8. Urban Adventures
Urban Adventures is part of Intrepid Travel focusing on unique day tours, rather than package holidays.
There are Australian Package tours with affiliate programs such as Contiki that’ll pay 5% commission, but do people want that?
Budget travelers would much rather DIY their trip by making their own itinerary. Urban Adventures has cultural experience tours departing every major Australian city every day.
And they’re budget-friendly.
What’s more, they’ll give you all the creatives you need to promote the tours to your audience, 6-month cookie duration and when someone does make a booking, you’ll get 10% commission.
Anyone visiting Australia knows there’s a lot to see and do, much of it is within local communities rather than tourist hot spots.
Urban Adventures is the tour company that takes tourists off the beaten track to explore Australia that most tourists wouldn’t find. Something truly unique that creates memories.
Join the Urban Adventures Affiliate Program here
9. Send My Bag
You don’t need to be run a travel a blog to earn from Australian travel affiliate programs.
A golf website could do a listicle featuring the best golf resorts in Australia and provide a 5% discount on shipping your clubs using Sendmybag.com.
The affiliate program pays 10% commission, and they do give you the option of taking a 5% commission instead and giving the other 5% as a discount to your audience.
They’ll ship bicycles to Australia too so if you’re promoting the Rail Trails guides and blogging about cycling the trails, this is how people can get their bikes to their accommodation on the same day they arrive.
The most beneficial aspect for everyone though is on saving in luggage fees. It’s no secret that budget airlines make bank by charging customers excess baggage charges.
With Sendmybag.com, people can save on excess weight luggage by shipping it separately. It makes for an easier trip too.
Sign Up to the SendMyBag.com Affiliate Program here
If you’re running a flight comparison site, an easy way to advertise this would be creating an ultimate guide to airline baggage limits. Most have a 7KG limit, but, there’s also size restrictions and carry-on limits.
Here’s an example: https://www.farecompare.com/baggage-fees/ (obviously, don’t steal it)
10. Experience Oz
Experience Oz will be a good partner for blogs focusing on adrenaline-pumping adventures in Australia.
They do have family tours like little boat trips for whale watching, but there’s also white-knuckle water rides – at speed, bungee jumping, skydiving, or for honeymooner’s, a romantic picnic and bottle of sparkly aboard a hot air balloon floating over the Byron Bay would definitely be a magical & memorable experience.
The site accepts China Union Pay and has been customized for the Chinese and Japanese markets.
Commission rates are dependent on performance, and they do give you tools to help with conversion, including an API feed, 30-day cookie and you can even earn based on sales from Giftitnow.com.au – the sister site for experience day vouchers.
They’ll even co-brand the vouchers – free. Provided you have the traffic to send their way.
Join the Experience Oz Affiliate Program here
11. eDreams
eDreams.com.au is a search engine for flights, car rental, and holiday packages and they represent five brands – Liligo, Go Voyages, Travel Link, Opodo and eDreams themselves.
As an affiliate, you get access to their data feeds and they’ll regularly update on the best deals they have available and upcoming, letting you keep your site and subscribers up to date.
By far, the site has the largest airline database, featuring over 500 airlines. For anyone interested in building a flight comparison search engine, eDreams will be a must-have for top deals.
You can also enhance your offering from just flight deals to flights and hotels as well as package holidays or car hire.
Join the eDreams Affiliate Program on Commission Factory here
12. Cudo
With Cudo.com.au, you can become a daily deal affiliate and unlike Groupon, you won’t be restricted to one platform only.
As a daily deal affiliate, it’s your job to find and distribute the best deals of the day by putting the user first. That means, some deals, you may not get a commission on until you wrangle a deal together with a supplier.
With Cudo offers, you get 4% commission on all experiences sold and 2% commission on travel deals.
They don’t pay on shopping orders such as footwear and hair care, but those won’t be a match for a travel affiliate anyway.
They have a data feed available for affiliates and you can customize that to show the offers you want.
That can be a list of deals for local restaurants in Sydney, experience days like whale-watching cruises with 60% off or a discount on a half-day cruise that hops between four islands with lunch included.
With an Australian daily deals site, you’d be able to expand your audience from tourists traveling to Australia to also include Aussies after a good bargain.
Definitely keep your deals focused on experiences and away from products because then you’d just be another spammy coupon affiliate flooding inboxes with irrelevant vouchers nobody wants.
Sign up to the Cudo Affiliate Program on Commission Factory here
- Cudo is part of Lux Everyday and you can contact them directly here
13. Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet is the industry leader in travel guides. They cover all the major tourist destination with exquisite guide books, and run regular 3 for 2 promotions, helping to maximize earnings – for them and you as the affiliate.
Affiliates are paid 15% commission on all book sales, whether it’s print or the digital download version. Currently, their guides convert at 12% which is high.
They do offer travel services and have plans for the future to include affiliate commissions for clicks generated to partner sites, but at the moment, that’s in the works. Only the guides pay the commissions to affiliates.
For travel and tourism affiliates focusing on Australia, Lonely Planet currently has 50 guides covering all regions so there is the potential to earn from a few 3 for 2 bundles.
The affiliate program is managed by AWIN for affiliates in the UK and Americas, and Commission Junction for affiliates in the Asia Pacific.
