Host resources

You already know your city. This is everything else.

Welcome to Gollo hosting. This hub is what we wish every new host had on day one — the practical stuff that separates a listing that gets one booking a month from one that fills up. If you're stuck on something we haven't covered, contact us and we'll add it.

Get your listing right

The listing is what a traveller sees before they trust you with their afternoon. Three things move bookings more than anything else:

• Photos. Real photos of the tour, not stock imagery of the city. Include one wide establishing shot, a few of the actual activity, and one of you (host photo — this is what turns a listing into a person). Landscape or portrait both work; blurry does not.
• Title. State what someone will actually do and where. "Sunrise Wet Markets Walk — Chinatown" beats "Amazing Bangkok Food Experience." Concrete beats effusive.
• Description. Answer the traveller's three questions in order: what will I do, what's included, who's this for. Two short paragraphs is plenty. Skip the marketing adjectives.

Add an itinerary. If your tour has clear stops, the itinerary editor turns them into a visual timeline on the public page. Tours with itineraries convert better because travellers can picture how the time will unfold.

Price your tour

Pricing is judgment, not formula. A few things that help you land it:

• Anchor to comparable tours in your city. Search Gollo for what other hosts are charging for similar length + group size. Being significantly cheaper doesn't always win — travellers read low prices as low effort.
• Price per person, not per group. Gollo lists per-person prices; group discounts happen via your max-group-size and any custom pricing tiers you set.
• Currency is your choice. Set your listing in the currency you actually get paid in. Travellers see prices converted to their preferred currency automatically.

About platform fees. Gollo takes a small platform fee out of each booking (shown to you before you list and per-booking in your earnings dashboard). You don't pay booking fees on top — the fee comes out of the host's side.

If we run a promo. When Gollo funds a promo code or referral credit, the platform absorbs the discount. Your payout is still calculated on the tour's listed price. You never lose money because we ran a marketing campaign.

Set up availability

The availability editor supports two shapes:

• Recurring rules — "Every Saturday, 9am–12pm." Repeats until the end date you set.
• Specific dates — one-off availability for a particular day, useful for seasonal or special tours.

How far ahead can travellers book? Slots are materialised up to 365 days ahead. Set an end date on recurring rules if you don't want the tour bookable that far out.

Timezones. Slots use the tour's local time. If you set a 9am recurring rule, it's 9am in the tour's city — Gollo handles the conversion for travellers browsing from another timezone.

Duration is fixed per tour. A tour has one duration. If you want to offer a shorter and longer version of the same tour, list them as separate tours — that lets each version get its own reviews and photos.

Meeting point and private notes

Two fields, and getting the difference right matters:

• Meeting point (public). The neighbourhood or general area. Shown on the public tour page. Do not put your exact address here.
• Meeting-point photo + address + phone (confirmed only). The exact street address, a photo of the spot, and a contact number you're reachable on the day. Revealed only to travellers who have a confirmed booking.

Private meeting notes. Anything you want travellers to know before showing up — where to wait, what to say to the doorman, how to spot you. Only visible after confirmation.

Why the split matters. Public exact addresses attract no-shows, scammers, and gawkers who never book. The confirmed-only reveal keeps meeting-point details for the people who've actually paid.

Communicate with guests

Great communication is what turns a good tour into a 5-star review. A rough playbook:

• On booking. Gollo sends the confirmation automatically. You don't need to send anything unless something's unusual about the tour.
• Day before. A short "looking forward to meeting you tomorrow — see you at [spot] at [time]" message goes a long way. Doesn't need to be scripted.
• Day of. Be reachable on the phone number in your booking. If you're running late, message the traveller from the messages tab — silence is the single biggest source of bad reviews.
• After the tour. No need to ask for a review — Gollo emails travellers automatically. If they leave a nice one, respond publicly with a short thank-you. If they leave a critical one, respond calmly and factually; future travellers read how you handle criticism as much as the criticism itself.

Handle cancellations, no-shows, and weather

Traveller cancels. Refund follows the tour's cancellation policy (flexible / moderate / strict — see Cancellation policy for the exact windows). Your payout is reduced by the refund amount automatically.

You cancel. The traveller gets a full 100% refund automatically, regardless of the policy. Cancelling should be a last resort — repeat cancellations affect your verification tier and search ranking. If something out of your control comes up (illness, family emergency, an act of god), message the traveller first, then cancel with a clear reason so we can help them rebook.

Weather. Weather is your call. If a tour is unsafe in the conditions, cancel it and offer to rebook — travellers appreciate honesty over stubbornness. If the tour still runs but conditions changed (rain instead of sun), a heads-up message before they show up prevents most complaints.

No-show. If a traveller doesn't show, wait 15 minutes past start time and try to reach them. If still no contact, mark the booking as no-show in your bookings tab. You keep the payout.

When to loop in support. Safety incidents, refund disputes, or anything you'd rather have a human decide — reach us through Help & Support in the app. We reply within 24 hours.

Payouts, fees, and tax

How payouts work. Every booking splits into your payout + Gollo's platform fee. Payouts land in the Stripe Connect account you set up during onboarding, usually a few business days after the tour completes. Track the status of every payout on your earnings dashboard.

Stripe Connect setup. Required before your first payout. If you're stuck mid-setup, there's a support entrypoint on the earnings page — one tap opens a pre-filled ticket that jumps our queue.

Currency conversion. Stripe converts to your bank account's currency at their rate. The rate is set at payout time, not booking time.

Tax responsibility. You are responsible for reporting your Gollo earnings to the tax authority in the country where you live. Gollo doesn't withhold tax on your behalf. We're not licensed tax advisors — the specifics of what you owe, what you can deduct, and whether you need to register for GST/VAT/sales tax varies significantly by country and income level. Talk to a local accountant. It's worth it.

Progress your verification tier

There are three tiers of host verification on Gollo. They compound: a Gold host is also verified, a Platinum host is also Gold + verified.

• Verified (raspberry badge). Your identity has been checked via Stripe Identity. This is the baseline for every host who can accept bookings. Start the process on your host dashboard.
• Gold (amber badge). Awarded manually to hosts with sustained strong performance: high average rating, low cancellation rate, consistent bookings over time. There's no application — we promote when the pattern is clear.
• Platinum (blue badge). The top tier. Long-tenured hosts whose reviews, reliability, and reputation put them among the best on Gollo. Meant to feel rare and earned — we promote sparingly.

What actually moves you up. Deliver the tour you promised, communicate clearly, don't cancel, keep meeting-point info accurate, and let travellers leave honest reviews. The rest follows.

See Trust & Safety for what these badges signal to travellers.

Still stuck?

Anything on this page unclear, or something you're facing that we haven't covered? We want to hear it — how hosts get stuck is how we improve this hub.

• In-app — Help & Support (host sidebar on web, Profile tab on mobile)
• Email — support@gollo.co

We reply within 24 hours, always a real person.

Last updated: 4 August 2026