This article explains how Furkot uses third-party content and services. Its main purpose is to provide a set of pre-conditions to feature content in Furkot and lay out criteria for partnerships. It may also be of interest to users inquiring about the inner workings of Furkot.

Furkot main goal is to facilitate planning multi-day, multi-destination trips. Furkot assist users in creating itineraries that bring together activities, attractions and services (like restaurants and fuel stations) with reservations for lodging accommodations and means of transportation. In order to provide the wide range of options Furkot partners with providers to have content featured in the process of building a trip itinerary.

In addition to this article covering delivery and rendering, the policy for obtaining and reproducing third-party content and data can be found here.

Furkot visualizes most types of the third-party content - activities, attractions, services, lodging accommodations, etc. - on the map and provides for adding them to a trip itinerary as stops. Presentation of the content, both before and after adding to the itinerary, is accompanied by the link to the provider website. Users can follow the link to obtain more information and to make a reservation or a purchase (for content that requires a fee either for access to it, i.e. point of interest description or to the entity it represents, i.e. lodging accommodation, guidebook).

Requirements for content providers ¶

The minimum requirements for the third-party content to be featured in Furkot are as follows:

1. Each separate item needs name and geographic coordinates. Additionally following properties will be displayed by Furkot if provided (when it make sense for specific content): address, description, phone, rating, opening hours, average price. If content represents bookable entities (lodging accommodations, events, tours, etc), availability information and actual price for specific dates can also be consumed and displayed in Furkot.

2. The content provider website has to expose deep links to the items. If content represents entities that are purchased or reserved for specific dates, the deep links need to support them as parameters. Optionally number of travelers can be passed on and, specifically for lodging accommodations, number of rooms and persons per room.

3. The content itself needs to be accessible programmatically. Furkot supports following methods of access to the third-party content:

• geographical search API; if the content is date-specific, the dates are passed as parameters,

• downloadable file(s) in CSV, XML, JSON or similar format comprising the entire content; combined with API for querying availability if the content is date-specific,

• direct crawling of the content provider website if no other option is available; when crawling Furkot takes under advisement the robots.txt configuration of the website.

Furkot will cache the content in order to perform geographical search against its own database to offer users ability to view the content over the trip map, around selected stop or along the trip route.

For content that represents bookable entities, Furkot only shows items available for the dates of users' trips. Whenever possible Furkot displays the actual prices. Price is an important criterion for making a booking decision and users favor content providers that reveal the price early in the planning process - directly in Furkot - as opposed to seeing it only after clicking on the link.

Linking and attribution ¶

When using third-party content Furkot links to the provider website and attributes the content.

In order to properly link and attribute the content we require:

• canonical link format,

• a small square logo as SVG or raster image in resolutions: 16x16, 32x32, 48x48

• a rectangular logo as SVG or raster image in resolution between 88x31 and 108x50; for bookable entity we strongly prefer logo in 88x31 resolution for uniform presentation

• additional guidelines on recommended attribution form

Compensation ¶

The third-party content is always presented with the link to its provider website and the copyrighted content is never shown in totality unless permitted by the content provider license. The description of a place to visit is only partially revealed in Furkot. Reservations and purchases are performed on the content provider website.

Featuring content enriches the experience of Furkot users and directing visitors to its provider website is beneficial to the provider of content. When Furkot user clicks on a link to a content provider website and makes a reservation or a purchase that may have not been made otherwise, Furkot deserves to be remunerated, typically in the form of an affiliate agreement with commission paid for consumed reservation or completed purchase.

Furkot does not display unrelated advertisement. Users who follow Furkot links to provider website are doing that in conjunction with their specific travel plans. As a result website owner can expect that Furkot users are more likely to complete a booking transaction than users originating from other websites. When provider of content receives traffic originating from Furkot we expect compensation on a scale commensurable with benefits derived from said traffic.

Partnership with a content provider that is equally beneficial both to Furkot and the provider does not require compensation:

• when the content provider is not charging visitors either directly or indirectly (by featuring advertisement or affiliate relationships) beyond recovering basic costs of running a website,

• in the early stages of development the feature involving the third-party content,

• when the number of visitors directed to a content provider website is below an agreed threshold,

• when we deem the content indispensable to Furkot function,

• when there is a comparable flow of visitors from the content provider website to Furkot (for instance by linking to Furkot, embedding tripshots, using Furkot buttons, widgets or API).

The compensation from third-party websites that Furkot directs visitors to allows us cover costs while keeping majority Furkot features free to its users.

In order to keep it this way Furkot operates within confines of a budget that generally precludes paying directly for a third-party content unless it is indispensable to Furkot function and directing traffic is neither feasible or sufficient to cover costs of supplying it by the content provider.

The examples of content that Furkot directly pays providers for include base maps, geocoding and routing API.

When Furkot doesn't directly pay for content, its provider can receive compenstation indirectly by participating in Furkot revenue sharing program.

Complimentary Furkot Pass ¶

Providing content featured in Furkot entitles the provider to a free Furkot Pass not as a form of compensation but as an expression of out gratitude for lending a hand to boost Furkot. Contact us to receive your free Furkot Pass for providing content.

Furkot revenue-sharing program ¶

You can sign up for Furkot revenue sharing program to obtain compensation for providing content that helps Furkot users plan their trips. Consider embedding trip planner widget, tripshot widget, or plan with Furkot buttons in your website in addition to providing content to increase your earnings.