The Book By Guide feature lets your customers choose a specific guide when booking a trip. This is especially helpful for repeat guests who return to work with the same guide, or for businesses where clients are referred directly to a particular guide.
When Book By Guide is enabled, customers will see a “Choose Your Guide” dropdown during checkout. They can either:
Select a specific guide, or
Leave it as Any Guide (Origin will automatically assign an available guide)
What Happens When a Customer Selects a Guide
If a customer chooses a specific guide:
Only dates/times where that guide is available will appear at checkout.
When the customer books, that guide is automatically assigned to the trip.
The assignment is locked, ensuring another trip cannot book that guide at the same time.
If the guide becomes unavailable later (for example, vacation or emergency), admins can still reassign the guide manually.
How to Enable Book By Guide
You can enable Book By Guide per listing, so you have full control over which trips allow guide selection.
Go to your Listings page.
Select the gear icon (⚙️) next to the listing you want to edit.
Scroll to the Guide Assignment section.
Check the box for Enable “Book By Guide”.
Save your changes.
Once enabled, the guide dropdown will appear automatically at checkout.
How Availability Works
A guide must be assigned to the category of the listing and have availability on their schedule to appear as an option.
If a guide is busy, blocked, or already booked, they will not appear as an available choice for that date.
Tip: Make sure your guides keep their calendars up-to-date to ensure smooth bookings.