Brihadeeswara.com is an independent editorial site that pays for itself, in part, through affiliate partnerships with the three major travel-booking platforms that cover Tamil Nadu. This page is the full disclosure of those partnerships — who they are, what we earn, and what it means for the editorial.

The partnerships

We have active affiliate relationships with three booking platforms.

  • GetYourGuide. Tours and day-trip bookings. We earn a commission of approximately eight to twelve per cent on bookings made through links from our Tours pages.
  • Viator. Tours, multi-day packages, and the Tripadvisor-owned tour catalogue. Commission of approximately six to ten per cent.
  • Booking.com. Hotel bookings. Commission of approximately three to five per cent on completed stays.

We do not have direct partnerships with individual tour operators or hotels. All affiliate revenue flows through the three platforms above.

What you pay

Nothing more. Affiliate links pay us a commission from the platform's margin, not from you. The price you pay through an affiliate link is identical to the price you would pay without one. If you find a lower advertised price through any other channel, you should book through that channel; you are not under any obligation to use our links.

What we earn — and what we do not

Affiliate revenue currently covers a portion of the site's operating costs (hosting, editorial contributor fees, photography licensing, software). It does not, at the time of writing, pay the editorial team in full. The remainder is covered by direct subscription revenue from a small number of paid newsletter readers and by occasional commissioned writing for other publications.

We are not, in financial terms, dependent on any single operator or platform. If our largest affiliate partner withdrew the relationship tomorrow, the site would continue to publish.

Editorial independence

This is the part of the disclosure that matters. Affiliate commissions do not influence which operators we recommend. The operators on our Tours pages are operators we would recommend without compensation. We have declined commission offers from operators we would not recommend. No operator pays for placement.

Where we recommend a hotel, a restaurant, or a guide service, the recommendation reflects our editorial judgement of the service. The presence or absence of an affiliate relationship is not a factor in the recommendation. The presence of an affiliate relationship is, however, disclosed wherever a link earns a commission.

How to identify an affiliate link

Affiliate links on the site are not visually distinguished from non-affiliate external links — both appear in the standard editorial link style. However, the following can be assumed:

  • Links to GetYourGuide and Viator on our Tours pages are typically affiliate links.
  • Links to Booking.com on our Where to Stay page are typically affiliate links.
  • Links to ASI, UNESCO, scholarly publishers, and other editorial sources are not affiliate links.
  • Direct links to individual operator websites (where we provide them) are not affiliate links.

If you would prefer not to use our affiliate links, you can search the platform directly. We will not lose sleep over it.

Tax and regulation

The site is registered as a sole-proprietor editorial business under Indian tax law and complies with applicable reporting requirements. The affiliate income is declared. Our practices comply, to the best of our understanding, with the FTC guidance on affiliate disclosure (United States), the CMA guidance on social-media influencer marketing (United Kingdom), and the EU Digital Services Act transparency requirements. If we are in error on any specific requirement, please write to editorial@brihadeeswara.com and we will correct it.

A note on our motives

We started the site because the English-language coverage of the temple was thin and largely SEO-driven. The affiliate model is the standard one for travel publishing and we have adopted it without apology. We have, however, attempted to ring-fence the editorial from the commercial throughout — and the test, in practice, is whether the site continues to publish material that no advertiser would commission. We believe it does.