For me tourist contracts don't work with ship manifest:
Tried with "orbital" or "suborbital" tourists, and the condition never triggered. Saved mid-flight, uninstalled ship manifest, and the contract completed immediately. Also: Final Frontier seems like it doesn't create more ribbons while ship manifest is installed. Both behave pretty much like the crew just isn't there.
Mods that may be related: - Kerbal Construction Time, this has its own dialog to put Kerbals on board at launch. But I doubt it since reloading the game doesn't change it, the persistent file doesn't look any different.