Victoria | Tanya Goehring
How to Improve Your Tourism Business’ Tripadvisor Presence
Tripadvisor is an important platform for British Columbia tourism businesses. While it’s not necessarily the go-to for discovery these days, travellers rely on it to decide where to stay, eat, and explore.
If your listing is unmanaged, outdated, or incomplete, you risk missing bookings, misrepresenting your values, or allowing others to speak on your behalf. Optimizing your presence helps ensure that your business is reflected clearly, respectfully, and accurately, and it enables you to share your unique story with visitors.
Free business listings on BC’s visitor website also pull information from a tourism business’s Tripadvisor profile, helping turn dream trips into actual bookings (Learn more).
This article shares practical tips to help you manage your Tripadvisor listing in ways that build trust, reflect your values, and help travellers understand what makes your business worth a visit.
1. Claim and Maintain Your Listing
Claiming your Tripadvisor listing gives you control over how your business appears to travellers, and helps to build credibility, address misinformation, and ensures travellers see an experience that’s true to who you are.
If you haven’t registered your business on Tripadvisor, go to the Business Owner’s Management Center to create or claim a free listing and browse updated help topics for owners.
Once your listing is claimed and verified, access it from the Management Centre to update your business address, hours, amenities, accessibility details, upload photos, respond to reviews, and highlight what makes your experience stand out.
Keep your listing accurate and complete:
- Review it every few months, especially after seasonal changes.
- Use and populate all available fields, including accessibility, sustainability, and service offerings.
- Write your listing description in a way that reflects what matters to you—your values, your story, and the kind of experience guests can expect. If you’re an Indigenous-owned business, naming that identity can help travellers engage with care and understand the deeper significance of your business or experience. Tripadvisor allows hotels to select specific “identity attributes” to add to their profiles.
- Think of your description as your chance to write a review of your business. What’s special about your company and location? Why should travellers include you on their itinerary? Mention any recent awards or accolades you have received and what makes you stand out from competitors.
- Show your story through high-quality photos—not just of your location or product, but the people and moments that bring your experience to life.
About This Article
Reading time: ~5 mins
Format: Article
Tourism Tip: If you’re not sure how to describe your business, especially if it includes cultural or community stories, reach out to your local tourism association or cultural centre. They can often help you find the right words to reflect your experience clearly and respectfully.
2. Showcase Your Business With Quality Photos
Photos are a powerful way to help travellers picture their experience before they arrive. On Tripadvisor, there are three types of photos:
- Business Owner Photos: Uploaded by your business
- Traveller Photos: Posted by visitors
- Tripadvisor Photos: Professional images taken by Tripadvisor photographers
You can upload as many Management Photos as you’d like, but prioritize quality over quantity. Select high-resolution images that showcase different aspects of your business—interior, exterior, and activities in action. Ensure photos are well-lit and clear, as many travellers view listings on smartphones. Tripadvisor recommends using landscape-oriented images with an aspect ratio between 1:1 (square) and 4:3 (slightly rectangular). Wide, panoramic shots or tall, vertical shots may not display correctly. You must upload photos in .gif, .jpg, .bmp, or .png format.
Add concise, descriptive captions to provide context for each image. Choose a photo that highlights your property’s best feature as your Primary Photo, as it will appear prominently on your page and in search results. Avoid images with people, logos, or text overlays, and consider updating your Primary Photo seasonally to reflect current offerings.
3. Ask Every Guest for a Review
Recent, honest reviews help build trust and show you’re engaged. Make it easy and routine:
- Ask your guests at checkout, in follow-up emails or messages to leave a review.
- Use signs or cards on-site as reminders, or add a short URL that people can follow on check-out receipts.
- Welcome all feedback, not just glowing praise. A mix of perspectives builds credibility.
Tourism Tip: If your experience includes cultural or sensitive content, gently remind guests to share their reflections respectfully—some details may not be appropriate for public retelling.
4. Monitor and Respond with Intention
Guests rely on reviews to choose where they’ll spend time and money, and your responses to reviews reflect your business values. Whether you’re thanking guests or addressing concerns (i.e. negative reviews), respond with care.
- Thank guests by name and mention the specific things they appreciated.
- Do not ignore negative feedback. Thank the reviewer for their comment, acknowledge the issue and briefly explain any steps you’ve taken to address the problem(s). Consider asking a colleague to review your response before sending.
- If a review misrepresents a cultural element, clarify without defensiveness. Use the opportunity to guide future guests.
- Discover how to effectively manage online issues on social media.
For example:
“Thanks for your feedback, Jane. We’re sorry the wait felt long—we’re a small, family-run café and everything is made fresh. That can mean extra time on busy days, but we always want to improve. We hope to welcome you back soon.”
Or see this great example from the typically highly rated, Vancouver-based Discover Canada Tours:
5. Show What Makes You Distinct
Your Tripadvisor page is more than a listing—it’s a window into your story.
- Describe what makes your business unique and compelling to visitors.
- Highlight what sets your business apart from others like it. Your positive reviews can be a great starting point—they often reveal what guests appreciate most.
- Share images that capture real moments: a guide in action, a warm welcome, or guests connecting with the land or your staff.
- Highlight sustainability and stewardship. If you follow seasonal rhythms or cultural protocols—whether Indigenous or otherwise—please clearly and respectfully acknowledge them.
- List any tourism partnerships, affiliations (e.g., with Indigenous Tourism BC or your local Visitor Centre), or certifications that help travellers understand your values and approach.
6. Use Feedback as a Learning Tool
Reviews offer more than star ratings—they reveal patterns, pain points, and opportunities.
- Be alert to signs of trouble and resolve issues before customers leave.
- Look for themes across reviews to help improve your product or experience, and to shape future decisions.
- Log into the Management Center and review key metrics.
- Share highlights with your team in training or meetings.
- If you notice repeated confusion or misinterpretation (especially around cultural context), consider where more guidance might be helpful—on your website, signage, or in your pre-arrival materials.
Build Trust That Travels
You don’t need to dominate Tripadvisor to benefit from it. A few steady steps—like updating your details, asking for honest reviews, and responding respectfully—can build the credibility that sets you apart. For BC tourism operators, especially those rooted in place and community, your Tripadvisor presence is another way to tell your story.
Key Resource
Visit Tripadvisor for Business for updated tools and information.
Digital tools and platforms used in tourism marketing evolve quickly. Features, algorithms, interfaces, AI and even how travellers find or engage with your content may change over time. This article is designed to stay relevant for tourism businesses in BC, but processes, settings, and terminology can shift. For the most accurate and current information, always check the official documentation or help pages of the tools and platforms you use to share, advertise, or manage your tourism business online.
Last updated: June, 2025
