Tripadvisor reviews: a guide for hotels, restaurants and tours
Short answer: On Tripadvisor you may ask guests for reviews as long as you ask all of them and offer nothing in return. You reply and report reviews through the free Management Center. Tripadvisor removes reviews that break its guidelines, not reviews that are critical.
For hotels, restaurants and tour operators, Tripadvisor is often the first thing a traveller reads. Everything an owner does there goes through one free account.
Claim your listing
Register as the owner or manager in the Tripadvisor Management Center. It is free and gives you management responses, review reporting, photos and listing details.
Asking for reviews
Asking is allowed. Two limits:
- No incentives. No discount, free drink, upgrade or prize draw in exchange for a review.
- No picking. Ask every guest, not only the ones who seemed happy.
Ways to ask that work:
- A line on the bill or the checkout email with a link to your listing.
- A card at reception or on the table.
- A follow-up email a day or two after the stay.
Staff should not write reviews for guests or on the property’s devices. Tripadvisor looks for both.
Management responses
A response is written for future guests more than for the reviewer.
- Thank the guest and address the specific points they raised.
- Say what you have changed, if you have.
- Leave out personal details about the guest and their stay.
- Keep it free of promotion and of arguments.
Tripadvisor moderates responses, and one that breaks its guidelines is not published.
Reporting a review
Report from the Management Center when a review:
- Is not a first-hand experience, or is about another business.
- Was written by a competitor, or by someone trying to get a refund by threatening a bad review.
- Contains abusive language or private information.
If a guest threatens a bad review to get something, report it to Tripadvisor straight away, before any review appears. Reporting first makes the later report much stronger.
A review that describes a real stay you disagree with stays up. Respond to it instead.
Your ranking
Tripadvisor has said its ranking looks at the quality, the recency and the number of reviews. Recent reviews count for more, so twenty good reviews this season do more than two hundred from five years ago.
A routine that works
- Ask every guest at checkout.
- Respond to every review under four stars within two days, and to a good share of the rest.
- Add fresh photos each season.
- Report only what clearly breaks the rules.