How the site works

In order to be listed on Tripadvisor, accommodations must meet all of the following criteria:

To be listed in the hotel category, an accommodation must also meet all of the following criteria or have an official business license issued by a local governmental or tourism authority that identifies the accommodation is classified as Hotel as defined by local authorities

In select countries, some specially-designated accommodations are displayed with Hotels. These accommodations are editorially selected and not available by request. Currently, these include Onsen Hotel, Onsen Ryokan, and Ryokan, all in Japan.

To be listed in the B&B and Inns category, an accommodation must also meet all of the following criteria or have an official business license issued by a local governmental or tourism authority that identifies the accommodation is classified as B&B, Inn, Guest House, or Pension as defined by local authorities:

We may, on a case-by-case basis, allow B&Bs with only one room. To qualify, the accommodation must be locally licensed to operate as a B&B, and it must be listed with local tourism authorities.

To be listed in the Specialty Lodging category, an accommodation must meet our accommodation listing guidelines. Any accommodation that offers shared (dorm-style) rooms will be considered a hostel and will be listed in Specialty Lodging.

For more information, see Accommodation Listing Guidelines.

In order to be listed on Tripadvisor, restaurants must meet all of the following criteria:

For more information, see Restaurant Listing Guidelines.

In order to be listed on Tripadvisor, airlines must meet the following criteria:

For more information, see Airline Listing Guidelines.

In order to be listed on Tripadvisor, Things to Do must meet the following criteria.

Permanent attractions:

Tours, cruises, and classes:

For more information, see Things To Do Listing Guidelines.

For vacation rentals properties to be listed on Tripadvisor, there are no specific listing criteria.  

Hotels, restaurants and airlines are listed free of charge and once listed on the website, businesses are not delisted so long as they remain open.. Our policy regarding establishments closing or changing address can be found here.

Landmarks, places of interest and tour operators are listed free of charge, irrespective of commercial relationships. Tours and activities will be bookable on Tripadvisor only if the suppliers of such tours and activities contract with one of Tripadvisor’s affiliate companies to have their products available for bookings or reservations, or otherwise if the listing is displayed as part of a commercial licensing arrangement with a third party business.

Vacation rental properties are listed only if the owner/manager contracts with one of Tripadvisor’s affiliate companies as an advertiser, or otherwise if the listing is displayed as a part of a commercial licensing arrangement with a third party business.

The results displayed are not necessarily exhaustive of all offers that may be available, whether on the Internet or otherwise.

Hotels are currently ranked in the following ways:

Pages featuring Hotels may also feature horizontal selections of other points of interest, suppliers or their products.  A range of different factors inform these selections and the title is usually indicative of this.  Revenue paid to companies in the Tripadvisor group can also be a factor.  The ingredients that feed these selections are summarised below.  Those selections that are influenced by revenue are highlighted.

Things to Do are currently ranked in the following ways:

Pages featuring Things to Do may also feature horizontal selections of other points of interest, suppliers or their products.  A range of different factors inform these selections and the title is usually indicative of this.  Revenue to companies in the Tripadvisor group can also be a factor.  The ingredients that feed these selections are summarised below.  Those selections that are influenced by revenue are highlighted.

Restaurants are currently ranked in the following ways:

When restaurants are filtered by sub-category (for instance: type of cuisine, dinner, local cuisine, etc), then within this sub-category they are ranked according to the “Relevance” logic.

Sub-categories displaying restaurants that have table bookings and chef experiences are only featured through our partners. The sub-category for delivery is a combination of both “Relevance” and partnerships through our delivery partners. The “special offer” sub-category is displayed based on “Highest Rating.”

There are various different types of pages on the Tripadvisor site that offer lists of restaurants, presented either horizontally or vertically.  The restaurants in those lists are sorted and ranked according to different rules and systems, in response to different types of data pertaining to those restaurants.  The logic behind these lists is summarised below.

Holiday rental properties are currently ranked in the following ways:

Flights are currently ranked in the following ways:

Search:  Tripadvisor’s internal search function presents results relevant to your text query. To give you the most useful information, search algorithms look at many factors and signals, including the words of your query, reviews, bubble rating, number of page views and your location. Different result types can have different factors relevant to them, but the text query is applied to rank all the results on the search page. Apart from the query, the following factors are used to order the search results, depending on the type of Tripadvisor content discovered by the search:

AI-powered Trips

Tripadvisor’s AI-powered trip itinerary builder creates lists of suggestions for a potential trip. The tool suggests destinations based on similar searches by users from the user’s home location.  The suggested interests, from which travellers can select, are a mix of generic topics and topics selected by AI as being particularly relevant for the destination.  Then, taking the user’s selected destination, dates and interests, the trip tool suggests accommodations, things to do and restaurants to visit.  Where options for bookable Things to Do products are shown, they may also be selected partially due to the revenue they are likely to generate for Tripadvisor.  

Options for accommodations will be shown according to the Best Value sort, which is described above under Hotels.

The itinerary produced by the tool then lists restaurants, places of interest and things to do based on review scores in our Popularity Index and proximity to other recommendations in the list.  Bookable Things to do may also appear partly due to the revenue they are likely to generate for Tripadvisor.  The descriptions are generated by AI, drawing on content from user reviews.

AI is not perfect and the Trip planner’s suggestions are only intended as a starting point for a user’s booking journey.  Travellers should continue their own research and keep reading user reviews and other available information before booking.

Trips pages

For you - Tripadvisor users, when logged in, can create Trips and save them to their Tripadvisor account via the Trips page.  Our Trips section also features a “For you” page bearing further suggestions.  Where suggestions are described as being “top ranked”, this is a reference to the following sort logics, all of which are explained above:

Hotels - Best Value

Things to Do - Traveller Favourites 

Restaurants - Highest Rating

Traveller's Choice

Tripadvisor’s awards fall into two levels: Best of the Best and Travellers’ Choice. 

Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best is our highest honour. The award takes into account the quality and quantity of traveller reviews and ratings and ranks the very best accommodations, destinations, beaches, restaurants and things to do in specific categories and geographic areas, as rated and reviewed by travellers. Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best award winners are among the top 1% of listings on Tripadvisor.

Travellers’ Choice, formerly Certificate of Excellence, recognises businesses that earn consistently great reviews. Travellers’ Choice award-winners are among the top 10% of listings on Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice honours select accommodations, attractions and restaurants that consistently demonstrate a commitment to hospitality excellence. On destination pages, these winners are ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings and number of page views.

Tripadvisor does not own any of the businesses listed on its site.

See here the list of websites managed and operated by Tripadvisor and/or its affiliate companies.

Except where described above, travel and hospitality businesses are listed on Tripadvisor for free.

Where price offers are provided for hotels, the ranking of price offers may depend in part on the price paid by affiliates who participate in our "cost-per-click" auction system.

Suppliers of tours, activities and experiences can be listed on Tripadvisor for free. If they wish to make a tour, activity or experience bookable through Tripadvisor or its affiliate companies, they must enter into an agreement with one of Tripadvisor’s affiliate companies, pursuant to which the suppliers are paid for bookings made through our platforms.

Some vacation rental property owners/managers advertise through Tripadvisor’s affiliate companies on a fixed cost subscription basis, and others pay for leads generated through their Tripadvisor listings. Some listings may appear on Tripadvisor as a result of licensing agreements with third party businesses who may charge us a fee for referring interested users to their websites to make bookings. The majority of advertisers, however, list their properties for free, and pay a commission when bookings are facilitated by the  online platforms offered by the vacation rentals companies in our corporate group.

Airlines are listed on Tripadvisor for free. Tripadvisor does not accept any compensation that could influence the rankings of flight for a given user search, as described above.

Partners can enter into a number of different kinds of direct commercial relationship with Tripadvisor if they wish, especially in order to be bookable online. Commercial relationships that partners may have with Tripadvisor may influence certain ranking methods as described above. However, they have no influence on Tripadvisor’s 'Popularity Index'.

Although Sponsored Placements may appear in and around a list of results, partners cannot buy their way to a particular place in any of the ranking methods described above. The advertising nature of these placements referenced for a fee is indicated by the label "Ad" or “Sponsored”.

Hotels and Holiday Rentals

Tripadvisor gives you the ability to search for and compare hotels, as well as availability and pricing offered by professional third-party providers.

The results displayed are not exhaustive of all the offers available on the Internet. Tripadvisor LLC displays results from data provided by its partners and is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of the information provided by these third-party providers and that it displays on its sites or applications or content on other websites. The ranking of price offers for a particular property will depend in part on the price paid by our advertising partners participating in our "cost-per-click" auction system.

If you make a booking with a third-party provider, you will need to read and comply with the terms and conditions of purchase and use of the provider's site, their Privacy Policy and any other rules or policies, including the policy relating to the site or the goods of the supplier. You are responsible for your interactions with third-party providers.

The price results that consumers see on Tripadvisor are provided by our business partners, such as online travel agencies, hotel chains and independent hoteliers. When a user enters their dates into our search function for that particular home (assuming that this business works with us or one of our business partners), our systems make an electronic "call" on the programming interface of application (API) provided by this trading partner. The partner then automatically gives us the relevant price information in real time, if there is availability.

For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Flights

For flights, the total prices include taxes and fees for one traveller as provided by our partners. For every travel flight listed, Tripadvisor does not guarantee any specific prices or rates. We recommend checking on the booking site for the exact amount requested as well as the currency. Consult our partners to find out more about the elements of the price included baggage fees, fare attributes and optional fees as well.

The price results that consumers see on Tripadvisor are provided by our business partners in real time for each search done by a user.

For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Things to Do

For and attractions listed on our site, the price listed is the total price, inclusive of taxes and fees. Prices are provided in real time for each search conducted by a user.

None of the Tripadvisor companies offers any commercial guarantees. If you book a hotel, restaurant or flight, you should consult our partners to find out more about any commercial guarantees and dispute resolution methods they may offer. If you book a tour, activity or experience via the intermediary services of one of our group companies, the applicable Tripadvisor group company that facilitated your booking will provide you with customer service in the event of a dispute and will work with the owner of the property or supplier of the tour, activity or experience to help the parties try to reach a resolution.  Where you make a booking facilitated by a third-party company outside of our group, that company will provide you with customer service.

For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Before being posted to our site, each review goes through our automated processing system, which collects for each review a certain amount of information answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects an element in clear contradiction to our Content & Community Guidelines, the review will not be posted to the site. The user may be informed as well as the reason for this and may be offered the opportunity to write another review in accordance with our Guidelines, depending on eligibility.

When the system detects a potential problem with a review, it is sent to our team of content specialists, who work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to maintain the quality of content posted to our site. 

In some cases, we will also send an e-mail asking users to validate their review before it is posted. In certain circumstances (for example, if an owner/manager disputes a review), we might ask the reviewer of a vacation rental property to provide us with proof of their stay, to ensure that the review is attached to the correct property listing.

Our team checks every review that is reported to us by our community (both businesses and users) as potentially not meeting our Guidelines.

For more information on our anti-fraud policy please refer to our Trust & Safety information center.

We want to ensure that Tripadvisor remains a reliable and secure source for our global community. For this purpose, and to ensure that your review is posted as quickly as possible, make sure that it meets our Content & Community Guidelines. 

For reviews of vacation rental properties, there are additional criteria listed here. In summary, vacation rental reviews must also be:

Any review that does not meet these criteria will not appear on the site.

If you have a question about a review that has not been posted, you can contact us directly by clicking on the link here.

It usually takes less than 24 hours to see reviews on our site. The process can be longer if the review needs to be examined in more detail by our team of moderators. It may also take longer if you review a vacation rental property that you booked through Tripadvisor or one of our affiliate company’s online platforms. See here for more info.

After submitting, the title of your review appears in your profile, on the Review page.

If we are unable to host your review, you may be notified of the refusal and the reason for this. Please note that in some cases, we will also send you an e-mail asking you to validate your review before it can appear. You just have to click on the link provided in the e-mail.

Once posted, your review will appear indefinitely on our site. Your review will only be removed if:  

1) You choose to remove it 

2) our team of moderators has determined that this review did not meet our Guidelines.

3) You fail to click on the link contained with an email asking you to validate your review, as outlined above

4) an establishment is removed from our site, in which case all reviews are removed.

5) An establishment goes through an ownership change or major renovation and reviews prior to a certain date that are no longer relevant are removed

No. Reviews written in exchange for personal benefits, such as gifts, services or money, will be removed.

Establishments are free to encourage their clients to post their reviews when they return home. However, no representative of the establishment can offer premium, discount, upgrade or special treatment for current or future stays in exchange for advice. Properties making such offers may have their rankings penalized.

If someone has offered you a reward for a review, please let us know by emailing us and including any available evidence (screenshots, photos, etc) at incentives@tripadvisor.com

No, Once submitted, your review can not be edited. You can remove your review and resubmit as long as it complies with our posting guidelines.

After being posted, all or part of the reviews written by our members may be used on some of our partner sites or in promotional materials generally.

For more information, read our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.

Sharing a contributor's e-mail address to an owner, manager, or other person is against our privacy policy. Contributors remain anonymous unless they choose to publish their email address or contact information in a contribution, such as a review or message in a forum.

However, property owners or managers may contact you through Tripadvisor's private messaging system, which allows Tripadvisor members to be in contact without providing an email address. Owners can use the messaging system to thank contributors, ask for other comments, legitimately attempt to resolve customer service issues, or (in the case of vacation rental property owners or managers) discuss a booking with a user, but they are not allowed to ask contributors to retract a review via the mailing system. It is also strictly forbidden to harass contributors.

For more information, see our rules for using private messaging.

Tripadvisor facilitates easier and more informative hotel, restaurant, and experience searches by presenting AI-powered Review Summaries. These summaries, generated through state-of-the-art generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), offer concise, impartial highlights of traveler reviews on Tripadvisor from the previous 12 months, focusing on key attributes like cleanliness, location, and value. The summaries are derived solely from user-generated content, with supporting quotes added for transparency. Advanced machine learning techniques including Retrieval-Augmented Generation and BART are employed to preserve the authenticity of the original reviews while providing a clear, practical overview. This technology enables users to quickly understand the essence of traveler opinions, assisting in informed decision-making. Travellers should read the summaries in the context of the original user reviews on which they are based. Tripadvisor provides this feature for convenience and does not endorse or assume responsibility for the content of the summaries. 

To learn more about how these AI-powered summaries are generated, please visit our detailed blog post (available only in English).

To assist our global community of travelers, Tripadvisor uses the services of Google and Phrase, both third-party vendors, to provide automated translations of user reviews. This helps ensure that all travelers, regardless of their language preferences, can access and benefit from the insights shared by others. Phrase and Google employ advanced translation technologies to convert user-generated content into multiple languages accurately and efficiently, enhancing the accessibility of our platform. Please note that while our vendors strive for accurate translations, some variations might occur due to linguistic differences. Tripadvisor plays no role in these translations, does not guarantee their accuracy and does not endorse the content of any individual user review or its translation.