Profiles You Need to Make to Drive Tour Traffic

Jarod LaFalce

Co-Founder / COO of BookingTerminal

Published on: August 7, 2025 | Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

You Don’t Need to Go Viral. You Just Need to Be Discoverable.

As a tour operator, you're always looking for ways to get your experiences in front of more potential guests. With tens of thousands of companies offering every type of adventure imaginable, standing out online can feel overwhelming. But here's the truth: your experience is unique, and that uniqueness is exactly what people are searching for—you just need to be discoverable.

You don’t need to go viral on social media (at least not right away). There’s some simple, foundational groundwork you can lay to make sure your tours are showing up where your customers are already looking. Below, we’ll walk through some free online profiles you should create to boost visibility and drive more bookings—no ads, no gimmicks, just smart visibility.

Google Business Profile

Over 90% of global searches happen on Google, and with Google Chrome holding over 60% of the browser market, chances are your next customer is searching through Google—whether they realize it or not. That’s why a Google Business Profile is one of the most valuable online assets your tour company can have.

It’s more than just a place to list your hours or address—it can act as a direct link to your booking page, a central hub for reviews (we talk about their importance here), and a high-visibility listing in both Google Search and Google Maps.

Someone browsing for things to do in your area should be able to land on your profile and immediately understand what you offer, why people love it, and how to book.

Apple Business Connect

Apple powers one of the largest tech ecosystems in the world—but Apple Business Connect is still underutilized by most tour and activity operators. That’s a missed opportunity, because the apps it connects you to—like Apple Maps—are heavily used by travelers every day.

With Business Connect, you can claim and customize your Apple Maps location, add photos, update hours, promote offers, and even guide users directly to your booking page. For operators in popular tourist destinations, this creates an additional, high-quality touchpoint for discovery—especially from iPhone users navigating their surroundings in real time.

Tripadvisor

With hundreds of millions of monthly visitors and more than 1 billion user-generated reviews, Tripadvisor remains one of the most trusted platforms for tourism research. Travelers use it while planning, upon arrival, and even afterward—especially when deciding what to revisit or recommend.

Thanks to its powerful filters and categories, high-intent customers can easily discover your profile while searching for experiences like yours. Pair that visibility with strong, recent reviews, and Tripadvisor often becomes the final stop in a customer’s decision-making process.

Take the time to fully build out your profile, using keywords that reflect your tour type, style, and specialties. Encourage happy guests to leave reviews—just a few strong testimonials can make a meaningful difference in your conversion rate.

Facebook + Instagram Business Profiles

Facebook and Instagram make it incredibly easy to share photos, updates, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of your tours—adding a layer of credibility, transparency, and visual appeal to your brand. For many travelers, especially younger ones, social media is part of the research process. They’ll often discover tours through reels, stories, or posts—or use Instagram to validate what they’ve already found elsewhere.

Creating business profiles on both platforms allows you to literally show what you offer, while also giving visitors an easy path to book through profile links. And if you find that you enjoy building your presence, there’s room to go further: you can experiment with paid ads, partner with influencers, or share guest-generated content to reach even more people.

Bing Places for Business

Bing Places for Business works much like a Google Business Profile—it lets you list your company, showcase offerings, and surface reviews to users searching through Microsoft-powered platforms, like Bing, Edge, and even Windows search.

While Bing doesn’t drive as much traffic as Google, it still holds a meaningful slice of the market—especially among desktop users. And when it only takes a few minutes to set up, it’s an easy win to capture long-tail search traffic you might otherwise miss.

Yelp

While often associated with restaurants, Yelp has quietly expanded into the travel and activities space—and many operators still overlook it. That’s exactly why it can be a smart play: fewer competitors and a strong reputation for unfiltered, honest reviews.

Yelp listings frequently appear in search results when travelers look for things to do, especially in cities and tourist-heavy areas. Some users even search directly on Yelp to filter local activities by rating, category, or proximity—just like they would for dining or services.

It may not be your highest-traffic channel, but it’s a low-effort opportunity to increase visibility and build trust with review-conscious travelers.

Local or Regional Tourism Bureau Listings

Most cities, towns, and regions have a local tourism board or destination marketing organization (DMO) that helps promote businesses like yours to visitors. These groups often maintain both print and online listings, and their websites frequently rank well in search results for “[things to do in ___]” queries.

Being featured through these organizations gives you access to trusted, curated exposure, especially for out-of-town guests who are looking for an “official” list of what to do. Some even offer event calendars, maps, or custom landing pages to help promote local operators.

Every town is different, so start by searching for:

• “[your city] tourism board”
• “[your region] visitors bureau”
• “[your town] chamber of commerce”

Aim to get listed in every format available—websites, brochures, kiosks, maps, and printed guides. But start with what’s easiest to access so you can rack up some quick wins. Even if the traffic is modest, these listings often attract high-intent visitors who are actively looking for things to do nearby.

Conclusion

Getting your name out there is what allows you to keep doing what you love—and it doesn’t have to start with ad spend or expensive marketing services. You’ll hear from people offering to “boost your visibility” for a fee. And maybe some of them can.

But don’t spend a dollar until you’ve claimed and optimized the free profiles above. They require very little upfront effort, and once they’re live, they’ll continue working for you—day and night—for years to come.

These aren’t hacks. They’re foundational, and they’re often overlooked. Set them up once, and you’ll be way ahead of the operators who didn’t.