Advertising on Tripadvisor – increase your visibility

Introduction

When your hotel is listed on Tripadvisor, you immediately gain the opportunity to be discovered by additional travelers. Tripadvisor is often one of the first places people go for inspiration when planning their next trip. As soon as someone searches for a destination, your hotel appears among the available options — and this is where the traveler’s decision-making journey begins.

When a traveler clicks through to your listing (via “View Hotel” in the example above), they land on your Hotel Detail Page (see next example). On this page, visitors don’t just see photos, reviews, and location details — they also see real-time price offers from OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia. Your own direct rates are not shown there by default, meaning you miss the opportunity to capture direct bookings.

But the good news is: you can influence this. By advertising on Tripadvisor, you can increase your visibility and encourage travelers to book directly with you. Tripadvisor offers four key advertising solutions:

1. Business Advantage
2. Sponsored Placements
3. Advertising within the Price Comparison environment
4. Ad Express (display advertising)

Each ad format comes with its own pricing model, level of visibility, and management options. Below, we explain each of them in more detail.

1. Tripadvisor Business Advantage

With Business Advantage, you pay a fixed subscription fee. This gives hotels access to enhanced profile features such as additional contact details, promotional modules, premium analytics, and more tools to showcase your brand.

From your Tripadvisor profile page, travelers can click directly through to your own website or contact you by phone or email. You pay a set fee for Business Advantage, and any clicks to your website are free of charge.

Another benefit of Business Advantage is the ability to add Special Offers to your profile. These promotions appear above the list of OTAs on your Hotel Detail Page, giving you an extra opportunity to stand out from the OTAs competing for the same booking.

2. Tripadvisor Sponsored Placements

Sponsored Placements are ads that position your hotel higher in search results and on pages featuring similar accommodations.

Sponsored Placements drive users to your Hotel Detail Page on Tripadvisor. Within Sponsored Placements, there are three variants:

• Standard Placements: after the click, your profile page is shown, including OTA offers displayed alongside your direct rate.

• Direct Booking: after the click, only your hotel information is shown — OTAs are not displayed. This significantly increases the chance of driving direct conversions (see example below). In this setup, your hotel appears with only your own rate. This option requires sending your rates and availability directly to Tripadvisor.

• Enterprise: similar to Direct Booking, but with additional options for branding, advanced tracking, and integration with your own marketing technology stack.

The pricing model is CPC-based. Note that not all campaign types are self-serve: depending on the variant, you may only be able to launch or adjust campaigns through your Tripadvisor account manager.

3. Tripadvisor Metasearch

Within Tripadvisor, there is a price comparison environment, similar to Google Hotel Ads. This metasearch setup displays prices from OTAs and hotels side by side. As a hotel, you can display your direct rate here through a CPC model (TripConnect). You pay per click, and the booking is completed on your own website.

If you also have a Business Advantage subscription, you receive free clicks to your website from your profile page in addition to the paid metasearch clicks. Running separate ads increases your visibility, but is not always necessary — travelers can also click directly to your site through the Business Advantage link.

As with other metasearch platforms, maintaining rate parity on Tripadvisor is essential. If your direct rate is not cheaper or you don’t offer added value (such as free breakfast or flexible cancellation), you will quickly lose out to the OTAs.

4. Tripadvisor Ad Express (display advertising)

Ad Express is Tripadvisor’s display advertising program. It runs on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions) and offers audience targeting based on location, viewed destinations, travel dates, and previous behavior within Tripadvisor.

Ad Express is mainly used for brand awareness, remarketing, and seasonal campaigns. It can be effective both at the top of the funnel and for return visits. As with other formats, some campaigns can be managed directly by you, but many advertisers work through their account manager.

Reports and metrics

Tripadvisor offers various reporting options to help you optimize your campaigns:

• Profile click reports: provide insight into click behavior on your profile page. These can be free clicks and do not always lead to your own site (sometimes to OTAs).
• CPC reports: specific to paid campaigns like Sponsored Placements, showing click data and costs.
• Meta results: show clicks on your direct rate in the price comparison.

It’s important to understand these distinctions so you can correctly interpret performance and identify which portion of your traffic comes from paid campaigns.

When to choose each channel

• Business Advantage: always valuable if you want to strengthen your profile and organic visibility and generate free clicks to your website.
• Meta (price comparison): suitable if your direct rate is competitive and you want to drive direct bookings.
• Sponsored Placements: effective for more visibility and filling low or shoulder seasons. Use the Direct Booking variant for maximum direct booking potential.
• Ad Express: ideal for brand campaigns, remarketing, and reaching broad audiences.

Practical tips for hotels

• Ensure your Tripadvisor profile is fully optimized with up-to-date photos, clear USPs, and accurate pricing information.
• Always maintain rate parity with OTAs to make direct bookings attractive.
• Combine Business Advantage with Meta and Sponsored Placements to maximize both organic and paid traffic.
• Ask your account manager for the right reports and pay attention to the difference between profile clicks and paid clicks.
• Use Ad Express when you want to build brand awareness or reach specific target audiences.

Case studies from Tripadvisor

• Hotel Claris (Barcelona): achieved a ROAS of 6:1 with a combination of Business Advantage and Sponsored Placements.
• Hotel Golden (Rome): significantly increased direct bookings through profile optimization and using Meta and ads.
• Hotel Tafer Mousai (Mexico): stood out in a competitive market and boosted direct bookings with Meta and targeted ads.
• Derby Hotels Collection: saw a 25% increase in bookings through Sponsored Placements.

Conclusion

Advertising on Tripadvisor offers hotels and resorts several ways to be visible to travelers who are actively planning. By choosing the right combination of Business Advantage, Meta, Sponsored Placements, and Ad Express, and by measuring campaigns carefully, you can generate more direct bookings and reduce OTA dependency.