Tipsiti
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2022Blogs from Tipsiti
What We Learned From Emailing Hotels About Guest Recommendations
We wanted to see how hotels actually respond when someone writes in asking for local guest recommendations, so we emailed a mix of chains, boutiques, and independents with that exact question. We weren’t staying there – just curious travellers – and that context matters, but the purpose was simply to observe behaviour.
Across the replies, some clear patterns emerged. Here’s a quick, skimmable breakdown of the biggest insights.
Check out our full write-up on How Hotels Share Guest Recommendations in 2025
Intent But No Infrastructure
Across nearly every reply – from PDFs to redirects to handwritten lists – the pattern was the same: hotels want to help guests explore the neighbourhood. What they lack is a shared, up-to-date system that lets them do it easily and consistently.
A lot of teams are improvising with whatever’s at hand: an off-site link, a PDF someone made years ago, a flyer rack, or soundbites of personal knowledge.
Key Insight: Hospitality isn’t the problem. The absence of structure is.
Pre-Arrival Moments Are Still Treated as Optional
More than half of the hotels didn’t reply, which isn’t surprising. Pre-booking emails don’t always feel like something staff are expected to respond to, especially when the sender isn’t yet a guest. Those messages naturally end up low priority in a busy inbox.
Still, it’s a missed moment. A single helpful recommendation might be enough to influence someone’s choice.
Key Insight: “Guest experience” hasn’t expanded to cover the part where a guest is still deciding.
Hotels Routinely Hand Off the Guest Experience to External Platforms
Lots of hotels made a quick handoff. Instead of sharing their own guest recommendations, they pointed us to external sources – TripAdvisor, tourism board pages, Google Maps lists, even ChatGPT.
It comes from good intentions (“give them something”), but it removes the hotel’s voice from the touchpoint entirely.
Key Insight: Third-party redirects solve the moment but surrender the relationship.
Look at our Tipsiti vs. TripAdvisor comparison – see why Tipsiti is the best option for guest recommendations.
Analogue and Static Formats Still Dominate
Flyers, PDFs, and single-page website lists still make up a large share of what guests receive. These formats show effort – someone built them at some point – but most don’t evolve with the city, with the season, or with guest interests.
Key Insight: Hotels are trying to create owned content – but the tools they’re using are outdated or static.
The Most Human Replies Were the Best – and the Least Sustainable
A handful of staff wrote genuine, thoughtful recommendations by hand: personal picks, small descriptions, “if you like this, try that.” These were by far the most meaningful replies. But they’re also the least scalable – stuck in individual inboxes, never captured or reused, or lost if the person leaves the job.
Key Insight: The industry’s strongest asset is human local knowledge – but it doesn’t live in a shared location.
The Core Problem Is Systemic
Across the entire study, a consistent pattern kept showing up: teams are stretched, knowledge lives in silos, tools are outdated, and care is high but capacity is low. Which means hotels fall back on whatever form their current setup allows.
Key Insight: This isn’t about effort – it’s about structure, ownership, and the ability to keep local insight alive across touchpoints.
Closing Thought
Concierges once carried this work, but most hotels today don’t have one. Front desks do what they can with the tools they’ve inherited – flyers, old PDFs, scattered notes. The intention and hospitality are there. What’s missing is structure: a way for local knowledge to live somewhere where staff and guests can access it with ease.
Ready to move on from binders and PDFs? Tipsiti lets hotels and rentals create digital guidebooks packed with local recommendations – boosting guest satisfaction and saving staff time.
Written by the Tipsiti team – travelers, curators, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more intentional and more local.
How Hotels Share Guest Recommendations in 2025: A Case Study
The Idea
As travellers ourselves, we can tell you there’s a growing demand for connection and community.
And the longer you spend around hotels, the clearer it becomes – travellers today want more than a clean room and a quick check-in.
They want to understand where they’ve landed. They want to feel connected to the neighbourhood, to the local culture, and to the local people.
The question is whether hotel systems have kept up. The traditional model of “service and comfort” is evolving into something broader – an experience built on belonging, discovery, and a sense of place.
Most hotels know this. “Guest experience” has become one of the industry’s favourite phrases; a headline term for almost everything a stay involves. But what it actually means – what it covers, and where it begins – still varies wildly from place to place.
For many guests, that experience starts before check-in. It often begins with a simple, universal question:
"What should I do nearby?”
The moment can say a lot about how a hotel sees its role. Is it simply a place to stay – or an ambassador to its surroundings?
We wanted to find out.
The Methodology
To keep things natural, we reached out to hotels the same way any traveller might – casually over email.
We weren’t confirmed guests, and that’s worth acknowledging up front. Some properties may reserve their full set of recommendations for paying guests or those already on-site, so this captures the pre-booking experience, not what happens after check-in.
Each message kept a friendly, curious tone – short, polite, and human. Something like:
“Hey there – I’m planning a trip soon and comparing a few options. Do you usually share local recommendations – food spots, bars, things to do nearby? Would love to hear some. Even a simple PDF would be great.”
The goal wasn’t to catch anyone out. We simply wanted to see how hotels respond when a potential guest asks one of the simplest questions in hospitality: What should I do?
We sent versions of that note to a mix of hotels – global chains, boutique independents, city centres, coastal towns – covering a range of sizes and price points. Every reply has been anonymised; the focus here is on behaviour and communication, not on call-outs.
The Findings: How Hotels Actually Replied
Clear patterns emerged quickly – each reply showed a different interpretation of what “guest recommendations” are, and a different way of handling them.
The No Reply
More than half of the hotels we contacted never replied.
And look, it’s easy to understand why. These weren’t booking confirmations or urgent in-guest requests – just short, curious emails from people still deciding where to stay. For teams already stretched thin, anything that isn’t tied to a reservation naturally slips to the bottom of the inbox.
The silence, though, says as much as the replies did. It suggests that guest recommendations are still seen as something that happens after check-in. Most hotel workflows are built around transactions: bookings, payments, and arrivals. What’s missing is a system for moments between – for treating pre-arrival questions as part of the guest experience rather than a distraction from it. Because these are moments that could easily create value.
And it’s not a criticism. Staffing shortages, inbox volume, and constant guest turnover make it hard to respond to every “maybe” that lands in the inbox. But there’s an opportunity here too. A simple, well-written template or a link to a digital guide could turn a curious email into a booking.
For now, that moment mostly goes unanswered.
Key Takeaways
Most hotels still treat guest recommendations as a post-check-in service rather than a pre-booking opportunity.
The silence reflects stretched teams and missing systems more than indifference or neglect.
The No Recs
Then we have the hotels that did reply – politely, quickly, and often with genuine warmth – but without much to offer.
Replies tended to sound like:
“Ask us when you arrive.”
“We don’t have a concierge, but our front desk will be happy to help.”
“Provide your booking confirmation and we’ll see what we can do.”
On the surface, they’re non-answers. But the effort to respond was there – someone still took the time to reply to an email that didn’t promise any immediate revenue. That alone reflects care.
We’re now looking at the other side of the same coin. Instead of silence, we’re garnering a response – but it still doesn’t take the guest anywhere.
As we’d somewhat expected, for many hotels, recommendations seemed to sit behind an informal paywall. That logic isn’t hard to understand; for teams running at full capacity, prioritising current guests feels like good business. And for others, it might make sense not to give non-paying people the same tips you’d give your paying customers. But it’s still, arguably, a missed moment – the chance to use local knowledge as a reason to book, not just a service after booking.
For others, the barrier was again a lack of time and tools. The staff member on the other end often wanted to help, but had nothing official to point to.
And that’s our takeaway: it’s not always a lack of willingness – hotels care, but care alone doesn’t scale without tools to support it.
Key Takeaways
The intent to help is often there – it’s the infrastructure that’s missing.
Are guest recommendations a paywalled service?
The Flyers
A hospitality relic that we were surprised to see has survived into 2025 is the flyer cabinet.
A familiar sight for anyone who travelled in the noughties: a crowded rack of glossy pamphlets – mostly ads from tour operators and third-party attractions. It’s less a collection of local insight and more a physical feed of sponsored content.
A handful of hotels pointed us there:
“We mostly have flyers in our reception area. You must check online which is better 😊.”
“We have some flyers about Huntington Beach fun sites available to all our guests.”
The crux here is that flyers are supplied by other businesses – usually as paid placements, and almost always skewed toward “day out” attractions rather than neighbourhood-level recommendations.
For a guest searching for a sense of place, that aesthetic sends a message.
It feels dated and disconnected from the community outside the lobby doors. We find it hard to imagine someone rifling through a stack of glossy brochures and thinking, This is the heartbeat of the city. (Because we’ve been that person.)
The intention is understandable. Flyers are easy – no training, no upkeep, no internal coordination, and no real investment required. They give guests something rather than nothing, and for many hotels, they simply fill a gap when no modern system exists.
But the flyer format hasn’t kept pace with guest expectations. What once worked as a broad, accessible catch-all now feels out of step with how travellers explore a city in 2025.
Our bad memories of glossy attraction pamphlets are very different from a handful of local community flyers advertising upcoming events or small venues. Those can still add value – but only alongside a larger system. That’s the key point: they work as a supplement, not a substitute. A rack of generic attraction pamphlets instead of a system leaves guests with very little to go on.
Key Takeaways
Flyer racks signal that a hotel’s recommendation system is dated.
The instinct behind them is sound, but the format no longer meets traveller expectations.
The TripAdvisor Redirect
If the flyer rack is the analogue shortcut, TripAdvisor is the digital one.
“THE 10 BEST Restaurants in Yuba City (Updated June 2025)”
“THE 15 BEST Things to Do in Yuba City (2025) – Must-See Attractions”
Cards on the table: it’s fast and familiar – which is why it shows up so often. TripAdvisor is that recognizable industry name, so it feels like a safe, neutral answer.
Cards on the table: it’s fast and familiar – which is why it shows up so often. Plus, TripAdvisor is that recognizable industry name, so it feels like a safe, neutral answer.
But it’s a complete handoff of the guest experience.
The moment that link is sent, the hotel steps out of the interaction entirely. The guest is now navigating a third-party consumer platform full of ads, sponsored placements, and popularity-driven rankings – not anything shaped by the hotel’s knowledge of the neighbourhood.
And there’s a real risk here: whatever the guest finds, they’ll often associate it with the hotel. If the TripAdvisor tips are generic, crowded, touristy, or irrelevant, that can reflect on the property that sent them.
The hotel is giving away a valuable touchpoint – and gets none of the benefit.
And this is where the distinction between outsourcing and partnering matters. TripAdvisor is a handoff – no control or curation. But using an external tool isn’t inherently the problem. When a hotel chooses a platform intentionally, shapes the content, or uses something that reflects its own voice, that’s not outsourcing; it’s ownership. A good external tool can extend the hotel’s guest experience.
Again, we’re looking at convenience. When there’s no internal system, TripAdvisor becomes the quickest way to give someone something.
Key Takeaways
TripAdvisor is easy – but it hands the entire discovery process to an external platform. The hotel is relinquishing all ownership of the guest experience.
Convenience replaces curation, and the hotel’s voice disappears the moment the link is sent.
Want to see how Tipsiti stacks up against TripAdvisor? Take a look at our side-by-side comparison here.
The Tourism Board Redirect
Other hotels pointed us toward official tourism-board sites instead:
“If you go to visitburbank.com you’ll find things to do and places to eat.”
“The Coronado Visitor Center has all the information you need.”
Tourism boards are great resources, especially for maps, neighbourhood overviews, and big-picture information about a destination.
But here’s the question: Are these hotels also passing on ownership of the guest experience by deferring to them? We'd argue, yes.
We’re again talking about hotels losing touchpoints. The handoff means the hotel loses the moment entirely. The guest steps out of the hotel’s environment and into a city-branded space where the hotel likely has no presence, no voice, and no influence over what they’ll see next.
Tourism board information in tandem with a hotel’s own system? Now we’re talking. That combination works – official information layered with hotel-level curation and personality.
Key Takeaways
Tourism boards are valuable, but relying on them alone still shifts ownership of the guest experience away from the hotel.
They work best as a supplement to a hotel’s own curated recommendations, not a substitute.
The GPT Redirect
A few hotels took an unexpected route entirely (but one we should have expected):
“To be honest, I think ChatGPT would be your best bet. It does an amazing job. Try it out if you haven’t.”
It’s a very 2025 answer. From a time-pressed front desk, it probably feels practical and modern.
But we’re still in handoff mode. The recommendation is no longer tied to the hotel’s knowledge, taste, or judgment – it’s whatever AI pulls from its knowledge context (an aggregation of the same generic “top 10” lists the guest has likely already seen).
There’s also a brand risk: if the AI responds with something irrelevant, touristy, inaccurate, or simply bland, the guest may still associate that experience with the hotel that sent them there.
Again, we can say the instinct is right: use technology to help guests quickly. But the execution is the opposite of ownership. It reflects the broader gap we’ve seen throughout this experiment: the desire to help is there, but the system to support it isn’t.
So we’re back in the same zone as we were with TripAdvisor and the tourism websites. The AI option may feel more modern and slick. However, the hotel is still just holding a Move along sign when the guest comes looking for help.
Key Takeaways
A modern shortcut, but still a full handoff of the guest experience.
AI can be useful – but not when the hotel’s voice and judgement disappear entirely.
See how Tipsiti and ChatGPT compare for guest recommendations on our comparison page.
The Website Page
Some hotels directed us to their own sites, where they’d nested a dedicated recommendations page or “Things To Do” hub:
“You can check Local Activities, Services & Attractions on our website.”
“On our site’s ‘Things To Do’ page, you’ll find places to visit.”
The content and format here isn’t wildly different from a tourism-board page – place names, short descriptions, a few photos, maybe a map or two – but the experience is at least tied to the hotel.
These hotels had decided to create and host their own information. They’d taken ownership of the recommendation experience, however simple the format may be. It reflects an internal effort to give guests something specific to the property, not just a generic external link.
There are natural limitations, of course. Web pages aren’t the most dynamic format. They require upkeep to stay accurate, and not every team has the time or systems to keep them updated year-round. They also tend to be static snapshots rather than something guests can interact with in real time.
But as an approach, it sits in an interesting middle ground. It’s not outsourced like TripAdvisor. It’s not analogue like flyers. It’s a hotel trying to provide its own layer of guidance – even if the format itself has practical constraints.
Key Takeaways
Website-based rec pages show a hotel taking ownership of the guest experience.
They work, but their static nature means upkeep and freshness can be challenging.
The PDF Keeper
One of the most popular methods we saw was the trusty PDF. Several hotels sent over attachments – sometimes a clean, branded mini-guide, other times a simple Word document with a handful of places someone on the team put together at some point in the past.
“Thank you for the email. I have attached a fact sheet on the hotel and its surrounding areas. Although this PDF is more for the hotel itself, our front desk would also be able to provide recommendations.”
““Please find attached pdf of areas of interest and recommended restaurants. You may go online for much more.”
This is another guest experience ownership win for hotels. Unlike TripAdvisor links or tourism-board redirects, these guides were clearly created by the hotel itself. And that alone says something about how the property sees its role in shaping the guest experience.
Like webpages, though, PDFs are static, and keeping them fresh requires active upkeep. For small teams, that can be a big ask – which is why many of the guides we received felt like snapshots from the moment they were first made rather than something actively maintained.
Still, they offer something meaningful: a curated, hotel-owned perspective. A personalised PDF created for an individual guest can feel genuinely thoughtful. The challenge is simply that the format isn’t built for dynamism – it’s a container, not a system.
Key Takeaways
PDFs show clear hotel ownership of the guest recommendation experience – often with branding and local insights.
The format is useful but static – great when curated, limited when not maintained.
The Writer
A small number of replies stood out because they were clearly written by hand – not pasted links, not redirects, not PDFs. Just a person sitting at a desk, writing what they know.
“I’ve attached some restaurant recommendations and will provide some ideas for bars below.”
“There are many restaurants in the area:” [followed by a list]
Sometimes it was a neatly formatted list with full descriptions, cuisine notes, opening hours, and links to Google Maps. Sometimes it was a shorter list: nothing fancy but still thoughtful. And sometimes it was a casual paragraph – a mix of local tips, personal favourites, and “if you like X, try Y” suggestions.
For the most part, they all showed real, local insight paired with genuine care.
But the limitation is obvious: it doesn’t scale.
These replies take time. They live in individual inboxes. And once they’re sent, they can’t be reused by colleagues or captured as shared knowledge inside the hotel.
The hospitality is genuine – it’s just trapped in the format.
Key Takeaways
The most human replies – but the least scalable.
Local knowledge exists; it’s just trapped in individual inboxes.
What These Replies Reveal
If we step back from the individual replies (and ignore the chunk of hotels that didn’t reply), one theme kept surfacing: the intention to help is almost always there – the infrastructure to support it isn’t.
Hotels care about guest experience. You can see it in the warm tone of the replies, the PDFs someone once built, the handwritten lists, and even the redirects to “official” sources. But each of these approaches also exposed the same gap.
Concierges used to handle this work, but most hotels today don’t have one. The responsibility now sits with front desk teams who are already stretched thin. Against that reality, building or maintaining a modern recommendation system feels unrealistic. So hotels fall back on whatever they already have: a flyer rack, redirecting to TripAdvisor, a tourism-board link, a PDF, or personal knowledge. “Something is better than nothing” becomes the default.
Most importantly, every time a hotel hands a guest off to an external platform, it gives away a valuable touchpoint that could have built trust, familiarity, or even nudged someone toward booking. The guest keeps moving – just not with the hotel.
The most memorable replies were the human ones. They showed the insight and care already inside the hotel. The issue isn’t the people – it’s that their knowledge has nowhere sustainable to live.
There’s care in the industry. But a lot of properties lack the systems to carry that care consistently across every guest interaction.
Case study conducted and written by the Tipsiti team – travellers, researchers, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more consistent, intentional, and guest-focused.
Ready to move on from binders and PDFs? Tipsiti lets hotels and rentals create digital guidebooks packed with local recommendations – boosting guest satisfaction and saving staff time.
The Top Travel Trade Shows in 2024 (Part One)
Travel trade shows provide valuable opportunities for industry experts and travelers to network, discover the latest trends, and further ignite their passion for exploration. Conferences like ITB Berlin and World Travel Market incubate for business success and spur development for professionals. Each also serves as a hub of expertise and inspiration for leisure travelers.
Here are some of 2024’s top travel trade shows and exhibitions – January through June.
The Travel Adventure Show
January 27-28 (New York), February 3-4 (Los Angeles), February 17-18 (Phoenix), February 24-25 (Washington D.C.), March 9-10 (Atlanta), March 16-17 (San Francisco/Bay), March 23-24 (Dallas)
The Travel and Adventure Show is a consumer-focused event featuring travel destinations, cultural experiences, adventure activities, and travel experts. Visitors can explore booths from different regions, interact with travel professionals to hone their itineraries, attend seminars, and get inspired for their next adventure.
AIME (Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo)
February 19-21
Melbourne, Australia
AIME is the leading trade event for the meetings, incentives, conferences, and events industry in the Asia-Pacific region. It brings together exhibitors from diverse sectors, including hotels, airlines, destination management companies, and technology providers – a prime setting for networking opportunities and educational sessions.
BTL (Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa)
February 28 - March 3
Lisbon, Portugal
BTL showcases a range of tourism-related products and services across its five days of operation – sectors include destinations, accommodations, transportation, and tour operators. The event targets both industry professionals and the general public, offering business opportunities and promoting tourism in Portugal. At BTL, professional days are tailored for industry insiders, offering networking opportunities, business transactions, and specialized workshops for travel professionals. Public days at BTL, from 5 pm onwards on February 1, are open to all, allowing attendees – industry experts or general travelers – to explore destinations, interact with exhibitors, and access special promotions.
Arival 360 Berlin
March 2-4
Berlin, Germany
Arival 360 Berlin is a conference and trade show focused on industry learning for tours, activities, and attractions. It brings suppliers, operators, and technology providers together to discuss trends, challenges, and innovations in the tours and activities market.
ITB Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin)
March 5-7
Berlin, Germany
ITB Berlin is one of the world's leading travel trade shows, attracting exhibitors and visitors from across the globe. It is set to host a comprehensive lineup of travel industry segments: adventure travel and responsible tourism; business travel; careers; culture tourism; hospitality; book awards; a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) forum; LGTBQ+ tourism; luxury travel; medical tourism; travel technology; and youth travel and economy accommodation. The event features exhibitor booths, networking opportunities, seminars, and presentations on the latest trends and developments in travel.
MITT (Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition)
March 19-21
Moscow, Russia
MITT is the largest travel trade show in Russia and the CIS countries. The event brings together destination experts, tour operators, hotels, and transportation services for networking and promotion within the Russian market.
British Tourism and Travel Show
March 20-21
Birmingham, United Kingdom
The British Tourism and Travel Show is a key event for the domestic tourism industry in the UK. It unites tourism attractions, accommodation providers, tour operators, and other tourism-related businesses to showcase their offerings and network with industry professionals and buyers. The 200+ exhibitors provide some of the best inspiration for UK-based travel.
Las Vegas Travel Agent Forum
March 24-27
Las Vegas, United States
The Las Vegas Travel Agent Forum is a limited-space B2B trade show and conference designed specifically for travel agents and agencies. It provides educational sessions, extensive networking opportunities, and access to suppliers from various sectors of the travel industry.
World Travel Market Africa
April 10-12
Cape Town, South Africa
WTM Africa is a leading travel trade show on the African continent, drawing in over 6,000 industry professionals, 700 exhibitors, and representatives from 50 countries annually. This event is a pivotal platform for networking, business transactions, and trend exploration within the African tourism industry, contributing significantly to the growth and development of tourism across the continent.
World Travel Market Latin America
April 15-17
Sao Paulo, Brazil
World Travel Market Latin America is the leading global event for the Latin American travel industry – the 2023 event welcomed 270,000+ travel professionals and 620+ exhibitors. WTM is a platform for networking, negotiation, product discovery, and other successful business. The event includes exhibitor booths, seminars, and networking opportunities, focusing on promoting tourism in the Latin American market.
Arabian Travel Market
May 6-9
Dubai, UAE
Much like its Latin American, African, and European iterations, Arabian Travel Market is the leading international travel and tourism event in the Middle East. It brings together exhibitors from the region and beyond, including tourism boards, airlines, hotels, and travel technology companies. As always, the event offers valuable networking opportunities, educational seminars, and insights into the latest trends shaping the travel industry in the Middle East.
Rendez-vous Canada
May 14-17
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Rendez-vous Canada is Canada's premier international tourism marketplace, serving as a nexus for forging meaningful connections, unveiling the nation's hidden gems, and crafting unforgettable travel experiences. With pre-scheduled business appointments, networking sessions, and educational seminars, the event aims to promote Canadian tourism products and foster partnerships with international buyers.
TravelTech Show
Dates: June 19-20
London, United Kingdom
The Travel Tech Show is a specialized event focusing on technology solutions for the travel industry. It assembles technology providers, startups, and industry professionals to showcase innovative products and discuss the latest trends in travel technology – from digital marketing and booking platforms to the continued rise of artificial intelligence. The event is a place of learning for businesses and travel professionals to inspire and stay ahead of the curve.
Signs It’s Time to Upgrade How You Share Guest Recommendations
Every traveler knows the look: a binder hiding in a bedside cabinet, stuffed with takeaway menus, TripAdvisor printouts, and a map that’s been folded to death. The laminated printout at reception. Or the PDF attachment sent before arrival, buried somewhere between booking confirmations and airport transfer details. The recs themselves might still hold up, but the delivery already feels dated.
If any of this sounds familiar, it might be a sign it’s time to upgrade.
Key Takeaways
Outdated delivery can even make good recommendations feel flat.
Guests expect clean, digital formats they can actually use on the go.
Concierges still matter – and digital tools can sharpen their impact.
Better delivery shows care, builds trust, and keeps recs in use.
The Laminated Binder Era
We’ve all thumbed through one of these. Heavy folder, plastic sleeves, takeaway menus curling at the edges. Maybe even a “Top 10 Attractions” list with the same three landmarks every tourist already has on their phone. The problem isn’t that the information is wrong – it’s that the packaging shouts, “We haven’t updated this in years.” Guests pick up on that instantly.
The Good Ol’ PDF
Whether it’s a laminated printout left in a rental or a file sent by email, PDFs might have seemed convenient once – but they don’t hold up great today. They’re too static. Once created, they can’t adapt with seasons, staff changes, or personalisation. Guests might still use them if they’re there, but they often feel dated the moment something changes.
That’s the problem. The café you loved might have shut last week. A new noodle bar could have opened around the corner. The PDF won’t reflect either.
Hospitality moves fast. Slow and static won’t keep up – guests want things to be simple, convenient, and personal.
Scribbled Notes
We’ll admit there’s a certain charm in it – a staff member jotting down the name of a tucked-away bar or late-night café and sliding it across the counter.
That charm can fade quickly, though. A lot rests on the quality of the tip, and the presentation can cut both ways. If the recommendation is genuinely sharp, it feels like an insider sharing something just for you. If it’s underwhelming, the messy scrawl comes across less as personal and more as hurried or unprepared.
There’s also the staffing dilemma: these recs are tied to whoever happens to be working. Great tips can disappear if that person’s off-shift, leaving the next guest none the wiser.
A Note on Concierges
Concierges sit in a bit of a grey area here. The service they provide is usually excellent – personal judgment, timing tips, relationships with local restaurants – all things a binder or PDF can’t deliver. But the way those recommendations are handed over can still feel a little old-school. Scribbled notes, circled maps, even hastily printed lists all fall into the same delivery problem mentioned.
That doesn’t make concierges outdated – far from it. Their value is clear. But the process can be sharper. Digital tools don’t replace a concierge; they simply give their advice more staying power.
Why It Matters
Guests don’t just judge the what of your recommendations; they notice the how. A dusty binder or static PDF feels like an afterthought. A note handed over at the desk might help for one night, but it doesn’t scale.
The delivery sets the tone – it’s where guest expectations meet presentation. Today’s guests want recommendations that are convenient, fast, reliable, and personal. Those qualities only come through if the way they’re shared meets the same standard. Binders and PDFs can’t deliver on that. Presentation decides whether the experience feels modern and intentional, or dated and forgettable.
If your recs are still stuck in binders, PDFs, or sticky notes, it’s probably time to upgrade.
Ready to move on from binders and PDFs? Tipsiti lets hotels and rentals create digital guidebooks packed with local recommendations – boosting guest satisfaction and saving staff time.
Written by the Tipsiti team – travelers, curators, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more intentional and more local.
Tourist Trap Tells: A Quick Guide for Hosts
After years across different cities, we’re as versed as they come with the classic tells of a tourist trap – laminated menus, grand claims of being the “world’s best,” or overzealous ushers loitering outside. But these signals aren’t hard and fast rules. Take this from time spent living in Vietnam and Cambodia: we’ve seen how street stalls and roadside eateries often have staff calling out, and they’re packed with locals every night. In Europe, the same move usually points to a generic, overpriced spot. The signals change with context – which is why guests often look to local hosts for clarity.
Key Takeaways
Tourist traps often share universal tells, but they’re not always absolute rules.
Context matters: the same sign can mean “tourist trap” in one place and “local staple” in another.
Guests fall for traps because visibility and online reviews through major sites like Google Maps and TripAdvisor create a cycle of popularity.
Hosts who decode these signals for guests build trust – and make their real recommendations stand out.
Universal Signs of a Tourist Trap
Laminated or Picturebook Menus
We’ve all seen them – pages of glossy food photos, sealed in plastic, available in five languages. More often than not, they’re built for turnover, not taste. Locals don’t need a photo to order their favourite dish. Of course, in humid climates, laminating menus is just practical, so it’s not always a red flag – but when every plate has a stock image, it’s likely a sign the food will be forgettable.
Overhyped Claims
It’s probably right to be skeptical of signs that shout “world’s best pizza” or “#1 in town” – it rarely is. Great places don’t need to say it; word of mouth does the work. Sure, a few beloved spots lean into the joke, but most of the time, the louder the claim, the thinner the delivery.
Prime Landmark Locations
This is more of a cautionary note than a flag-plant rule. But restaurants wrapped around a city’s biggest square or pressed up against a major monument can often trade on the view, not the meal. Prices climb, standards drop. That said, there are exceptions – a few legacy cafés survive in these spots because locals still go, even in the tourist crush. They’re rare, but they exist.
Staff Touting Outside
This one’s all about context. In much of Europe, being waved into a restaurant is a pretty safe signal the food isn’t worth the detour. But walk through Cambodia or Vietnam and it can be a different story – it’s not at all uncommon for restaurants and roadside stalls to have someone out front ushering locals in and talking to passers-by. So the science isn’t exact – it’s a signal that requires a bit more on-the-spot observation (See our next point…).
Lack of Locals
There’s an old travel adage: eat where the locals eat. It’s one of the stronger indicators of quality. A room full of tourists and no residents is rarely a good sign – locals don’t waste money on places that don’t deliver. The catch is that it’s not always easy to tell who’s who, especially in busy centres. That’s where hosts matter: pointing out the places locals actually eat, and helping travellers avoid the ones designed purely for passing trade.
Why Guests Still Fall for Them
Tourist traps thrive on visibility. They’re on the busiest corners, lit up at night, and often full of people. Crowds act like magnets – if it looks busy, it must be good, right? That loop gets reinforced online: Google Maps and TripAdvisor push the places with the most reviews, which drives more foot traffic, which adds more reviews, which drives more foot traffic, which adds… You get the idea – it’s self-perpetuating.
And for travellers, especially after a long day, convenience wins. The nearest glowing sign feels safer than wandering a few more blocks. Without context, the easiest option often appears to be the best option – even when it isn’t.
Want to see how Tipsiti compares to platforms like Google Maps and TripAdvisor? See why we’re the go-to for guest recommendations here.
Why This Matters for Hosts and Hotels
Guests aren’t naive – most can spot a tourist trap from a mile off. The difference hosts make is in the grey areas, where signals get blurred or the obvious option feels tempting. That’s where a little guidance has an outsized impact.
Hosts add value in three ways:
Confirming the Obvious
Sometimes guests just need reassurance. Yes, that corner spot is exactly what it looks like – a tourist trap. Flagging it saves them from second-guessing.
Decoding the Ambiguous
Other times, the signals aren’t clear. A packed restaurant might be full of tour groups, or it might be the local go-to. Guests don’t always know how to read that – but hosts can decode it quickly.
Local Recommendations from the Start
The best advice skips the traps altogether. By pointing guests toward places locals actually use, you remove the need for them to weigh up the “maybe” options at all. It feels less like a warning and more like insider access.
That’s why a little host input goes a long way. Guests remember when you saved them from a bland meal just as much as when you led them to a great one. It builds trust, and every recommendation after that carries more weight.
Framing is key. You don’t need to criticise a place outright – contrast works better: “That spot is busy with tour groups, but if you’d like somewhere locals actually go, this family-run place is the better bet.” It’s guidance, not gatekeeping. And when those recommendations are packaged cleanly – not buried in a laminated binder – they feel like genuine insider knowledge.
Want to boost your property’s recommendation process? Tipsiti helps you create a digital guidebook filled with local recommendations that raises guest satisfaction and hotel revenue.
Written by the Tipsiti team – travelers, curators, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more intentional and more local.
Human + Digital is the Winning Formula for Hotels
Ping notifications from chatbots as you browse hotel options. Instant booking confirmations and update notifications. Keyless entry with a tap of your phone. Apps to control your room temperature, order a nightcap, or chat with the front desk. Voice-controlled bedroom lights. Robot concierges and virtual tours.
There’s never been more technology in hotels.
But ask most travelers what stands out from a stay, and it’s rarely just the gadgetry. Tech can absolutely create standout moments – a smooth check-in after a long flight, an app that makes ordering room service effortless. But the stays s meet genuine human care.
The best hotels aren’t “high-tech” or “high-touch.” They’re both – and they know how to use each where it matters most.
Key Takeaways
Tech is the baseline: Fast WiFi, smooth check-in, and digital amenities are now expectations – not differentiators.
Personal service remains vital: Even as tech offerings improve, 82% of U.S. consumers (and 74% globally) want more human interaction, not less.
Real recommendations matter: 81% of travelers expect curated local tips, but 56% don’t want robots or impersonal automation.
Personalization drives loyalty: 56% of guests say a personalized experience makes them likely to return.
Hybrid wins: Hotels pairing smart tech with attentive staff see the highest satisfaction rates and repeat bookings.
Tech Isn’t a Bonus Anymore
Look, we remember our trips a decade ago – even some more recently. Then, WiFi was often what got us to sign on the dotted line and choose our stay. It was a clear deal-maker. Now, unless we’re purposefully setting off on a digital detox retreat, a lack of fast WiFi is a dealbreaker.
But there’s a shift there: for today’s travelers, digital basics are just that – basics. You’ll find surveys from over a decade ago that already put free, fast WiFi at the top of guests’ wish lists. That’s still true – more than 70% of people expect WiFi as standard in even the most basic hotel room, according to YouGov. It’s become just as essential as the complimentary shampoo and a toothbrush you’ll find in the bathroom.
What’s changed is that the tech checklist is now longer – the wow factor has moved. Beyond the baseline, it’s not about having flashy gadgets; it’s about whether technology actually solves problems and makes things easier for both guests and staff.
Nearly three-quarters of guests (73%) want to check in, order food, or pay from their phones. Almost half now look for contactless payments, and most are happy to use digital room keys. We’re at a stage where guests expect to do almost everything digitally that they could do at the front desk – from requesting extra towels to checking out.
Let’s not forget the hotels themselves – tech answers the call of consumers, but it’s just as crucial for the people running the show. We still find ourselves in a post-pandemic staffing crunch, making it tougher for hoteliers to find and keep enough team members on the ground. That’s why 65% of hoteliers to actively investing in new tech for their teams, and 96% are rolling out contactless options like check-in, payment, and service.
Fix friction points. Free up staff. Integrate seamlessly. They’re the goalposts for tech in hospitality now. Digital is expected and can be a winner. But it’s got to be chosen for the right reasons.
Convenient tech – we can see there’s demand there. But cold automation? That’s where there might be questions.
The Limits of Automation
So, with so much tech, we’re pushed to ask: does more always mean better? Not always. Again, it has to be chosen for the right reasons.
New automations – chatbots, kiosks, service robots – have tested just how much guests want machines over people. The answer is: when it works. We’ll translate that to sometimes for the sake of simplicity, as it does read a little confusing.
The numbers help cut through some of the noise: more insights from Oracle and Skift found that 73% of guests were more likely to stay somewhere that let them manage things on their phone. Yet, insights from a different survey saw 56% of consumers say that they don’t want to interact with robots during their stay, and only 14% would opt for a self-serve kiosk when a manned service station was available.
So here’s the nuance: guests want tech for convenience and speed, not that blanket-replaces real people. Not all interactions should be automated.
Automation works best when it’s invisible and helpful – quick answers from a chatbot at 2 am, digital keys for easy check-in, mobile recommendations for tips on the move.
But tech can get in the way when it’s overly complicated, creates more friction than it solves, and demands a learning curve. That’s when frustrations spike and guests want real humans to step in.
So there’s a real argument for using automation when it comes to the routine and repetitive but leaving room for human touch in the moments between. With this formula, the tech gives staff more time to do what only they can do: listen, empathize, and connect.
Is “Personal Touch” Still a Thing?
Another question that we find ourselves asking is: what does genuine hospitality look like now? Is there still space for personal touch?
Yes. That’s an easier answer to give.
It’s about staff who listen, anticipate, and help guests get the most from their trip – and about using the right tools to make that easier to deliver.
Local recommendations are a great area of opportunity. 81% of travelers want hotels to provide thoughtful, curated local tips. That tells us something important – guests aren’t just looking for information, they’re looking for insight. It’s why the best recommendations come from people with local experience who know what’s worth the time and what’s not. That’s personal touch with substance.
How those tips are delivered is where hotels have room to differentiate. For the hotels that have answered their guests' calls to provide recommendations, it has historically been through laminated lists tucked in the top drawer of a bedroom cabinet, being ushered to a pamphlet display beside reception, or handwritten notes from the concierge desk.
Now, the same authentic insights can be packaged in a convenience-first digital format – giving guests the ease of on-demand access without losing the human expertise behind it. That’s the perfect example of where digital intersects human.
And personal touch doesn’t end with recommendations. It can be the welcome note in your room, the team remembering your favorite pillow, or a late-night problem solved with empathy. According to PwC, 75% of guests want more personal interaction as tech improves, not less. And 56% say a personalized experience makes them more likely to return. The best hotels blend that personal element into both human and digital touchpoints – for moments that feel genuine and make guests happy.
Want to learn more about the value of good recommendations? Read our article about why generic travel advice is ruining guest experiences.
Where Human + Digital Blends Best
Tech and people can work in tandem to make hotel stays feel effortless and personal. Here’s what that can look like in practice:
Local expertise: Hotels package their best neighbourhood tips into a digital guidebook, so guests can browse anytime, filter to their interests, and plan without waiting in line.
Housekeeping: Guests request fresh towels, late cleaning, or a turndown via app; staff respond in person within minutes, with no need for repeated phone calls or missed knocks.
Maintenance: Smart room sensors detect low battery in locks or a fault in the AC, triggering an engineer visit before the guest even reports the issue.
Room service: Orders placed through a tablet or app are delivered by staff who can offer extras or share quick dining recommendations face-to-face.
Events and activities: Guests sign up digitally for classes, tours, or tastings, and staff greet them by name on arrival, adding a personal welcome to a self-serve booking process.
Here, digital tools help staff focus on what humans do best. Plus, guests get autonomy and attention on their own terms.
Want to get a few more "WOW"s? Read our list of simple ways to impress your hotel guests.
Best Practices for Hotels
Start with friction points: Add tech where it solves a real problem, not just for the sake of it.
Give guests options: Let people choose digital, human, or both.
Nail the basics: Fast WiFi, easy payments, mobile keys. They should work flawlessly.
Empower staff: Give them the time, tools, and data to create standout moments, not transactions.
Amplify local knowledge: Use tech to surface real insights, not generic lists.
Final Thought
The best hotel stays aren’t a battle between gadgets and good people. They’re what happens when digital ease and real hospitality work together – you breeze through mobile check-in, get a tip on the best noodles in town, or stream your favorite show after exploring local streets. That’s the magic of human + digital, done right.
Want to combine personal touch with digital convenience? Tipsiti helps hotels package authentic, local expertise into a guest-friendly digital guidebook – boosting satisfaction, saving staff time, and increasing revenue.
Written by the Tipsiti team – travelers, curators, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more intentional and more local.
Where Berlin Locals Get Their Coffee
Coffee culture is not new to Germany; Berliners notoriously do not shy from their culinary indulgences. But where in past decades residents gathered around the percolators of first-wave coffeehouses, they now find themselves spoilt by artisan roasteries and specialty espresso.
From Kreuzberg to Mitte, the advent of third-wave coffee has spurred healthy competition among cafés – whether perfecting their golden crema, pioneering different brew methods, or sourcing beans from new international growers.
What to Know
All cafés listed are beloved by locals, not just “top-rated” on review sites.
Expect variety: minimalist espresso bars, third-wave pioneers, old-school favorites, and a standout Japanese matcha spot.
Perfect for: lingering with kaffee und kuchen, working on your laptop, people-watching, or a quick caffeine fix before hitting the canals.
Berlin’s Local Cafe Favorites!
Bonanza 🔗
Headline Berlin coffee shop and roastery.
First putting third-wave coffee to cup in 2006, Bonanza are pioneers of Berlin’s craft caffeine scene. Now, their flagship Kreuzberg café-meets-roastery headlines a quartet of sibling coffee shops throughout Berlin each pouring specialty brews made with beans from select worldwide locations. Epicureans and aficionados: note the subtle fruit notes of the house roasts – Bonanza’s eponymous blend pairs beans from Brazil and Peru for a dark cherry and chocolate profile.
Father Carpenter 🔗
Breakfast, brunch, and damn good brews.
Driven by their puritan approach to coffee – their words, not ours – Father Carpenter tables a brew that has garnered a city-wide reputation. Here, beans come exclusively from Fjord, the collaborative venture of Father Carpenter’s own Kresten Thøgersen and nearby Silo Coffee’s Morgan Love and James Maguire. Though Fjord ships worldwide, its blends are best enjoyed fresh from the grinders – Father Carpenter’s talent for breakfast only adds to the invitation.
Five Elephant 🔗
Berlin coffee shop serving specialty beans from overseas.
Conceived in Kreuzberg and now expanded to industrial-chic locations in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, Five Elephants commands a strong footprint in Berlin – and a pioneering influence on its third-wave movement. Specialty beans are sourced from overseas and roasted on-site. Golden crema aside, the coffee shop tempts with the city’s finest cheesecake; this is the spot to lean into Germany’s penchant for kaffee und kuchen.
Isla Coffee 🔗
Zero-waste coffee shop with a fluid roster of specialty beans.
A proud zero-waste advocate, Isla extends its commitment to specialty coffee to its pursuit of environmental sustainability. The third-wave café, adjacent to Berlin’s well-trodden Hermannstraße, features furnishings built with recycled materials and cups made from reused coffee grounds. Beans are sourced from a roster of domestic and international roasters, keeping Isla’s caffeine offerings fluid – staff are always willing to walk the curious through flavor profiles and personal recommendations. Brunch here is worth a bite too.
Concierge Coffee 🔗
Grab-and-go coffee, canalside.
Concierge exceeds its modest foundations. Now, baristas stand where doormen once stood, serving specialty espresso to a handful of indoor tables and through the hole-in-the-wall service hatch – Concierge’s inaugural store's proximity to the Landwehr Canal lures nearby wanderers for grab-and-go refuels. West Berlin residents can source a cup of Concierge’s finest from the brand’s sister store in Schöneberg.
Kaffeekirsche 🔗
Neighborhood-oriented coffee shop with a solid house blend.
Now with two iterations across the city – including their headline cafe-roastery in Tempelhofer – Kaffeekirsche continues its objective of bringing high-quality coffee to the streets of Berlin. Founder, Turabi Kocadag, remains committed to building a neighborhood space that welcomes all and delivers a journey through coffee. Kaffeekirsche’s house blend unites beans from Brazil and Ethiopia for a sweet caramel profile that finishes with fruity notes – good for a milky brew or as pure espresso.
DoubleEye
Expert-made espresso in Schöneberg.
Espresso by the hand of two-time world barista champion Arno Schmeil draws queues to the more docile streets of Schöneberg. Patrons linger for conversation streetside due to the limited space of DoubleEye’s standing-only interior. Schmeil imparts his mastery of the caffeine craft to his baristas, cementing DoubleEye as a sure bet for loyal followers, pitstop drinkers, and those simply finding themselves in western Berlin.
Town Mouse Coffee
Laidback coffee shop and cafe wit beans from Berlin's own 19grams.
While not roasters themselves, Town Mouse source their beans from Berlin’s own 19grams – a long-proven name within the third-wave movement with four successful locations of their own. Mouse seeks to indulge in life’s simple pleasures; patrons follow suit and trust in their flat whites. Whether for the coffee, sandwiches, or casual atmosphere, the Prenzlauer Berg café has built a loyal following in its relatively short tenure.
Mamecha 🔗
Matcha cafe with drinks and sweet treats.
Deserving of more than an honorary mention, Mamecha dabbles rather successfully in the art of matcha – alongside other types of green tea. The Japanese café is proximate to the likes of Father Carpenter and Five Elephant but offers a more distinctive flavor spread. Visitors can sample a collection of traditional green teas or embrace the earthy tones of a matcha latte, both in collaboration with a selection of Japanese treats.
FAQs
Do you have any brunch recommendations too? Of course! Take a look at this list of Berlin's best brunch spots!
Can we take a look at all your local recommendations for Berlin? Head here for Tipsiti's full directory of local Berlin travel recommendations.
The Problem With Most Hotel Concierge (It’s Not Just the Delivery)
Walk into a hotel and it’s some rendition of a familiar gesture: “If you’re looking for things to do, just ask the concierge – they’ve got plenty of recommendations.” Substitute concierge for front desk or any other hospitality team lingo – you catch our drift.
And usually, they do. But what you’re handed doesn’t always feel like a thoughtful guide. Sometimes it’s a laminated sheet with stock picks. Sometimes it’s a crinkled brochure or a few names scribbled on the back of a map – offered mid-sentence while the concierge checks someone in. The intention is there. But the delivery often falls short.
Sometimes, so do the recommendations.
Generic Recommendations
That's part of the reality – not all the suggestions are that strong to begin with. Many are just the safest options: high-volume restaurants, top-reviewed attractions, the rooftop bar everyone already found on Google. These aren’t bad places, but they’re rarely memorable. They’re chosen to please the widest range of guests and to avoid complaints. However, they rarely surprise or connect.
Key Takeaways: What’s Wrong (and Why It Matters)
81% of hotel guests want local experience recommendations – but many hotels default to generic, popular picks. Local recommendations are how hotels win.
Even strong recommendations fall flat when they're buried in laminated lists, outdated brochures, or scribbled notes. Guests expect modern, accessible delivery.
Recommendations shape guest experience. Thoughtful, personal guidance can define how positively a guest remembers their visit.
The problem is twofold: the recommendations aren’t always curated, and the method of sharing them hasn’t evolved.
Great Insight, Outdated Delivery
It's not a knock on concierges. Many of them do have incredible local knowledge. We’ve had concierges send us to perfect under-the-radar spots – places we’d never have found otherwise. They’re the trips we remember. But, we’ve also been handed lists that felt like filler, or been pointed to the same five places we saw in a taxi ad the night before. It’s a mixed bag. And for guests, that inconsistency becomes part of the experience.
The presentation doesn’t help either. Great advice gets buried in outdated formats. Rushed handoffs. Laminated sheets that can’t flex to seasonality or mood. Guests want something that feels intentional – not generic. But more often than not, they get something that’s just fine.
This matters. Because those early recommendations shape how a guest engages with the city. Whether they explore with confidence or hesitation. Whether they feel like just another tourist – or like someone who was pointed toward something real.
Curation With Intention
We’re not suggesting hotels stop offering recs or need to overhaul everything – quite the opposite. Local advice is one of hospitality’s biggest assets. But the method of sharing it needs to catch up. So hotels can take what they already know – the good, the specific, the local – and actually help guests make use of it.
Whether a hotel has a full concierge team or just a single multitasking staff member, guests deserve more than default picks and outdated formats.
They deserve a moment of clarity: Here’s something worth your time. Something specific and local. Something that makes the city feel just a little more open.
Want to boost your property’s recommendation process? Tipsiti delivers a digital guidebook tool powered by local recommendations that raises guest satisfaction and hotel revenue.
Written by the Tipsiti team – travelers, curators, and hospitality professionals working to make guest recommendations more intentional and more local.
What Airbnb Hosts Really Want to Recommend
(But Don’t Know How to Share)
Most Airbnb hosts have a mental list.
It’s not written anywhere, and it rarely shows up in the official guidebook – but it exists. It’s that personal stash of local spots they’ve come to rely on: the noodle place with no obvious sign, the tiny wine bar that’s never full, the park that’s always shaded just right. Places they wish more guests knew about – but don’t always know how to communicate.
Obviously, good hosts want to help guests have a great stay. Not just inside the four walls of their listing, but out in the city too. They know that experience doesn’t stop at the front door. What guests do – where they eat, how they move around, what they discover – shapes how they feel about the trip as a whole.
The problem is: there’s no easy way to share that kind of insight.
Airbnb has definitely tried streamlining the process with their “neighborhood guide” feature. But it’s limited. Guestbooks get ignored. And many hosts don’t have the time (or writing confidence) to build a personalized local guide that explains not just where to go, but why it’s worth going.
So they stick with what’s safe.
TripAdvisor regulars. Instagram darlings. Cafes with good reviews and English menus. The spots that feel reliable, even if they’re nowhere near the most interesting.
And that’s where something gets lost.
Because what hosts really want to recommend is often a bit more personal: the late-night curry stall that only opens after nine, the bookshop with a cafe nook tucked behind the travel section, the neighborhood bar where the bartender remembers regulars by drink and local musicians open mic. Not tourist traps – just thoughtful, local experiences. The kind that makes a place feel real.
Guests want this too.
More than ever, travelers are looking for moments of connection. Not mass-market sightseeing, but small discoveries that feel intentional. And when a host nails that – when they give a tip that actually lands – it elevates everything. The stay feels curated. The city feels more accessible. And that elusive five-star review becomes a lot more likely.
Great hospitality starts with a quiet recommendation and a bit of local confidence. Most hosts already know what they want to share. They just need better ways to say it.
Why Generic Travel Advice is Ruining Guest Experiences
(And What Real Recommendations Do Better)
Travel advice isn’t hard to find anymore. It’s everywhere. Aggregated lists of travel recommendations, anonymous reviews, content mills, chatbots – all feeding into a bloated system of “top 10s" and “can’t-miss” attractions, most of which have been copied, scraped, or paraphrased a dozen times over.
It’s efficient, sure. But that efficiency has flattened the experience. The result? Guests who arrive in a new place and are funnelled toward the same tired handful of places, served up by algorithms that have no sense of context, taste, or curiosity.
The problem isn’t access. It’s curation.
We’ve reached a strange point in travel where it’s possible to research obsessively and still end up with a mediocre experience.
You can have 27 tabs open, each with a different article or guide, and still wind up at the same overhyped brunch spot that an army of influencers posted last year – because it ranked high, looked good in photos, and had a thousand positive reviews from people you’ll never meet.
The issue isn’t that travelers are lazy or uninformed. It’s that the tools meant to help them have become optimized for volume, not value.
They’re designed to answer the question:
“What are people talking about?” Not: “What’s actually worth your time?”
Generic advice is easy to give. But it rarely lands.
If you’ve ever asked a hotel concierge for recommendations and ended up with a laminated list of TripAdvisor darlings, you’ve felt this. If you’ve ever been sent to a “hidden gem” with a line out the door and a $14 smoothie menu, you’ve definitely felt this.
It’s not that these places are bad – it’s that the recommendation lacks intention. It wasn’t given with context, nuance, or care. It’s generic, recycled, and impersonal.
The guest experience suffers when guidance is treated like a checkbox. And if you’re in hospitality – whether you’re running a hotel, hosting on Airbnb, or driving rideshare – that matters. Because the difference between a 4-star and a 5-star review often comes down to the details. A moment of thoughtfulness. A local recommendation that actually resonates.
So What Makes Real Recommendations Different?
They don’t come from rankings or aggregated sentiment. They come from familiarity – from people who move through a city every day. The kind of lived-in knowledge that quietly accumulates over time: where to go, when to go, and what actually matters once you’re there.
Real recommendations carry context. They understand that a neighborhood cafe feels different in the morning than it does at dusk. That some places are perfect for a one-day visit, while others reward the kind of time most travelers don’t have. Not everything needs to be squeezed into the same “must-see” list – and good curation knows when to leave things out.
They also respect time. Advice without context tends to flatten everything, as if a person with 36 hours in a city needs the same guidance as someone staying a full season. But real recommendations help travelers filter what’s worth their attention – not based on popularity, but on relevance.
And often, the things that land aren’t dramatic. They’re quiet. A side-street bakery that sells out before noon. A jazz bar tucked above a hardware shop. A local park that doesn't make a single “top 10” list but gives a city its texture. These are the kinds of places that soften the unfamiliar – the ones that turn a trip into something that actually sticks.
Better travel doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from discovering what matters – and sometimes, that just takes the right nudge from someone who knows where to look.
Want more ways to impress your guests?
Rating Systems Are Broken: Why Time Is the Fix
Rating systems can be overly complex, artificially inflated, and mostly imperfect. Whether it’s a 5-star scale, a 10-point ranking, or a 100% score, the way we evaluate and “rank” experiences is rife with issues that compromise accuracy and trust.
The issues:
No shared anchor point
How does a 4.6 on Google Maps compare to an 8.7 on The Infatuation or a single Michelin star? Without a common framework, ratings become abstract numbers meaning across platforms.Oversimplificiation
Reducing an experience to a single score flattens nuance. A 4.0 could reflect a brilliant spot with patchy service or a bland venue with a good location.A reliance on user-generated or aggregated content
The democratisation of information is valuable. But it can also be flawed. Volume introduces noise. Reviews often reflect hyper-specific personal preferences or hinge on the reviewer's mood that day.Fake reviews are rampant
Scores can be gamed – bought, sabotaged, or inflated – especially on high-traffic platforms. This erodes trust in even the most established rating systems.Lack of cultural context
Ratings rarely account for outdated opinions, changing standards, or how an experience lands with different demographics. What resonates with tourists may leave locals cold – and vice versa.
The result? A system that is increasingly muddled, difficult to trust, and prone to exploitation.
Why These Systems Keep Failing Us
The core issue? Lack of transparency and adaptability.
Consider some real-world examples:
A 4.8-star restaurant might be a quiet neighborhood gem – or a tourist trap in disguise.
A seemingly objective 8.3 score doesn’t carry the same meaning across cities with totally different standards, cultures, or price points.
Layer in fake reviews and conflicting aggregation sources, and the numbers become less about quality – and more about visibility manipulation. That disconnect leaves a major gap: we need a system that’s practical, universal, and grounded in real-world decision-making.
Why Time Is a Better Measure
At Tipsiti, we built our alternative rating system around one idea: time.
Time is a resource everyone understands. Whether someone is visiting a city for one day or one month, the way they prioritize their time reflects what (we hope) they might value most. By anchoring ratings to time, we’re not just ranking quality – we’re helping travelers make better, more informed decisions.
Why Time Works as a Universal Anchor
It’s relevant to everyone
Tight schedule? You need instant clarity. Long stay? You have room to explore deeper layers. Time frames offer built-in prioritization.It allows for context and nuance
Unlike stars, time-based tiers reflect purpose. What’s essential for a day-trip visitor may not matter to someone spending a month in the same city.It’s a shared language
Time acts as a common denominator across preferences, budgets, and demographics. It doesn’t attempt to impose subjective judgments – it simply asks, “How much time do you have?”It’s harder to game
Framing recommendations around time avoids the pitfalls of fake reviews and inflated ratings. It’s grounded in practicality rather than hype.
This approach resonates with us because it’s clear, actionable, and free from the clutter of inflated scores or dubious reviews.
How Our Time-Based System Works
Tipsiti’s five-tier structure maps recommendations to the time a traveler has:
One Day: Essential must-sees for travelers with only 24 hours in a city. These places demand immediate prioritization.
One Weekend: High-value recommendations for weekend visitors, showcasing iconic and well-regarded experiences.
One Week: Foundational picks for a week-long stay, blending top attractions with local favorites.
One Month: Recommendations for travelers with the luxury of time, offering a deeper exploration of the city’s culture and rhythm.
One Season: A reservoir of spots for those staying long-term, filled with local haunts and under-the-radar gems.
By framing cities this way, we help travelers navigate with clarity – not clutter.
Time Is the Context Ratings Were Missing
Ratings were designed to bring order to choice. But they’ve lost that purpose in a sea of fake reviews, generic scores, and inconsistent standards.
Time is simple. It’s honest. It reflects how people already think about travel – “what can I do in the time I have?”
By using time as the organizing principle, we’re not just ranking places. We’re helping people prioritize more meaningfully, with less guesswork and more confidence.
We believe this is the future of evaluating destinations – a measure that is meaningful, practical, and most importantly, timeless.
Why not take a closer look at Tipsiti's time-based rating system?
A Closer Look At Tipsiti's Rating System
Every place on Tipsiti is rated by time.
Our five-tier system helps travelers prioritize their plans and shows the places that demand their attention based on the time they have. The top of our scale highlights places that require the utmost urgency – the best of the best for time-scarce itineraries.
The system then filters down to places that can be sprinkled throughout longer stays. These places are still absolutely wonderful for meaningful, informed travel, and provide travelers with a comprehensive city experience.
🗝️🗝️🗝️🗝️🗝️ - One Day
The pinnacle of recommendations – an exclusive collection of one-day essentials. These are the places Tipsiti suggests travelers prioritize with the utmost urgency – for city visits of 24 hours or less.
🗝️🗝️🗝️🗝️ - One Weekend
Four-key recommendations appeal to travelers on weekend city breaks. This category fits a popular time frame for a quick trip, while still providing insight into some of a city’s most well-regarded spots.
🗝️🗝️🗝️ - One Week
Tipsiti’s three-crown recommendations can provide the foundation for a one-week travel itinerary. For those with the luxury of a bit more time.
🗝️🗝️ - One Month
Two-crown recommendations are for travelers on an extended stay. With a month in a city, these are the places they should turn to. They provide a rounded view through the eyes of locals and can fit around an area’s top picks.
🗝️ - One Season
Tipsiti’s one-crown recommendations are a dependable reservoir of advice for travelers with a full season of exploration ahead of them. They are places loved and frequented by locals but that do not require immediate urgency.
Our only other rule is this: if we list it, we like it.
For a more comprehensive analysis of how we look at ratings, rankings, tiers, stars, scores, and more, and how we came up with ours, please look at our case study, here.
10 Best Austin Food Blogs: Ultimate Austin Food Guide
Austin’s growth continues to be good news for peoples’ stomachs. The problems come when it’s time to decide where to eat. What are the best restaurants in Austin? Who serves the best BBQ? Luckily, local Austin food blogs make it their mission to find and share the best restaurants in the city – from the best Austin BBQ spots for those tender meats to beloved Tex-Mex and hidden gem eateries. So, when the stomach starts to rumble, turn to these Austin food blogs for reliable restaurant recommendations.
10 Best Austin Food Blogs: Ultimate Austin Food Guide
Austin Food Bloggers Alliance 🔗
Collective of well-known and respected Austin food blogs.
There’s no better place to start than with The Austin Food Bloggers Alliance, a collective supporting Austin’s food bloggers through social events and membership benefits. Their site is a great base for Austin foodie research as it links out to all active members of the collective. It also features a 2024 city guide featuring all the best places to eat in Austin – organized by cuisine or occasion and written by different Austin Food Bloggers Alliance members.
Big World, Small Girl 🔗
An authority on Austin (and beyond) beer. A food blog for thirsty readers.
No discussion about Austin’s food and drink scene is complete without mention of craft beer. That’s where Caitlin Johnson, owner and author of Big World, Small Girl, comes in. Caitlin’s blog follows all her adventures but the conversation always leads back to beer – she confesses that it’s often the inspiration for her travels. The blog is a go-to for beer enthusiasts, with Austin brewery guides, local beer news, and other craft brew content. Caitlin also publishes plenty of broader travel insights from her trips outside Austin.
Eater Austin 🔗
Big-name food blog with comprehensive coverage of Austin’s dining scene.
The Eater network needs little introduction, with food guides to many major cities throughout the United States and beyond. Given its resources, the site delivers comprehensive coverage of Austin's dining scene, publishing the latest industry news, restaurant reviews and recommendations, in-depth cuisine guides, and food thoughts. Article topics range from "Essential Restaurants in Austin" and "Exciting New Restaurants to Try in Austin," to answering the all-important question of where has the best BBQ in Austin.
Austin Food Magazine 🔗
Full-coverage guide to dining in Austin – from best restaurants to best dishes.
Little happens in the Austin culinary scene without Austin Food Magazine knowing about it. The digital publication and food blog keep a close tab on the latest news in and around the city – including new openings, restaurant revamps, grocery shopping insights, and general food articles. Austin Food Magazine also provides readers with in-depth dining guides and restaurant reviews. They share their thoughts on the best places to eat in Austin for various cuisines, dishes, and occasions.
Austin Food Adventures 🔗
From Austin foodie Instagram to popular food, travel, and lifestyle blog.
Austin Food Adventures first started sharing their culinary experiences on Instagram, with their faceless Austin foodie account – the focus was always to be kept on the food! Now, they publish more in-depth insights on their website. Readers can browse an extensive catalog of dining guides, from the best BBQ in Austin to the best pizza places. Austin Food Adventures’ “Must Eats” directory even delves into the city’s best dining spots for groups, special occasions, and other niche categories.
South Austin Foodie 🔗
Long-term resident with over 550 food blog posts pointing to the best restaurants in Austin.
In 2022, after 573 posts, Suzanna’s time as the South Austin Foodie ended. Still, her knowledge and insights remain available for readers to browse at leisure. The philosophy was to go beyond a binary good or bad conclusion and provide a more detailed evaluation of restaurants and their food. South Austin Foodie also published an easy-to-read list of her favorite spots in the city, organized by cuisine.
> Heading to California? Read our list of the best San Francisco and Bay Area food blogs!
Infatuation Austin 🔗
Reliable name publishing industry news and Austin dining guides.
Another of the industry heavyweights, The Infatuation casts a broad net across all things food and drink – whether in Austin or further afield. Their Austin site breaks down the city’s food and drink scene by neighborhood, occasion, and cuisine, making it easy for readers to find the right spot to eat. New restaurant reviews are published each week too, providing short but focused insights into the best places to eat in Austin.
ATX FYI 🔗
Do-it-all guide and food blog with recommendations for the best places to eat in Austin.
ATX FYI is the brainchild of Bianca Delmar, who fell in love with Austin after a trip and eventually made it her home. The site is a comprehensive guide to experiencing the best of Austin, informed by Bianca’s time exploring the city and its restaurants. There are dedicated write-ups for different cuisines and dining cultures plus a bullet-pointed “Must Visits” page that lists the restaurants for quick reading.
Female Foodie 🔗
Women-led food blog with a dedicated archive of Austin dining guides and restaurant reviews.
Female Foodie is a US-wide culinary blog showcasing the best dining experiences across various cities, including Austin, Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, and Washington D.C. Founded by Brooke Eliason, it features detailed restaurant reviews, curated food guides, and authentic recommendations from local contributors – plus a whole recipe section for anyone looking to cook at home. Female Foodie’s Austin section matches the site blueprint, diving into the city’s dynamic culinary scene with detailed write-ups on local restaurants and “Best of” round-ups for each cuisine.
Craft Beer Austin 🔗
Austin craft beer news, recommendations, reviews, events, and everything in between.
Conceived as a central hub for all craft beer news in Austin and Central Texas, the Craft Beer Austin site rolls out a consistent feed of brewery insights. They keep readers up-to-date on local events and beer festivals, new craft releases throughout the city and state, staff beer picks, and brewery profiles. Each profile takes a closer look at the people behind the brewery, the taproom, and – of course – the beer itself. There’s also a convenient “10Best” section for quick-reading pieces on beer, bottle shops, taprooms, beer gardens, dive bars, and so on.
> Check out the recent Rent. article we were featured in:
In this Austin, TX guide, local experts share the best things to do in the city. Whether you’re planning to move to an apartment on the East side or just bought a home in Hyde Park and want to figure out how seasoned locals get down on the weekends, Rent. has got you covered!
> Read the full article here: Unique Things To Do in Austin, TX | Rent.
More Travel Resources Curated by Tipsiti
> Best Berlin Travel Blogs
> Top Los Angeles Travel Blogs
> Best London Travel Blogs
> Best San Francisco Food Blogs
> Best Austin Food Blogs
> Best London Food Blogs
> Bay Area Foodies to Follow
> Los Angeles Foodies to Follow
> San Diego Foodies to Follow
Increasing Your Hotel’s Online Visibility Using Guest Reviews
When did you last book a hotel without first checking the reviews?
We know that hotel guest reviews are a valuable tool for travelers. But guest reviews also provide value for hotels, in more ways than one. Guest reviews offer valuable feedback and also boost a hotel’s visibility on search engines, online travel agencies (OTAs), and social media platforms. They’re trust signals, social proof, and a direct line to potential guests. But everyone’s chasing visibility. How can your hotel rise above the noise and stand out from your competition? Tap into the power of what your guests are already saying.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Boost
User-generated content, like reviews, provides fresh, relevant content that search engines prioritize. This constant stream of new content signals to search engines that your hotel is active, relevant, and frequently discussed. Guest reviews often contain keywords – such as the name of your hotel, nearby attractions, or common amenities – that prospective guests use in searches. Having this type of content helps improve your ranking for those terms and your hotel’s visibility.
A Statistic to Consider:
A study found that online reviews make up around 15.44% of Google’s local ranking factors. This means actively encouraging and responding to reviews can improve your hotel's ranking in local searches.
> Read an overview of how hotel guest reviews are feedback for success.
Improving Hotel Visibility on OTAs
Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor use reviews as a ranking factor for properties. Hotels with more positive reviews can appear higher in search results, making it easier for prospective guests to find them. Encouraging guests to leave reviews on these platforms helps your property climb the ranks and increases your chances of being noticed by new travelers.
That said, quantity is not the only guest review ranking factor for OTAs like TripAdvisor. Quality, recency, and consistency all play a major role. The combination of these metrics makes it harder for hotels to game the system with fraudulent or paid-for reviews.
Still, hotel guest reviews are an important part of improving position and performance on OTA sites – just make sure to focus on consistent, new, and high-quality guest reviews.
Key Note:
Travelers tend to filter hotel options by review score and rating on OTAs, making it all the more important to secure positive guest feedback. This has a knock-on effect on bookings and revenue, with a study concluding that a one-star increase yields a 5-9% increase in revenue.
Use Google Business Profile
Claim and update your hotel’s business profile to improve its local ranking on Google. Again, reviews contribute to maximizing this strategy. Encouraging satisfied guests to leave positive reviews on your Google profile can significantly improve your local search ranking. Plus, Google reveals that responding to reviews demonstrates a hotel’s commitment to its guests and their feedback. This simultaneously boosts your hotel’s visibility and encourages repeat business.
Social Media Engagement and Reviews
Reviews also play a role in your hotel’s social media marketing strategy. Social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram allow users to leave reviews and ratings. These reviews contribute to social proof, making your property appear more reputable. Hotels can increase visibility by sharing positive guest reviews as content, engaging with reviews on these platforms, and encouraging past guests to leave feedback.
The Facts:
Around 74% of consumers say that positive reviews increase their trust in a brand, making it crucial for hotels to engage and highlight positive guest reviews on their social media channels.
These public testimonials then function as valuable grassroots advocacy and word-of-mouth marketing – after all, 88% of consumers place as much trust in online reviews as they do in recommendations from direct peers. More word-of-mouth marketing, more hotel visibility.
Consistency is Key: Regular Reviews Impact Ranking
Consistency – the golden rule for all things. It is one of the most critical aspects of improving your hotel’s online visibility through reviews. Algorithms often prioritize hotels with regular guest reviews on OTAs and their own websites, boosting their rankings. A steady flow of fresh reviews ensures that potential guests always have up-to-date insights into your property.
Another Insight:
Recent reviews have a higher impact on search rankings than older ones, as they reflect the current state of your property. Make it a habit to politely request feedback from guests after their stay, ensuring a consistent flow of reviews.
Engage With Reviews
If consistency is key then engagement is essential. It is a point worth emphasizing, even if it is already mentioned at points in the article. Responding to and engaging with guest reviews is a powerful way for your hotel to boost its online visibility. Hotels must make guest review engagement part of their rolling marketing strategy.
The Numbers:
77% of travelers are more likely to book a property if they see personalized responses to reviews. Engaging with positive and negative reviews enhances your hotel's reputation and demonstrates to potential guests that management is attentive and values feedback.
Properties that regularly respond to reviews experience a noticeable boost in engagement and ratings. Hotels that reply to at least 13% of their reviews see a 21% increase in traveler engagement compared to those that fail to respond at all. This translates into more booking inquiries and higher overall ratings, reinforcing the importance of consistent engagement.
Conclusion
Managing hotel guest reviews need not be an overwhelming task. But it should be one on your hotel’s weekly schedule – especially for hotels with sights set on online visibility, success, and growth. Hotels that leverage guest reviews can significantly increase online visibility across search engines, OTAs, and social media platforms. Whether by boosting SEO, climbing the ranks on OTAs, or amplifying social proof, guest reviews are a powerful, cost-effective tool for improving your hotel’s presence online. Regular engagement and a steady stream of reviews are key to standing out from the crowd for long-term success.
> Take a look at some general tips to improve your hotel's online presence.
> Why not optimize your hotel’s concierge while you’re at it? Tipsiti helps you increase guest satisfaction and boost revenue through smart digital concierge solutions.
Tips to Build (and Improve!) Your Hotel’s Online Presence
It’s 2025 – competitive businesses generate traction and success from online engagement. Hospitality businesses, particularly hotels, are no different. Building a strong online presence is essential. With over 80% of travelers wanting to book their trips entirely online, hotels, hostels, and vacation rentals must ensure they stand out in search results, booking platforms, and social media feeds. Let’s explore some strategies that you can use to improve your hotel’s online presence and stay competitive…
Ways To Improve Your Hotel’s Online Presence
Website Optimization and SEO
Your hotel’s website is its digital front door. A professional, easy-to-navigate website optimized for search engines plays a significant role in drawing traffic. Using SEO, search engines can better understand your website’s content and connect it with relevant users based on their search queries. The goal is for your web pages to rank at the top of Google search results, driving qualified traffic to your hotel’s site.
Key SEO Tips for Hotels:
Target Local Keywords
Include search terms that potential guests might use, such as “hotels near Central Park” or “beachfront resorts in Miami.”
Optimize for Mobile
Over 60% of searches are done on mobile devices, so ensure your site is mobile-friendly. You can check your website’s mobile and desktop performance with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Create High-Quality Content
Google favors sites with fresh and helpful content. Regularly updating your blog with quality travel tips, local area guides, and event news can improve your ranking.
SEO Takes Time
Don’t fret about getting immediate results. SEO is best viewed as a long-term strategy for digital success rather than an overnight solution.
Guest Reviews for Credibility and Rankings
We’ve discussed it before, guest reviews are a critical tool for hotels looking to improve their online visibility. After all, 57% of travelers read reviews when researching hotels for their trip. Hotel guest reviews serve as valuable social proof, help boost SEO through fresh content, and build credibility – they are one of your hotel’s most powerful marketing tools.
How to Improve Your Online Presence With Reviews:
Encourage Positive Reviews
Prompt your guests to leave reviews on Google, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com. Post signs around your property or prompt guests at check-out.
Respond to Reviews
Engaging with positive and negative shows that your hotel is attentive and proactive.
Use Reviews As Content
Highlight positive reviews on your website and social media to build trust with potential guests.
> Read more about the importance of hotel guest reviews.
Social Media Marketing
Meet your target audience where they are – 39% of travelers use social media for inspiration, research, and planning. Social media will continue to be one of the most effective ways for hotels to engage with current and potential guests. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok allow you to showcase your unique experiences and interact directly with your audience.
Key Social Media Strategies:
Content Strategy
Develop a content strategy that fits your brand and voice. It doesn’t need to be complicated or particularly innovative. Simple, well-executed posts are effective. Remember: not all platforms may be effective for your brand; find your audience and target those platforms. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are the most used social channels for trip planning.
Visual Content
Post high-quality images and videos showcasing your hotel’s rooms, amenities, and local attractions. Studies show that visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than plain text or links. Additional research by Skift found that photos were the top content format for inspiring travel, beating out reviews and videos.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Encourage guests to share their experiences and tag your hotel. Sharing UGC builds authenticity and provides free promotion.
Targeted Ads
Use Facebook and Instagram’s ad platforms to target specific demographics, such as business travelers or honeymooners.
> Want to read more about social media and travel? Take a look at travel trend insights from 2024 and their outlook for 2025.
Influencer Marketing
Partnering with influencers – travel or lifestyle – has become a powerful strategy for hotels to expand their reach and improve their online presence. Influencers with large, engaged followings can help hotels target new audiences, particularly in younger demographics.
Steps for Influencer Success:
Define Your Objectives
Before dedicating time to finding an influencer and committing to a brand partnership, understand your brand needs – whether increasing brand awareness, driving more web traffic, or increasing social media followings. Luckily, each of these three objectives will improve your hotel’s online presence.
Find the Right Influencers
Partner with influencers whose audience aligns with your target demographic. Depending on your brand, look for those who focus on travel, luxury, or adventure.
Measure Campaign Success
Track engagement rates and conversions to ensure you’re getting a return on your investment.
Engaging Blog Content
Improve your hotel’s online presence with a blog, It helps build authority, improve SEO rankings, and provide potential guests with valuable information. But, remember to keep all your content relevant and high-quality.
Ideas for Hotel Blogs:
Local Guides
Write posts about nearby attractions, hidden gems, and local events.
Travel Tips
Offer packing tips, weather guides, or itineraries.
Seasonal Offers
Use your blog posts to promote special deals and packages.
Booking Platforms
In 2024, 46% of travelers booked hotel stays using OTAs like Expedia and Booking.com. This is another place to reach your target audience and improve your online presence. To maximize visibility on these platforms, ensure your hotel listing is up-to-date and appealing.
Key Strategies for OTAs
Regularly Update Listings
Keep your photos, descriptions, and amenities list fresh. Highlight any updates, renovations, or special events.
Use Dynamic Pricing
Hotels that frequently adjust their pricing to match market trends tend to achieve higher conversion rates.
Paid Search and Display Ads
Sometimes organic growth isn’t enough. Paid adverts help the right people find your hotel. For clarity, paid search ads only appear to consumers actively searching for the relevant service or product, whereas display ads can appear anywhere on the web. As always, Google is a great starting point, given its market share – the search engine processes over 8.5 billion searches a day.
Paid Advertising Tips:
Google Ads
Bid on keywords related to your hotel’s location and unique offerings (e.g., “luxury hotels in Paris” or “budget-friendly hostels in Berlin”).
Display Ads
Use banner ads to target travelers who’ve recently searched for hotels in your area.
Conclusion
Increasing your hotel’s online presence can be a daunting task, especially when terms like SEO, UGC, and KPIs are thrown around. But there is method to the madness. Hotels can use search engine optimization, guest reviews, social media marketing, and other such strategies to reach more potential customers and boost conversions. When improving your hotel’s online presence: start with the basics and build from there – the benefits are well worth the effort.
> Why not optimize your hotel’s concierge while you’re at it? Tipsiti helps you increase guest satisfaction and boost revenue through smart digital concierge solutions.
10 Berlin Foodies to Follow on Instagram
Decisions, decisions – Berlin is full of them, especially when it comes to food. Want a quick currywurst? Looking for Berlin’s best döner? Or are you more in the mood for a Michelin-starred dinner? And don’t even get us started on all the trendy spots popping up daily. It's easy to get lost in the options.
So, what’s a hungry Berliner to do? Trust these local experts. They’ve been around the block and know where to eat, from beloved classics to the neighborhood secrets you might otherwise miss. Follow these Berlin foodies for dining recommendations, food trends, and industry news. Time to meet them…
10 Berlin Foodies to Follow on Instagram
berlinfoodstories 🔗
One-stop shop for all Berlin foodies – tasty reels, insightful posts, mouthwatering photography.
Per Meurling’s Berlin Food Stories is a heavy hitter in the city’s food blogging circuit. Not only has the Instagram page racked up a massive following but the Berlin Food Stories website has equally become an epicenter for Berlin foodie insights, interviews, and culinary guides – spoiler: the site has already reserved its place in our coming roundup article of Berlin’s best food blogs. Back to the topic on hand though… The Berlin Food Stories Instagram account has you covered with tasty reels documenting Muerling’s latest culinary conquests, interviews with chefs and industry insiders, and close-up food photography.
lenafeedsyou 🔗
Non-stop reels documenting foodie experiences in Berlin and beyond.
Lena indeed feeds us – Berlin restaurant recommendations and foodie experiences, that is. True to its bio, the Instagram account is a safe space for those with a hunger for life (and good food). Lena posts fresh weekly reels that document her latest eats and restaurant reviews. Each video has a fluid voiceover to describe the experience and an accompanying caption with dish choices and prices – handy information if you’re choosing where to eat next.
whattoeatinberlin 🔗
A pleasantly personal guide of what to eat in Berlin – it’s in the name.
(Insert big red arrow pointing at the name.) Jokes aside, the name does say it all. The Instagram account is your foodie roadmap to Berlin’s rich food culture. The page maintains a warmly personal feel, with captions offering detailed insights about the restaurant, dishes, flavors, and ambiance, which results in each post feeling like personal recommendations from a trusted friend. Truly one for the Berlin foodies.
> So you’re traveling to Berlin? Hit up our list of the best Berlin travel blogs.
betelsfoodfeast 🔗
Standout name in Berlin’s food blogging scene.
Betel's enthusiasm for foodie adventures is front and center here. All her posts – reels are the preferred format – take you along as she dives into new restaurants and highlights Berlin’s best food with engaging commentary. Each post is paired with detailed captions, offering personal insights, dish recommendations, and useful tips for foodies navigating Berlin’s dining scene. It’s a page with a proper community feel and plenty of good food recommendations with it.
mybellygulugulu 🔗
Coffee connoisseur, dumpling expert, fries fanatic – all round Berlin foodie.
My Belly Gulu Gulu is another one of those Berlin foodie accounts that feels like you’re tagging along with a friend who’s in the know. Whether it’s Berlin’s best cafes, date night ideas, or international cuisine cravings, Ka’s page likely has some answers for you. Her reels mix between restaurant reviews and “best of” roundups – handy information if you want restaurant rankings from a local. Last note: Ka drinks at least three coffees a day, so listen to her Berlin cafe recommendations…
hungry_in_berlin 🔗
Berlin culinary insider.
Ilaria is every Berlin foodie's best friend, using years of culinary tour experience to provide insider know-how to the city’s best eats. She collaborates with a ton of restaurants to bring her followers write-ups and reviews of the latest dishes. So, for anyone eager to experience Berlin through its restaurants, cafés, and bars, Hungry in Berlin is your guide – hit the follow button.
naomisberlinfood 🔗
High-energy reels of the best food in Berlin.
Naomi is another Berlin foodie insider offering her perspective on the best eats in the city. Her high-energy reels feature a bunch of food close-ups – so be warned if you’re scrolling with an empty stomach. Whether it’s breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, dessert, Berlin cuisine, fusion, or international eats; you name it, Naomi’s got a reel and recommendation for you.
whatvivieats 🔗
Berlin foodie diary packed with restaurant recommendations.
Warning: this is not a foodie account to scroll if you’re hungry. But don’t let that stop you. Vivi’s page is about as mouthwatering as they come, with non-stop food photography from her food adventures throughout Berlin. Along with a carousel of snaps, each post features an order list with dish prices and a detailed write-up of the dining experience. Vivi is a proper Berlin foodie.
_haochi 🔗
Back-to-back Berlin restaurant recommendations.
You know you’re on the right track when the foodie profile you’re browsing translates to delicious. That’s why you can trust Jenny. She’s been a Berlin foodie herself since 2019 and has since curated an Instagram feed documenting her favorite culinary experiences in the city. Every cuisine is on the cards, from Korean BBQ spots and Berlin’s best sushi to brunch recommendations and Italian dinners, so it’s a great resource for hungry Berliners to source new places to eat regardless of their craving.
foodvergnügen 🔗
Curated food recommendations and Berlin dining guides.
Foodvergnügen is everything you'd want in a Berlin foodie Instagram account – engaging reels, info-rich captions, and an honest approach to the city’s best cafes, tastiest restaurants, and coolest bars. It says it in their bio, after all. The team offers a steady stream of content that dives deep into the city’s best food, from local cuisine favorites to hotspots on the rise. Again, it’s everything you’d want as a foodie and everything you’d expect from a well-established lifestyle publication.
More Travel Resources Curated by Tipsiti
> Best Berlin Travel Blogs
> Top Los Angeles Travel Blogs
> Best London Travel Blogs
> Best New York Travel Blogs
> Best San Francisco Food Blogs
> Best Austin Food Blogs
> Best London Food Blogs
> Bay Area Foodies to Follow
> Los Angeles Foodies to Follow
> San Diego Foodies to Follow
How AI is Impacting the Travel Industry
“AI” was the word of the year in 2023, and it will likely be the word of the decade when we are through with it. While operating in the shadows for a good while, artificial intelligence has now announced itself in a big way, being a transformative force across various sectors, and the travel industry is no exception. It is reshaping how we plan, book, and experience travel. Let’s first take an introductory look at how AI is impacting the travel industry, before answering the more specific questions.
The Growth of AI in Travel
AI has been transforming the travel industry behind the scenes for years, from optimizing flight paths and streamlining airport operations to powering dynamic pricing models for airlines and hotels. Airlines have also used AI to enhance predictive maintenance, ensuring aircraft are serviced before issues arise.
Today, AI's presence is more visible, revolutionizing the traveler experience through advancements in machine learning, natural language processing, and data analytics. It has enabled companies to provide more personalized and efficient services in response to evolving consumer expectations and fierce market competition.
Personalized Travel Experiences
This ability to deliver deeply personalized experiences has been one of AI's most impactful contributions to the travel industry. By analyzing vast datasets at speed, including past travel behavior, social media activity, and personal inputs, AI tailors recommendations for flights, accommodations, and activities to match individual preferences. This progression aligns with shifting customer expectations: Hilton reports that 86% of travelers now actively seek personalized experiences, making AI-driven customization a key driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty in the travel industry.
> Read up on the latest travel trends from 2024 and the outlook for 2025.
Chatbot Efficiency
AI is also revolutionizing the operational side of the travel industry. Chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming commonplace, providing 24/7 customer support and handling routine inquiries. These AI-driven tools can manage bookings, answer FAQs, and assist with itinerary changes. This not only improves efficiency but also reduces operational costs for travel businesses.
Predictive Analytics and Demand Forecasting
AI's ability to process and analyze large datasets is equally valuable for predictive analytics and demand forecasting. Travel companies now use AI to anticipate demand fluctuations, optimize pricing strategies, and manage inventory more effectively. These capabilities allow businesses to maximize revenue while ensuring travelers receive competitive pricing and availability.
Sustainability and Environmental Impact
Sustainable travel has been a priority for travelers for years. Now, AI is poised to make contributions. AI models can optimize flight paths to reduce fuel consumption, suggest sustainable travel options, and help companies monitor and minimize their carbon footprint. There are considerations to be made though.
> Read about more travel expectations.
Challenges and Considerations of AI in Travel
The benefits are clear and AI is making waves. However, AI’s integration into the travel industry is not without challenges. Privacy concerns, data security, and the need for AI transparency are critical issues that must be addressed. The reliance on AI could also reduce human interaction, a valued aspect of the travel experience for many. The balance between AI efficiency and human expertise also comes into question when discussing personalized travel experiences and recommendations. It is already clear there must be a balance struck between the technological advancements of AI and the status quo of human touch moving forward.
Conclusion
AI is, and will continue to be, transformative – for travel and other industries. It delivers enhanced personalization opportunities, operational efficiency, and predictive analytics functionality. But these are very broad observations. How does AI influence and impact the hotel industry, specifically? What does using AI for personalized travel experiences look like? How will AI change the guest experience? What are the AI trends to watch moving forward? There are a lot of questions with even more answers for us to get to.
Travel Trends: Insights From 2024 & the Outlook for 2025
2024 saw the continued rise of the wellness and bleisure travel trends, as international tourism bounced back to 96% of pre-pandemic levels. There was also a surge in the experience economy, with more travelers opting for deeper connections and immersive adventures. But which travel trends are here to stay? And what is on the horizon as we move into 2025?
The Experience Economy
The "experience economy" was already rolling come the end of 2023, and the boom continued throughout 2024 as travelers prioritized meaningful and authentic experiences over traditional sightseeing or material luxuries. Today’s travelers have their sights set on experiences that immerse them in local culture and allow for genuine connections with the places they visit.
Businesses have taken notice, doubling down on the trend. Take Airbnb, for example, who not only continued to push local experiences but also invested heavily in curating headline travel experiences such as stays in the “Up” house or VIP hangout sessions with Kevin Hart in Los Angeles. All that is to say that the experience economy is not going away any time soon – it is, and will remain, one of the biggest drivers for travelers today.
Solo Travel Has Staying Power
Solo travelers are at the forefront of this travel experience economy, valuing the journey and personal growth as much as the destination itself. For these travelers, the appeal lies in engaging with new cultures and communities more deeply, and the goal is to foster unique, personal memories.
Solo travel as a whole is gaining speed. According to a global report by American Express, 69% of travelers planned to take a solo trip in 2024 – 76% for Millenials and Gen Z, specifically. Besides the hunt for experiences, this uptick in solo travel comes from a desire to reconnect with oneself, to take a break from work and stress, to meet new people, and to try something – not to mention the easier planning logistics.
Gen Z: Experience Over Stuff (also TikTok)
Gen Z – people born between 1997 and 2012 – are in on the experience-over-stuff travel trend, too. It’s a shift away from spending big on material luxuries, rather, preferring to invest significantly in the cultural immersion and experiences that travel can bring. Research by Skift even found that Gen Z travelers are willing to cut spending in other parts of their lives to keep a healthy travel budget.
For Gen Z, travel is a means of connecting with global issues – destinations that offer cultural depth, sustainability, and community engagement are winning out over more commercialized tourist hotspots. Gen Z’s desire to mix culture and adventure pushes travelers toward off-the-beaten-path locations where they can explore beyond the typical tourist itinerary.
The Gen Z demographic is also deeply influenced by social media, with platforms like Instagram and TikTok playing a pivotal role in determining where to go, what to eat, and what to see. StudentUniverse conducted a bevy of studies in its The State of Student Youth Travel 2024 report proving TikTok to be a titan in the travel industry. Foremost, 60% of respondents had TikTok as their primary platform for travel inspiration, 89% said they had found new destinations via TikTok, and 70% were likely to use TikTok as a travel planning tool.
Family Travel: Educating and Enriching
Family travel has taken on a new meaning as parents seek to provide their children with opportunities to learn about the world – a meeting of enjoyment and enrichment. Family trips are increasingly focused on education, cultural immersion, and sustainability, with destinations chosen for their abundance of museums or access to local communities. For families, these trips offer an opportunity to teach their children about different cultures, global issues, and the importance of environmental conservation – plus a chance to create shared memories.
Bleisure is Also Here to Stay
The flexibility of remote work has been a major factor in allowing families to travel for longer periods. Again, this flexibility has contributed to a new kind of family vacation, where travel serves as a bonding experience and an opportunity to teach children about the world.
Through a broader scope, the adoption of remote work has ensured that bleisure travel shows no signs of slowing down in 2025. The bleisure tourism market was valued at $594 billion in 2023 and projections have it reaching $3.5 trillion by 2033. The continued trend sees travelers opt for destinations that cater to both work and play, with hotels, co-working spaces, and even resorts offering tailored amenities like high-speed Wi-Fi, private workspaces, and long-term stay packages.
Wellness Into Health
Wellness travel is another mainstay travel trend alongside bleisure tourism. Yet, the market has expanded beyond simple relaxation and spa treatments into a broader focus on health, longevity, and overall well-being. Destinations have responded by offering more specialized health programs, such as sleep optimization, detox diets, and mental health retreats. Wellness travel is expected to grow through 2025 and beyond, constituting a projected 8.3% of all tourism trips by 2027.
Transport Is the Trip
The journey is becoming as important as the destination. Travelers are opting for scenic and sustainable modes of transport, whether choosing trains over planes in Europe or exploring national parks by electric bus. This travel trend taps into the growing emphasis on sustainability, as people look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint while traveling. A poll by Byway Travel found that 2 out of 5 UK travelers would rather take a train, ferry, or bus than fly. Specifically, rail travel is experiencing significant growth of over 35%, outperforming other industry categories such as retail shopping, attractions, and duty-free shopping.
Beyond environmental concerns, there is also a romantic appeal to slower forms of travel. Scenic train journeys allow travelers to unwind and appreciate the landscapes as part of their vacation, turning the concept of “transport as the trip” into an adventure in itself.
Sustainability Still Matters
Sustainability continues to be a driving force in travel. Conscious travelers are demanding eco-friendly accommodations, transportation, and experiences, and businesses are responding by making green initiatives a priority. From hotels using renewable energy and offering zero-waste dining to airlines adopting carbon offset programs, sustainability is no longer a niche – it’s essential.
Moreover, the rise of sustainable travel has increased interest in less-commercialized, more community-driven destinations. For example, smaller countries like Slovenia are gaining traction among travelers looking for pristine, untouched landscapes rather than crowded tourist spots.
AI vs. Human Expertise
AI is everywhere. It has been the talk of the town for the last handful of years. In that time, AI-driven travel tools have seen a remarkable surge, transforming how people plan and experience trips – from predictive algorithms that suggest destinations based on user behavior to chatbots that handle queries 24/7. AI is optimizing the travel industry in unprecedented ways. These tools now help travelers access information, expediting the research and booking processes for flights, accommodations, and activities. The rise of AI is particularly notable in creating highly personalized itineraries, as the technology can assess user preferences and travel history to suggest custom travel experiences. The shift also offers efficiency and convenience, which today’s travelers tend to appreciate.
The same is true of the hospitality sector. AI integrations have changed the way it is done – from chatbots providing instantaneous guest support to schedule optimizers and market strategizers.
However, the convenience of AI has also highlighted its limitations, especially when crafting deeply personal journeys. So, as more people turn to AI for quick insights, there’s an equally growing demand for human-curated experiences that go beyond automated suggestions. Certainly, some travelers seeking niche or complex trips often prefer advice from seasoned travel experts who understand the intricacies of a location and can recommend experiences that an algorithm might miss. This demand for human expertise, again, reflects a broader desire for authentic, memorable travel experiences that feel unique and considered.
As we move into 2025, it is realistic to see a bridge between AI and human expertise, with the two together providing efficiency, accuracy, and personalization.
Looking Ahead to 2025
As we move into 2025, travel trends are likely to continue reflecting the values of sustainability, flexibility, and a desire for authentic experiences. AI-powered personalization is also set to continue its lead role in the industry, with technology offering more bespoke recommendations that align with travelers’ unique preferences.
The predictive lens also focuses on “off-the-grid” travel, as more travelers seek immersive experiences in remote and less-explored destinations – fewer crowds and often cheaper costs than the busy hotspots. Plus, unique accommodations such as eco-lodges and treehouses in secluded areas offer travelers a chance to disconnect from their devices and recharge in nature. This aligns with the rising appeal of rewilding experiences, where travelers actively participate in ecological restoration efforts, enhancing their connection to local environments.
These emerging travel trends illustrate the ongoing shift in consumer priorities, focusing on environmental impact, personal growth, and meaningful cultural connections.
9 Best London Food Blogs for Foodie Travels
If the latest estimates are correct, you could dine out in London every night for 30 years and never hit the same spot twice. We’re also talking upwards of 85 cuisines represented throughout the London boroughs. If those numbers don’t prompt you to call in the local experts, then we don’t know what will!
So, here are some of the best London food blogs out there. From restaurant recommendations and food reviews to dining guides and industry news, each is a valuable voice helping point London foodies in the right direction.
9 Best London Food Blogs for Foodie Travels
Cheese and Biscuits 🔗
Independent London food blog with a candid voice.
Since its launch in 2007, Chris Pople’s Cheese and Biscuits has offered a witty and candid look at London’s food scene. He provides a much-needed voice in a city populated by, in his own words, “tourist traps, dingy fast food joints, grim chains, and bandwagon-jumping copycats.” However, London has a whole lot of “decent” and above restaurants, and Chris’ food blog is a solid reference for finding these places. He covers everything from Michelin-starred dining to local neighborhood spots, offering an honest perspective that stands out from more polished, PR-driven content. Cheese and Biscuit reviews are detailed, covering food, service, ambiance, and value for money. This attention to the full dining experience makes it a reliable food blog for foodies wanting an authentic take on London's ever-evolving restaurant scene. Again, the content is highly opinionated, with Chris not shying away from giving blunt criticism where it’s due, and this is what makes it an engaging and trustworthy guide for adventurous eaters.
The Picky Glutton 🔗
Another London food blog with an unapologetic approach to reviews.
A worthy companion to the candid Cheese and Biscuits is The Picky Glutton, another independent London food blog known for its brutally honest and highly detailed restaurant reviews. Run by an anonymous food critic, the blog covers all corners of London’s dining scene, from street food vendors to high-end Michelin-starred establishments – any and all cuisines. The no-holds-barred approach means that if a restaurant disappoints, readers will hear about it in full detail. From an entertainment perspective, this makes for some cracking reading. Plus, readers in a hurry for a reliable restaurant recommendation can beeline for the other end of the rating spectrum – stick to the four and five-star categories for everything “good” and better. This focus on full transparency and attention to every detail – The Picky Glutton is not afraid to take on popular or critically acclaimed restaurants – makes it a trusted source for London foodies who appreciate authenticity over hype.
East London Girl 🔗
London restaurant recommendations – and bars too!
Contrary to the name, the East London Girl site does adventure outside London’s East End. Nicola, the founder of the food and travel blog, is a London local who seeks to skip out on the negativity, only featuring restaurants and bars that she recommends. This way, readers know that everything on the site – whether floating Hackney bars or South Bank brunches – passes a threshold of quality. Since writing her first post in 2016, Nicola has brought two more London foodies to her team, Chloe and Barinda. Together, the trio writes punchy restaurant reviews complete with candid photography. East London Girl’s content also spills into international travel, with restaurant, bar, and itinerary recommendations from the team’s travels beyond borders.
Homegirl London 🔗
London lifestyle blogger with an appetite for restaurant reviews and foodie recommendations.
Writing as Homegirl London, Tanya shares her insights about London restaurants, shops, and neighborhoods – plus other lifestyle topics such as interior design and home improvement. She’s a seasoned pro of the blogging game, having started Homegirl London in 2012. This experience comes through on the page, with each food review starting with personal insights and tasty photography before delving into helpful information readers should know about each location. Tanya’s personal yet informative approach cements her as a knowledgeable local guide who is kind enough to bring the reader along on her London dining experiences.
> Taking a trip across the pond? Read up on the best New York travel blogs.
London Eater 🔗
Long-time London food blog with meticulous reviews and high-quality photography.
Time for an honorary mention. While Kang – Mr. London Eater, himself – has turned to Instagram as the main outlet for his content, his website, under the same moniker, remains a valuable archive for thousands of his London foodie experiences. The archives roll back to the site’s genesis post on 20 August 2008. The next 61 pages of blog posts contain a reservoir of in-depth restaurant reviews and food insights, often meticulous in nature, which has rightfully earned Kang a loyal following of London foodies. The writing is not just about the taste but also the presentation, atmosphere, and service. Plus, each review has a bevy of high-quality photography to make the reader hungry. Though somewhat out of action, the London food blog is still a great resource for local foodies and visitors alike. Spoiler: London Eater is a name that will come up in our roundup of London’s best foodie Instagram accounts.
The Foodaholic 🔗
London food blog created by a foodaholic – who better to have at the helm?
The Foodaholic is a London-based food and travel blog created by Gary Berry, a passionate foodie and traveler. The site provides an eclectic mix of restaurant reviews and luxury travel insights. With the subjects of Gary’s reviews tending to fall on the high-end side of the spectrum, The Foodaholic is particularly well-suited for readers who appreciate fine dining and luxurious getaways. Each review is comprehensive and the writing style is colorful and engaging. Beyond London, The Foodaholic also dives into international travel, offering guides and reviews of hotels, restaurants, and attractions from further afield. Again, Gary’s work fills an interesting niche in the London food blog space – Michelin-star restaurants, best-in-class experiences, and luxury getaways beyond the city. It’s a valuable resource, even for readers who see themselves outside those interests.
Hot Dinners 🔗
Comprehensive London food guide with reviews and industry news.
Hot Dinners covers everything there is to know about the London food and drink scenes. Catherine and Gavin Hanly sit at the helm, having founded the website on their deep love of London’s ever-changing food and restaurant culture. After its launch in 2010, the site became a go-to resource for London foodies eager to keep up with the latest openings, news, and trends. Alongside this feed of restaurant news via the Gastroblog, the site offers a mix of reviews, interviews with top chefs, and insider information on where to eat next. Catherine and Gavin’s expertise allows them to dig deep into the food scene, providing not just surface-level coverage but also behind-the-scenes insights into how London's restaurant industry ticks. Their weekly newsletters are equally popular, giving readers a digest of the most exciting new spots to try. The site also keeps a running archive of Hot Dinners’ recommendations and the best restaurants in London by area. All these features make it a one-stop guide to London dining.
Eater London 🔗
Food blog mainstay with a large lens, covering food news and London restaurant guides.
Not to be confused with London Eater! Eater London is the London edition (minus points for stating the obvious?) of the global food media network. As with each city the publication explores, their London coverage is comprehensive, offering in-depth guides, reviews, and breaking news about the city's restaurant scene. The site features a variety of content, including maps of trending restaurants, cuisine guides, and interviews with prominent chefs and restaurateurs. Their dedicated London content team keeps things informative and engaging, accompanying reviews and news with striking food photography. While it may not have the personal touch of some independent food blogs, its journalistic depth and wide-ranging coverage make it a valuable companion to those more intimate voices. London foodies can pair the two genres for a broader picture while still seeking out the hidden gems that the more personal blogs often highlight. In all, Eater is hard to beat when it comes to a frequently updated guide to eating out in London.
The Infatuation 🔗
Another food blog giant with reviews, news, and guides for neighborhoods and cuisines.
The Infatuation falls from the same tree as Eater London – another authoritative food network with global reach that can complement the more personal insights found in independent London food blogs. The Infatuation is designed to answer the question: "Where should I eat?" – offering clear, practical London restaurant recommendations based on the occasion, budget, and location. Using the site’s specific guides, readers can hone in on a spot for a first date, a birthday dinner, or a quick lunch. The writing is witty and direct, like advice from a well-informed friend rather than a formal critic.
> So you’re spending time in London? Check out the top London travel guides.
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14 Best New York Travel Blogs and City Guides
It’s not hard to find a New York City travel blog or city guide – it’s the most written-about city in the world. But, separating the good travel recommendations from the not-so-good advice? Now, that’s where things get tricky.
Anonymous3482 on Google Maps might tell you Blue Sky Deli’s Chopped Cheese is overrated – because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. But we all know the Chopped Cheese is a New York classic worth having. So that’s why we leave it up to the experts to guide us. They know what they’re talking about.
So – here are some of the best New York City travel blogs out there. From big-name publications with a broad reach to independent voices sharing unique New York perspectives, their travel recommendations and insights will point you in the right direction when exploring the Big Apple.
14 Best New York Travel Blogs and City Guides
Humans of New York 🔗
From photography project to landmark New York storytelling archive.
Let’s start with something unconventional. Humans of New York transcended its founding purpose as a photographic catalog of the city’s inhabitants, becoming a hub for human storytelling. Through its founding creator, Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York continues to capture the city’s essence through intimate portraits and personal anecdotes. Its inclusion as a travel blog is perhaps an odd categorization. However, the project offers a deeply human perspective on the diverse inhabitants of New York City. Travel recommendations may be few and far between, but it is a must-read if you’re looking to connect with the heart of New York.
NYC Tourism 🔗
The official New York City destination guide.
NYC Tourism is the city’s official destination guide to New York, designed to help travelers navigate the five boroughs like locals. The site provides comprehensive and up-to-date information on everything from dining and attractions to events and neighborhoods. Each of the five boroughs has its own travel guide. Plus, there are additional New York City guides curated for different experiences – NYC Luxury, The Asian Experience, or Family Friendly NYC. Yes, it’s far from an independent publication. But it’s sleek, user-friendly, and offers pretty comprehensive coverage of the city.
Untapped New York 🔗
New Yorkers exploring their city’s historic secrets and hidden gems.
Untapped New York tours NYC through the perspective of hidden gems, untold stories, and lesser-known places. The platform stands out for its commitment to exploring the city’s history, architecture, and culture in a way that goes beyond the surface-level attractions typically covered by mainstream tourism sites. From abandoned subway stations and infamous mob hangouts to historical landmarks often overlooked by guidebooks, the platform offers in-depth articles, walking tours, and even behind-the-scenes access to restricted places through its popular Insiders membership program. Here, the content tends to be more grassroots and community-driven. Its niche focus on urban exploration makes it a go-to resource if you’re a history buff, architecture enthusiast, or want to explore NYC beyond its well-known landmarks.
The Skint 🔗
New York City guide and travel blog for everything free and cheap.
The Skint focuses on finding and sharing affordable or free things to do in New York. Known for its daily newsletter and website, it curates various budget-friendly events, from free museum days and concerts to pop-up markets, film screenings, and food deals – a refreshing take for a city with a pricey reputation. The platform is casual and approachable, providing readers with a down-to-earth guide to New York travel. Above all, The Skint is valuable proof that living and traveling in New York doesn’t have to be expensive to be enjoyable.
iloveny 🔗
Mainstream New York travel blog with state-wide coverage.
iloveny is a travel blog with a broader scope. The tourism website covers the entire state, offering travel inspiration, guides, and tips for exploring everything from the iconic urban scenes of NYC to the natural beauty of the Adirondacks, Finger Lakes, and Hudson Valley. Its resources appease both city and nature lovers, with categories like outdoor adventures, family-friendly activities, food and drink, and cultural experiences. Much like NYC Tourism, iloveny is a well-rounded, comprehensive travel blog, but it likely falls short if you’re seeking hyper-local experiences or off-the-beaten-path suggestions. Use it as a knowledge base if you’re a first-time visitor to New York.
Your Brooklyn Guide 🔗
Independent New York travel blog with a focus on Brooklyn – if the name didn’t give it away already.
Your Brooklyn Guide deals mostly in things east of the Upper Bay. Its team of writers, helmed by founder and editor Megan Indoe, focuses on giving readers an insider’s perspective, highlighting the best neighborhoods, restaurants, activities, and events. The travel blog’s content spans a wide range of interests – from detailed guides on exploring Williamsburg, DUMBO, and Bushwick, to covering Brooklyn’s hidden gems, small businesses, and cultural experiences that mainstream New York City guides might overlook.
> Remember these San Diego foodies for your next trip to the West Coast!
Loving New York 🔗
All-topic New York travel blog highlighting things to do, see, and eat.
Loving New York is a comprehensive travel blog designed to help visitors experience New York City. Founded by two German expats who fell in love with the city, the platform offers detailed tips, itineraries, and personal recommendations based on years of exploration and dozens of NYC trips. The site also curates weekly lists of what to do, including upcoming events such as The New York Film Festival or seasonal markets. These event calendars, plus its trip-planning app, make Loving New York a great resource for itinerary planning.
Greenpointers 🔗
Hyper-local travel blog and neighborhood guide for its namesake in Brooklyn.
Greenpointers diverts us away from conversations of city-wide New York travel blogs. Instead, it is a hyper-local platform dedicated to its namesake Brooklyn neighborhood – Greenpoint. The blog covers neighborhood news, events, food and drink recommendations, local businesses, art, and culture. Greenpointers also publishes in-depth stories about small business owners, artists, and the history of Greenpoint, adding to its personal and grassroots approach. With community as the focus, it regularly hosts and promotes local events like markets, workshops, and fairs. So, if you’re looking to experience Brooklyn through a hyper-local lens, Greenpointers is the way to go.
NYC Insider Guide 🔗
New York travel blog from a fourth-generation New Yorker.
Inspired by a friend’s inquiry about a trip to New York, Melissa Trachtenberg created NYC Insider Guide to help visitors experience New York City from a local perspective. The travel blog offers extensive resources for trip planning, with detailed itineraries, neighborhood guides, and recommendations for both major attractions and lesser-known spots. NYC Insider Guide’s personal touch is what makes it a great read, with insider tips reflecting the author’s love for the city and its unique experiences. The site also features helpful tools like customizable maps.
Mad Hatters NYC 🔗
Independent New York travel blog with an unending curiosity for arts and culture.
Mad Hatters NYC is a New York City-based travel blog created by a duo of local adventurers who strive to explore the city’s lesser-known experiences. The platform focuses on art, history, food, and culture – from street art tours in Bushwick to hidden cafes and pop-up events in the Lower East Side. Lynn and Justin let their curiosity drive their travels, and by association, their content – Mad Hatters NYC guides adopt more of a storytelling style, rather than rigid lists. Plus, each is filled with vibrant photography, detailed narratives, and helpful tips. In all, the New York travel blog shares a fresh perspective on the city, making it a great resource for both locals and visitors alike.
New York, Dearest & New York Simply 🔗
A duo of New York travel blogs run by locals.
New York, Dearest and New York Simply were both born of the mind of Antonina Pattiz, who founded them to demystify New York for locals and visitors alike. Both sites run on the premise of “No spam, no BS” – just helpful city guides written by the people who know it best. They cover all worthwhile topics, from the best New York restaurants and bars to the best things to do in Brooklyn or Chinatown. Many of the guides are categorized by neighborhood, making it easy to find travel recommendations to match your itinerary. If you’re after an even more personal perspective on life in New York City, you can click through to Antonina’s New York Simply substack.
Lyssy in the City 🔗
New York travel and food blog, from a Michigan native turned New Yorker.
Here, Lyssy, a now-New Yorker, posts a running feed of her adventures around New York City and beyond. The blog features personal stories, neighborhood explorations, restaurant and food reviews, plus seasonal activity inspiration. Each month Lyssy also posts a “What’s Up” roundup, mentioning what she’s been doing, eating, and enjoying – a personal touch that offers readers New York insights through the eyes of a local. Again, it is Lyssy’s friendly writing and candid photography that make Lyssy in the City one of the more approachable New York travel blogs through which to explore the city.
Secret NYC 🔗
New York iteration for a global network of travel blogs and city guides.
Secret NYC fits into the category of larger travel blogs, with guides for over 120 cities worldwide. But alas, we’re talking about their New York travel blog here. The site covers a wide range of topics, from quirky events and secret spots to food recommendations and city news – though you will find a lot of well-known activities too, due to the scale of their coverage. Nonetheless, Secret NYC serves as a worthwhile resource for locals and visitors alike, sharing up-to-date travel advice and insights, all with a playful tone.