Google has made changes to Things to do as of Aug 2024. To learn more, see this article. |
Google Things to Do (GTTD) is a Google web search and maps feature that allows potential customers to discover and explore local attractions, tours, activities and events in any destination. It provides recommendations based on their location and is useful for travellers who want to find new and relevant things to do in their area.
Potential customers are directed from a Google Things to do interface to your website and from there they can make a booking via your Zaui online engine. Google Things to Do provides commission-free listings as well as paid options.
For those who prefer visual content, we also have a Google Things to Do Video Overview and Walkthrough Guide.
This article covers the following topics:
- Why is Google Things to do important?
- Program Eligibility
- Enrolling in Google Things to do
- Adding your Tours into Google Things to do
- Things to do requirements for all Zaui users
- Configuring Things to do in your Zaui system
- Where to find your Tours and Activities on Google Things to do
- Google Things to do Modules
- Things to do ads
- Bookings & Payments
- Reporting
- Google Things to do Error Messages
- Disabling Google Things to do
Why is Google Things to do important?
Google Things to do is a powerful way for your business to display your offerings to travelers making travel-related search queries. It helps increase the visibility of your business in search results and offers commission-free ways for potential customers to find you beyond search results, including Google Maps and visual carousels highlighting available tours and activities.
Things to do helps your businesses compete with OTAs like GetYourGuide and TripAdvisor, by directing a potential customer to book through your company’s website instead of the OTA, thus helping you avoid paying high commission fees.
Program Eligibility
Products which are eligible for Things to do include tours, activities, and tickets to other local attractions that appeal to travellers.
Eligible Products
More specific examples of eligible products include:
- Tours that include transport, such as a bus tour or boat tour
- Transportation services that specifically serve a touristic purpose, like bike, boat, e-scooter, or kayak rentals used to experience a city
- Recurring tourist events in the same venue lasting for at least four weeks, such as home games for sports teams, artist residencies, weekly shows or seasonal events
- VR/AR experiences that take place at the point of interest
- Day uses of hotel facilities, such as for a spa visit
- Overnight activities such as a multi-day wine tour
- Tours based on local cuisine or food-related events This includes neighbourhood tours with stops at multiple shops and restaurants.
- Meals when part of a performance or other experience
- Activities that include alcohol (e.g. wine or beer tasting)
- Archery, Axe-throwing, Laser Tag, and Paintball
Ineligible Products
Products which are ineligible for GTTD at this time include:
- Transit-specific businesses (such as airport pickups, car services, and rental cars)
- Tickets for one-time events, such as concerts or sports matches.
- Events that do not appeal widely to tourists, such as city government meetings or exercise classes.
- Virtual experiences aren’t supported at this time. Inventory must take place in a physical location.
- Overnight hotel stays and multi-day cruises aren’t eligible. This includes local vacation or “staycation” packages.
- Restaurant coupons for individual meals
See Things to do policies for the most up-to-date information on program eligibility.
Enrolling in Google Things to do
To participate in Google Things to do you first need to set up a Google Business Profile. This is where you provide potential customers important information about your business including your location, opening hours, reviews, photos and more. If you are not already set up, go to google.com/business.
Business Categories
To qualify for GTTD you must select at least one eligible category for your business. Add this information within your Google Business Profile under Edit > Business Category. Here you can add multiple categories that are relevant to your business.
If you are a tour operator, your Business category must include one of Tour Operator, Tour Agency or Travel Agency. This can be either your main or a secondary category. |
Ensure your Google Business Profile is complete, up to date and accurate. For guidelines on how to best represent your business on Google refer to this article.
Adding your Tours into Google Things to do
There are two ways to participate in GTTD: manually via Google’s Tickets & Activities Editor, located within your Google Business profile, or via your Zaui system. Connecting via your Zaui system is recommended. The advantages include:
- Information from your Zaui system is fed straight to Google, saving you from having to add it again via your business profile
- Provides exposure to a wider range of GTTD surfaces
- Enables participation in Thing to do ads
- Compatible with dynamic pricing
- No additional cost to use
Things to do requirements for all Zaui users
1. Business Address
The address in your Zaui system needs to precisely match your Google Business profile, including company name (System Title) and full address. To update this, go to Settings > Company Info. The address matches your tours to your business.
If you operate out of more than one location, enter the address listed in your Google Business profile for the location that corresponds with the activity you are setting up into the Google Profile Activity Address field, located under 'Advanced' on each Activity's Google Settings tab. If you are a Service Area Business review this guide. |
2. Minimum Tour/Activity requirements
The following items are configured within each activity in your Zaui system. Each tour must:
- Have a website landing page*
- Be bookable online
- Have an end date that is in the future
- Be available to book within the next 365 days
- Have the same price as found on your website
- Indicate whether it is a guided or self-guided tour product
*Landing page requirements:
Google Things to do directs potential customers to the page on your website specifically promoting the tour they are interested in. Therefore your site should follow best practices for web design and speed; and be optimized for mobile and desktop devices.
Requirements for landing pages include:
- Price should be visible and meet the requirements of the GTTD price policies
- The page should include a link to your booking engine with live availability
- Images should be high quality, at minimum 300 x 300 pixels and be unique to the tour
- A specific product description
- Information on highlights, inclusions & exclusions, and relevant Points of Interest visited on the tour
- Closely match what is shared with GTTD and configured in your Zaui system
Configuring Things to do in your Zaui system
Configuration of the tours and activities you want to make available on GTTD is done within each activity. From the menu bar navigate to Activities > Activity List > Select Activity.
You’ll notice a tab in eligible activities called ‘Google Settings’. This is the main area where you’ll configure your GTTD settings.
Updates made to your Google Things to do settings will take effect within 24 hours |
Google Settings Tab Configuration
This is where you enter all the additional information required for Google Things to do. Empty fields can affect how high on a page your product appears in search results, therefore more information is better and accuracy is essential. The minimum required fields are indicated with an asterisk.
The table below will help you determine what needs to be filled in for each field:
Field |
Description |
Formatting Comments |
---|---|---|
Inventory Type |
Operator Direct: Use for tour and activity products that link directly to the tour operator's website. Official: Use for attraction or point of interest products that link to the official website |
By default, Operator Direct is selected |
Website Landing Page* |
The URL for the product page on your website. The page must be specific to the product and include a Book Now button linked to your booking engine |
|
Website List View Page |
A list view page is typically a display of multiple activities or tours, providing a snapshot of available options. It allows potential customers to view and compare activities quickly, showcasing key information such as titles, descriptions, prices, and durations |
Only provide a list view page URL if the activity is prominently displayed. If the activity in question is in the bottom half of the list, it likely will not be used by Google |
Highlights |
Enter phrases and keywords that describe the highlights of your tour. These highlights help potential customers discover and explore the top-rated things to do in a particular area |
The Highlights, Inclusions, Exclusions and Must Knows fields will not accept any special characters or formatting. You can only use a comma and space to separate each entry. For example admission, lunch, shuttle bus |
Inclusions |
List what’s included in your product i.e. admission, meals, souvenirs |
|
Exclusions |
List what’s not included in your product i.e. admission, meals, gratuities |
|
Must Knows |
List any important information that the customer must be aware of before taking part in the activity |
|
Categories* |
Labels to help Google accurately present your product when a user searches for an attraction or point of interest |
*At minimum you must indicate whether your tour is a:
|
Fulfillment Type |
Select how customers can present their tickets as proof of purchase |
Select from |
Images |
Add image URLs of attractions or special landmarks that are included in the activity. The image in your Zaui system will also be displayed in Google Things to do feeds. The best practice for images is to have them hosted on your website and use that as the URL |
|
Related Points of Interest |
Add at least one relevant 'Point of Interest' to each of your activities. A point of interest is a popular location or landmark that is either specifically included in your activity or nearby a tour operation or may be encountered while on a tour. More on points of interest below. |
Select the correct address from the suggestions that pop up once you start typing the name of the POI |
Advanced Settings |
Description |
Formatting Comments |
Google Profile Activity Address |
For those operating out of more than one physical location and have Google Business profiles for each location |
Input the exact address as listed in your Google Busines profile for the location that corresponds with the activity you are setting up |
Languages |
List all the languages the product is offered in |
"en" is the typical standard and will be the default if this field is left blank |
Where to find your Tours and Activities on Google Things to do
GTTD search experiences (surfaces) are the formats and places that your company and its products appear to potential customers based on relevant search terms.
Google aims to display your tours at relevant points in the customer journey. However predicting the appearance of your tours in a specific section of Google is challenging, as they are continue to test and make updates to enhance the overall customer experience. We recommend familiarizing yourself with the various formats and checking back regularly to ensure your products and company are optimized.
The main locations where GTTD surfaces can appear are:
- On your Google Business Profile
- In Google search results - using keywords such as [CITY] Tours, [CITY] things to do, [CITY] attractions, [CITY] activities. 'Experiences' or 'Tours'
- 'Things to do' Ads
- On Google Maps
- Via related points of interest
Google Things to do search experiences | ||
Related Points of Interest
Points of interest are required for the Experiences Booking module and optional for other modules.
We recommend adding at least one relevant POI regardless of your type of operation as there is no harm in adding points of interest in your local area as this gives you the chance of surfacing on an experiences module.
To add a point of interest, start typing to filter to the desired location.
For each point of interest you add, indicate whether admission is included or not included in the price of your tour.
- If your tour visits the point of interest in question, and the admission to enter it is included in the cost of your tour, OR the point of interest is free to visit (for example, a famous plaza, fountain or statue), indicate that admission is included.
- If your tour visits a point of interest that has a paid admission but the cost is not included in the price of your tour, indicate that admission is not included
Google Things to do Modules
There are four different modules available within GTTD and each module is designed to serve a particular type of tourism operation. It is important to be aware of which module(s) are relevant for your type of operation so you can hone your listings based on the module’s requirements, and know which error messages in your feed can be ignored and which need to be addressed. More on this in the Google Things to do Error messages section.
The Booking Module
Examples of tourism operations suited for the Booking Module include Museums, Art Galleries, Zoos and Observation towers.
The Experiences Module
Examples of tourism operations suited for the Experiences Module include skip the line tours, hop on hop off, city tours, and attractions which must be booked as part of a tour.
The Operator Booking Module
Examples of tourism operations suited for the Operator Booking Module include ziplines; wilderness experiences such as aurora viewing, dog sledding, whale watching and horseback riding; bike rentals.
Important note: To be eligible for the Operator Booking Module your business must exist and be findable on Google Maps. Register a Google Business Profile if your company is not yet listed.
The Operator Booking Module is the most suitable module for many tour and activity operators using Zaui. |
The Ads module
Things to do Ads
Things to do ads are configured separately and appear in a different format to traditional Google Ads. In order to participate in TTD ads, follow the steps below to connect your Ads account to the Things to do center:
Step 1. Link the Things to do Center to your Google Ads account
- Contact Zaui Customer Success requesting Zaui’s Things to do Center account ID.
- Once you have the account ID, go to your Google Ads account, click the Admin icon
- Click Linked accounts.
- In the “From Google” section, select Things to do Center from the list.
- Enter the Things to do Center account ID to choose the feed to connect to.
- Once you have added the TTD Account ID, Contact Zaui Customer Success who will review and approve the request.
Step 2. Create a Travel Campaign
Once your Things to do and Google Ads accounts have been linked, follow these steps to create a new Travel campaign.
Bookings & Payments
The best part of Google Things To do is that the guest is directed to YOUR website. This means that there is no special booking flow for guests who see your business on Google, they book directly through your booking engine portal connected to your website.
Once they’ve made the booking through your website, it will appear in your system as confirmed and paid for. No commission will be paid out, and no net rates or invoicing is required. If online booking notifications are enabled in Company Info settings, you will receive a booking notification.
Reporting
When possible, bookings received through this distribution channel will be attributed as Google Things to do. This will allow you to run reports to see how many of your customers are finding you via a Google Things to do interface.
One important aspect to keep in mind is that the source of the booking is carried from your website to the booking engine. For this reason, there are many different factors that can affect the accuracy of the booking source. These factors include the privacy settings of the customer, the browser type being used by the customer, switching from one device to another, etc.
Google Things to do Error Messages
For a list of potential errors that could come up and the best way to fix them, head over to Understanding Google Things to do Error Messages.
Disabling Google Things to do
Google Things to do in enabled in your Zaui system by default. To disable the integration:
- Go to Settings > Marketplace.
- Click the Google Things to do title to view the settings
- Click to disable the integration and and save
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