For businesses · Updated October 2026
Is Tourist.com legit?
Straight answers for business owners: scam or not, what's the catch, and why did we email you?
Yes. Tourist, Inc. is a real company, registered in Delaware, USA, and the Tourist and Tourist.com trademarks are on file in the UK and the EU. Listing your business costs nothing and that won't quietly change later. And if you got an email from us and searched our name before replying, good. That's exactly why this page exists.
Short answer: We run a free listing network for local businesses, and travelers get a free digital Tourist Card. You publish an offer, a cardholder walks in, you take the discount off at your own till. We don't take a commission, we never see your payment, we don't bill you for anything. Our money comes from Tourist Plus, an optional subscription some travelers buy.
How it works, from your side of the counter
There isn't much to it, honestly. You put the place on the map with a deal you picked. Travelers carry a free card and use it to find spots like yours. Nobody stands between you and the guest, so there's no voucher to validate, no booking fee and no payout to chase at the end of the month.
Who pays for what
Usually the first suspicious thought, and a fair one: if it's free for me, who's paying? Travelers are. Only the ones who want more than the free card, though. That's the whole table:
- Listing, photos and offers
- 0% commission on what you sell
- No setup fee, no contract, no exclusivity
- Delete your account whenever you like
- Free card and free offers for everyone
- Plus opens the deeper offers you decide to give
- This subscription is our only revenue
- Partners who refer subscribers get 50% of it
we are TOURIST.com
Not a lookalike, not a copycat. This is the exact-match premium .com, online since 1996, and very few brands own their category's dot-com at all. You are on the real one.
What owners ask us before saying yes
Pulled from our inbox, and from a couple of forum threads where owners asked each other about us. Fair questions, every one.
No commission, but you want a discount from me. So what's the catch?
The discount is the only thing you give, and you decide how big it is. A free espresso counts. It isn't exclusive either: you can sit on Google, TripAdvisor, Booking and us all at once, and most of our partners do. If the offer doesn't bring anyone in, cut it or switch it off. Nobody's going to send you a bill over it.
Why did you email me?
Because your place is the kind travelers go looking for, and your contact details were public, on your website or your map listing. We write once, maybe a short follow-up, then we stop. A real email from us never asks for card details, a password or a payment, and its links lead to partners.tourist.com or tourist.com. Got one asking you to pay? Not us. Forward it to partners@tourist.com.
My business is already on Tourist.com and I never signed up.
Some places were added from public sources so travelers could find them. Open your page on tourist.com, click Claim this business and type in the code we send. From then on it's yours to edit. Would rather not be listed at all? Send the link to partners@tourist.com and we'll take it down.
I saw a thread online calling it a scam.
We read those too. Most of the complaints come from travelers who expected a booking site and got a discount card, or who hit a bug in an older app build. Annoying, and fair to complain about, and we keep fixing it. What you won't find in those threads is a business that lost money to us. There's no way to: we never invoice partners.
Can I leave whenever I want?
Yes. Profile, Delete account, then confirm the link we email you. The listing and the offers come off. No notice period, nothing to cancel, nothing owed.
Will it actually bring me customers?
Sometimes a lot, sometimes a trickle, and it mostly depends on your street. A café two blocks from the old town gets more cardholders than a pottery studio forty minutes out by bus. Finding out costs you nothing, which is sort of the point.
Don't just trust us, check us
What we'd rather say now than have you find out later
- We're not a booking engine. We send people to your door; we don't take reservations or payments for you.
- Coverage is uneven. Big cities have hundreds of partners and plenty of cardholders, small towns far fewer.
- Moderation is done by people, so a brand-new listing can take a little while to go live.
- Free offers are seen by everyone, Plus offers only by subscribers. Most partners run one of each.
- Not every guest will mention the card. Some just spot you on the map and walk in.
See for yourself
The fastest way to settle whether Tourist.com is legit: make a listing and look at it. It's free, and if you hate it, deleting takes two clicks.
Tourist.com for businesses, in more detail
What Tourist.com is
Strip the marketing off and Tourist.com is a discovery network with a loyalty card attached. It puts local businesses in front of travelers who are nearby right now, or planning to be. It's run by Tourist, Inc. out of Delaware, and it isn't an online travel agency, a booking engine or a reseller. We hold no inventory, we're never the merchant of record, and we don't skim a percentage. Businesses publish real offers; travelers unlock them with a free card. That's all of it.
How a business joins
Any real local business can join at partners.tourist.com: restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels and B&Bs, tour operators, spas, museums, shops, rentals, transfer companies, independent guides. Sign-up is self-service. You describe the place, set the address, put the pin where the entrance actually is, add a few photos and contacts, and someone on our side reviews it. There's no sign-up fee, no monthly charge and no exclusivity clause.
How offers reach travelers
Your page appears in the tourist.com catalog, on the map and in search, on the website and in the Tourist app for iOS and Android. Travelers browse by city, category or distance. To redeem, they show their digital Tourist Card or scan your QR card, and you apply the discount at your own point of sale. No voucher is sold beforehand and no payment goes through Tourist.com.
How the company makes money
One source: Tourist Plus, an optional traveler subscription at $9.99 a month or $39.99 a year that unlocks member-only offers. Businesses are never charged to join or publish. Partners can even share in that revenue: anyone who brings in subscribers through their referral link receives 50% of those subscriptions.
Your data and your exit
We ask a business for what a listing needs: name, category, address, contacts, photos. We don't ask for bank details to list. The privacy policy explains the rest in plain words. You can edit anything at any time, and deleting your partner account removes your listing and offers. A page added from public sources can be claimed or removed on request.
The short, factual summary
Tourist.com is a legitimate, free listing and discount network run by Tourist, Inc. (Delaware, USA), with trademarks registered in the UK and EU. Businesses list for free, set their own offers and pay 0% commission. Travelers get a free digital card and redeem discounts directly at the business. The only revenue is the optional Tourist Plus subscription.