Give every tour page a meeting point: the place, a photo, parking and when to arrive. Repeat it in the booking confirmation and a reminder, and make sure the Google listing does not send people to the office.

A locked door before departure

A kayak tour meets at a beach. A walking tour starts in a hotel lobby, and a fishing charter leaves from a marina dock. Yet the Google listing and the website show only the office address.

Customers type that address into their phones, follow the directions and arrive at a locked door ten minutes before departure.

They phone the office and reach voicemail. The tour either leaves without them or waits and starts late for everyone else.

Where the office address comes from

The office address appears everywhere because every system asked for one when it was set up: the Google listing, the website's footer and contact page, the booking system and the directories.

A customer on the way to a tour opens whatever is quickest to find, usually the confirmation email or a search for the business name. Both show whatever address was typed into a system's settings.

Tapping that address opens the phone's map, which knows nothing about beaches or docks. It goes where the address says, and the address says the office.

What a meeting point description needs

A meeting point has to be described for someone arriving for the first time, possibly early in the morning and possibly from out of town. Each description needs the same parts:

The photo matters most at a large place. A marina has many docks and a beach several entrances, and a picture of the right one settles it.

On the tour page

Put a short section headed Where we meet on every tour page, near the booking button, so people read it before they pay.

If tours start in different places, each page should give its own meeting point. One general answer covering every tour leaves people to work out which part applies to them.

Keep the office address on the contact page, labelled as the office, with a line saying that tours do not start there.

In the booking confirmation

The confirmation email is what people open in the car. It should give the meeting point for the tour booked, with the same words, photo and map link as the tour page.

Many booking systems print the business address at the foot of every confirmation. Label it as the office, or remove it, so nobody taps the wrong one.

A reminder the day before, repeating the meeting point and the time to arrive, catches people who booked weeks ago and have forgotten the details.

On the Google listing

The listing's address is where the directions button leads. Google's rules tie that address to a place where the business actually operates, so a beach or a hotel lobby cannot simply be entered instead.

If customers never visit the office, Google My Business offers businesses that serve customers elsewhere a setting to hide the street address, so the listing stops offering directions to a locked door.

If every tour leaves from a dock office or a kiosk you staff during the hours listed, that place may be the right address. Either way, add photos of the meeting point.

A worked example

A ginseng farm in the Interior grows its crop under black shade cloth and sells dried root from a small shop at the farm. In summer it runs guided walks through the fields.

Its listing had been verified years ago at the owner's office in town, where the postcard arrived, and that address was on the website and on every booking confirmation.

Visitors kept arriving at the office, locked on tour days and eight kilometres from the farm. Those who typed in the farm's own rural address were sent to a neighbour's driveway.

The listing now shows the farm, with its pin moved by hand to the gate, and the town address appears only on the contact page, labelled as the office.

Each tour page and confirmation describes the turn-off from the highway, the green sign and the gravel lot by the gate, with a photo of each.

Everything a visitor might tap now leads to the gate where the guide waits, and the office door carries a small sign with directions for anyone who still ends up there.

Meeting points that move

Some meeting points change with the season, the tide or the weather. A kayak company may launch from one beach in the morning and another when the wind turns.

The confirmation then has to take the meeting point from the tour booked, not from a general setting, and a change on the day needs a text or a call.

The last ten minutes

However clear the instructions, a few people will still get lost. The number on the confirmation should reach someone who knows where the guide is that morning.

A sign on the office door with the meeting point and a phone number rescues anyone who followed an old address, and spares the tour a late start.

The counter-case

If every tour starts at the office, or the business collects guests from their hotels, the office address is the right one and none of this applies.

A business whose customers are mostly regulars who know the beach may also manage with less. New customers, though, arrive with nothing but what their phone tells them.

So wherever tours start somewhere other than the address on file, the meeting point needs stating in every place a customer might look.

Sending guests to the right place

  1. List every address a customer might see or tap.
  2. Add a Where we meet section to each tour page.
  3. Photograph each meeting point from where people arrive.
  4. Put the meeting point in the booking confirmation.
  5. Label the office address as the office.
  6. Check the listing's address and its pin.
  7. Send a reminder the day before each tour.

Step four reaches people when they need it, because the confirmation is what they actually open on the way. When it names the right place, a confusing listing does far less harm.

Distance, hills and stairs belong on a tour page too, for the reasons given in how much walking a tour involves.

Frequently asked questions

Why do customers go to the office instead of the meeting point?

Their phones take the address from the Google listing or the booking confirmation, and both usually show the office. The map then goes exactly where that address says.

What should a meeting point description include?

The place by name, an address or intersection that maps understand, a photo of the exact spot, parking and transit, when to arrive, and a phone number answered that morning.

Can I list the beach as my business address on Google?

Generally not. Google's rules tie a listing to a place where the business operates. If customers never visit your office, the listing can hide the street address instead.

What should the booking confirmation say?

The meeting point for the tour booked, in the same words as the tour page, with the photo and a map link. Label any office address as the office.

Should I send a reminder before the tour?

Yes. A reminder the day before, repeating the meeting point and the arrival time, reaches people who booked weeks earlier and have forgotten the details.

What if the meeting point changes on the day?

Text or phone everyone booked, update the tour page, and post a note at the usual meeting point if you can. A page update alone reaches almost nobody in time.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Tours leaving from somewhere other than the office?

Send us a tour page and its booking confirmation, and we will mark every place the meeting point is missing.

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