How we rank, and who pays us
The short version: we rank on what a company demonstrably operates, we never sell a position, and ten of the listed companies are partners of the publisher. The long version is below.
The disclosure first, because it decides how you read everything else
This site is published by 6AM Media Joint Stock Company, a marketing and media company in Hanoi. Ten of the tour operators listed across these rankings are partner companies of that company. To be precise about what that does and does not mean: the publisher owns none of them, holds no shareholding in any of them, and none of them is a subsidiary or a sister company. It works alongside them, which is still an interest worth declaring, and pretending otherwise would be worse than the interest itself.
So we handle it the only way that survives scrutiny. Every partner listing carries the word Partner in its heading, on every list it appears on, without exception. Every partner has a profile page that includes a section on who the company is wrong for. No partner sits at position one in a category where a stronger operator exists, and several partners rank below direct competitors. Position is not for sale, and no operator, partner or otherwise, has ever paid to be added, moved up, or have a limitation removed.
A profile page, and consideration for a list where the company genuinely operates in the category. What it does not get: a rank it has not earned, an entry without a stated limitation, or the removal of a competitor.
We also take no commission on bookings. There is no booking engine here, no affiliate tracking on the outbound links and no revenue share with any operator on the site. If you read a list and book with the company at position seven, we earn nothing either way.
What we count as evidence
We rank on what a company publishes about itself and what can be checked from outside. That is a narrower base than a review platform has, and narrower than an inspection would be, so it is worth stating exactly what it covers.
| Evidence | What it tells us | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| International tour operator licence number | The company is licensed to run inbound tours and can be identified | Nothing about service quality |
| Registered address and business registration | There is a real legal entity behind the trading name | Whether that entity is solvent |
| Published product range | What the company actually sells and how deep it goes in a category | Whether it operates or resells, unless it says |
| Fleet, vessel and vehicle detail | The company owns assets rather than brokering them | The condition of those assets |
| Group size caps and guide arrangements | How the day is likely to run | Who your specific guide will be |
| Stated awards and memberships | External bodies have engaged with the company | That the award is recent or meaningful |
We do not use star ratings or review counts from booking platforms anywhere on this site. They move weekly, they are trivially gamed on small volumes, and reproducing them here would add a number without adding information. Where an operator publishes its own review figures, we attribute them to the operator rather than presenting them as our finding.
The four things that move a company up or down
Operates or resells
A company that owns the vehicle, crews the boat or employs the guide gets ranked above one that takes your booking and hands it on. Both models are legitimate, and reselling is often cheaper, but you should know which you are buying.
Depth in this category
Ten products in one category beats two hundred across all of them. A company with three Ha Long cabins on three ships knows the bay better than a general agency with a page for everything.
What is published
Licence numbers, addresses, group caps, inclusion lists and cancellation terms on the public site. A company that publishes them can be held to them.
The failure case
What happens when it rains, when the port closes, when the flight moves. Companies that publish that answer rank above companies that publish only the good day.
Nothing else is scored. Not the age of the company, because a 2017 startup with 500 local drivers can beat a twenty year old name that subcontracts everything. Not the size, because the biggest operator in Vietnam is the right answer for a coach tour and the wrong answer for a private trek. Not the design of the website, which correlates with a marketing budget and nothing else.
What we will not publish
- Invented founding years, licence numbers, fleet names, staff counts or guest numbers. If a company does not publish it, the entry says it is not published.
- Fabricated customer quotes or testimonials. There are none anywhere on this site, which is why you will not see a single review block.
- Star ratings we did not measure, or aggregate scores implying we tested something.
- Claims that a company is safe, guaranteed or verified by us. We have inspected nothing.
- A negative claim about a named company that we cannot support from its own published material or a documented public source.
That last rule cuts both ways and it costs us the most interesting content. There are companies in this market with genuinely bad reputations that we do not name, because a reputation is not evidence and a defamation claim in Vietnam is not theoretical. What we do instead is publish the checks that expose a bad operator before you pay, on choosing an operator.
How often this is reviewed, and how to correct it
- Each list is fully reviewed once a year, and the review date sits at the top of the page.
- Material changes are made whenever we learn of one: a company ceases trading, changes its trading name, sells its fleet, or stops operating in a category.
- Corrections from operators are made within a few working days where the correction is supported by the company's own published material or its licence.
- Where an operator disputes a limitation we have written, we will publish the operator's response alongside it rather than quietly delete the line.
Send corrections and listing applications through the contact page or read what we need on get listed. If you think a ranking is wrong, tell us why with something checkable behind it and we will look at it seriously.
Want the shortlist rather than the method?
Tell us what you want to do and we will point you at the operators worth contacting.
Questions travellers ask most
Can an operator pay for a better position?
No. There is no price for a position, and there never has been. Partner companies of the publisher are marked Partner on every entry so that you can discount them if you choose.
Have you taken any of these tours?
No. We rank on published, checkable material, not on experience, and we would rather say that plainly than imply a level of testing we have not done.
Why do you not use Tripadvisor or Google ratings?
Because they are volatile and easy to manipulate at low volume, and because copying a score into a page adds a number without adding understanding.
Where an operator publishes its own review figures, we attribute them to that operator rather than presenting them as ours.
What happens if a partner company turns out to be bad?
The entry is corrected or the company is removed. A working relationship does not buy protection from a correction, and a directory that cannot remove a partner is not worth reading.
Read next
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