The travertine landscape in Huanglong scenic spots has significant tourism value, in addition, organic carbon (OC) of the travertine is key to determining the law of travertine deposition which might be affected by local environmental organisms. In order to precisely provide the basis of the travertine deposition in which microorganisms are involved, it is necessary to remove the inorganic carbonate completely and preserve the part of OC well before measuring the OC of travertine. Determination of OC in travertine was compared between acid dissolution method, digestion method and volumetric method. The results showed that relative standard deviation (RSD) value of the acid dissolution method was from 23.73% to 30.95%, suggesting poor precision. Besides, the acid dissolution method would change the fraction of OC in travertine samples, making the result higher than the fact. The digestion method was more accurate for testing OC in black and yellow travertine, while the precision of the test was low for white travertine. The RSD value of OC tested by volumetric method was from 3.27% to 11.11%, which was influenced by travertine component and extraneous factors. It is found that the digestion method is suitable for OC determination of travertine, based on the data precision and validity in testing organic carbon, the advantage and disadvantages of lateral correlation, and the analysis of error sources between three test methods.