Why bother with User Generated Reviews?
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I read a post today by Phil Caines, one of the organisers of the Travel Blogger Summit in Berlin last week, describing the Newsweek report on the growing disillusionment among consumers with user generated reviews.
I think that there’s too much emphasis on user generated reviews. If you’re going on a trip where you’ll spend most of your time out exploring, how much time and effort should you place in finding the perfect hotel? Surely what you’ll remember most about your trip is what you saw and did rather than your hotel room. I know a bad hotel can spoil a trip but as long as the hotel is clean and comfortable it will serve as a place to sleep.
Personally speaking I’ve been caught out by reviews. For a special occasion I do want to stay somewhere with a bit of character. Last year I booked a hotel for our wedding anniversary which received good reviews but we thought our room was pretty awful. The booking was made through Active Hotels were you can only write a review about a property that you have booked through their site and actually stayed at the hotel. We had a much better room on our way home for a fraction of the price at a Travelodge.
Thinking back a few years, when you booked a hotel blind, I had my share of good and bad hotels, much as I do now, even although I may spend hours searching through user generated reviews.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Growing disillusionment among consumers with user generated reviews.?
Where did he get this survey from.?
Probably paid by some hotel association to discredit these type of sites, so some of their members can continue providing a shoddy service.
All trends show that sites featuring this type of content, are growing year on year, and all the main stream operators/agents want it on their sites.
Real Holiday Reports.Com are not owned by expedia or TUI, as was suggested to us a few weeks ago, and are a truly independent British accommodation review site.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Thanks for your comment Gary. The feeling is that consumers are suffering from choice fatigue and fear of bad advice, so are more willing to listen again to the knowledge of “experts” rather than depending solely on the opinion of other consumers.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Exploring, not spending time in the hotel, obviously no kids then, try and get mine away from the pool and kids club. “Independent” hotel reviews are vital to booking our hotel as everything revolves around it, as the kids have to be kept entertained and we can have a small amount of free time.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I wonder if this growing disillusionment of hotel review sites is because consumers have caught on that a growing number of these sites are non-independent and owned by OTAs.
Look at the sites listed for ‘hotel reviews’ in Google most of the sites are owned by Expedia. Trivop and Real Holiday Reports will be the next two sites to be snapped up by an OTA or large player in the travel industry.
You read it here first! ;)
March 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Just to add.
Tim Hughes of Boot has written an interesting post that SideStep/Kayak have dropped a social networking site because of a lack of participation by members.
http://tims-boot.blogspot.com/2008/03/tripup-our-site-is-dead-go-to-facebook.html
They could have given it to me rather than dumping it! ;)
It does make you think though if all this talk that User Generated Content is King is just media induced tripe. I believe that well written content is still king and that’s why blogs like TR gets great traffic for so many (thousands) of long tail keywords.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Darren, I’m not surprised that consumers are dubious about reviews on sites which are owned by large online travel agents.
Interesting to read that Kayak are dumping social networking. I think probably a mix of user generated content and content by “experts” will be the way forward.
Is Travel Rants the only independent consumer travel blog in the UK? If so, you may receive an offer you can’t refuse?
March 16th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Col, thanks for your comment, I know it’s different when you have kids. The hotel facilities are really important then. Kids Clubs are great as they offer the parents some adult time. The hotel pool is also important as a venue for family fun. Services like early kids dinner etc are useful too.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Karen, it’s very interesting that they are dumping social networking, and I’m sure that they had a travel forum which appears to have disappeared as well.
If someone is visiting a site for flights, hotels etc then I personally think it’s unlikely that I would also signup for a social networking site, when you already have a crowded marketplace with Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.
Expedia created a business model of hotel reviews with Trip Advisor and then added on all the extra services you see today, and it is for this reason why it has worked so well.
It’ll be interesting to see what TUI do with holidays-uncovered and what Expedia do with Holiday Watchdog.
As for Travel Rants, I think as more and more content is being added (especially now that I have a writer in Amanda helping me) and more comments are being left by consumers, I think the price of the blog will rise.
Interestingly though type ‘hotel reviews’ in Google and I’m on page 2 for some reason. So I obviously need to visit more hotels and leave more reviews to jump to the first page! ;)
March 28th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
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