Comments on: TripAdvisor Credibility Under Attack, Hoteliers On Front Foot

By: TripAdvisor Credibility Under Attack

TripAdvisor Credibility Under Attack — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:09:40 +0000

[...] soul or genuine credibility, absolutely crucial criteria for any media business, old or new. Read more from TravelTrends.biz Comments [0]Digg [...]

By: Gabrielle

Gabrielle — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:58:01 +0000

Excellent points Martin

we found that tripadvisor did NOT list many responses that our hoteliers had placed in response to negative comments.
all very well saying "use the right to response"; what good will it do when only negative comments show and hotels don't get a chance to put things right and comment.

Couldn't agree more with the path of qualified reviews according to Expedia's commercially minded algorithms

Love the idea of Travelzealots.com – hope it'll take off.

By: Michael Tyre

Michael Tyre — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:36:22 +0000

To quote the late, great Jay Chiat, "How big do you get before you get bad?"
Check out TravelZealots.com. A brand new forum, only travel professionals
are allowed to post. Very interesting concept!

By: Bonny Morlak

Bonny Morlak — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:11:06 +0000

Great timing Martin.

When I got the 'dirtiest hotels' list and went into individual reviews I just saw an absolute mess.
Take 'Pearl of the Pacific Boracay Resort & Spa' for example. 18 'terrible' votes but still 7 excellent? How's such a thing possible?

Then read the individual entries and it get's even stranger… From "The hotel is dreadful" to "All the bad reviews and nothing great to hear about… I wonder why people do that?"

How does one expect I could base my trip on such info? I guess one solution would be photos on location… that would ship around the issue of using a booking engine for authenticating travellers… not entirely but it would certainly but the bar higher…

I am a great fan of social media and the power of grassroots information but unless TripAdvisor builds in some sort of 3 degrees of separation like facebook (I trust friends and their friends). It will fail.

Bonny

By: Martin Kelly

Martin Kelly — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:21:38 +0000

Good point about 'get the truth then go' … I can't find it anywhere on tripadvisor.com

By: Catherine Taylor

Catherine Taylor — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:39:38 +0000

Congratulations on a timely, interesting and extremely well written article

By: Phil Graham

Phil Graham — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:16:07 +0000

Good article, Martin – it really cuts to the problem with TripAdvisor, that many reviewers are ignorant and it is dominated by US travellers.

I see you mention TA's slogan about being the most trusted source of travel advice – presumably they were forced to change it for legal reasons from what it used to be, i.e. "get the truth then go". That was too obviously false!

Phil

By: Daniel Entin

Daniel Entin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:36:43 +0000

Hi Martin, excellent article and very good point. I think nobody will challenge the fact that TripAdvisor is covering a market need – if they don't get it right, someone else will take their place.

Now, if I remember right, TripAdvisor is owned by Expedia… and therefore could go down the path that you describe as 'qualified reviews' since they would have access to all the bookings. Although probably Expedia wants to keep the brands very separated: one with an open/neutral policy (i.e. we give you advise but have no interest in what you book) and another one with a more consultative role (we want you to book with us and here is what other customers have to say about the products we sell).

just some thoughts

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:28:26 +0000

Hi Martin,

Can you add a link to the Daily Mail article you refer to in this piece, it would make an interesting read.