Tag Archives: tripadvisor

TripAdvisor Gets “Searchier”

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TripAdvisor: now with more “searchiness.”

This may sound at the moment like one of those obscure tech stories only of interest to geeks. But given that so many properties are now reviewed on TripAdvisor, irrespective of size or type, it could have far reaching implications for everyone, from huge chain hotels to tiny B&Bs.

In news that surprised few commentators in the tourism industry, TripAdvisor has finally announced that it’s introducing a test version of “metasearch” for its users. This new service will cover both desktop and mobile versions of the site.

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How to get the best from reviews

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write a review - margaret ornsbyOne of the issues we return to time and again on theBandBer is online reviews. They’ve come to dominate the thoughts of many accommodation providers. The good ones give you a warm glow. The bad ones keep you awake at night. The fake ones send you into a rage.

When we first started covering this topic, there was relatively little good, consistent advice out there on how best to respond to feedback on review sites like TripAdvisor and various social media channels. With this in mind, we’ve frequently tried to offer helpful tips ourselves, in order to bring some clarity to the issue.

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Are authenticated reviews the future?

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reviews_cbowns_blueYou may remember us mentioning a while back that the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency ordered TripAdvisor to remove the phrase “reviews you can trust” from its homepage. After many frustrating years for hotel and B&B owners, the issue of authenticity does seem to be getting more mainstream attention.

Now, one of the largest hotel companies in the world is taking matters into its own hands, by verifying all (unmediated) reviews on its own sites against a database of actual bookings.

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Is a high TripAdvisor rank always good?

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Daniel-Edward-Craig-2012-cropped_blueA former hotelier and now a specialist in online reputation management, Daniel Edward Craig is always astute and articulate. In a recent guest article for Hospitality.net, he raised the interesting issue of whether or not coming first in your local area on TripAdvisor is necessarily always a good thing. It could, of course, mean that your B&B is – like Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way. But it might also mean that it’s… well, a bit too much of a bargain.

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TripAdvisor court case to go ahead?

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tripadvisor_owl_blueIn what may be described as a very qualified victory, a B&B owner in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides has won the right to sue TripAdvisor in his native country for allegedly publishing fake reviews.

Back in August, it was reported that Richard Gollin, owner of the Baile na Cille B&B on the Isle of Lewis, had launched a small claims action at Stornoway Sheriff Court over what he said were ‘false and malicious’ criticisms. Mr Gollin claimed that these ‘fake’ criticisms had cost him valuable bookings of around £2,000 and that TripAdvisor had ignored him when he asked it to remove some postings. The guesthouse, officially rated on Trip­Advisor as “#1 of 1 Timsgarry B&B and Inns” in Timsgarry, Lewis, currently has 58 reviews, 37 of which rate it as “excellent.”

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TripAdvisor vs Kwikchex

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tripadvisor_owl_blueBack in 2010, a UK reputation management firm called Kwikchex launched a campaign against TripAdvisor for publishing allegedly libellous anonymous reviews about hotels. In particular, it has been working with the Advertising Standards Agency to demonstrate how unverified reviews sites can be abused. However Tennessee judge recently ruled that there was no defamation caused by TripAdvisor including the Grand Resort, Pigeon Forge on its 2011 “Dirtiest Hotels” list: “It does not appear to the Court that a reasonable person could believe that TripAdvisor’s article reflected anything more than the opinions of TripAdvisor’s millions of online users.”

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How to stop customers “wandering off”

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EyeForTravel describes how the Wyndham Hotel Group has started to publish reviews on its own sites in order to discourage potential guests from looking for them on "external" sites like TripAdvisor and Booking.com.There’s an interesting new article on EyeForTravel about the methods accommodation owners are using to keep customers on their own sites and prevent them gravitating away to OTA sites like Booking.com and review sites like TripAdvisor. It may be focused on hotel groups, but its lessons are equally applicable to B&Bs:

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“How To Win With TripAdvisor”

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In our latest guest blog, Adrian Brown, owner of the Old Rectory of St James B&B in Telford, tells us how getting the most out of TripAdvisor brought success to his property within a year.

 

“Love it or hate it, we decided to make the most of Trip Advisor (TA) to help our business without paying them a penny, cent or groat. To be clear, this is not an endorsement of TA and it may not be right for you; it is a short account of what it did for us.

September 2010: The Old Rectory was ours and we promptly shut the doors and started much needed repairs and improvements. The house speaks for itself and had been much loved by the previous owner; it just needed a cash injection, which of course has to be recouped!

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First social media rule: be genuine

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internet_symbol_Micky2Hospitality website HotelNewsNow has been reporting on the impressively titled “Hotel Data Conference” in Tennessee. At a session about social media, a panel of experts had some interesting things to say about how accommodation owners should ideally engage with their guests online. Many of their points will be obvious to BandBers, but some are worth reiterating.

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What does TripAdvisor’s new widget mean for B&Bs?

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tripadvisor_owl_blueAs reported by Travel Daily News, TripAdvisor is launching a free widget that allows (or “empowers” as they say in their press release) accommodation owners to collect reviews through their own websites to be published on TripAdvisor. In other words, guests can now post reviews of a property directly to TripAdvisor without having to actually go to TripAdvisor itself. It certainly sounds convenient, though it could equally be the first step in shifting responsibility away from TripAdvisor itself and onto property owners for the authenticity of reviews (no one else seems to have picked up on this so far.)

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