The truth about TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor, the popular travel website, has been ordered by the ASA to rewrite its marketing claims. The ruling stated that claims such as “reviews that you can trust” and that it had “more than 50 million honest travel reviews” were misleading and could not be substantiated.

People often associate Wikipedia with the wisdom of crowds i.e. that many are smarter than a few. The site is built on the foundation that if there is enough interest in a subject, the truth and facts will come out. The same could be applied other social media platforms including TripAdvisor itself. A hotel that has overwhelmingly positive reviews but has no wider recognition online or beyond might be exploiting the system. Similarly as a holidaymaker you should not be taking one or two single reviews as gospel when holiday planning.

TripAdvisor at its most basic offers guidance of where to potentially stay when on holiday, as well as a vehicle to book. Reviews, and therefore hotels, should be seen as relative to one another i.e. a hotel that on average receives better reviews (and lots of them) is generally better than another.  Recently the site has also added Facebook functionality so there’s now an important layer of social context.

Although it is open to abuse, TripAdvisor like many other social media platforms is generally a force for the good and has had a massive positive impact on the travel industry. It has made hotels much more accountable and directly influences the quality of service by the hotels willing to listen and engage.  Ultimately there is a great opportunity for hotels to drive genuine, honest and positive reviews, therefore influencing reputation and the bottom line.

Here’s hoping this ruling doesn’t impact the site’s influence.