In the year 2000, the travel web site ‘TripAdvisor’ was launched by its founder and CEO, Stephen Kauferas. In the past decade, it has become a valuable consumer tech company with earnings of approximately US $ 1 billion in annual revenue. It has 60 million members with approximately 83 million visitors per month.
It provides profiles of 1.7 million restaurants, 748,000 hotels and 335,000 attractions in over 45 countries of the world.
User generating comments make demand for properties which in return make these properties rise in value and attraction. Trip Adviser is shifting the tourism economy of entire countries. It will be more so in the future with the rise of an electronically literate population.
Why fake reviews?
Unfortunately, most hotel managements make fake reviews tactically, without giving a clear description of the place and services they provide.
In this case guests will be frustrated after their arrival and will lose their trust on social media and internet.
So making fake positive comments will effect badly in the long term on the hospitality industry. Technically, TripAdviser must develop a strategy to avoid publishing fake reviews by identifying the IP address of reviewers and tracing devices linked to social media sites such as face book.
This would be a hard task as technology is so advanced that digital identity can be camouflaged.
Influence on society
According to Prof. Bjorn Hanson of New York University’s Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, decades ago a branded name had its sense of confidence and quality. Now this power is with TripAdvisor.
Because of Trip Advisor’s influence on society, formerly sleepy and isolated places also rapidly and surprisingly got rich through high level of hotel occupancy. TripAdvisor’s researchers realized that hotel owners who reply to comments are 20% more likely to get bookings. Also that reviews effect hotel RevPAR too.
RevPAR is a performance matrix used to measure financial performance of the hospitality industry. Investors also now think twice before investing their capital on property with poor reviews.
TripAdvisor give us the opportunity to sit in a cozy chair in our homes and compare destinations and select what suits us best.
With more people gaining access to Internet daily, TripAdvisor will be the leader effecting the economy and tourism. So hoteliers, now is the time to get your account right withTripAdvisor.
The writer is hotel IT Executive