Welcome to our official TripAdvisor UK blog. This is where we aim to share our thoughts, quirky updates, new research and anything else we hope you will find useful and interesting.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

What did we think of Channel 4’s 'Attack of the Trip Advisors'?

We’ve had a few questions about Monday night’s programme, here’s our thoughts:

The Channel 4 programme is clearly a portrayal of extremes intended for entertainment purposes. Nonetheless, we do appreciate the impacts that reviews can have on properties and for this reason we have numerous mechanisms in place to allow hotels and other businesses to address reviews they feel are false or unfair. 

For instance, we offer a management response tool that allows hoteliers to respond to specific traveller reviews.  This gives business owners the last word.  We strongly encourage business owners to take advantage of this feature; according to a recent Forrester survey commissioned by TripAdvisor, 71% of travellers think seeing a management response to reviews is important.

TripAdvisor’s Management Centre is another facility which provides information about how businesses can better use the site, as well as FAQs regarding review guidelines.

It is important to note that according to a recent PhoCusWright research commissioned by TripAdvisor, 98% of respondents have found TripAdvisor hotel reviews to be accurate of the actual experience and note that the average overall ratings for the featured properties are so good, ranging between 4 and 4.5 out of 5.

TripAdvisor was founded on a core set of principles - to give travellers a voice to share their experiences, promote consumer choice and encourage a level playing field for everyone in the industry – all within a free, open and honest forum. This remains our mission.