Priceline.com in Norwalk has begun to institute an online “guest only” review policy in order to purge its recommendations of self-interested contributors.
According to a 2009 survey by Econsultancy, a New York City-based company that tracks and researches digital marketing and ecommerce, 90 percent of consumers trust online recommendations. They may be too trusting, as another firm found more than half of recommendation postings were from third parties.
Brett Keller, chief marketing officer of priceline.com., said he believes having reviews come directly from recent hotel guests helps make the content more reliable and influential.
“Allowing reviews only from actual guests eliminates the potential for third parties with other motivations from entering the mix,” said Keller. “We believe there’s also a freshness benefit in asking for opinions only three days after a stay is completed.” Â
According to Priceline, its new proactive measure has enabled the hotel reservation service to amass more than 2.5 million hotel guest reviews.
Menlo Consulting Group, a California-based company that forecasts trends in the travel industry, said Americans trust other travelers reviews more than anything else. Young adults were the most trusting. Menlo also found that more than half of reviews are written by third parties. ?“Americans have long relied on their friends and word-of-mouth for advice when researching and booking travel,” said Heather Hardwick, vice president of Menlo Consulting Group. “With the rise of online communities, travelers now have a much broader network to turn to for travel advice and recommendations. What”™s interesting is that they value the opinions of complete strangers above those of travel professionals, even journalists who presumably do not have a commercial agenda.”
Hardwick said more than two-thirds of travelers read online reviews posted by other travelers when planning a trip, but less than 10 percent have shared their own travel experiences by posting an online review or comment in the past year.
According to a new study by PhoCusWright, a Sherman-based company that follows the travel industry, during 2008 and 2009 Priceline posted more hotel reviews than any other major online travel agency and in 2009 accounted for approximately 50 percent of all hotel reviews viewable on the online travel agencies.
Priceline.com attributed the industry-leading posting volume to its practice of sending surveys to all hotel guests three days after their stays are completed.
PhoCusWright also found that online travel agencies were more prolific than travel review sites in generating hotel reviews.
In the second half of 2009, 74 percent of new hotel reviews were posted on online travel agencies compared with 25 percent on travel review sites. Â More consumers also paid attention to hotel reviews on the online travel agencies.
“Answering an email survey is also so much easier and quicker than spending time searching out a website to post,” said Keller. “Also, we believe that reviews obtained this way tend to have more balance and better represent the overall quality and experience found at the hotel.”
