By Daniel Edward Craig, Reknown.
The reviews are in, and TripAdvisor is a bigger hit than ever with travelers. The world’s largest travel site attracted 40 million visitors worldwide in July, up 60% from the beginning of the year, according to comScore, and carries more than 35 million reviews of 450,000 hotels in 23 countries.
But not all reviews of TripAdvisor are glowing. Last month, Kwikchex announced its intention to launch a class-action lawsuit against TripAdvisor on behalf of over 800 hotels and restaurants on grounds of defamatory user reviews. More recently, the company told the Telegraph it plans to publish a list of reviewers it suspects of publishing fraudulent reviews and is threatening legal action against them.
Are hoteliers being whiners or is the system truly flawed? I decided to go to the source, TripAdvisor co-founder and CEO Stephen Kaufer, for his perspective. Here he talks candidly about why TripAdvisor will continue to allow anonymous reviews and why hoteliers always get the last word.
Dan: TripAdvisor has been getting a lot of heat from hoteliers these days, who question the legitimacy of some reviews. What’s your take on this issue?
Stephen: There isn’t anything new here … we’ve always had hoteliers that love TripAdvisor, as well as some who wish the website didn’t exist. The bottom line is that, in addition to the quality assurance systems we have in place, when you have hundreds or even thousands of reviews on individual properties, the wisdom of the crowds really does a fantastic job of giving you the right expectations for the hotel. We encourage hoteliers to read the comments carefully and respond appropriately to negative reviews, so prospective guests can see for themselves that you are interested in constructive feedback.
Dan: Another complaint from hotels is that the system for posting responses and disputing reviews is slow, bureaucratic and highly censored.
Stephen: We’ve dedicated a lot of energy to improving our service to hoteliers. In May, we launched TripAdvisor for Business, a new division dedicated to partnering with the hospitality industry, and we strive to post management responses promptly and research reviews that are under dispute. Due to the incredible volume of content we receive, it can sometimes take longer than any of us want to get an issue resolved, and that can be frustrating to hoteliers. In terms of being bureaucratic and censoring responses, I strongly disagree, and feel our policies are very reasonable and clearly spelled out.
Dan: Given that online reviews provide free marketing and feedback for hotels and, unlike some review sites, TripAdvisor allows hotels to respond to reviews, do hoteliers seem ungrateful?
Stephen: I’m surprised that more hoteliers do not make use of the free management response form. The most common argument I hear is that “I don’t want to continue the debate in public.” My response to that is simply that the criticism is out there, and to not respond is to let the charge stick. On TripAdvisor, there isn’t a debate, as the reviewer is not able to reply to the management response, so hoteliers effectively get the last word.
I am a firm believer in the adage that there are always two sides to a story, and a hotel manager should absolutely put their perspective out in front of prospective travelers. Even if the message is simply a polite apology for the wrong, or a polite expression of ignorance that there was ever a problem, it should be written. Just as a hotelier wouldn’t ignore a guest who complained in person, I always recommend responding in public the way one would respond in person.
Of course, many hoteliers are very vocal about how grateful they are for the free marketing we provide to them. For many, TripAdvisor is the free amplification of their current, great word-of-mouth reputation.
Dan: Some review sites require proof that travelers have stayed at the hotel before they can post a review. Does TripAdvisor have any plans in that regard?
Stephen: No.
Dan: Can you elaborate? How about discontinuing anonymous reviews and requiring reviewers to give their real name?
Stephen: We believe there is tremendous value to having as many reviews as possible on every property. Quantity matters, as the wisdom of the crowds drowns out the anomalies (good and bad) that can happen on any individual stay. We value the extra quality and reliability that the large number of reviews generates; and we know that if we were to require validation of a stay, the burden on the consumer would dramatically reduce the number of reviews contributed.
We have considered requiring reviewers to provide their real names, but feel that we would get less candid reviews as a result. It is human nature to provide a more honest assessment when a level of anonymity is maintained, and our mission is to help every traveler find that truly candid information in order to plan the perfect trip.
Dan: What’s next for TripAdvisor?
Stephen: There is a lot going on, of course, but let me highlight a couple of items:
On the consumer side, we’re trying to help our visitors better understand the unique attributes about properties without having to read through all of the reviews (our new “Reviews at a Glance” feature), as well as pulling your network of Facebook friends into your travel planning experience (Trip Friends). Expect to see more developments on both of these fronts in the coming months.
On the hotelier side, we’re aggressively expanding our international reach, and are planning some more features to help property owners better market to the audience that is already planning a trip to their city.
For tips on generating and responding to online reviews see:
Best Practices for Responding to Online Hotel Reviews: Part 1 and Part 2
if anonymous reviews are such a good idea, I suggest Stephen start an anonymous review site of him and his company by employees and customers. Only have no reqt to prove any facts, that way competitors, pranksters, malcontents etc can post all kinds of garbage and stephen can spend his day addressing all of the topics. Its a valuable way to spend the day.
I think you should ask Stephen if he'll start an anonymous review site for him and his company to be utilized by employees, customers, vendors, etc. Allow unverified persons to post unverifiable facts about wrongful termination, sexual harrassment, lack of invoices being paid, contracts being broken, etc. Don't require any proof of who is posting; then he can spend all day either refuting these allegations, ignoring them and looking guilty, or providing his side of the story and still looking bad, or giving away tokens like hotels give discounts and free nights to make up for the bad publicity that his site allows to foster anonymously – it's a very productive and financially smart way to spend the day.
Great interview. I love hearing it from the horse's mouth too. Tripadvisor has some flaws such as proof of stay would be good. I've personally had some success and some failures in trying to get false comments removed and I think something should be done to improve the control system. Contested reviews could get put in "pending" until sorted out and the writer would be requested to provide proof of stay. That's just an idea.
However Tripadvisor is definitely here to stay, it's a tremendous help to the consumers and forces hotels to be on their toes which wasn't the case 15 years ago.
Thanks for your feedback, Martin. I’m glad you liked the interview. As I’ve noted previously, a large quantity of reviews and opinions is important for revealing the wisdom of the crowds. The reason we don’t require proof of stay is that such a policy would likely limit the number of candid reviews travelers post on TripAdvisor. For example, not everyone who stayed at a property will have made the booking and therefore wouldn’t have any proof of stay; however, their opinion is equally valid.
Anonymous posting on TripAdvisor made sense when building critical mass, but now that it's a market leader, isn't credibility more important? So why not make some rudimentary effort to verify user identities?
Thanks for your comment, Adam. Credibility and trust are essential to TripAdvisor, and we go to great lengths to verify the legitimacy of reviews. TripAdvisor has become the world’s largest travel site because consumers trust the wisdom of the crowds, which is revealed through the millions of reviews and opinions real travelers post on the site.
As I mentioned in my interview with Daniel, we feel that we would get less-candid reviews if we were to require reviewers to provide their real names. For TripAdvisor to succeed in helping travelers plan the perfect trip, candid reviews are just as important today as they were when the company first launched.
Stephen, I truly believe that an individual leaving a review, good or bad, should be willing to leave their legitimate name and date of their stay. Often persons leaving down right negative reviews have made absolutely NO attempt to bring their issue to the attention of the hotel keeper, and readers often can not verify the accurracy of the comments, or have the time to do so. I am certainly happy to express my appreciation of a good review, and would like the opportunity to address problems BEFORE a guest leaves. Even letters to editors in newspapers require true names & addresses.
Sincerely, Mary Allen
Eagle Bluff B & B, Prince Rupert, B.C.
Great interview!!! The Tripadvisor's future plans shows its success in the hotel industry……..
<a href="http://www.vagabondsc.com">Santa Clara County Hotels</a>
I personally think the biggest problem with Tripadvisor, is the horrible and poorly faked attempts of making your hotel seem better than it is, seen some strange examples online of reviews that were obviously written by management. You can today hire the service in India, of updating your page with positive reviews. And all because someone is trying to give the end consumer a way of exchanging opinions about your product.
Just as I have seen some pathetic management responds.
Accept that the majority of the posts are genuine, use it as a way of improving your own product, i personally read them for my staff at the morning briefing, when a new post is up there. Stop trying to see who is out to hurt you, because they did not like your hotel. And for god's sake, when you make a respond, don't think of the complaint it self, you are communicating to every one else who is reading it, so turn the responds around as a marketing message, rather than an attack on a guest, for not understanding why it took 30 min to serve a scope of ice cream….just an example….
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Kaare. What you describe regarding businesses posting fraudulent reviews is strictly against our policies and, as you suggest, not in the best interest of either consumers or businesses. In fact, we post a red penalty badge next to hotel listings on TripAdvisor when we have reasonable cause to believe they have tried to game the system.
As for your advice about considering the audience when posting a management response, I think you are spot on. Good advice.
Good interview, as ever. I'd like to make a few points:
1. Kaufer dodged the very first question about the legitimacy of reviews – the problem of fake reviews won't go away if he keeps burying his head in the sand.
2. Once in a while a fake is caught. An Irish hotel recently got caught encouraging staff to post reviews – one faker outed, but I bet this is the tip of a very large iceberg. If the hotel had been more subtle they would have got away with it, as many doubtless do. http://bit.ly/cru3Ou
3. Taking the "balance of opinion" in reviews doesn't mean you'll get the right answer. E.g. What the heck do we make of a dichotomy like this: http://bit.ly/dy6t6y Should we ignore the positives? Or ignore the negatives? Or just ignore TripAdvisor altogether?
4. If TripAdvisor addressed owners' concerns properly, instead of ignoring and fudging, then the latest threat of legal action via KwikChex and all the hoo-ha surrounding it could have been avoided.
5. Communication involves listening and responding, not just pontificating and telling owners to get in line. Just one example: TA denied the issue of disappearing reviews for months, completely ignoring owners who highlighted the problem. http://bit.ly/dcEPix TripAdvisor's "technical bug" could have been sorted out much earlier if they'd taken owners seriously in the first place..
Phil
Thanks to all for your comments and questions. Stephen Kaufer will be responding to them next week. Stay tuned.
Steve: I have a follow-up question of my own. In 2009 TripAdvisor disclosed that only about 4% of negative reviews receive a response. Has this number changed? Thanks. DEC
Thanks for your question, Daniel. Off hand, I don’t have the current percentage of negative reviews receiving a response. However, I will find out and get back to you.
Daniel – In the past 12 months, 7% of negative reviews have received management responses – nearly doubling from 4% in 2009. Conversely, for the same time period, 5% of positive reviews have received management responses.
Great to know, thanks Stephen. A promising increase, though still very low. Let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come.
TA keep going on about the hoteliers right to respond to reviews. In practice many hoteliers, particularly those who have protested about TAs practices, do not have access to make responses. Many of the hotels that do succeed in making a response find their responses deleted arbitrarily. The truth is hoteliers have a right of reply only when it suits TAs agenda.
Another common cry is that hotels must up their game and provide better service. When will TA up its game in response to the worldwide criticism being heaped upon it.
The fact is Mr Kaufer that you have made a big mistake in preserving anonymity, and fighting off any measure that would give your operation transparency, ergo credibility. The concept was initially good, but now TA is damaged goods. Eventually legislators will deal with the issues around anonymous review sites. You had a chance to deal with these issues but are too arrogant or greedy to admit there is a problem. The bigger they are the harder they fall, and i will take bets that one day in the not too distant future TA will collapse under the weight of its managements folly.
Daniel, it is now the end of the "next week" per your earlier note about Stephen responding. Any response to the questions you and your site guests have proposed? thanks,
Hi Tim, I’ve been assured that responses are in progress, so hang in there & stay tuned.
Thanks to all for your comments and to Stephen Kaufer for taking the time to answer each of them personally – setting a good example for hoteliers! A good dialogue, and undoubtedly it will continue. Feel free post any further questions and comments you may have. And don't forget the the social media and online reputation management for hoteliers articles on my Articles page, which include tips and techniques for responding to online reviews and for generating positive online reviews. DEC
Great interview Dan, and interesting to hear Steve's responses. With regards to to TA trying to be accountable/proactive in ensuring there are no technical glitches, I do have concern. In Vancouver, the "Top Business Hotel" listing feature has disappeared since over 1 month ago, but only in Vancouver . Not sure why, but this is an important feature to display and promote to the business traveler. I took the required steps on the TA site and went through the support forum to voice my question/concern of what happened. I went back a week later and the only response I received was that it was being looked into. Since then I have posted another comment asking for an update, with no response, which is disappointing. I think this is where TA can be more responsive and develop better relations with the hotels when problems like this arise.
Great interview and topic Daniel!
With online review sites, travel professionals never had such a good opportunity to get their best clients selling for them 24/7 to millions. Word of mouth always has been one of the best forms of advertising, so travel professional should embrace Tripadvisor as a blessing to help them market for free,
More and more travel consumers are looking to Tripadvisor first to see how others rate a property, tour or service before the give their credit card. Travel professionals should be to highly vocal about their high rankings on their own website to help convert shoppers into buyers.
And if you have a trend of bad reviews, and are not actively engaged in fixing this, maybe you are in the wrong business…
This is a service and hospitality industry. Be in service to your guests, you can never go wrong.
Well said, Tim. Thanks for sharing.
Dear Steve,
It's such an amazing opportunity to have a chance to meet you on forum. TA has been the number one driver of our business since we listed as one of the first properties in Phuket. However, we had some issues in the beginning which other hotels didn't face as both we and our reviewers learned how to behave. Could you please comment on them:
At this time we’re dealing with metrix, the long term impact of reviews rather than the opportunity to reply. As you know, it’s a fabulous compliment from TA members that we have managed to get over 10 reviews per room, most folks who are happy don’t take time to place a review (maybe because they’re concerned if we get too many good ones, we’ll raise rates). I might be wrong but, I don’t think you’ll find any other property in Phuket which has as many REVIEWS PER ROOM as my property, Pacific Club Resort. On a similar note, in the early days of TripAdvisor, some people used TA more as a complaint forum rather than a proper review forum. Small issues which were either out of our control or temporary dominated the review in a few cases. As Daniel has also correctly noted, there are Extortionists and Corporate Saboteurs out there. I also have two cases where the same guest made a new TA name simply to post a second bad review to get revenge on my response for exposing their behavior during their stay (such as nicking stuff from the housekeeping cart, like 20 packs of coffee/day along with demanding to speak with the owner in spite of my staff delivering the extra 20 packs of coffee per day on a complimentary basis etc.). As a general rule, it's very difficult to make a case for deletion on those kind of reviews even though as a small property with excellent management and guest monitoring of facts, we know exactly who every reviewer is in well over 95% of the cases.
Also, at this time, I’m trying to clean up faulty or irrelevant reviews which contain a “do not recommend” (very bad for metrix) in order to clean up our metrix on those issues which no longer exist and were out of our control such as long since finished construction nearby or condition of the public road leading to our property. Since those are no longer issues for over two years and out of our control, and in some cases the reviewer flat out states they loved our property except for those two factors, I’m wondering how to get those reviews out of the metrix ranking. I have tried contacting those guests who wrote favorable reviews except for the two factors above and even offered them a free night or two to come back and try us again and reconsider their review, but nobody replied. Presumably they’re not active on TA anymore which makes it difficult.
I also have a case in which the reviewers actually recommends another hotel. I can reply, and suggest the reviewer actually made a corporate sabotage review to knock us down. But TA staff don't believe when I mention we know 95% sure this is the case (small property of 33 rooms like ours knows everyone who walks in and out the door and get to the bottom of these things quickly compared to a 500 room hotel:-). Once again, replying won't affect metrix, even though our followers in the forums have discredited such reviews as bogus.
At the end of the day, responses and forum participation is great, but what about metrix in these cases? We believe in working fairly within the system but these issues are tough. Have you considered leaving questionable / disputed reviews posted but not counting them in the metrix ranking?
I would kindly appreciate if you might take the time to lend a comment.
Thank You in advance.
Eric
You asked for questions to Stephen Kaufer of Tripadvisor. I own a bed and breakfast that is about a ten minute drive from the village (population about 7,000) of Taos, NM. Taos is what I call home and Taos is the town that I market my inn as being in. My mailing address is in an even smaller village named El Prado and my physical address is in the even smaller village of Arroyo Seco. No one outside of northern New Mexico has ever heard of El Prado and I would doubt that many people search the web for b and b's in El Prado or Arroyo Seco.
The question that I have for Mr. Kaufer is why Tripadvisor's policy is to keep us (and other local businesses) out of their Taos listing. I have checked how Tripadvisor handles other areas and have found that if you go to their listings of Espanola, NM or Santa Fe, NM or Lake Tahoe, CA or Aspen, CO or Miami, FL or Houston, TX or Los Angeles, CA, you will find information about hotels and b and b's that are not in those cities. If Tripadvisor can't figure out where Miami stops and Miami Beach starts or where Lake Tahoe staops and Truckee starts, why should they be making that geographic distinction about a funky little area like the Taos area.
This may sound like a trivial whine but I can assure you that it is having a serious effect on my ability to have my property available to travelers. I am not asking that we be advertised as being in downtown Taos but I am asking that we be included as being in "Taos" – a subtle but very important distinction.
As a side note, when Tripadvisor picked the Taos Ski Valley as one of the ten best ski areas in North America last year, they included a link in their article. When the user clicked on this link the page that came up had nothing to do with the Taos Ski Valley but had to do with Taos. This was caused by the fact that the ski valley is 18 miles from the center of Taos and is considered a separate area from Taos.
Many thanks, Brantly Goodwin – Cottonwood Inn B and B – Arroyo Seco/El Prado/Taos NM
We have been in a dispute with TA for some time now. We know how important internet marketing is and that TA can be a great tool to promote our business. We drive people to their website to help promote our business. That is how it should work.Negative or Positive, feedback is important. In case you were not aware, for every 50 guests you ask to visit TA you may see one review posted. The system is hard for some to understand. It is a lengthy process and quite frankly, unless someone has something negative to say it is not worth their time. In short: we work very hard to get our reviews.
Here is where we are having the problem. Last year we had reviews go missing. When TA was contacted, which as you know can not be done by phone but only through their website chat room, we were told the usual BS that the confirmation email was not responded to, the guest chose to remove the review, the content was not appropriate etc. OK, so first of all, now you are saying on top of the lengthy process to post a review our guests have to follow up to a confirmation email which, undoubtedly, goes to their junk email box? Later we were told, sorry no there was a “bug” in the system which deleted some owner’ss reviews. They may or may not be able to restore them. Great. Later still, after this so called “bug” was sorted out(we never did see our missing reviews returned) we had 12 reviews go missing in one day. Some old, some new, totally random. There seemed to be no pattern or reasoning. When I contacted TA they said the same thing again… the guest did not respond to confirmation email etc etc etc. They assured me that the bug was taken care of and the reviews were “legitimately” removed and they would not be reposted. At this point I called their office number, which I obtained from the OAA, and got an answering machine directing me to use the website. When given the option to enter an employee’s name to reach a real person I randomly entered any initials with the hopes of getting through to anyone who could help.I got an answering machine. I explained my problem and asked said person to get in contact with me concerning this issue. About a week later I finally got a call and was assured it was being looked into. It never was. I never again heard back from TA and my reviews are still MIA. This is not acceptable.
Furthermore, although we are allowed to post management responses to negative reviews they have to be so sugar coated they would give a dentist cavities. We are not allowed to respond in anything but a light manner otherwise our responses are not posted by TA. In addition to this, many fraudulent reviews are slipping through the cracks, including reviews written by competitors and guests who have never stayed nor had contact in any way with businesses. TA’s response: Guests have the right to speak their minds even if they did not stay at your business but merely called. So, TA is removing hard to get reviews but they are allowing fraudulent ones? Where is the fairness in that?
TA should not be hailed. TA should be shut down until they fix their problems. Every week I get an email from them asking me to PAY MONEY to have a business listing. A listing that gets me no more contact with them or assurance of better service.
I understand you must take the good with the bad reviews and let the customer make their own decisions but how are they to make a fare decision when they are being allowed to read lies?
I can not fight this alone. I have approached the OAA who tried to resolve the issue but ended their dispute when they were told my reviews were returned(which they never were). So now TA is lying to people who I pay to protect my best interests.
Please let it be known that your interview stated what the CEO wanted the community to hear not what his company practices.