Fill in the blank space.
Here is one to get us going:
...the private beach in the photo is clearly not "white sand"
Leave responses in the comments section. Start a list on your own blog. Just a bit of Friday fun...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: bogus review fraud user review
As Joe Buhler says, when a "mass market paper reports on anything 'new' on the web it’s usually on the way to be pretty well established market behavior or a fact".
So here is an article from USA Today about a Forrester report which estimates a third of US travellers read reviews from fellow travellers on the web.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: user rev iews hotels tripadvisor usa today
The recent Sunday Times exposé - A Five-Star Scam - on hoax reviews planted on websites such as TripAdvisor has certainly ruffled a few feathers in the industry.
TripAdvisor Europe managing director Marc Charron wrote a letter to paper last week defending the company’s model and drawing the attention of readers to the fact that his UK team had supplied the Sunday Times with details of a hoaxer the site had recently rumbled.
In the spirit of fair and balanced coverage, the paper also printed a letter from a Lindy Dumsday in support of the article.
However, Charron’s missive was backed by another from a certain Adrian Currie, managing director of Active Hotels, which was also named and shamed as a site of which consumers should be wary.
[Read the letters]
Don’t expect this to be end of the debate...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
"Firefighting" is the term used by PRs when a highly critical story breaks in the media and all hell breaks loose.
So it appears TripAdvisor is in the throes of trying to fix the damage created by a rather damning article in the Sunday Times yesterday (12 Nov) about online review websites, including the immensely popular TripAdvisor.
The piece [here] revealed how some hotels and restaurants are posting fake reviews to the likes of TripAdvisor, Activehotels and Toptable.
A follow-up piece is expected on BBC Radio 2 this evening, where a TripAdvisor representative will be mounting a firm defence of the site.
Ironically, the article in the Sunday Times comes amid a flurry of activity on the travel section of its own website in recent months.
As announced in September, the site now has contextual advertising and a dedicated search engine so users can look for travel products and explore its vast database of professionally written product reviews and destination pieces.
Indeed, from December users will also be able to post reviews and "share personal experiences".
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Seems like the mainstream press has woken up in the last few weeks to the impact of the internet on the travel industry.
This weekend the BBC’s FastTrack show, a consumer slot on BBC News 24 and BBC World, spoke to Teletextholidays and the Guardian’s travel offshoot I’ve Been There to gauge opinion.
The piece began with a walk down memory lane, with viewers treated to the sight of the old – though still in action for those avoiding Red Button digital technology – Teletext pages with hundreds of travel deals, all to the accompaniment of jolly end-of-the-pier organ music.
Those were the days…
FastTrack reporter Simon Hancock – who rang us a few weeks ago to get some background material for the show – then took viewers on a whirlwind tour of the online travel market over the last ten years, featuring Expedia, Lastminute.com, Thomson and the like.
And then, just two hours after Sunday morning’s repeat, BBC News 24 had a news item on very much the same subject.
Brilliant! Sunday morning at home feels like weekdays at work!
After some amusing archive footage of those early holidays around the Mediterranean, the piece went on to analyse the effect of the internet on the package tour market.
In 2002 around 40 million travel products were sold and around half were traditional package holidays. Fast forward to 2005 and the number of trips has increased by 10% to 44 million, which is good news for all the industry, but the share of packages has dropped to 42%.
Simon Vincent from online travel agent Opodo told viewers one of the reasons for consumer enthusiasm for booking travel on the web is that they are not tied to the opening hours of traditional travel agents.
Meanwhile back in the studio, travel hack Karen Benyon mounted a spirited defence of the High Street agent by claiming it has been “proven” that cheaper prices are not necessarily always found on the web.
It is can only be a good thing that the issues affecting the travel industry are finally being aired in front of everyday consumers.
And the ‘onliners’ of the industry are finally getting some recognition.
In the Times a few weeks back Cath Urquhart produced her 50 People to Know in Travel.
Paul Evans (Lowcost Holiday Group), John Hatt (Cheapflights), Andy Phillips (Active Hotels) and Martha Lane Fox (Lastminute.com) were all featured.
Not sure how easy the notoriously elusive Hatt will be for consumers to track down - and what about poor old Brent Hoberman, Lane-Fox’s co-founder? Minor points...
[See our own list of the pioneers of online travel, The Influential Ten]
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
