In the news: TripAdvisor’s online travel review guide, WTTC’s forecast for the global travel industry, Best Western’s partnership with Agoda, Travelport Rich Content and Branding merchandising solution
A guide to writing helpful reviews from TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor’s guide helps travellers with review writing. (Image credit: Peerayot/iStock)
TripAdvisor has unveiled an online travel review guide with useful writing tips, drawn up from the advice of 100,000 travellers and hospitality business owners it polled in a recent survey.
The travel site hopes the guide will help travellers write reviews that matter.
“Reviews have become a powerful tool; travellers around the world rely on reviews to help them plan and book their holidays. In fact, more than half will not make a booking decision without reading reviews from others.” said Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer of TripAdvisor.
She added that hospitality businesses are listening as 70% of them have taken steps to improve their quality of service based on reviews left by travellers.”
Some of the findings from the survey:
- 83% of travellers say they write reviews because they want to share useful information with others and, as they find reviews helpful, they want to give back.
- 83% want to read a balanced view.
- 69% say it is important to provide the context for why the reviewer liked or did not like something.
- Turn-offs for people when reading reviews are overly picky reviews (54%), a lack of detail or specifics on what the reviewer experienced (50%), and bad grammar (42%).
- 68% of travellers say they write reviews within two days of their trip or experience, while 70% say it takes them 10 minutes or less to write a review.
- 82% of business respondents globally agree that online review sites like TripAdvisor have had a positive impact on the hospitality industry and service standards.
- Three important things responsent want in reviews – concentrates on facts (56%), provides a lot of detail (48%), be concise and to the point (41%).
- Hotel reviews: 64% of travellers want it to mention the condition of the hotel, 49% say it is important to mention the quality of service.
- Restaurant reviews: four out of five travellers (81%) say they want to hear about the food quality, followed by the service (66%).
- Attraction reviews: 75% of the respondents want practical tips that can improve their experience
WTTC forecasts growth for the global travel and tourism industry
China is one of the world’s top travel and tourism economies.
China and the United States will retain their rankings as the two biggest travel and tourism economies in the world for 2015, said the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) in its economic impact of the travel and tourism sector for 2015.
Every year, WTTC forecasts the economic impact of the travel and tourism sector in 184 countries and 24 regions.
According to the organisation, this year will also see Germany overtaking Japan to rank as the third largest travel and tourism economy.
Russia is the only G20 country expected to register a decline in travel and tourism growth in 2015, due to the continuing sanctions being imposed and the devaluation of the Rouble.
WTTC foresees South Asia experiencing the highest growth in 2015 at 6.9%, whilst Europe and Latin America are the regions with the lowest forecast growth of 2.4%.
The industry’s contribution to global GDP is expected to grow by 3.7% and employment by 2.6% in 2015.
“This demonstrates the sector’s enduring ability to generate economic growth and create jobs at a faster rate than the global economy, which is due to grow by 2.9% in 2015,” said WTTC.
By the end of 2015, the travel and tourism sector will contribute US$7,860 billion or 10% of global GDP. The sector will account for 284 milion jobs, 9.5% of total employment, or one in eleven of all jobs on the planet.
In 2014, the industry contributed US$7,580 billion in GDP and 277 million jobs to the global economy.
David Scowsill, WTTC president & CEO, said the travel and tourism sector would continue to grow faster than the global economy and most other major industries.
“The long-term forecasts for travel and tourism show continued annual growth at 3.8% over the next 10 years to US$11.4 trillion. By 2025, the global travel and tourism sector is expected to contribute 357 million jobs, some 73 million more jobs than this year,” he added.
Best Western goes to bed with Agoda
BEST WESTERN PREMIER The Bellevue, Jakarta, is connected to Agoda. (Image credit: Best Western International)
Best Western International is connecting all of its 4,000 plus hotels in more than 100 countries around the world to Agoda.com.
A member of The Priceline Group, Agoda.com provides an Asia-based focus where customers can search, examine reviews, book and pay for their hotel in a single mobile or desktop transaction.
Best Western’s partnership with Agoda.com will provide its hotels direct distribution to the fastest-growing travel markets including China, Korea, India, Indonesia and Thailand; allowing both companies to leverage and streamline capabilities of the powerful Priceline Group distribution network.
“Partnering with Agoda.com further demonstrates Best Western’s commitment to expanding our distribution in the increasingly important and rapidly-growing Asian market,” said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Best Western International.
100 airlines flying with Travelport’s merchandising technology
Ian Heywood, Travelport’s vice president for global supplier strategy, celebrating 100 airlines.
Travelport recently celebrated the signing of 100 airlines to its industry-leading Travelport Rich Content and Branding merchandising solution.
Launched only months ago, the popular merchandising technology enables airlines to retail their products more effectively to the global travel trade.
The solution allows airlines to control how their products are visually presented and described to agents, utilising images and descriptions very similar to what airlines provide on their own websites. This helps drive sales of core fares, as well as ancillaries, or “optional extras”, such as bags, lounge passes or “next fare up.”
Travelport said some of benefits to travel agencies using the technology include potential increase in ticket sales; the ability to book through their usual preferred booking processes, rather than having to go to an airline’s website for more information; and significant upselling opportunities on both core fares and ancillaries.
Of the 100 airlines that have signed up to the solution, 60 are already available and fully bookable in Travelport’s Travel Commerce Platform, with more being added on a weekly basis. The list of “live” airlines includes Delta Air Lines, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, easyJet and Ryanair.
