Is TripAdvisor and social media the easy and correct way to finding travel advice?
Author: Rebecca Hemmings
3 Commentries
Abstract:
This paper discusses whether or not the tourist can trust Trip Advisor and social media in general when seeking holiday advice. Issues regarding the negatives about TripAdvisor are raised including the outcome of what can change to gain back the tourists trust.
Key words:
TripAdvisor, social media, holiday advice, tourists' trust
Discussion paper:
Is TripAdvisor and social media the easy and correct way to finding travel advice?
Gone are the days in the 21st century when every tourist goes to their local library or book store to research about the destination they will be going to on holiday. Well of course not, is probably what you're thinking when reading that sentence and this is obviously correct. With consideration, yes some tourists still probably do like to use books as their method of learning about where they will be travelling to. However in this day and age with the easy access of the internet and smart phones, who really has the time to read through tonnes of books?
"Social media is fundamentally changing the way in which travellers and tourists search, find, read and trust, as well as collaboratively produce information about tourism suppliers and tourism destinations." (Sigala and Christou, 2012)
The vast majority of the world is signed up to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, Google is used every day and Wikipedia is used as a source of finding out information. TripAdvisor is a holiday review website with links to both Facebook and Twitter as well as a Smartphone app for anybody to download and use - so technically TripAdvisor is a very popular website that can be seen and accessed by so many people across the world.
TripAdvisor has been around since 2000 and has been accessed by thousands upon thousands of tourists each day for the last thirteen years when holiday advice has been needed. However until recent years there have been many articles in the media accusing TripAdvisor of not checking reviews properly through their screen checking systems, with regards of fake and malicious reviews of hotels and tour operators. A spokesman for Tripadvisor when questioned in relation to fake and malicious reviews stated: "Our policy clearly states that, in addition to profanity, no hate speech, sexually explicit language or graphic reports of violent criminal activity will be tolerated. We are proponent of free speech and we believe many aspects of a traveller's experience are valid travel planning considerations." However Smith (2010) writing on the behalf of The Telegraph argues that if you log on to TripAdvisors' website and type the words 'racist' or 'racism' into the search engine you might be surprised by what you find as these words crop more than 2,300 times in reviews.
TripAdvisor makes an implied admission that you cannot trust all reviews. A spokeswoman said: "Our advice to travellers is to throw out the anomalies that appear overly critical or overly complimentary. What is left is the collective wisdom of the community." She added that the site has more than two million photographs to help people make an 'educated evaluation.' (TripAdvisor, 2013)
Kwikchex have frequently criticised TripAdvisors' approach to screening procedures - proof of this is that Kwikchex submitted three fake reviews of a restaurant on the same day, two of which were identical - just over a month later, the reviews were still on the site and the restaurant had risen to 17th best in London. "Such case studies blow apart TripAdvisors' claims about sophisticated filtering systems, and illustrate how unreliable its reviews are," said Chris Emmins, founder of KwikChex, which - since 2010 - has been campaigning for TripAdvisor to accept only reviews from authenticated patrons rather than anonymous users.
Smith (2010) states: "A poll carried out by The Telegraph Travel earlier this month (March 2012) suggested that nearly 90 percent of our readers would support such a policy." However TripAdvisor (2012) argue this statement: "We stand by the proven model we have in place, because we believe all travellers, not just the one individual who made the reservation or has the receipt, are entitled to share their honest feedback about where they have stayed. Requiring a proof of stay would dramatically reduce the number of reviews available. No system, verified or not, is perfect, we are continually working to stay ahead of those attempting to game the system."
So basically this indicates that TripAdvisor puts travellers' personal thoughts of their company to one side and just carry on like nothing has been brought to their attention to improve their service. It also seems evident that TripAdvisor would rather its company image be dragged through the mud, instead of stopping and acknowledging what it can do to actually change and improve. A dissatisfied visitor is the worst publicity for a destination or product and destination (Page and Connel, 2009). Taking this into consideration it is hard to understand as you would think TripAdvisor being the top holiday review website would want to stay at the number one position - but with so many articles in the media about fake reviews of hotels and restaurants etc, surely this will mean that tourists will go elsewhere for holiday advice and they will know what they will reading is not true. Therefore to conclude, there is always the possibility that tourists may opt to going to their local library and book store after all as they know what they are reading there will at least be true.
References:
Kwikchex (2013) TripAdvisor reviews. [online] Available at: http://www.kwikchex.com/tag/tripadvisor/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2013].
Page, S. and Connel, J. (2009) Tourism A Modern Synthesis. 3rd ed. China : John Yates .
Sigala, M. and Christou, E. (2012) Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality . Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited .
Starmer-Smith , C. (2010) Tripadvisor reviews: can we trust them?. Telegraph , 08 Oct.
www.tripadvisor.co.uk (2013) TripAdvisor. [online] Available at: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2013].
This paper discusses whether or not the tourist can trust Trip Advisor and social media in general when seeking holiday advice. Issues regarding the negatives about TripAdvisor are raised including the outcome of what can change to gain back the tourists trust.
Key words:
TripAdvisor, social media, holiday advice, tourists' trust
Discussion paper:
Is TripAdvisor and social media the easy and correct way to finding travel advice?
Gone are the days in the 21st century when every tourist goes to their local library or book store to research about the destination they will be going to on holiday. Well of course not, is probably what you're thinking when reading that sentence and this is obviously correct. With consideration, yes some tourists still probably do like to use books as their method of learning about where they will be travelling to. However in this day and age with the easy access of the internet and smart phones, who really has the time to read through tonnes of books?
"Social media is fundamentally changing the way in which travellers and tourists search, find, read and trust, as well as collaboratively produce information about tourism suppliers and tourism destinations." (Sigala and Christou, 2012)
The vast majority of the world is signed up to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, Google is used every day and Wikipedia is used as a source of finding out information. TripAdvisor is a holiday review website with links to both Facebook and Twitter as well as a Smartphone app for anybody to download and use - so technically TripAdvisor is a very popular website that can be seen and accessed by so many people across the world.
TripAdvisor has been around since 2000 and has been accessed by thousands upon thousands of tourists each day for the last thirteen years when holiday advice has been needed. However until recent years there have been many articles in the media accusing TripAdvisor of not checking reviews properly through their screen checking systems, with regards of fake and malicious reviews of hotels and tour operators. A spokesman for Tripadvisor when questioned in relation to fake and malicious reviews stated: "Our policy clearly states that, in addition to profanity, no hate speech, sexually explicit language or graphic reports of violent criminal activity will be tolerated. We are proponent of free speech and we believe many aspects of a traveller's experience are valid travel planning considerations." However Smith (2010) writing on the behalf of The Telegraph argues that if you log on to TripAdvisors' website and type the words 'racist' or 'racism' into the search engine you might be surprised by what you find as these words crop more than 2,300 times in reviews.
TripAdvisor makes an implied admission that you cannot trust all reviews. A spokeswoman said: "Our advice to travellers is to throw out the anomalies that appear overly critical or overly complimentary. What is left is the collective wisdom of the community." She added that the site has more than two million photographs to help people make an 'educated evaluation.' (TripAdvisor, 2013)
Kwikchex have frequently criticised TripAdvisors' approach to screening procedures - proof of this is that Kwikchex submitted three fake reviews of a restaurant on the same day, two of which were identical - just over a month later, the reviews were still on the site and the restaurant had risen to 17th best in London. "Such case studies blow apart TripAdvisors' claims about sophisticated filtering systems, and illustrate how unreliable its reviews are," said Chris Emmins, founder of KwikChex, which - since 2010 - has been campaigning for TripAdvisor to accept only reviews from authenticated patrons rather than anonymous users.
Smith (2010) states: "A poll carried out by The Telegraph Travel earlier this month (March 2012) suggested that nearly 90 percent of our readers would support such a policy." However TripAdvisor (2012) argue this statement: "We stand by the proven model we have in place, because we believe all travellers, not just the one individual who made the reservation or has the receipt, are entitled to share their honest feedback about where they have stayed. Requiring a proof of stay would dramatically reduce the number of reviews available. No system, verified or not, is perfect, we are continually working to stay ahead of those attempting to game the system."
So basically this indicates that TripAdvisor puts travellers' personal thoughts of their company to one side and just carry on like nothing has been brought to their attention to improve their service. It also seems evident that TripAdvisor would rather its company image be dragged through the mud, instead of stopping and acknowledging what it can do to actually change and improve. A dissatisfied visitor is the worst publicity for a destination or product and destination (Page and Connel, 2009). Taking this into consideration it is hard to understand as you would think TripAdvisor being the top holiday review website would want to stay at the number one position - but with so many articles in the media about fake reviews of hotels and restaurants etc, surely this will mean that tourists will go elsewhere for holiday advice and they will know what they will reading is not true. Therefore to conclude, there is always the possibility that tourists may opt to going to their local library and book store after all as they know what they are reading there will at least be true.
References:
Kwikchex (2013) TripAdvisor reviews. [online] Available at: http://www.kwikchex.com/tag/tripadvisor/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2013].
Page, S. and Connel, J. (2009) Tourism A Modern Synthesis. 3rd ed. China : John Yates .
Sigala, M. and Christou, E. (2012) Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality . Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited .
Starmer-Smith , C. (2010) Tripadvisor reviews: can we trust them?. Telegraph , 08 Oct.
www.tripadvisor.co.uk (2013) TripAdvisor. [online] Available at: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2013].