Facebook More Popular Than Review Sites For Trip Sharing

Facebook is a more popular platform for sharing trip reviews and finding travel inspiration than actual review sites like TripAdvisor, finds Allianz Travel Insurance Vacation Confidence Index.

A survey of 1,000 U.S. adults found that 40 percent of travelers share trip reviews somewhere online.

The most commonly used platform is Facebook (27 percent) followed by travel review sites (15 percent) and social networks besides Twitter (11 percent).

Travel reviews are increasingly becoming a more significant and trustworthy factor in the decision-making process. For example, 77 percent of respondents confident they’ll take a trip this year truth other travelers’ reviews. Only 16 percent found them “not trustworthy.”

Travelers are also relying on others’ social media updates for trip inspiration.

The below chart outlines which percentage of respondents use each platform for travel inspiration as well as preference changes over the past year.

If included, it’d be interesting to see where Instagram and video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo fall on the list.

Unsurprisingly, trust in travelers reviews decreases with age.

Americans younger than 34 years old are the most likely to read and consider reviews (77 percent) while those older than 55 years old are the least likely (56 percent) to take them into account.