Travel Agents and the Power of Word-of-Mouth Recommendations

I wrote a column last year about how the tools and utilities that help us discover can also put us into recommendation bubble. Things like Foursquare, for all of its merits, sometimes inadvertently lead us to places that the types of people who use that app like. I've noticed the same bubble when researching and booking travel. It is a minefield of SEO, paid-for listings, and gaming the system. For example, one of my best hospitality experiences of the year at the Dharmawangsa in Jakarta came through world-of-mouth, but I honestly would not have been led there otherwise. [signupform id="91580e75-6c0e-4e11-8df7-7f1dd2376b1f" text="Interested in more stories like this? Subscribe t