Articles tagged “reviews”

Axing the staff doesn't bode particularly well for a sale of Oyster.com, which many people said from its beginnings didn't have a viable business model. A expensive experiment, with Oyster's professionally written reviews taking precedence over hotels' marketing drivel, has all come to this.

Oyster has great content, but will potential buyers, such as media companies or hotel sites, really be brave enough to accommodate a business that bills itself as "The Hotel Tell-All?" Many will shy away from this candor because they don't want to offend hotel partners. That being said, critics said from day one that the Oyster's premise of professional reviews was unsustainable, and so far that is turning out to be true.

With millions of hotel reviews written by travelers, TripAdvisor has a wealth of information about choosing a place to stay, but you have to know what to look for in the reviews and what to discard.

With their verified reviews, Cruiseline.com and HotelMe have laid down a challenge for TripAdvisor. There is little reason for TripAdvisor to maintain an either-or stance in its preference for reviews that aren't verified, and perhaps TripAdvisor will entertain some changes.

It sends a red flag to guests when their peers don't take the time to post and makes properties look lazy for not engaging their customers in an online discussion given the current pervasiveness of social travel.

Hotels in the economy segment have more at risk on user review sites, but would be wise to leverage the information found on the sites to address specific failures.

Verified reviews are one thing, but when user-review sites make claims about their services, they'd better be sure they can corroborate their boasts.

The number of users is growing throughout Asia-Pacific and the region now accounts for a sixth of the site’s unique visits each month.

With the purchase of Frommer's and Zagat, and a push to elicit reviews from Google users, Google's travel strategy is multifaceted, although TripAdvisor's Stephen Kaufer chooses to focus on just the guidebook aspect for now.