TripAdvisor has just announced that it has crossed the 500 million reviews and opinions milestone. The popular travel planning and booking site and app now receives 290 pieces of content every minute of every day.
The phenomenal growth in user-generated content has been fuelled by travellers’ desire to give back to the TripAdvisor community with insights and advice for millions of other global users.
The most reviewed hotel in the UK is Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London (pictured), with more than 15,000 reviews. The most reviewed tourist attraction in the UK is The London Eye, London (also pictured), with over 57,000 traveller reviews. Finally, the most reviewed restaurant in the UK is the Aqua Shard, London, which has more than 11,000 traveller reviews.
Stephen Kaufer, CEO and co-founder of TripAdvisor, said, “Since launching 17 years ago, TripAdvisor has revolutionised the travel industry by creating an environment where consumers can share honest opinions of their experiences and where businesses can see the rewards of achieving consistently high standards of service and value from the community.
“Many savvy businesses report seeing incremental increases in the ratings and rankings on TripAdvisor when they engage with travellers by responding to reviews and using the feedback to improve their customers’ experience.”
In 2014, Oxford Economics¹ quantified the economic impact and added value generated for the travel industry by consumers using TripAdvisor. The study showed that TripAdvisor reviews and other content are not only heavily influencing much of the world’s travel activity, but are in fact the cause of some increase in travel activity.
Oxford Economics found that reviews, in particular, play a very important part in increasing travel activity by:
- Creating Transparency: Consumers are clear about the positives and negatives of the hotels, restaurants or attractions they’re considering
- Building Trust: Consumers are confident that TripAdvisor’s content is reliable and trustworthy
- Growing Content Depth & Breadth: Travellers see an enormous amount of aggregated information and reviews about accommodations, restaurants and attractions all over the world
- Easing the Process of Searching & Booking: Travellers can easily find and compare prices and make a booking
The more content contributed by TripAdvisor users, the better it becomes at helping other users find their ideal hotel, attraction or restaurant. In equal measure, the more data reviewers contribute to the site, the better it becomes at answering searches with the most relevant list of businesses.