TripAdvisor Launches the Guide to Writing Helpful Reviews Based on Survey Responses from Over 100,000 Travelers and Hospitality Business Owners

TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site, today has unveiled an online travel review guide with useful review-writing tips based on a survey of over 100,000 travelers and hospitality business owners*.

“Reviews have become a powerful tool; travelers around the world rely on reviews to help them plan and book their holidays. In fact, more than half will not make a booking decision without reading reviews from others**, says Barbara Messing, Chief Marketing Officer, TripAdvisor. “And hospitality businesses are listening – seventy percent of businesses have taken steps to improve their quality of service thanks to reviews left by travelers.”

“With more than 200 million reviews and opinions and growing on TripAdvisor, we wanted to provide new and seasoned reviewers with insights from our passionate community – from what motivates them to contribute, to the top tips for writing helpful reviews,” she adds.

Why review?

Eighty-three percent of travelers say they write reviews because ‘they want to share useful information with others’ and because ‘they find reviews helpful, so they want to give back.’

Ensuring their reviews are as fresh as possible, 68 percent of traveller say they write reviews within two days of their trip or experience, and 70 percent say it takes them 10 minutes or less to write a review.

What makes a review helpful:

TripAdvisor asked the community – and the votes are in:

• The three most important things in a review are that it concentrates on facts (56%), that it provides a lot of detail (48%) and that it’s concise and to the point (41%).

• In terms of the style of the review, 83 percent of travelers want to read a balanced view, and 69 percent say it’s important to provide the context for why the reviewer liked or didn’t like something

• When it comes to the content of a hotel review, 64 percent of travelers want a review to mention the condition of the hotel, and just under half (49%) say it is important to mention the quality of service.

• For restaurant reviews, four out of five travelers (81%) say they want to hear about the food quality, followed by the service (66%)

• For attraction reviews, it’s all about the advice: 75 percent of travelers want a review to include practical tips that can improve their experience

The survey also revealed the biggest turn-offs for people when reading reviews: overly picky reviews are the #1 turn-off among travelers (54%), followed by a lack of detail or specifics on what the reviewer experienced (50%) and bad grammar (42%).

TripAdvisor Travel Advocate Wendy Perrin, who has been a travel journalist spanning two decades, shares, ”What I have found to be really beneficial is to include in your review what you wished somebody had told you ahead of time, pinpointing what was out of the ordinary or unique about the experience, as well as taking a photo of the view from your hotel room”.

Bornav Raychaudhury, one of TripAdvisor India’s top reviewers says “It is best to keep it short and precise as most readers only look for key words when they compare reviews and tend to skip long and descriptive ones. Having an informative heading rather than a generic one also helps. Including an approximate price for hotels and restaurants is beneficial as it helps the travellers prepare an estimated budget for their tour.”

“It is important to strike a balance between the positive and negative experiences while writing the reviews as hotels and restaurants these days appreciate and often respond to the reviewers for their sincere feedback. Capturing the best time to visit for a particular destination is very helpful as it is firsthand information that may not be available elsewhere on the internet. Last but not the least, personal recommendation of things to try and must experience at the end of the review is appreciated by many readers” he added.

*Based on a survey of 95,608 travelers and 7,215 hospitality business owners

**PhoCusWright’s “Custom Survey Research Engagement,” prepared for TripAdvisor, December 2013. 

About TripAdvisor:
TripAdvisor^® is the world's largest travel site*, enabling travelers to plan and book the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find the best hotel prices. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 315 million unique monthly visitors**, and more than 200 million reviews and opinions covering more than 4.4 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The sites operate in 45 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP) manages and operates websites under 24 other travel media brands: www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.everytrail.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.thefork.com (including www.lafourchette.com, www.eltenedor.com and www.iens.nl), www.gateguru.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.independenttraveler.com, www.jetsetter.com, www.niumba.com, www.onetime.com, www.oyster.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.tingo.com, www.travelpod.com, www.tripbod.com, www.vacationhomerentals.com, www.viator.com, www.virtualtourist.com, and www.kuxun.cn. 

*Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, December 2014

**Source: Google Analytics, average monthly unique users, Q3 2014; does not include traffic to daodao.com