There is a dilemma facing many travel companies when they decide that implementing online user reviews is one of the best ways to improve their content and trigger some user interaction.
European tour operating giant Thomas Cook Group’s Direct Holidays division is the latest in a seemingly endless line to have found itself with such a problem – create a review platform from scratch, borrow reviews from a friendly affiliate or white label an existing service?
In this case, despite the opportunity to borrow a large number of hotel reviews from the main thomawscook.com site, Direct Holidays has decided to build its own service.
So far, so good – there are plenty, probably hundreds of travel sites on the web with their own user review system.
But where Direct has deviated away from the norm, perhaps, is in its decision to host the reviews on a totally new domain, with its own brand.
Clearly in its infancy, The Big Picture Direct boasts 500 reviews from customers across its portfolio of destinations and includes ratings according to cleanliness, food, hotel service, location, room comfort and price value.
A Thomas Cook Group spokeswoman says Direct has a distinct strategy of its own and therefore wanted to create a service “unique” to the brand, rather than borrow reviews from the mothership or throw in TripAdvisor content in the same way arch rival Thomson did in 2007.
The formation of a new and separate brand for reviews is an intriguing move – and one that would concern some in the SEO community given that the unique content associated with user reviews is, existing protocol says, best placed on the main website.
Maybe what is being planned for the site in the coming months, as managing director Steve Barrass explains, throws a brighter light on the strategy.
The Big Picture Direct will be “further personalised to offer features such as an online chat facility, giving customers the opportunity to catch up with friends they made while away or ask any burning questions that travel brochures and traditional review sites don’t cover”.
That sounds more akin to plans for a Lite social network, rather than a straightforward review site.
“online chat facility, giving customers the opportunity to catch up with friends they made while away”
I always chuckle when I read lame “benefits” like that.
In 2004, whilst serving as EVP Marketing at US retail/wholesale powerhouse, $2B Liberty Travel/GOGO Worldwide Vacations (now Flight Centre), I introduced “My Liberty Vacation” as a UGC review site, with social media bells and whistles (I know, before its time.) Each week, Liberty customers would be encouraged by Liberty Travel Agents to submit their trip story, complete with photos, reviews and recommendations. We then published the best UGC photo, with a link to that trip story, on the back page ad in 54 newspapers, including The Sunday Travel sections of The NYTimes, Washington Post, etc… While the “buzz” and marketing were successful, the birth of TripAdvisor during this same period totally obliterated any “branded” social media group. Whereas it was thought that Liberty Travel customers would share more in common than worldwide reviewers, “more” was clearly better. The campaign ended in 2005, and TripAdvisor was the hands-down victor. Lessons learned: One generally sees better results when partnering with a site that has breadth, depth and is considered a “gold standard.” Private label branded review sites (and those that offer social media) are often perceived as “watered down” versions of the “real thing.” Consumers don’t often see a scathing review of a hotel sold by traditional packager. Vacation Packager corporate culture often makes it difficult to publish these types of reviews. And….why would an intermediary sell a product that has sub-par reviews? Additional content, such as free vacation guides, restaurant reviews, trip ideas, wikis, etc… are all available from a myriad of publishers. For a packager to successfully keep up the quality, depth and breadth of this content, too much bandwidth and expertise would need to be expended.
I agree with Susan, its the first thing I thought of when I read this post. They will NEVER create a social platform like twitter and facebook, so why not hook in to their service (or one like it) and leverage it? Building something from scratch is more than ambitious, it seems like it would be bound to crash…
If it does fail, bookers will migrate over to other sites for user reviews and possibly get drawn in by their marketing. Essentially Direct Holidays would be supplying tripadvisor with some free sales!