TripAdvisor‘s foray – US and now the UK- into flight metasearch appears to have triggered plenty of musing by executives and pundits alike.
According to Bryan Salzburg, general manager of initiatives, TripAdvisor is finally becoming the more general travel portal it always wanted (perhaps needs?) to be.
Salzburg stresses that the business model for its hotel review section “will not be re-invented any time soon”, dampening any suggestions that a hotel metasearch could be configured along similar lines to its new flight engine.
However, where the conversation gets interesting is when Salzburg turns to how the flight metasearch channel could be enhanced with what TripAdvisor is still most famous for – reviews.
TripAdvisor currently embeds a widget with information and other content from its stablemate Seatguru.
But this, it appears, could change if the brains in Massachusetts decide a way of integrating flight review content into the system.
“User generated content is so important to us,” says Salzburg. “Over the long-haul we would like to continue to have their voice within the air product.”
This is a tantalising prospect. And Salzburg is saying no more for the time being.
But would this include a fully-blown rating and review system of airlines, airports, check-in facilities, cabin-crew, entertainment and other areas of the flight experience?
And how would such a project be viewed by the airlines – many of whom would be TA advertisers.
Nice story, Kevin. That would really be something if TripAdvisor opened the door for user reviews of flights, airports, airline customer service etc. Well, with a lot of the airlines afraid of Twitter, you can imagine their stance about TripAdvisor reviews.
Maybe it would serve to pressure them about customer service. Can you imagine airlines at their morning staff meetings reviewing what’s being said about them on TripAdvisor?
And would TripAdvisor impact airline sales the way it does with hotels? Probably not to the same degree, but this all could get very interesting.
“But would this include a fully-blown rating and review system of airlines, airports, check-in facilities, cabin-crew, entertainment and other areas of the flight experience?”
Just like Airlinequality.com.
Not sure if reviews of airlines would have any significant impact. I would think the reason for having reviews would be to reinforce choice and push for differentiation. In the airline space there are usually so few true competitors in a market that even if someone said the service on an airline was terrible, it wouldn’t make much difference because other customers wouldn’t have any other airlines to choose from. In a way, it might just result in consumers having ever lowering expectations of service.
Rob:
airlinequality.com does a good job. the point about TripAdvisor getting into this game is that immediate and enormous volume.
Stephen:
That’s a fair point, but perhaps it would be relevant on busy routes and therefore have an impact. Think London to Paris/Berlin/Barcelona et al. Or New York to LAX. Etc etc.
The idea of offering reviews on commercial airlines and airports is nothing new or innovative. AirValid.com has been offering this to France since early 2007 and now to the US as well on AirValid.us.
The challenge will be if TripAdvisor can offer passenger verified reviews as is offered by AirValid, meaning that the reviews are certified to be from actual passengers, and not paid employees, etc. As it stands, their hotel reviews are not certified either.
@ Stephen,
I think you miss the TippingPoint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point
That’s a way the Web work sometime.
Users reviews market is changing faster
Will see
Best
Seatguru is mentioned in this article as a partner of Tripadvisor and their future strategy is discussed. As a close observer of seatguru, I would say that they are being slow to adapt to current trends and fliers´ needs.
The website was launched during an economic bonanza that lasted until last year – a time when airlines were buying A380´s to build suites for VIP costumers -. They showed a bunch of seat maps and added a few standard comments that almost everybody was aware of.
Now, it’s time to tighten belts, “economy-class” and “low-cost” run the show and fliers want to get more bang for their bucks. They want to know what services they’re getting, what pitch they will find on their seats, whether they will have to pay for food/drinks, etc, and seatguru still keeps offering “the same old same old”.
On the other hand, seat map website seatmaestro.com is conscious about these issues and, while it still offers the same as other sites, it has created “The Wall” in order to address the concerns that economy and low-cost fliers have. This platform allows users to write reviews on the aircrafts they fly in, upload videos/photos, ask questions and even rate the overall seating experiences during their flights.
Seatmaestro is taking flying to a different level!