TripAdvisor has come up with a clever way of slicing and dicing its content for marketing purposes by naming its Top 10 movie hotels in the U.S., and leveraging its user-generated content to do so.
No, these aren’t the properties with the most-complete roster of on-demand videos for in-room entertainment, but are hotels where some well-known movies — or at least some scenes — were filmed.
So, for example, TripAdvisor, an online travel review site owned by Expedia Inc., recommends Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Va., where “Dirty Dancing” was filmed.
“Dirty Dancing fans might just have the time of their lives at this property, which featured as the fictitious Kellerman’s Resort in the cult classic movie,” says TripAdvisor. “Nestled in the New River Valley of the Appalachian Mountains, the hotel offers stunning scenery, as well as Dirty Dancing weekends featuring karaoke, dance lessons and a film location tour.”
And, TripAdvisor,without specifying the user’s screen name [we found it] in its press release, quotes hotel reviewer wish2travelmore2 as saying: “We are not Dirty Dancing fanatics, but enjoyed seeing the locations around the property that we recognized from the movie.”
TripAdvisor says travelers recommend Mountain Lake Hotel, with its $220 average nightly rate, for families and outdoor-adventure seekers.
So, for each property named, TripAdvisor leverages its user-generated content to indicate what types of vacations the hotels are suited for and it uses travelers’ reviews for marketing purposes.
Although TripAdvisor rates Mountain Lake Hotel #1 in Pembroke, Va. (population around 1,100), it is the only hotel in the town that’s reviewed and only 55% of TripAdvisor reviewers gave it a thumbs up.
Here is TripAdvisor’s Top 10:
1. The Fairmont San Francisco, (Vertigo, Towering Inferno, Sudden Impact,  Junior and The Rock)2. Bellagio Las Vegas, Nevada (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Thirteen)3. The Plaza, New York City (North By Northwest, Crocodile Dundee,
The Way We Were, Home Alone 2 and Bride Wars)
4. Millennium Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, (Mission Impossible 3,The Bodyguard, Spiderman, Wedding Crashers,
Dreamgirls and Pretty in Pink)
5. Beverly Wilshire Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, Calif. (Pretty Woman,Beverly Hills Cop I and III, and Bulworth)
6. Renaissance St. Louis Hotel Airport, Saint Louis (Up in the Air)7. The Roosevelt Hotel, New York City (Maid in Manhattan and Wall Street)
8. Fountainebleau Miami Beach (The Bodyguard, Goldfinger, Scarface)
9. Timberline Lodge, Timberline Lodge, Oregon (The Shining)
10. Mountain Lake Hotel, Pembroke, Va. (Dirty Dancing)
