A number of properties – some of which are very high profile – have recently been contacted by an individual claiming to be the new “director of traveler reviews at TripAdvisor”, offering what sounds like a curious and potentially explosive new development from the user review giant.

The email, which included a sign-off with the address of the company’s official Massachusetts headquarters in the US, says the company is launching a programme known as TripAdvisor Select.

TripAdvisor is looking into ways of giving a select number of hotels on the site with the best reviews a rubber-stamp of approval to say that the property has been audited and verified for high quality by the company itself following a visit.

This could take the form of a mystery shopper or official visit.

Hotels getting the official thumbs-up from TripAdvisor would be rewarded with a logo on the site to say it is one of the best in a particular city under the TripAdvisor Select programme.

Furthermore, and most importantly (and outrageously), having the official sanction would prevent other users from leaving negative reviews about a property.

Such an idea would fly in the face of conventional wisdom of giving visitors to the site a string of consumer generated reviews and an overall score based on the quality of certain amenities, staff, ambience, etc.

While the idea is indeed used elsewhere, where third party and official reviewers write about and rate properties, bringing such a process into TripAdvisor would be a fundamental change in policy.

The problem with the strategy and approach, which is apparently targeting a number of properties around the world, is that it is complete hogwash.

The executive asks the property owner to respond and they will be contacted shortly to sign up to the scheme.

It is unclear how many hotels have so far been contacted in this way, but rumours have started circulated this week and there is indeed some confusion as to the validity of the programme.

The first sign that something isn’t quite right comes if recipients check the sender’s email address: despite the sign-off and official-sounding references, tripadvisor******@gmail.com [deliberately redacted] is clearly not one that would be used by the headquarters of the company.

Tnooz decided to see what happened when a response was sent to the sender.

This is the reply:

“Thank you for your interest. We are only working with a select few hotels around the globe currently. We are still in the very early stages of development but are testing this new program out in a few of our markets.  As soon as I am at liberty to discuss the program in more detail with you over the coming few weeks, I will forward you all of the literature.”

Tnooz:

“I understand you are director of traveler reviews at TripAdvisor. Are you based at its offices in the US or UK?”

Sender:

“I’m in the US. Which hotel are you affiliated with?”

Tnooz (which had its official email sign-off and journalist disclosure):

“I concentrate on a number in Europe. This sounds like a really interesting programme. I had no idea TripAdvisor was doing this. How long have you worked with TA on this initiative. I suspect lots of hotels will be really keen to learn more about this given the focus on quality and reviews, in Europe especially.”

Sender:

“That’s great! I will definitely keep your contact info, and stay in touch with you regarding progress and advancement of the program. As I mentioned, it’s still extremely new but I expect great things to come of it. Not just in Europe, but around the globe.”

Tnooz:

“Just one question: when did TripAdvisor officially start the TripAdvisor Select programme? I’d not heard about it at all until today.”

Sender:

“It hasn’t launched yet… We are still getting the program going behind the scenes and running focus groups etc. with hotels and also the public. I have an email list that I’m sending updates/progress to so I will include you on that and you will be one of the first to know.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss anymore about this program (which I’m sure you can appreciate) but stay tuned! Very soon…”

Tnooz:

“Sorry, just a final thing: I’ve known many people in TripAdvisor for a number of years. When did you join the company? Do you report into Christine Petersen [president of TripAdvisor for Business]?”

Sender:

“Nope. Different dept.”

Tnooz then contacted TripAdvisor to ask if indeed the individual was “director of traveler reviews” and if TripAdvisor Select is a valid programme being considered by the company.

The answer, inevitably, was “no” on both counts.

Tnooz:

“I have just spoken with TripAdvisor in the US. It is my understanding that you are NOT an employee of TripAdvisor and TripAdvisor Select is NOT an official programme which it is authorising.

“As you probably realise, I am a journalist and writing a story for Tnooz.com on the approach you have been making to hoteliers, offering a service under the guise of it being an official programme, when it is clearly not.

“TripAdvisor is issuing a warning to hoteliers about such activity. Do you have a statement you wish to make on this matter?”

Sender:

“It’s a class project/focus group I’m working on to learn if there is any interest in such an initiative. I was waiting for somebody like yourself to ask questions about the proposal and I wanted to get feedback from hotels to see if they would be interested in such an idea to have less criticism when it’s not warranted.

“What do you think about it? Unfortunately, it’s not possible to actually have reps go around the world but a fun idea!

“I am trying to see how many hotels around the world would be interested in such an offer and then possibly offer these consulting ideas to enhance revenue to large travel companies on consumer awareness.”

Tnooz:

“But you are masquerading as an employee of TripAdvisor. This is behaviour not approved by TripAdvisor and therefore unfair to hoteliers. What do you have to say about that?”

Sender, in what could become a classic and somewhat understated defence:

“Now that you mention it, it probably wasn’t the best way to go about the research. You can let them know that it was an error in judgement and won’t happen again.”

Indeed.

It is unknown how far the sender had got with the activities and whether the approach was for genuine research or the beginning of an elaborate scam is unclear.

Either way, preying on nervy hoteliers with the impression that TripAdvisor is launching a programme of such kind is just one a number of initiatives being adopted by opportunistic folk around the work.

Confirming again that the sender was not an employee of the company and the programme is a work of fiction, a TripAdvisor official adds:

“We recommend that hoteliers check the email address. They should be particularly suspicious if the address is from a free email account. We also encourage hoteliers to contact us if they have any concerns and report suspicious activity to solutions@tripadvisor.com.”

Another recent example, TripAdvisor says, are emails being sent to hotels claiming to be representatives of the company and offering to remove negative in exchange for a stay at the property.

“This was done illegally and without permission by a third party misappropriating the TripAdvisor brand. We are taking all appropriate measures to reduce the incidence of this type of spam.”

So whether an official kitemark of some kind against high performing hotels on TripAdvisor might get some interest (although the blocking negative reviews element would be pretty outrageous), on this occasion such an opportunity does not exist.

UPDATE: 

TripAdvisor says it is preparing to contact all hoteliers on its database to notify them about the TripAdvisor Select scam.

NB: Review image via Shutterstock.

Making what it deems to be necessary changes and investments despite the short-term impact was a theme that ran through the company’s conference call with analysts February 8 despite the fact that Wall Street looks for growth and bottom-line results.

Steve Kaufer, TripAdvisor CEO, said he couldn’t say whether or not in the future the company would take such steps as the redesign, which led to lower revenue per session.

And, TripAdvisor officials were adamant that it would increase investments in initiatives, including mobile and China, which currently are running at a loss.

There will be no slowing of TripAdvisor’s investment in China and Daodao, which has been posting operating losses since it came into the TripAdvisor fold in 2009, and is projected to record operating losses in 2012, as well.

“There is little doubt that the opportunity there is large,” Kaufer said, referring to China.

TripAdvisor provided lots of insights during its earnings call into its thinking about investments.

In fact, Kaufer said TripAdvisor has decided to invest in and emphasize mobile despite the fact that mobile traffic, to some extent, comes at the expense of desktop traffic.

As TripAdvisor benefits from its mobile offerings — 13 million downloads compared with 12 million for Kayak’s apps — the user review site has made the conscious decision not to monetize mobile fully at this time, Kaufer said.

TripAdvisor also continues to invest in the social arena, particularly in Trip Friends on Facebook, and revealed that “TripAdvisor users who are also Facebook users are approximately 27% more engaged in TripAdvisor site usage and are twice as likely to contribute content that the average TripAdvsor user.”

Some 85 million Facebook users have tried TripFriends, through the end of 2011, and they’ve received more than 1.5 billion travel “pins,” TripAdvisor stated.

The company also disclosed another fascinating statistic about users’ engagement with TripAdvisor — they add 40 pieces of content (a user review, rating, photo or room tip etc.) per minute.

TripAdvisor’s net income in the fourth quarter increased 18.8% to $22 million on revenue of $637.1 million, a 31% rise.

One element of the business, Business Listings, which didn’t exist a couple of years ago, and “other” revenue accounted for 11% of the company’s revenue in the fourth quarter. A year earlier the subscription business accounted for just 7% of revenue.

There were some interesting points made during the conference call about TripAdvisor database of 60 million reviews, which CFO Julie Bradley described as a “huge” barrier to entry for competitors.

When people talk about TripAdvisor transitioning to verified reviews, the 60 million reviews as a huge barrier to entry is one of the reasons the company is steadfastly staying with its review policy.

And, on the TripAdvisor user review front, the subject of the Advertising Standards Authority’s adverse ruling in the UK did not garner a single mention by Kaufer, Bradley or analysts during the conference call.

If analysts were concerned about its impact, they didn’t make that known.

Kaufer said the company’s rate of review collection around the world “has really gone up substantially” over the last 12 years.

He projected that TripAdvisor would be on pace to add another 20 million reviews in 2012 even if the “run rate” of review collection doesn’t increase.

Kaufer said he also looks to the company’s burgeoning vacation rental business as a major growth opportunity.

And, Kaufer was somewhat dismissive of Google Places, which impinged TripAdvisor traffic coming from Google in 2010.

Kaufer said he’s not worried about Google Places as a competitor because “they don’t have the content,” although he conceded that Google still has the potential of hurting TripAdvisor’s traffic.

In TripAdvisor’s view, those 60 million hotel reviews and climbing are a barrier to entry for Google, as well.

While analysts and tech-heads pored over the finer details of the S1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, shedding light on some of the company’s financials for the first time, TripAdvisor will no doubt be overjoyed at the inclusion of the Trip Friends system it integrated in June 2010.

Facebook is looking raise around $5 billion from the IPO in the US.

The S1 revealed Facebook’s profit in 2011 was a staggering $1 billion, gleaned through revenues of $3.71 billion, while founder mark Zuckerberg still owns around 30% of the business.

Facebook currently has 845 million users worldwide, with more than half using the network every single day.

What surprised some was the letter from Zuckerberg at the head of the filing, in which he pretty much warned investors that Facebook wants to stick to its so-called ethos:

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

“We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.”

He continues:

People sharing more — even if just with their close friends or families — creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others.

“We believe that this creates a greater number of stronger relationships between people, and that it helps people get exposed to a greater number of diverse perspectives.”

In terms of the integration used by TripAdvisor, basically a enhanced version of Facebook Connect, Facebook says the service illustrates how third party sites can “design more deeply integrated social experiences built around users and their friends”.

“By tapping into our rich social data, TripAdvisor connects users to their friends and shares relevant content about where their friends have traveled and where they would like to visit in the future.

“While on the TripAdvisor website, friends can discuss their travel plans and recommendations and build out personal profiles of places they have been.”

While initially it did seem to some sceptics to be just another fancy feature that people wouldn’t use, over time it appears to have started having quite a significant impact.

A TripAdvisor official says by December 2011, over 57 million people had “personalised their trip planning experience” on the site using Trip Friends.

Furthermore, these people are twice as more likely to contribute content to TripAdvisor than its other users.

No wonder Facebook likes talking up the Trip Friends integration in probably the most important documents the company has ever produced.

NB: Facebook Like image via Shutterstock.

Wotif lost around a third of a market share percentage point over the same period, allowing TripAdvisor to move into the number one position.

 Most popular travel websites in Australia for the week ending January 28 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Webjet Australia	www.webjet.com.au	14.15%	1
2	Expedia Australia	www.expedia.com.au	12.03%	2
3	Flight Centre	www.flightcentre.com.au	8.75%	3
4	Lastminute.com.au	www.lastminute.com.au	5.08%	4
5	Best Flights	www.bestflights.com.au	3.43%	5
6	Jetabroad	www.jetabroad.com	2.42%	6
7	Travelzoo Australia	www.travelzoo.com/au	2.28%	-
8	Airfares Flights Australia	www.airfaresflights.com.au	2.07%	7
9	ZUJI Australia	www.zuji.com	1.92%	8
10	EscapeTravel	www.escapetravel.com.au	1.72%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor - Australia	www.tripadvisor.com.au	5.92%	2
2	Wotif.com	www.wotif.com	5.83%	1
3	Booking.com	www.booking.com	4.83%	3
4	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	4.09%	4
5	Stayz	www.stayz.com.au	3.47%	5
6	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.92%	8
7	Agoda Australia	www.agoda.com.au	1.87%	7
8	Totaltravel.com	www.totaltravel.com	1.39%	6
9	Agoda.com	www.agoda.com	1.11%	10
10	ExplorOz.com	www.exploroz.com	1.02%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Qantas	www.qantas.com.au	23.32%	1
2	Jetstar	www.jetstar.com	19.26%	2
3	Virgin Australia	www.virginaustralia.com	18.54%	3
4	AirAsia	www.airasia.com	5.06%	4
5	Emirates	www.emirates.com	3.63%	5
6	Tiger Airways	www.tigerairways.com	3.26%	6
7	Singapore Airlines	www.singaporeair.com	3.24%	7
8	Air New Zealand	www.airnz.co.nz	1.73%	8
9	Malaysia Airlines	www.malaysiaairlines.com	1.56%	10
10	Air New Zealand - Australia	www.airnz.com.au	1.53%	9

Search Terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.62%	0.03%	99.97%	1
2	jetstar	1.02%	0.91%	99.09%	2
3	webjet	0.73%	0.14%	99.86%	3
4	qantas	0.73%	33.02%	66.98%	4
5	maps	0.66%	0.21%	99.79%	5
6	wotif	0.59%	5.40%	94.60%	6
7	flight centre	0.53%	52.50%	47.50%	7
8	metlink	0.48%	0.12%	99.88%	8
9	singapore airlines	0.34%	13.27%	86.73%	-
10	whereis	0.33%	0.00%	100.00%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The Canada, France and global site capture a massive 16% market share in the category, three times as much as Booking.com and almost eight times bigger than Hotels.com.

Most popular travel websites in Canada for the week ending January 28 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia Canada	www.expedia.ca	13.54%	1
2	itravel2000	www.itravel2000.com	5.74%	2
3	Flight Network	www.flightnetwork.com	4.73%	3
4	Red Tag Vacations	www.redtag.ca	4.49%	4
5	Sunwing	www.sunwing.ca	3.86%	5
6	Voyages Arabais	www.voyagesarabais.com	3.45%	6
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	3.14%	8
8	Tripcentral.ca	www.tripcentral.ca	2.88%	7
9	Travelocity Canada	www.travelocity.ca	2.69%	9
10	SellOffVacations.com	www.selloffvacations.com	2.49%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor Canada	www.tripadvisor.ca	10.20%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	5.37%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.49%	3
4	TripAdvisor France	www.tripadvisor.fr	2.63%	5
5	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.53%	4
6	BookIt.com	www.bookit.com	1.75%	6
7	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.53%	7
8	Princess Cruises	www.princess.com	1.50%	-
9	City of Toronto	www.toronto.ca	1.49%	9
10	Monarc.ca	www.monarc.ca	1.28%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Air Canada	www.aircanada.ca	26.11%	1
2	WestJet	www.westjet.com	25.67%	2
3	Air Transat	www.airtransat.com	6.79%	3
4	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.97%	4
5	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	2.64%	5
6	Porter	www.flyporter.com	2.63%	-
7	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	2.26%	7
8	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	1.67%	-
9	Air Canada Employee Travel Site	travel.aircanada.com	1.66%	6
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	1.63%	9

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The UK advertising regulator upheld a complaint from online reputation firm Kwikchex and two hotels which argued wording on TripAdvisor’s UK website, such as “reviews you can trust…from real travellers…and trusted advice from real travellers”, was misleading because the company could not prove reviews were genuine or from real travellers.

The ASA ruled that the claims implied to consumers that all review content would be genuine and that users might not be able to detect and separate non-genuine content.

TripAdvisor says it stands by its “independently endorsed review integrity process” and has already made the marketing copy changes.

A statement from the company says:

“The ASA ruling flies in the face of common sense, and is out of touch with the millions of real people who use and trust consumer review sites like ours every day.

“It is worth noting that the General Media Panel (an independent group that provides industry expert advice to the ASA) disagreed with the ASA’s view of the claims. We feel the ruling is unrealistic in its expectation of sites likes ours.

“The ASA upheld the complaints on the basis that we could not provide 100% certainty that that every single review on the site was written by a real traveller and could be trusted. No system, verified or not, could provide this.”

TripAdvisor goes on to point out that the complaint to the ASA made last September was not from members of the public but by an online reputation company with an ‘obvious commercial interest in undermining people’s confidence in user-generated review platforms’.

A second complaint to the ASA from Kwikchex around using unverified testimonials in advertising messages has not yet been ruled on.

Chris Emmins of Kwikchex says:

“We welcome that an independent and impartial authority has investigated this matter.It is important to make very clear that when reviews are not authenticated, there is every chance they can be faked, both positive and negative reviews.

“We want to emphasise that you can’t generalise. It is not right to cite overall scale or some sort of ‘acceptable collateral damage’, when it comes to fake reviews. There are real people and their livelihoods unquestionably being hurt very badly.”

He adds that discussions with TripAdvisor have been more “fruitful” recently.

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

According to the report a Carlton internal communication laid out plans for the company to take a more proactive approach to reviews on TripAdvisor with hotel managers nominating staff to write fake reviews.

However, a statement from Carlton denies any such policy was ever planned and that the internal email was ‘misinterpreted’.

The statement adds that hotel managers within the group were contacted immediately after the email was sent to say it was incorrect.

The company says it is now conducting a full investigation into the matter.

A TripAdvisor statement says it is also taking the matter seriously and conducting its own investigation:

“Attempts to manipulate TripAdvisor are extremely rare as the vast majority of hoteliers understand the tremendous risk to their reputation and their business if they attempt to do this. We take serious steps to penalise businesses who are caught attempting to game the system. Posting fraudulent material is both a violation of our terms of use and against the law in many countries.”

Carlton also says it is unaware of any reviews being posted on TripAdvisor as per details in the email.

Separately, a ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority is expected tomorrow following a complaint made by Kwikchex in September over claims on TripAdvisor’s UK website that it provides genuine reviews from real travellers.

Among the functions of the new TripAdvisor Management Dashboard, which is being rolled out on the company’s global sites, is a feature which enables hotel owners to view a list of competitors’ properties most viewed by the consumers who are also accessing the property’s TripAdvisor page.

A free version of the TripAdvisor Management Dashboard is available today, the company says, and TripAdvisor Business Listings customers are to get an enhanced version “in the coming weeks.”

The new analytics services goes beyond keeping tab of competitors’ page views.

The free service documents a property’s number of TripAdvisor reviews, popularity ranking and TripAdvisor rating; a summary of reviews and comments; tallies on consumer- and business-submitted photos; and the numbers on which countries are producing the most visits to a property’s TripAdvisor page.

The free TripAdvisor Management Dashboard is available to anyone who has registered on TripAdvisor as a business representative of the hotel.

Business Listings’ customers get those features plus trends graphs and performance metrics, including how a property measures up against competitors.

A special offers recommendation tool is also part of the dashboard package for Business Listings subscribers.

Business Listings customers add their direct-contact information, including a website link, email address and telephone number, to their TripAdvisor property pages.

The introduction of the TripAdvisor Management Dashboard and analytics service is an attempt to provide new services to hoteliers and to prod deeper engagement with TripAdvisor.

Christine Petersen, president of TripAdvisor for Business, says the tools provide hotels with “the metrics they need to succeed on TripAdvisor.”

The idea is to post your travel dreams and experiences to your Timelines using these Facebook apps and to share them with your Facebook Friends.

In addition to travel, Facebook also gave users the ability to add Facebook apps for music, news, giving, food, shopping and fashion, fitness and entertainment to their Timelines, which is Facebook’s new user profile format.

The idea, of course, is to build traction for Facebook through apps from some high-profile brands and to let them, in turn, be more social and market themselves further on the social network.

Facebook users can add apps here.

For example, you can add the Where I’ve Been app to your Facebook Timeline and create a map pinpointing the cities you’ve visited in France or those on your bucket list. You can then post your Where I’ve Been map to your Facebook Timeline and have your friends comment or make suggestions.

Facebook notes in a blog post that you can do similar things with the TripAdvisor and Gogobot Facebook apps, and you can also record your condo rental or room rental activities using the Airbnb Facebook app.

With Wipolo’s Facebook app, you can organize your travel itineraries and share them with friends and associates.

Facebook apps aren’t as ubiquitous as iPhone apps, but maybe one day they will get there.

Rooms and More, which eventually will be integrated into Travelport’s Universal Desktop, is a travel agency site which looks in some ways like a typical metasearch site, although the agents don’t get shuffled off to the aggregator sites to complete their bookings. Travelport acquired hotel metasearch engine Sprice in May 2010, and it provides much of the foundation for Rooms and More.

Some 6,400 travel agents in 70 markets are currently using Rooms and More so it hardly is a major booking channel for Booking.com, Agoda and the Expedia Affiliate Network so far.

But, it is interesting to see how these hotel aggregators, along with the likes of Miki Travel, Hotels.com, Grupo TransHotel, Medhotels, Hostelworld and others are competing for travel agency bookings. Travelport has a dozen aggregators in Rooms and More, with about 18 others signed up for implementation.

Niklas Andreen, Travelport GDS’ group vice president, hospitality and partner marketing, estimates that Rooms and More has 200,000 to 300,000 of an estimated half a million hotels around the world in the system.

It is difficult to give a precise count of how many hotels are represented because the providers often have overlapping inventory, he says.

The hotel providers compete for travel agency bookings based on whether they offer pre-pay or post-pay models etc. and their varying commissions.

Travel agents search for hotels and then see an array of offers from the providers with divergent commission specified.

For example, today in the US market on Rooms and More, Miki Travel was offering 12% commission, TransHotel (12%), Expedia Affiliate Network (10%), Hotels.com (10%), Booking.com (5.5%), and Agoda (4.5%).

It is likely that a company such as Expedia, which deals in so much merchant hotel inventory, could afford to pay a higher commission than Booking.com, for instance, which largely deals in the retail or agency model.

Travelport negotiates the commissions, which are subject to change by market, timeframe, availability and other factors, with each provider.

All of this inventory is accessed through the Travelport Universal API, but the aggregators also compete against chain hotels offered through the Travelport GDS, which lists commissions ranging from 0% to 12%.

Agents select an inventory provider, which is the merchant of record, and then Travelport sends the credit card details to the aggregator, which confirms the bookings and sends a voucher to the agency or traveler. Travelport collects all the commissions for the agencies.

The user experience for the travel agent is similar to traditional metasearch, although all of the bookings take place within Rooms and More instead of on sites such as Expedia or Booking.com.

Andreen refers to the experience as “meta-book.”

Also along the lines of a consumer experience, travel agents using Rooms and More get access to consumer-written hotel reviews about each property from sites such as TripAdvisor, Yahoo Travel, AOL and others.

With some travel agents disparaging what they consider to be amateurish user-generated content, it is interesting to see many of them are accessing consumer reviews in Rooms and More.

Keith Harrison, global head of hospitality sales for Travelport, says agents often access the user reviews when the property or destination is unfamiliar.

And, Andreen says Travelport is in discussions with professional review providers to add them to Rooms and More, as well.

Note: The author took part in a Travelport-sponsored press event in Atlanta.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed except to say that £2 million had been invested in the business by seed capital investors and management up to the acquisition by @Leisure, which has purchased 100% of the company.

@Leisure already owns a string of holiday rental brands including Belvilla, online portal Casamundo and Euro Relais.

Pureholidayhomes was launched just two years ago and brings a portfolio of more than 25,000 properties to @Leisure’s 300,000 strong portfolio of holiday homes, hotels and holiday parks.

The holiday rental market has seen a lot of activity in recent years with HomeAway‘s steady purchase of a string of companies including Realholidays and Second Porch just over a year ago and Homelidays in 2009, OwnersDirect in 2007 and HolidayRentals in 2005.

TripAdvisor has also been gaining ground in the sector with its acquisition of FlipKey in 2008 and HolidayLettings in June 2010.

The reviews giant also announced partnerships in November with a number of holiday rental specialists across the globe including Switzerland-based Interhome and Spain’s TopRural.

A recent report from research firm PhocusWright valued the European holiday rental market at €20 billion in 2010 with predictions for modest growth in the next two years.

Although Hotel Urbano managed to increase its share of the destination and accommodation category by 0.1%, Booking.com added almost 1% of its own.

Meanwhile, in the same category, TripAdvisor Brazil dropped a position to fourth spot after losing 0.25% market share.

Most popular travel websites in Brazil for the week ending January 7 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Decolar	www.decolar.com	21.91%	1
2	ViajaNet	www.viajanet.com.br	17.74%	2
3	Hotel Urbano	www.hotelurbano.com.br	11.64%	4
4	Submarino Viagens	www.submarinoviagens.com.br	11.40%	3
5	CVC	www.cvc.com.br	10.58%	5
6	Mundi Buscador de Viagens	www.mundi.com.br	7.04%	6
7	Americanas Viagens	viagens.americanas.com.br	3.22%	7
8	Melhores Destinos	www.melhoresdestinos.com.br	2.60%	8
9	Que Tal Viajar?	www.quetalviajar.com	2.22%	9
10	Rapi10	www.rapi10.com.br	2.11%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Hotel Urbano	www.hotelurbano.com.br	13.40%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	12.66%	2
3	Mundi Buscador de Viagens	www.mundi.com.br	8.11%	4
4	Trip Advisor Brasil	www.tripadvisor.com.br	7.84%	3
5	Alugue Temporada	www.aluguetemporada.com.br	5.71%	6
6	ShopF cil Travel	wwws.shopfacilviagens.com.br	5.25%	7
7	Ferias	www.ferias.tur.br	4.54%	5
8	EcoViagem	ecoviagem.uol.com.br	2.71%	8
9	Que Tal Viajar?	www.quetalviajar.com	2.56%	9
10	UOL Viagem	viagem.uol.com.br	2.22%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes	www.voegol.com.br	32.09%	2
2	TAM	www.tam.com.br	27.72%	1
3	Azul	www.voeazul.com.br	8.85%	3
4	TRIP Linhas Aereas	www.voetrip.com.br	6.84%	4
5	Smiles Mileage Program	www.smiles.com.br	5.55%	6
6	Webjet Brasil	www.webjet.com.br	5.20%	5
7	Avianca Brazil	www.avianca.com.br	3.94%	7
8	Tam Viagens	www.tamviagens.com.br	1.40%	10
9	Passaredo Linhas Aereas	www.voepassaredo.com.br	1.14%	9
10	LAN Airlines	www.lan.com	0.52%	8

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

I don’t know any tourism business with more polarized TripAdvisor reviews than Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Austria.

This theme park from the crystal maker Swarovski stirs a wide range of emotions.

“Philalady” from Philadelphia wrote:

“Loved, loved, loved this!”

…while “mad_aboout_travel” from Illinois called it differently:

“Complete waste of time”.

Crystal Worlds is clearly a LOVE IT or HATE IT experience. This is not uncommon. Every tourism experience will have people who love it, people who hate it and a whole group in the middle who shrug their shoulders and say, “MEH”.

The lovers and haters are usually the people who are most vocal in social media. When was the last time you shared a mediocre experience on Facebook? Have you ever?

And when was the last time you raved (bragged) about a great restaurant you visited? Probably not that long ago. In social media, the people who love or hate you can have a profound impact on your business.

They influence other people who would love you and the MEH people in the middle of the chart with their online and offline chatter.

In conversations with many hotel operators this past year, I’ve learned that a single point drop in a property’s TripAdvisor ranking has an immediate and measurable impact on the bottom line.

Michael Luca at Harvard Business School conducted research in Yelp restaurant reviews and concluded a one-star increase in Yelp rating leads to a 5-percent to 9-percent increase in revenue.

Maybe social media is measurable after all.

But old school marketing doesn’t work anymore. Consider a business-oriented city hotel that dumps excess inventory at heavily discounted rates.

In the short term, the hotel will pick up some business from people who typically cannot afford it. By doing this, the hotel risks having guests who will HATE IT – especially when they face additional fees for parking, WIFI and an expensive breakfast that could easily spark to anger.

That anger can lead to complaints on TripAdvisor that result in an immediate drop in revenue.

Tourism businesses need to market to the people who love them and avoid attracting people who won’t. It’s better for your guests and it’s better for you.

Delivering remarkable experiences is more important than ever. This is what make people love you and what gets people talking in social media. What is it about your experience that will make somebody want to brag to his or her friends?

I’ve spoken to hotel operators who research their guest lists and give preferred treatment to heavy social media users. Others randomly select somebody for something unexpected and special, hoping to trigger a positive review.

By shifting more people from MEH to LOVE IT and avoiding people who HATE IT, you create loyalty and consumer advocates who will do the marketing for you.

NB: This is a guest article by William Bakker, chief strategist at Think Social Media.

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The previous week’s second and third places, held by Marriott and Hotels.com respectively, switched positions, while Carnival Cruise Lines soared to fourth spot from ninth and Vacation Rentals by Owner jumped from eighth to fifth.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending January 7 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.72%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	8.98%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.16%	3
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.39%	5
5	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	6.26%	8
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.86%	6
7	Kayak	www.kayak.com	5.26%	4
8	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.74%	7
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	2.81%	10
10	bookingbuddy	www.bookingbuddy.com	2.44%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.38%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.74%	3
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.65%	2
4	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	2.23%	9
5	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	2.17%	8
6	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.09%	5
7	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.00%	4
8	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.87%	7
9	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.65%	10
10	Harrah's Casino Hotels	www.harrahs.com	1.35%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.03%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.20%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.45%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	8.50%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.56%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.52%	7
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.12%	6
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.69%	8
9	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.60%	9
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.35%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	3.97%	0.08%	99.92%	1
2	google maps	1.47%	0.68%	99.32%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.42%	40.72%	59.28%	3
4	expedia	0.80%	57.36%	42.64%	5
5	maps	0.74%	0.68%	99.32%	4
6	map quest	0.69%	0.00%	100.00%	6
7	travelocity	0.69%	57.48%	42.52%	7
8	continental airlines	0.59%	8.86%	91.14%	9
9	american airlines	0.57%	2.67%	97.33%	10
10	google earth	0.51%	17.13%	82.87%	8

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

For many years the website had published a list every January outlining the worst hotels in each region, compiled by user feedback from the previous 12 months.

The methodology was simple: accommodation providers found themselves included on the list if users had scored a property for cleanliness.

The list made for fantastic PR for TripAdvisor but inevitably angered many of those hoteliers featured on it, especially as comments ranged from “hell on earth”, “not safe for humans”, “dirty, filthy pit” and “a complete dive”.

A TripAdvisor official confirms the annual PR push is now history, following comments made by CEO Steve Kaufer earlier this week to the New York Times in which he said the company wanted to “stay more on the positive side”.

“We’re slicing and dicing the ‘best of’ in different ways this year, more than focusing on the negative.”

The move coincides with TripAdvisor finding itself in the financial limelight following its spin-off and subsequent public listing by former parent company Expedia in December last year.

The apparent maturing and change of emphasis around its PR activity follows a subtle change to its on-site messaging in September 2011 from “reviews you can trust” to “reviews from our community”.

This switch came on the eve of the launch of an investigation by the UK regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority, into claims reviews on TripAdvisor are untrustworthy, following a complaint by reputation management service Kwikchex, a long-time thorn in the side of TripAdvisor.

Kaufer admitted to the NYT that one of the reasons for the Dirtiest Hotels lists was for the PR, but conceded it is “less interested in that angle” now.

An official says the Dirtiest Hotels campaign had previously run in the US and the UK, as well as some countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The campaign will no longer run in any country, the official confirms.

The Canada, France and dot-com sites for TripAdvisor have a 16% share of the destination and accommodation category, while the remaining seven (including Booking.com and Hotels.com) also have around 16%.

Meanwhile, WestJet has strengthened its recently won prime position in the airline category, stretching its lead over Air Canada to over 3%.

Most popular travel websites in Canada for the week ending January 7 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia Canada	www.expedia.ca	13.58%	1
2	Flight Network	www.flightnetwork.com	5.02%	2
3	itravel2000	www.itravel2000.com	4.80%	3
4	Red Tag Vacations	www.redtag.ca	3.82%	4
5	Voyages Arabais	www.voyagesarabais.com	3.64%	6
6	Sunwing	www.sunwing.ca	3.22%	7
7	Tripcentral.ca	www.tripcentral.ca	2.91%	8
8	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	2.66%	9
9	Travelocity Canada	www.travelocity.ca	2.65%	5
10	SellOffVacations.com	www.selloffvacations.com	2.45%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor Canada	www.tripadvisor.ca	9.44%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	5.21%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.59%	3
4	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.87%	4
5	TripAdvisor France	www.tripadvisor.fr	2.54%	5
6	BookIt.com	www.bookit.com	1.93%	7
7	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.70%	10
8	City of Toronto	www.toronto.ca	1.58%	8
9	Princess Cruises	www.princess.com	1.44%	9
10	Monarc.ca	www.monarc.ca	1.43%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	WestJet	www.westjet.com	29.97%	1
2	Air Canada	www.aircanada.ca	26.65%	2
3	Air Transat	www.airtransat.com	5.58%	3
4	Porter	www.flyporter.com	3.65%	5
5	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.37%	4
6	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	2.18%	6
7	Air Canada Employee Travel Site	travel.aircanada.com	1.99%	7
8	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	1.91%	8
9	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	1.83%	10
10	American Airlines	www.aa.com	1.61%	9

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

I have learned many things as a chronicler of the digital media industry over the last decade plus.

But one of the definitive items is this: you will always be proven wrong about any prognostication on Yahoo, not because what you said wasn’t the path Yahoo took, but that it didn’t take any.

Unless of course Yahoo’s procrastination was your prognostication.

With a brand new CEO now at the helm, Yahoo’s choice on running-while-standing-still has run out. That much is sure.

Besides the industry-mystifying choice of ex-PayPal president Scott Thomson, there’s a lot of movement on disposing off its Asian stakes, part of its “trying to unlock the value” of its assets.

And it looks like it is happening soon: now there’s a M&A wish-list as part of “a tax-efficient asset swap with Alibaba and Softbank,” according to a report in Bloomberg this week.

The list includes the likes of WebMD, Weather Channel and AutoTrader. Previously, other names like Hulu and Bankrate have also been thrown around.

All which seem very random, only being considered because their size may fit what all parties need in terms of size of transaction to close the swap-deal. And that they’re conveniently part-owned by private-equity firms, all of which happen to want to part-buy Yahoo as well.

But let’s step back a bit. What does Yahoo want to be when it, well, gets born again?

Nostalgia

Back in 2005, when Yahoo was trying to reinvent itself under Terry Semel, I suggested that it buy Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia — back when Martha mattered — as a way to double down on women’s media and lifestyle play, a huge market, and more importantly, a unifying plan.

We all know how that and subsequent attempts went.

With the Asian sell-offs, it will have around $10 billion or more in cash, and why not use it for transformative acquisitions to help build around a theme? What could that theme be, large enough for Yahoo to continue to be one of the largest Internet players in the world?

Here’re my humble suggestion for Yahoo: start by redefining yourself as the “people-powered listings business”.

And it won’t be a stretch: after all, Yahoo started as a listings layer on top of the web, with its directory service, which curated everything interesting to “surf” at that time.

Why not go back to that theme, and stretch it to the users?

What that means is instead of investing everything in expensive original content (which it needs to do in certain verticals like news, sports, finance, if only as a glue that holds everything else together) or tech (a losing battle in face of Google, Facebook, take-you-pick-startup), use your users to help build the next version of Yahoo.

Let them curate the real world, through reviews and ratings of these listings. This isn’t a small vertical business, this is a huge intelligence layer over the world that Yahoo, with its money and users, can piece together better than almost anyone can.

And there’s a perfect and newly independent giant waiting for Yahoo (or anyone else, for that matter) to start with: TripAdvisor, fresh from its spinoff from Expedia.

User generated opportunity

TripAdvisor is about a $630 million (2011 estimates) revenue business, about $3.5 billion market cap, top-line revenue growth of over 30% over the past several quarters and at least 50 percent operating margin, so those numbers themselves paint a big story.

It has a huge repository of user-gen content that actually works and leads to transactional and advertising
opportunities, and has a big worldwide footprint and potential.

It also plays into the two biggest growth “sectors” for anyone in digital: mobile and social, and TripAdvisor, in its own messy way, has done a lot in both.

Of course there’s the small matter of trying to convince Barry Diller, who continues to be TripAdvisor (and indeed Expedia’s) largest shareholder, but when has Diller ever shied away from a large M&A deal?

Another adjacent, people-powered listings business is Yelp, smaller than TripAdvisor, and private, and Elevation Partners, its major private equity shareholder, would be happy to do a deal, anything that will make its much-panned portfolio and exits look better.

Yelp’s numbers are less readily available, but it is viewing an IPO, according to a November report by WSJ.

Revenue estimates for Yelp are around $100 million in 2012, and the IPO is expected to value it anywhere between $1 billion to $2 billion. Yelp is TripAdvisor’s cousin, with potential to be joined at the hip when put together with TripAdvisor, exact same philosophy in the transaction+advertising mix.

An expansion on that theme would include listings (and resulting transactions) businesses which could use that reviews layer added to them: HomeAway in the TripAdvisor-adjacent vacation rentals business, and OpenTable with its Yelp-adjacency.

Further down the line, real-estate listings business could be added to the mix, which would make companies like Trulia and Zillow attractive targets for Yahoo.

A global web layer

All of this also helps Yahoo forge a path independent of the other better-positioned internet giants like Google and Facebook and even similarly-troubled ones like AOL.

Almost all of these and smaller startup players are better at tech, Yahoo will never win that game in Silicon Valley or outside.

And every large media and every tech-trying-to-be-media company will continue to build content assets, and chip away at the media ad dollars, with the resultant downward ad pricing pressures that all of us are aware of.

This plan leverages its user base, still the second largest in the world, to build its future.

It allows Yahoo to be the utility layer of the world, a daily use across all forms of digital delivery, online and mobile, and at the nexus of every large internet trend: be a platform, and leverage local, social and mobile (there, I finally used that buzz phrase!).

It can continue to focus on content assets that build on top of those listings and reviews assets, as a loyalty driver.

NB: This is a guest article by Rafat Ali, an entrepreneur, journalist and founder of paidContent. Ali is currently working on his new still-in-development-startup Skift, a travel intelligence company.

NB2: Disclosure – Ali is a shareholder in Yahoo.

NB3: Image via Shutterstock.

It surprises me that many hoteliers do nothing with review sites. Even if all the reviews are positive, there should still be some level of management response.

There are many other issues around how hoteliers engage with review platforms and with guests who may leave a review of a hotel, whether it is positive or negative.

So here are 17 mistakes I have found hotels often make with regards to review sites:

1. Not showing that you care

If a review has potential to be damaging to your reputation, somebody on your management team should respond to it.

A response should be written thoughtfully, carefully and intelligently… so that everyone who goes on to read it will get the impression you run a thoughtful, careful, intelligent business.

People want to see that you care. They want to know that if they have a problem, somebody at the hotel will seriously attend to the matter.

Another important thing, research from TripAdvisor shows that 71% of travelers believe management responses matter.

2. Hiding

People don’t like this. If you are going to write a response, put your name to it, and your title. When you don’t put a name on your management response, what you have written isn’t as authentic and human as it could be.

Your management response simply won’t mean as much. It shows that you are not 100% committed to your customers, whether that is the reality of the situation or not.

In summary, you weaken their trust and increase their skepticism when you hide behind a company facade.

3. Inadequate proofreading

It only takes one careless error to convey in some readers’ minds that the management at your hotel is not well-educated. Something as simple as using “their” instead of “there” can set that impression.

4. Using overly complicated words

Don’t take it too far with trying to impress the readers with your vocabulary. It isn’t helpful. Use conversational English.

5. Attacking the review writer

This is risky. Taking on a defensive tone, belittling the writer, accusing them of being dishonest, blaming them for the problem…

Though it may be tough to do, it’s better to take the high road with not even a hint of these elements being in your writing.

If somebody says there was a bug in their room, and you say it’s their fault for leaving the door open, it’s not going to go over well with a lot of travelers who go on to read that response.

Keep the tone of your response cordial. If the tone is too aggressive or comes across as immature, you could scare away potential guests.

6. Failure to deal with a seriously negative accusation in a review

If somebody says you have bed bugs, and you don’t respond, this probably will be severely damaging.

If you are certain it is a malicious, fraudulent post, then use your capability with the review site’s management tools to report it and to request its removal.

If the review has any chance of being accurate, then be completely transparent about how you are addressing the situation.

7. Failure to respond to positive reviews

You shouldn’t respond to every positive review. But do respond from time to time to show readers that you care about what people think, that you appreciate their comments, and take a moment to plug a few benefits connected with staying at your hotel.

8. Responding with a boiler plate response

If you write the same basic response over and over again, you will come across as kind of stupid, shallow and insincere.

You need to mix it up. Make each response unique. Show that you understood what they said.

9. Permitting a low number of reviews

In the minds of travelers, a small number of reviews compared to other nearby hotels could mean “beware” in their minds, unless your property is brand new. And if you have old reviews on the first page, those are stale.

Their value is questionable, because they don’t represent the current conditions at your hotel.

10. Asking guests to write reviews through the hotel’s wireless network

If you are asking people to join TripAdvisor for the first time, and they go on to write a very positive review from your IP address, this could cause you problems.

TripAdvisor might begin to think your reviews are being concocted by staff members, and this could lead to punishment by TripAdvisor, such as “red flagging” and a downgrade of your ranking.

Other review sites could react similarly.

11. Not taking full advantage of the visual content you can upload to a review site

Upload all of the photos and video you can. VERY FEW hotels are uploading any video content. A good video presentation could be very helpful.

Try to take advantage of Google’s special interior photography for businesses, where the 360 degree “street view” camera comes into your hotel. Check out this example of a bar.

Currently, Google is providing this service for free. If you can get in on this deal, it’s one extra free marketing tool that your local competitors might not have.

12. Failing to ask for positive reviews

Anytime you let an extremely satisfied guest walk out of the hotel without asking for a review on a specific review site, you are letting opportunity slip right through your fingers.

Extremely satisfied guests, especially those who are first-time visitors, are the most likely to follow-through and write a positive review for you.

13. Ignoring the potential of other review sites, besides TripAdvisor

Yes, TripAdvisor is dominant when it comes to hotel reviews, but you should be making efforts to raise your visibility on Yelp and Google Places too.

Devices with advanced voice recognition technology, like the Apple iPhone’s Siri, will become more advanced and widespread — soon.

People will be curious which hotel Siri, or Google’s upcoming system, will recommend, and they will say to their next generation iPad, Apple television or smartphone: “I’m going to be in Boston next week. And I want a hotel room for less than 200 bucks a night. Which one should I stay at?”

These new voice assistants will comb through Yelp and Google Places and make recommendations based largely upon reputation.

It’s going to be revolutionary. If you want your hotel to be highly likely to be recommended by these devices, you need to take steps now to position yourself for it by getting a dominant quantity of positive reviews on Yelp and Google Places.

Even if the voice recognition revolution is slow to come, there are still a lot of Yelpers out there and plenty of people hit Google up for travel info. It would be a good idea to establish a strong reputation on these sites.

Besides Google Places and Yelp, look for other review sites that might benefit you, like HolidayCheck, a popular site with Europeans.

14. Provoking a sudden flow of 5 star reviews on Yelp by people who are brand new to Yelp

Yes, it’s a good idea to encourage a strong reputation on Yelp, but you need to be careful about who you are asking to post a review there.

If suddenly you begin getting 5 star reviews from people who have just signed up for Yelp, you are in danger of having all of those new reviews taken away from you.

It is better to ask for reviews on Yelp from established Yelpers. (Yelp is tricky.)

15. Blocking access to managers and failure to head off negative reviews at the pass

A lot of hotels seem to have drawbridges around their managers, where the pathway to them is blocked.

It’s better to encourage guests to complain to someone in authority so that problems can be addressed.

If you don’t make it easy for dissatisfied guests to complain, they will make you pay for it with passionate, in-depth negative reviews and negative buzz, and they will gladly spread it around in attempts to reap some satisfaction out of the situation.

The average Facebook user has 130 friends. Do you really want the occasional dissatisfied guest telling 130 people, or more, how much you sucked?

Make yourself available to intercept those problems before they become damaging problems.

16. Asking for positive reviews on more than one review site

By adding complexity to your request for a positive review, you lessen the chances of getting any review.

If you are going to ask your customers for reviews on multiple sites, you’re probably asking for too much. Make it simple. Pick one review site and ask for nothing else.

And if you ask for a positive review and a Facebook “like” and a newsletter sign-up, your request has too much clutter and probably will result in getting nothing for your efforts.

17. Posting fraudulent reviews

This is risky. My gut feeling is that only a few hotels, here and there, are attempting this, for example, in the US. If you do get caught, you could receive some embarrassing attention.

Your ranking will probably be shot to bits by the operators of the review site, and if your hotel is in the US, you might even be prosecuted and fined by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

Why risk all that trouble? Just ask your most satisfied guests for the favor of a 5 star review.

NB: This is a guest article by Ed Ryder, a word-of-mouth strategist at OutRivalReputationManagement.

NB2: Download Ryder’s Review Trigger Cards to make asking for positive reviews easier.

NB3: Image via Shutterstock.

TripAdvisor saw its share of the destination and accommodation category increase by almost 2.25% as Maps of India fell away by just under 1% over the same period.

Meanwhile, leading carriers IndiGo and Jet Airways also increased their share of traffic in the airline by 0.5% and almost 3% respectively.

Most popular travel websites in India for the week ending December 24 2011:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Make My Trip	www.makemytrip.com	30.79%	1
2	Yatra	www.yatra.com	20.46%	2
3	Cleartrip	www.cleartrip.com	14.61%	3
4	AZDreams - India	www.azdreams.co.in	5.39%	4
5	Zoomtra	www.zoomtra.com	3.41%	7
6	Via	www.viaworld.in	3.34%	5
7	Ixigo.com	www.ixigo.com	1.88%	6
8	www.travelyaari.com	www.travelyaari.com	1.51%	9
9	Expedia.co.in	www.expedia.co.in	1.42%	8
10	book.mustseeindia.com	book.mustseeindia.com	1.33%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Tripadvisor India	www.tripadvisor.in	16.68%	1
2	Maps Of India	www.mapsofindia.com	12.60%	2
3	MustSeeIndia.com	www.mustseeindia.com	8.23%	3
4	HolidayIQ	www.holidayiq.com	5.31%	4
5	Goibibo Travel	goibibo.ibibo.com	3.44%	6
6	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.39%	5
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	2.82%	7
8	India Mike	www.indiamike.com	2.26%	10
9	I Love India	www.iloveindia.com	2.00%	9
10	Club Mahindra Holidays	www.clubmahindra.com	1.92%	8

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	IndiGo	www.goindigo.in	19.55%	1
2	Jet Airways	www.jetairways.com	18.79%	2
3	SpiceJet	www.spicejet.com	13.90%	3
4	AirIndia	www.airindia.com	7.76%	4
5	GoAir	www.goair.in	5.27%	6
6	Kingfisher Airlines	www.flykingfisher.com	5.12%	7
7	Air India Express	www.airindiaexpress.in	4.61%	8
8	AirAsia	www.airasia.com	3.27%	9
9	Emirates	www.emirates.com	3.16%	5
10	JetLite	www.jetlite.com	2.25%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Neftali/Shutterstock.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

I’m Brian Egan, co-founder and CEO of Evolve, a new online service that acts as a sales, marketing and service team for vacation rental owners.

We take the hassle (and quite a few of the costs) out of getting a home marketed and booked – creating great listings, reaching the largest network of travelers, and offering seamless booking experience, including full traveler support.

There are no upfront costs to joining our service and we only charge our owners a risk-free 10% booking fee.

We’re just coming out of a two-month beta, but it’s already clear that there’s a big market for our service. In addition to homeowners who were renting on their own or working with a local property manager, we’re excited to see a lot of owners who had not rented before because they viewed the process as intimidating.

The $24 billion US vacation rental market is becoming more complex and competitive, it can be a lot for an owner to take on by themselves.

My background is in travel and vacation rentals. I was one of the first 10 employees at Exclusive Resorts – where I helped build it from a startup into the high-profile luxury destination club it is today. Prior to joining Exclusive Resorts, I was a startup & VC lawyer at Gunderson Dettmer in Silicon Valley.

My co-founder, Adam Sherry, is the COO of Evolve. He was Employee #1 at Exclusive Resorts, where he pioneered a sales process and team that produced over $1 billion in membership sales over 8 years.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We closed on $530,000 in seed financing in May of 2011. Our angel investors include entrepreneurs, executives and investors with backgrounds in travel, financial services and technology/consumer web.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Managing the vacation rental marketing and booking process is not easy. Vacation rental has become more popular, and with that we’ve started to see travelers expecting more in terms of communication and service.

Online marketing strategies and prompt response to traveler inquiries are no longer exceptions to the rule, they are required.

Many owners feel trapped. They are forced to choose between the hassle and guesswork of managing this process on their own, against the expense and inconsistent performance of full service property management.

Not surprisingly, this gap in the market has kept quite a few homeowners from renting out their homes at all.

We built Evolve to fill this gap and – quite simply – to make it easier to rent out a vacation home. And of course, part of helping homeowners means helping their traveler guests.

If we provide travelers with great service, for no extra charge, they’ll be more likely to book our homes. And that means more rental income for our homeowners.

Everyone comes out ahead.

Describe the business, core products and services?

Think of us as a vacation rental owner’s personal online marketing, sales and service team. We handle every facet of the marketing and booking process:

Producing high quality listings that really tell the story of a home, including attention-grabbing, SEO-friendly headlines and copy, competitive pricing and promotions, and stunning photography.

We are constantly evaluating listing performance and A/B testing tweaks across our network to ensure we’re getting the most out of a listing.

Reaching the largest possible network of travelers, including placement on Evolve’s site along with the largest vacation rental sites like VRBO, HomeAway, FlipKey and TripAdvisor, as well as promotion via Evolve’s database communications, social media and online marketing campaigns – all at Evolve’s cost.

Creating a seamless booking process, including providing proactive, friendly traveler service, updated availability calendars, click-through rental agreements and credit card acceptance to make it as easy for a traveler to rent one of owner’s homes as it is to rent a hotel room.

For all this, we charge only a 10% booking fee. It’s risk-free – we only make money when our owner’s make money.

That’s it. No cancellation penalties, no hidden charges, and unlike some services, we don’t charge travelers.

We bring all this together to make it easier to be a vacation rental owner. All of the benefits, none of the hassle and at a risk-free cost that pays for itself in additional income earned and time saved.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

We’ve been in private beta for two months now and we’ve been thrilled with the response. We had a handful of owners join the network pre-launch and we were able to generate bookings for them, and revenue for us, in our first week of operation.

Since then we’ve doubled the number of homes on our site, and our gross bookings, every month.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

As a starting point, we’ve spent a combined 15 years in the industry talking to thousands of homeowners and travelers, as well as developers, property managers and other players in the vacation rental ecosystem.

So we had a pretty good base of knowledge and an intuitive sense of the opportunities in the industry.

Even with our background, we vetted the Evolve model with homeowners and travelers prior to raising money. For that matter, we continue to rely on the market as our sounding board on a daily basis for ideas big and small.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

There are no upfront costs to join the Evolve network and no cancellation penalties. Homeowners simply pay a risk-free booking fee of 10% when the property is successfully rented.

We wanted to align ourselves as closely as possible with homeowners – we believe a strictly pay-for-performance model is the best way to do that.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Deep industry knowledge definitely gives us an edge. We’re passionate about the travel and vacation rental market, we’ve got a long history of delivering exceptional customer service, and we truly want to help grow this market and allow owners to earn more income from their properties. We also come to the table with a lot of experience scaling teams and processes from the earliest stages of a startup and understanding how to build the foundation of a high-growth company.

Weaknesses:

• We’ve only been in beta for two months, so our inventory needs to grow to meet high traveler demand.

Opportunities:

• The US vacation rental market is around $24 billlion, and yet most vacation homes are sitting empty each month, not being rented out. That means there is a huge untapped inventory, literally millions of homes, sitting on the sidelines waiting to be discovered. Also, Americans are increasingly seeking out vacation home rentals as a more economical and enjoyable alternative to hotels. Our model makes it easy to move from owning a second home to owning a vacation rental – which will translate into new income possibilities for homeowners and (by default) travel options for vacationers.

Threats:

• We expect increased competition around this model. We saw the same thing at Exclusive Resorts, it’s the hallmark of a successful company. You probably don’t have a very interesting company if no one wants to compete with with you. Competition is a good thing for our company and for the vacation rental market as a whole. The easier it becomes to join the vacation rental market as an owner or traveler, the more the market will grow and the larger the opportunity for all of us.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

We came across a few people who didn’t get it, but we didn’t listen to them because they didn’t own vacation rentals and had no real understanding of our customers.

We were very confident that we had clearly defined a pain-point and that we had designed a pain-killer.

We’ve been through this process before – if you aren’t being told “no” as a startup on a regular basis, you’re not trying hard enough.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

We want to end 2012 with hundreds (and possibly thousands) of happy homeowners who are earning more money, paying less in fees and enjoying the experience of owning a vacation rental more than ever.

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NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.