I feel a bit like a dinosaur. I’ve been in the user generated content (UGC) game since before the words "social Media", "Web 2.0", "Facebook" or "Twitter" existed.
NB: This is a guest article by Travis Pittman, co-founder and CEO of TourRadar.
I co-founded the online travel journal platform, Bugbitten, which was one of the first travel sites to successfully enable people to share content online with friends and family instead of using email.
In 2004 I approached some of the biggest tour companies in the world to showcase thousands of blogs, photos and reviews that had been uploaded and tagged as being from their tours.
The first question by the marketing department: "Why would people do that?.
The second: "Can we delete it?".
Um, no - welcome to the sharing economy, ladies and gentlemen.
Inherent scepticism
Business owners in general are very precious about their money-making babies. I know I am.
We take it personally when a customer expresses their dislike or has a complaint about a product or service we offer.
But in today’s world of social media, business owners have had to grit their teeth and accept that people can and will share their feedback online - both good and bad.
Local restaurant, bar and coffee shop owners understand it and have embraced platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Google+, OpenTable and UrbanSpoon.
Hostel and hotel owners understand it and have embraced platforms like TripAdvisor, Hostelworld, Hostelbookers, HolidayCheck, Zoover, Trustpilot, Facebook, Google+ and more recently OTAs like Booking.com and Hotels.com (confirmed in a recent Tnooz article by TrustYou).
In-destination activity operators understand it and have embraced platforms like TripAdvisor, Facebook, Google+ and more recently booking engines like Viator and GetYourGuide.
However, multi-day tour operators haven’t yet got it.
Why?
Don’t get me wrong - there are definitely some operators who do get it and have embraced platforms like TourRadar, PowerReviews, Trustpilot, Reevoo, Facebook and Google+.
TripAdvisor is missing from this list as they don’t accept reviews for multi-day tours.
I’ve personally had conversations, meetings and given presentations to hundreds of tour operators worldwide over the past ten years.
What still shocks me is that the same comments I was hearing a decade ago, are still being talked about in today’s very connected, very social world:
- "I don’t want negative reviews."
- "People only write a review online to complain about something."
- "I collect feedback from my passengers at the end of the tour and is read by the Operations Team and filed away in a filing cabinet."
- "I don’t want to send a potential customer of mine to a third party website to read reviews."
There are tons of
statistics and studies highlighting the importance of online reviews for converting sales in every industry out there.
Think of yourself buying anything on the web - if you had the choice between two similar products - one which had reviews, or at least a discussion between real people around it and one which was simply a product listing with no user feedback… which one would you buy?
It’s a no-brainer. On TourRadar, for example, when a tour listing includes a review or a meet conversation, there is a 35x uplift in conversion to a booking.
People can and will search for "your brand name + reviews" on Google to find reviews before they make a purchase with you.
So why not provide third party reviews directly on your website through the widgets that many of the platforms mentioned above provide for free, rather than making a potential customer open up a new tab in their browser and trawl through Google.
Get real about the reality
On the topic of negative reviews - you will get these.
Only 6% of the reviews left on our site are negative. The other 94% are from happy customers willing to share their experience with the wider internet.
A negative review actually builds credibility in your product/service, because (sadly!) no individual or business is perfect and people like to see that in some cases things have gone wrong.
This is your chance to shine and respond publicly to the review - this is what people want to see - that you can take the hit, but respond in a calm and reassuring manner.
We ran a survey back in 2009 on Bugbitten which asked:
"Would a single bad review put you off booking a trip with a particular tour operator?’
Only 3% said "Yes". Enough said.
So what am I wanting to achieve with this article?
I want the tour industry, which I have been passionately involved with for many years, to get with the times and start actively encouraging their past passengers to leave online reviews and feedback.
You should continue to capture the confidential operational feedback to keep improving your business - but you also run amazing tours!
So why not make it easy for your brand ambassadors to spread the word for you online and drive more bookings?
NB: This is a guest article by Travis Pittman, co-founder and CEO of TourRadar.
NB2: Review beach and reviews images via Shutterstock.