User review giant TripAdvisor has always said the majority of reviews on the site are positive - but a massive piece of data mining has also found independent proof.
Spain-based ReviewPro decided to look at every one of the 90 million reviews it has on its system to establish whether travel-related reviews left all over the web are generally positive, negative or somewhere down the middle.
The reviews, including those in ten different languages from around the world, came in as follows:
- Positive - 60%
- Neutral - 28%
- Negative - 12%
The data analysed came from 65 review sites from across the web, including the omnipresent TripAdvisor and a number of large online travel agency sites.
The results will no doubt please TripAdvisor, which since its launch has continually faced questions from hoteliers and critics that it is just mouthpiece for users with poor experiences of travel accommodation.
ReviewPro says the data illustrates that online reputation management "is not only about protecting against negative feedback".
"The need to monitor the social web for damaging content remains, but ReviewPro’s research proves most people go online to share positive experiences. An opportunity in reputation monitoring involves collecting positive feedback and using it identify areas of competitive advantage that can be emphasized in advertising and marketing communications."
The company says the past few years there has been a general move towards using review sites to simply share experiences rather than places to rant when something goes wrong.
The motivation for hoteliers now, says ReviewPro, is to ensure they identify and encourage those that leave positive reviews about them to become brand advocates in their own right.