European tour operator Thomas Cook has integrated TripAdvisor reviews into its content areas - but has pledged to retain the old customer reviews it has been collecting over recent years.
The partnership between the two companies sees TripAdvisor reviews added to hotel information throughout the site and other material such as Best Of, Top Tens and traveller photographs added to destination pages on ThomasCook.com in the UK & Ireland.
Thomas Cook is continuing to displaying the reviews from the RealView system it launched in April 2008.
The decision to integrate user generated reviews from TA is an about-turn of sorts by Thomas Cook after RealView was touted as the first time a major tour operator had gone up against the omnipresent, Expedia-owned TripAdvisor with a system of their own.
SpeajkRussell Gould, Thomas Cook UK and Ireland e-commerce director, none of the existing travel industry portals have yet to do it well.
“As people like us do it properly the reliance on TripAdvisor won’t be as much,” Gould said.
“The problem with the industry is that it only wants to present positive reviews but our research shows consumers want to see both negative and positive reviews.”
Speaking at the time, Russell Gould, Thomas Cook UK and Ireland e-commerce director who has since left the company, said:
“As people like us do it properly the reliance on TripAdvisor won’t be as much. The problem with the industry is that it only wants to present positive reviews but our research shows consumers want to see both negative and positive reviews.”
The RealView system was created by BazaarVoice.
Arch rival TUI launched its Cheqqer review and social media system in October 2009, triggering a fair amount of debate as to why so many different review systems were required when the company had its existing review system, TripAdvisor and HolidaysUncovered to provide user content.