Last year
Accor started integrating TripAdvisor, one of the most important and probably largest hotel review social network into their website. I just noticed that more and more hotels are integrating it into their website, good or bad they are what they are.
Here are just some hotels I was able to found that integrates TripAdvisor into their website, but please share with me if you ever found other websites that integrates TripAdvisor reviews:
- Accorhotels.com note this does not appear if you search via their individual brand website like Sofitel or Novotel. But the integration is very nice and subtle on the right hand side, just below the booking engine, it shows how many reviews the hotel has received and the overall ratings. When you click on the more reviews, it will pop-up a small window.
- Langham Hotels did this integration fairly recently I believe, I didn't notice it at all. It is after all on the way at the bottom of the website. But if you click what it differs from Accor is their dedicated pulling content from TripAdvisor and feed it directly to Langham website, so visitors will not need to go away from their website. The feed is rather slow though and very selective, so you can see the whole content. Note that not all hotels integrates this feature
- Pan Pacific included a logo of TripAdvisor that links to the particular hotel review on TripAdvisor directly, but not all hotels include this feature.
- Ayana Resort in Bali creates multiple social media links at every page of their website, one of them is the TripAdvisor logo however it only invites users to vote or reviews their hotel on TripAdvisor instead of showing what other guests have to say.
- Paradise Point integration is one of the nicest I've seen so far, the load time is fast and it also pull reviews from other OTA such as Priceline. (Engine is called Social Buzz by Revinate, credit @bilbaobab for introducing me)
- Indy Marriort again another integration via Social Buzz by Revinate like Paradise Point, although I don't know if it is standard via all Marriott hotels. (thanks @michellewohl for introducing)
I foresee this will become a trend across all hotel websites, with over 40 million reviews TripAdvisor is the largest travel social network. On top of that TripAdvisor actually drives traffic and business for Expedia so that's quite big, which is the reason by TripAdvisor + Expedia is fighting Google.
I do think, general managers should stop fighting and being vicious about it. It is what it is, can't have absolute control on everything, but rather just try to talk and listen what people has to say. It is a human purpose era after all. I did once get a call by a hotel wanting to confirm that the TripAdvisor reviews my hotel has been receiving is fake and the reason behind is that their general manager "heard about it". In any case your hotel "conversation are taking place" whether you like it or not and unlike hotel that GM can control, conversation is not, you can only manage it.
Revinate's Social Buzz is a powerful system that makes it easy for you to promote your public feedback from across the Web on your own sites. Why does Social Buzz make sense for hotels? Honest recommendations from guests is now the most significant driver of booking decisions. But feedback from your guests is being posted to review and third party booking engines, so the value of the feedback is benefiting their sites, not your own. (
click here for their official blog)
