Managing online Reviews on Tripadvisor Case Study and Analysis

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could. As I said, hotels can offer gifts or coupon for next trip. For example, hotels can announce travelers that submitting a good review (over 300 words description plus photos) has the chance to win a gift or coupon to inspire customers increase the volume of reviews and improve the quality of reviews.

Which review sites should become the focus of marketing efforts?

In my opinion, TripAdvisor should be more focused on marketing efforts instead of the official website itself. According to the Exhibit 2, estimated monthly online visitors of TripAdvisor is 27,000(in 000s), and it ranked number one among those competitors such as Expedia, Priceline, and Kayak. On the other hand, consumers most likely to believe the opinions on the third-party website than reviews on the official website.

Should the budget for these new activities come out of the advertising budget, as supposedly done at the Four Season and Homewood Suits, out of the marketing budget, or from other budgetary sources?

I think it’s appropriate the budget for these new activities come out of the advertising budget. First, those activities are a new marketing method in Information Age, so hotels should shift their marketing strategy from traditional way to a new way. Also, hotels can consider using part of administrative budget to build a team for managing online reviews.

How could the decision be justified to senior management?

First, from Exhibit 4, we can conclude that user review score and the number of reviews are most two significant relative factors in regression analysis compared with other factors position and relative price. Second, more young generation will use those reviews online to gathering information quickly and easily to save time and money. For rich people, they more focus on good experiences for their trip, so they also need more credible information. Therefore, a better management of reviews will increase its customers and thus increase profits. In other words, it’s worthy to invest in more money on it. Besides, hotels don’t need to put money on maintaining the website and application, so the input-output ratio will be good. Based on a hotel’s market orientation and target customers, the manager of the hotel can make the best decision to its hotel.

Outside Sources

Jeacle, Ingrid, and Chris Carter. "In TripAdvisor we trust: Rankings, calculative regimes and abstract systems." Accounting, Organizations and Society 36.4 (2011): 293-309.

Ayeh, Julian K., Norman Au, and Rob Law. "“Do we believe in TripAdvisor?” Examining credibility perceptions and online travelers’ attitude toward using user-generated content." Journal of Travel Research (2013): 0047287512475217.

Smyth, Pádraig Cunningham Barry, Guangyu Wu, and Derek Greene. "Does TripAdvisor makes hotels better?." Technical Report 08 (2010).

O’Connor, Peter. "User-generated content and travel: A case study on Tripadvisor. com." Information and communication technologies in tourism 2008 (2008): 47-58.

Lee, Hee “Andy, Rob Law, and Jamie Murphy. "Helpful reviewers in TripAdvisor, an online travel community." Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 28.7 (2011): 675-688.