Vacation Planning With Consumer Generated Content (CGC)

Summertime is the time for vacation and with travel comes online travel research. This year I’m taking my vacation overseas to Asia. Since this will be the first time visiting several Japanese cities like Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, I’ve spent a lot of time researching accommodations, airfare, transportation and more. After spending hours and hours searching websites I thought I’d share my perspective with you; those who use online travel sites and those who advertise on them.

The first thing I encountered in my vacation research was the effectiveness of Consumer Generated Content (CGC) being used on travel sites like TripAdvisor and TravelPost for booking hotels and WikiTravel for researching locations and information about destinations.

I’ve always been the kind of person who asks for recommendations, reviews and criticisms when looking for and purchasing movies, books, electronics and so forth. So when I began researching hotels in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka I appreciated having a range of opinions to help me make my choice. CGC is particularly useful for overseas travel since it’s difficult to rely on brand or established reputation if you’ve never been to a destination before. Also, since I was researching moderately priced hotels that were off the beaten track and included non-traditional accommodations like guesthouses (ryokan), the reviews helped assure me that I wasn’t booking a hotel based on their ability to pass off a futon on a 5′ x 6′ tatami mat as ”cozy traditional Japanese sleeping accommodations.” By the way, after I checked out Andon Ryokan in Tokyo on TripAdvisor I ended up booking a room.

TripAdvisor’s CGC:

TravelPost.com’s CGC:

In addition to sites like TravelPost and TripAdvisor, I came across several hotel chains and tour/travel book publishers like Fodor’s who had also incorporated a social functionality into their websites allowing customers to enter comments and ratings.

Near the end of my flurry of vacation research I started wondering what kind of influence CGC was having on the online travel industry in general and came across a recent study by Compete, Consumer Generated Content in Travel, that confirms my belief that CGC is an effective tool when planning a trip. The study of 2 million consumers showed that peer opinions are highly valued with 82% preferring consumer reviews over a hotel’s online brochure description.

In addition, 58% say a supplier responding on TripAdvisor would put them in a favorable light. The study also mentioned that CGC influences $10 billion a year in online travel bookings.

So both from a user standpoint and an advertiser standpoint it seems important for travel companies to find ways to allow their customers to speak.

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