Using UGC For Online Retention And Increasing Interaction With A Travel Site
IN-DEPTH: User-generated content (UGC) increases through social media campaigns; it’s an effective way to retain and encourage new users, and sustain interaction with a site. UGC on its own does not retain online users but the ability to interact with other users serves the purpose, says Richard Dennys, CMO, Qype.
Hotel and holiday review sites have been working on ways to ensure that the quality of content is top notch and have been looking at options to increase transparency to demonstrate even-handed treatment of review content.
The explosion of user-generated content (UGC) has changed expectations around travel planning content and the ability to share travel experiences both during and after a trip.
For their part, consumers look for genuine reviews contributed by real consumers speaking about their first hand experiences.
Assessing the utility of UGC from consumers’ perspective in their travel buying cycle at this juncture, Gilles Granger, Founder & CEO, Vinivi says, “UGC is used at key decision making moments in the buying cycle. If you are looking at destination UGC (inspirational), it will appear in the early stage (where did my friend go to? Where others are advising me to go?). If you are looking at hotels / properties, UGC comes in the decision making, therefore very close to the basket confirmation (Customer question: Is this place really as good as the OTA says it is? Do I know anyone who did go there?).”
“Apparently 90 percent of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70 percent trust people they don’t know and only 14 percent trust advertisers. It’s clear that UGC is fast becoming the number one source of reference material for consumers before booking their holiday. On Qype, we have over 1.9 million reviews on everything from underground bars in Berlin, afternoon tea shops in London to the best budget hotels in Barcelona, and every month 22 million people are using the site and reading other people’s opinions,” Richard Dennys, CMO, Qype told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta.
Granger and Dennys, who are scheduled to speak at the forthcoming EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing & Social Media Europe 2011, to be held in Amsterdam (October 10-11) this year, spoke in detail about the status of UGC in the travel sector. Excerpts:
What do consumers actually look for in UGC?
Richard Dennys:
Consumers are primarily looking for depth and breadth of objective opinion. Consumers can easily tell if a review or a comment is genuine or not and they understand that not everyone will give a place a 100 percent rating. With this in mind and as concerns grow over fake consumer reviews, Qype has launched a rigorous audit to remove any misleading or inaccurate reviews from the site, which will really help to set us apart from our competitors.
Gilles Granger:
First of all they look at pictures, and then they look at reviews, typically at four elements:
- Volume: Has this property been rated by more than 10 people?
- Freshness: When were the last reviews written?
- Profile: Do the reviewers match my profile (age, type of traveller), or, if reviewers do not match my profile, are they the kind of travellers I wish to see once there?
- Trust: May I trust the reviews I see? Have they been filtered by the OTA or the website? Did the reviewer really stay there?
How is UGC overall affecting the overall travel planning and buying process? To what extent holidaymakers are now booking trips based on online travel reviews rather than glossy publications?
Richard Dennys:
With every hour that passes, UGC becomes more influential in the holiday planning and buying process. More and more consumers are researching and booking their trips online, depending on the suggestion and opinion of others, whether online or offline. UGC is much more likely to affect an individual property booking than a large resort reservation. UGC also significantly affects those booking a holiday to a new destination rather than those returning to the same place.
Gilles Granger:
Before UGC, travellers had the choice of asking their Travel Agent, now, they can ask others. Both the glossy brochure and UGC are part of the buying process. Consumers want re-assurance, that’s what they want: they want to make sure that they are doing the right acquisition. Across industries, earlier you could only trust the salesman, now this trust is fading as consumers trust both the salesman and their peers. Do they trust everything they read online is another question.
It is said that user-generated content works well on the visceral or emotional level. However, it doesn't work so well at the functional level. What do you make of this viewpoint?
Richard Dennys:
I don't agree with this statement at all, unless all the reviews and feedback are negative. As long as the UGC has a balanced outlook, it is up to the individual as to whether they follow through with their holiday booking.
Gilles Granger:
Depends on the reviews. Some reviews are really emotional and so will work well on the emotional level (“the staff is so great”). Others are purely factual (“the hotel is dirty”, means to be mentioned several times by several guests) and will therefore be taken as such (decision: choose another hotel). I have example of emotional reviews which became factual.
Increase in rich media content and the regularity at which information is added to a website has positive effects on the search engine optimisation of the website thus increasing the page ranking of the website in search engines. Do you think this is still one of the major benefits of UGC for travel companies?
Richard Dennys:
No, I think the main reason travel companies are encouraging UGC is to build trust in their brand. However, rich original content will naturally help SEO and never harms a brand’s reputation.
Gilles Granger:
Some travel companies only see UGC through this lens and it’s a big mistake. Clients are enormously interesting and there is far more information in user reviews than in any study. Listening to clients should be those companies main focus. SEO is interesting, let’s face it, but it’s about customers.
How can UGC increase the interactivity of a website? How can UGC increase the online retention of your website visitors?
Richard Dennys:
We’ve looked into our own social media activity and discovered that UGC increases through social media campaigns; it’s an effective way to retain and encourage new users and interaction with the site. User-generated content on its own does not retain online users but the ability to interact with other users on the site will do. Online responses from brand owners also help retain users and drives brand loyalty.
It is highlighted that UGC can provide an excellent avenue for data capture from your online visitors. How is the industry focusing on this?
Richard Dennys:
A lot of the industry is frightened by UGC and in some countries such as Germany and France they are taking to the courts to fight it. But UGC can provide valuable insight and intelligence on users and their attitudes. People are much more likely to post an online review than fill in a customer service card! However it's important to remember that you need a good critical mass of opinions in order to extract the quantitative data that is really useful, so the more reviews, the better!
Our UGC on Qype is not only telling us the type of customers we have, it’s telling us what people like and what they are buying. It’s also telling us where they are as they check-in, review and connect with each other using the Qype mobile app.
Gilles Granger:The travel industry is, by essence, product driven, not client driven. I have not heard, so far, of companies focusing on data capturing. Some companies even buy reviews from UGC websites. It would be enthusiastic if travel companies start doing so...
