Operators seek TripAdvisor's nod for tour reviews

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For countless travellers, reading online reviews is now a crucial component of trip planning. Yet because it is almost impossible to find reviews of tour products online, operators and packagers increasingly feel they are at a disadvantage.

TripAdvisor, long the nemesis of hoteliers scalded by, or just wary of, negative consumer reviews, has an open invitation from another part of the travel industry: Tour operators and packagers would like nothing more than to see the leading online review site post consumers’ views about their products. 

Terry Dale, president of the U.S. Tour Operators Association (USTOA), which represents 51 tour companies and more than 160 tour brands, said: “It’s true there isn’t a neutral third-party forum for online reviews of tours, and this gap in the consumer feedback toolbox has emerged onto USTOA’s radar. 

“We don’t know why there isn’t a TripAdvisor category for tour operators — you’d have to ask them — but exploring this is definitely something that is a priority for our members.”

That operators feel abandoned by the leading consumer review site attests to just how important TripAdvisor has become in consumer decision-making when shopping for travel products.

For countless travellers, reading online reviews is now a crucial component of trip planning. Yet because it is almost impossible to find reviews of tour products online, operators and packagers increasingly feel they are at a disadvantage.

“Reviews of actual packaged vacations and escorted tours, I can’t think of an immediate place to go,” conceded Douglas Quinby, PhoCusWright’s vice president of research.

Indeed, rather than a single source for tour reviews, a patchwork of websites and online resources offer advice from fellow travelers about tour products.

Jeff Russell, director of e-business for the Globus Family of Brands, said: “There is not one place out there for [reviews of] tours, although travellers do make posts on Trip-Advisor, eOpinions and other forums like Fodors. We have also seen review posts on Yahoo Answers. In addition, many people are going to Facebook to write and read reviews.”

On TripAdvisor, reviews of tour products can be found by searching through the site’s discussion forums, but there is no guarantee of finding a review of any specific tour or operator. 

Viator, an online service that TripAdvisor acquired earlier this year, offers more than 20,000 tours and attractions and includes reviews of many of those products. But while there are plenty of day trips and activities on the site, there is very little in the way of comprehensive product reviews of tours and packages sold by larger operators like Globus, Trafalgar or Tauck. 

Dale said that the USTOA has opened lines of communication with TripAdvisor to discuss options for integrating a tour operator platform into the TripAdvisor site and is “seeing encouraging signs for the engagement of such a forum on behalf of our members.” 

It appears that TripAdvisor has heard the USTOA’s calls. Without providing specifics on what it plans to do, TripAdvisor spokesman Kevin Carter told Travel Weekly in an email: “With our recent acquisition of Viator, the leading global tours and activities provider, we are focused even more on the tours and attractions space. 

“While we can’t offer specifics on future plans, we are excited about the opportunities to help travelers plan and have the perfect trip.”

Going it alone

Operators appear unanimous in acknowledging the potential benefits of TripAdvisor to increase awareness of their products and provide additional resources to travelers who are researching tours as a travel option.

In the meantime, however, many operators have chosen not to wait for such a platform to emerge on TripAdvisor.

Trafalgar has relaunched its website to include a live stream of customer reviews provided by a company called Feefo, which specialises in customer-feedback systems. 

Trafalgar CEO Gavin Tollman predicted that reviews such as these will be a “game-changer for the industry.”

“It can fundamentally change the travel agent’s view of who’s on Trafalgar [tours] and what they are doing. These are not 80-year-old ladies on our trips.”

To the contrary, he said, Trafalgar’s clients are “young, they’re engaged. From an agent’s perspective, it can become the sexiest and easiest closing tool. Qualify the client, flip the screen and have them look at the reviews.”

Tauck, too, provides reviews of its products on its website, and the number of reviews it hosts doubled last year compared with the year before, according to president Jennifer Tombaugh.

“We definitely see online reviews as a major positive for our business,” Tombaugh said. “We don’t do any consumer print or broadcast advertising, so we’re already incredibly dependent on word-of-mouth endorsements.”

One of the biggest challenges operators face in soliciting third-party forum reviews is the complexity of the product. What is being reviewed? The tour operator? An individual tour? An itinerary? A guide or tour leader? Every operator has countless tour itineraries in its brochures. 

“TripAdvisor is great for reviewing hotels or restaurants, but it’s not very good at reviewing multifaceted products,” Tollman said.

For that reason, some tour operators feel that they can support reviews of their own products better than a third-party review site such as TripAdvisor could. 

But while companies like Tauck and Trafalgar talk up the legitimacy of their product reviews, it’s also difficult to deny that reviews can seem less trustworthy if they are being provided by the company that sells the product being reviewed. In fact, a recent attempt by the hotel industry to create its own online review site appears to have fizzled for just that reason. 

But like hoteliers, operators and packagers are also keenly aware of the main potential drawback to the whole product review craze: negative reviews. While positive reviews have the ability to augment business, panned products can sink a company. 

Still, despite the risks, tour operators stand united in their desire for more exposure via online reviews.

“Is there a risk in this? Absolutely,” Dale admitted. “Every industry must face the pros and cons of such easy-access transparency, and it’s inevitable that negative reviews will find their way into cyberspace.”

But, he said, that doesn’t change the fact that “online reviews, especially from impartial forums, are a vital link in the decision-making chain for many consumers.”