Another “Who Do Customers Trust?” Data Point

An interesting post regarding TripAdvisor, a wildly popular travel reviews site.  The source is here. Key quote: "One thing is certain – consumers would trust other consumers over hotel / company marketing departments any day."

I think the premise of the article is flawed…just because one could create an Eliza-esque (much better, actually, but you get the point) "automatic" review generator, there is still the tie-in to reputation and identity that is required to make those reviews more relevant and worthwhile.

The reason I pulled this out was that the two data points on the left of the graph are quite interesting:

• 82% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over the hotel’s description
• 70% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over those of "professional reviewers"

N.B. I strongly dislike the "Will A.I. replace the TripAdvisor model" headline on the original article.  Gah.

Graph Source: Compete Inc. “Consumer Generated Content in Travel” 2007, via the referenced article.