05 December 2008

Traveller reviews to appear on Thomas Cook website

Thomas Cook UK & Ireland holidaymakers are being given the option of writing independent online reviews of their holidays.

More than 300,000 people who have travelled in the last 12 months have added their holiday and hotel ratings to www.thomascook.com.

The facility is part of a new e-commerce platform upon which the Thomas Cook website now operates.

The holiday search section has been revamped with more content, imagery and videos. New maps, customer ratings, reviews and advanced search filters have been introduced.

The company can also personalise and tailor content based on user preferences or behaviour.

E-commerce director Russell Gould said: Ã¢â¬ÅâœTravellers will continue to use on and offline channels through their holiday research and booking journey.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœThis new e-commerce platform is not only a website, but will quickly evolve into a multi-channel sales platform that delivers a unique and best-in-class customer experience for all travel related purchases.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœOver the coming year, we will enhance it further and plan to roll it across all our sales channels.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœOur ability to tailor and personalise content to individual visitor preferences is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. This is a huge leap that provides www.thomascook.com with the capability to present relevant tailored offers and promotions to our online customers.Ã¢â¬~

He added: Ã¢â¬ÅâœOur aim is to ensure we present a realistic and impartial view of each holiday and hotel, which is why we have created the functionality for our customers to complete reviews.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœWe are also introducing new processes that will allow visitors to filter to relevant reviews from similar travellers, for instance, only reviews from people who have travelled as a family with young children can be selected.Ã¢â¬~

Ã¢â¬Åâœ Ã¢â¬ËœAccommodation OnlyÃ¢â¬â¢ conversion from search to purchase has doubled and tailor-made Ã¢â¬ËœFlight & HotelÃ¢â¬â¢ searches have already increased by 70%, leading to an increase in bookings by over 100% in October alone.

Ã¢â¬ÅâœWe still have a lot of other processes to implement, but results so far indicate we are definitely heading in the right direction with the new site.Ã¢â¬~

by Phil Davies

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Your Comments (4)

Variety is not always the spice

Gary, Sorry but I totally disagree. What these user reviews lack is balance. You don't know anything about their experience of hotels and there is enough conflict within the reviews on any particular establishment you might want to look at to make you wonder what to believe. Variety might be good in some things but I am highlighting where it isn't. It's not about making up your own mind 'âœ it's about an unclear picture being painted of somewhere. I was looking for top accommodation in Sussex and, despite the nearly-all glowing reviews and 5/5 scores visitors gave it, the B&B I mentioned was of a poor standard. Right by a busy road, tired fittings, a bathroom from 1987 and nondescript views out over a field. Coupled with clever photography on the B&B's own website, you couldn't help but feel let down. I used the word '˜unusable' because it lacked the charm, distinction or character necessary to be included in the reviews I was writing. It also wasn't particularly cheap and did not even come close to other places in the same price range that I did review. In a wider context, within the industry it is a well-known fact that user reviews are sometimes inaccurate because people review their own establishments, get their friends to, or write negative reviews about the competition. This sort of free content for websites needs to be treated with caution 'âœ you pay for what you get. Thankfully that's why people still read travel sections and magazines. Cheers Marcus

By Marcus Waring, Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Yes.. where are they?

I failed to find any of these 300,000 reviews... are they there at all? http://www.travelblather.com/2008/12/conversions-customers.html

By JEremy Head, Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Reviews

The reason these sites are so good is BECAUSE people have such varying standards. You get different opinions, then make your own mind up if you'd like to stay there or not. And just because you think an accommodation is 'So ordinary it was unusable', doesn't mean that other would not enjoy it. And if the tripadvisor reviews are anything to go by, I'd suggest you were wrong and they were right. P.S I can't find TC's reviews either.

By gary hewitt, Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Yes but where are they?

It's not exactly a eureka moment finding yet another website doing this. But someone should tell Russell Gould that Tripadvisor reviews are just laughably inaccurate or plain suspect a lot of the time, often because travellers have such varying standards. I went to review a hotel for a Top Ten regional list in West Sussex and it was so ordinary it was unusable, despite many highly positive reviews in Tripadvisor. I agreed with the one normal person who had given it 1/5. The other problem is actually locating any of the Thomas Cook reviews, which are annoyingly tricky to find.

By Marcus Waring, Friday, December 5, 2008