7 May, 2013 - TripAdvisor®, the world’s largest travel site*, announces the expansion of its suite of review collection services with Review Express, a powerful, free solution available exclusively on TripAdvisor. The new service makes encouraging fresh reviews easier than ever by giving registered businesses the option to send customisable, bulk emails to their guests asking them to write a review about their customer experience.  Review Express has been developed with property owners in mind and has been enhanced based on user feedback following extensive Beta testing.

According to the TripBarometer by TripAdvisor, 87% of travellers globally say they use travel review sites to help them plan a trip and 95% say that other people’s reviews on travel review sites influenced their plans. Review Express was built to help accommodations, restaurants and attractions build their reputation online and enhance their TripAdvisor presence whilst giving prospective guests the traveller feedback they need to plan the perfect trip.

Review Express enables owners to send free messages to past guests and customers on behalf of their property, which automatically include a link to the property’s “Write a Review” page on TripAdvisor.  

Key features of Review Express include:

• Customisable emails, including ability to add a logo, image and personalised message

• Bulk upload of up to 1000 email addresses, allowing businesses to target recent guests or customers with one easy send

• Processing of send requests within 24 hours and automatic notification of successful and unsuccessful sends

• Ability to send messages in the 21 languages that TripAdvisor supports

Reviews collected through the service will be hosted on TripAdvisor, and are subject to the site’s policies. Additionally, reviews posted as a consequence of Review Express emails will be attributed as such on TripAdvisor – the review will include a short message to say that it was ‘collected in partnership’ with the hotel, restaurant or attraction. TripAdvisor will not store email addresses submitted through the service.

A groundbreaking study from The Cornell Center for Hospitality Research*** demonstrates that there is a financial reward for having a great online reputation — and how reviews can influence a hotel’s ability to increase prices, drive occupancy and maximise revenue.

“With Review Express, TripAdvisor aims to extend the relationship between businesses and their guests to encourage them to write reviews. This is a time-saver for owners, providing them with a powerful system to manage multiple emails and requests at no cost to the business,” said Severine Philardeau, vice president of global partnerships, TripAdvisor. “Review Express has been developed and enhanced based on extensive user testing and is an invaluable service for hospitality business owners looking to build their online reputation. When used in conjunction with our free display offerings for owners, Review Express provides a great online marketing package for small and independent hospitality business owners to capture the value of user reviews for their property.”

Sean Ames, General Manager at the Gem Hotel in New York City, said: “We’re utilising TripAdvisor’s Review Express and what we noticed immediately is that the hit ratio is greater than any of the other mechanisms we had put in place to garner feedback from our guests.” 

To use Review Express, business owners should visit www.tripadvisor.com/reviewexpress or log in to the Management Centre, and click on "Get more reviews" from either the quick links or the main management centre menu to access the service. 

An instructional video can also be found at the TripAdvisor for Business blog.

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