TripAdvisor™, the world’s largest travel site, today has unveiled an online travel review guide with useful review-writing tips based on a survey of over 100,000 travellers and hospitality business owners*. 

“Reviews have become a powerful tool; travellers around the world rely on reviews to help them plan and book their holidays. In fact, more than half will not make a booking decision without reading reviews from others**”, says Barbara Messing, Chief Marketing Officer, TripAdvisor. “And hospitality businesses are listening – seventy percent of businesses have taken steps to improve their quality of service thanks to reviews left by travellers.” 

“With more than 200 million reviews and opinions and growing on TripAdvisor, we wanted to provide new and seasoned reviewers with insights from our passionate community – from what motivates them to contribute, to the top tips for writing helpful reviews,” she adds.

Why review?

Eighty-three percent of travellers say they write reviews because ‘they want to share useful information with others’ and because ‘they find reviews helpful, so they want to give back.’

Ensuring their reviews are as fresh as possible, 68 percent of travellers say they write reviews within two days of their trip or experience, and 70 percent say it takes them 10 minutes or less to write a review.

What makes a review helpful

TripAdvisor asked the community – and the votes are in:

- The three most important things in a review are that it concentrates on facts (56%), that it provides a lot of detail (48%) and that it’s concise and to the point (41%).

- In terms of the style of the review, 83 percent of travellers want to read a balanced view, and 69 percent say it’s important to provide the context for why the reviewer liked or didn’t like somethingWhen it comes to the content of a hotel review, 64 percent of travellers want a review to mention the condition of the hotel, and just under half (49%) say it is important to mention the quality of service.

- For restaurant reviews, four out of five travellers (81%) say they want to hear about the food quality, followed by the service (66%)

- For attraction reviews, it’s all about the advice: 75 percent of travellers want a review to include practical tips that can improve their experience

The survey also revealed the biggest turn-offs for people when reading reviews: overly picky reviews are the #1 turn-off amongst travellers (54%), followed by a lack of detail or specifics on what the reviewer experienced (50%) and bad grammar (42%).

TripAdvisor Travel Advocate Wendy Perrin, who has been a travel journalist spanning two decades, shares, “What I have found to be really beneficial is to include in your review what you wished somebody had told you ahead of time, pinpointing what was out of the ordinary or unique about the experience, as well as taking a photo of the view from your hotel room”. 

KGB777, Singapore’s top reviewer in 2014 with 1,463 reviews in total since 2005 agrees, “My personal preference is to be succinct, and to justify why I gave that rating. Key points on what I liked or didn’t like, as well as pointers on any unique quirks about the business can also be very helpful.”

The TripAdvisor guide to writing helpful reviews is available at: http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/TripNews-a_ctr.reviewerguideEN2 

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*Based on a survey of 95,608 travellers and 7,215 hospitality business owners

**PhoCusWright’s “Custom Survey Research Engagement,” prepared for TripAdvisor, December 2013.