The explosion of user-generated content (UGC) has changed expectations around travel planning content and the ability to share travel experiences both during and after a trip.

Social networking and user-generated content are now de facto components in the travel research and trip booking process for consumers.

For travel companies and marketers, they serve a variety of roles, says Jennifer Davies, senior content manager, Expedia.

In media- and content-focused channels, they are tools for engaging customers around a brand, building community and sharing information. In transactional channels, where the booking of travel actually takes place, user-generated content is getting to be more and more influential in the purchase decision and conversion, according to Davies, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference.

Users and UGC

From consumers’ perspective, online travel researchers use UGC throughout the booking cycle, but different types of UGC.

Citing an example, Davies told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, early in the planning process when travellers are still trying to decide where to go, they might read blogs, seek out destination reviews, or increasingly, look to people in their social networks for feedback. Once they’ve decided where to go, they’re looking for feedback on specific activities and hotels, hoping to be inspired or just find a safe place to spend the night. In the transactional environment, user reviews are powerful drivers of conversion and bookings.

“On Expedia.com, good reviews of 4.0 or 5.0 generate more than double the conversion of a review of 1.0 – 2.9,” shared Davies.

She added that users look for authentic information that doesn’t appear too skewed towards the positive or negative, they want real traveller experiences. Particularly when people get to choosing the individual hotel, they want to know they can trust the content they’re reading.

“That said, users are also getting savvy about UGC, easily spotting the marketer writing about their own hotel or setting aside the one person who had an anomalous bad experience in a sea of good reviews. At Expedia, we rigorously validate the reviews before posting, making sure that anyone posting a review has actually stayed at that hotel, which gives a measure of assurance to our customers that the feedback they see is actually valid,” Davies said.

There is a strong emotional component of UGC which can’t be ignored. For instance, studies have indicated that those online travel researchers who have used UGC for their most recent trip, did so to get excited about their upcoming trip.

There is, however, a gap in terms of UGC’s functional capability to make travel planning easier given the enormous volume of content available.

Davies agrees and says, “Absolutely, one of our big focuses is on finding better ways to surface the reviews from travellers “like me”. With some hotels having upwards of 2000 reviews, finding the relevant reviews for a given user is critical. Also, for destination reviews, allowing users to filter and find the activities and/or neighbourhood reviews most relevant to them can be tricky to get right. We are looking at ways to aggregate and filter content more effectively, but it’s a definite challenge.”

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