Blog homeAlthough trip planning websites are increasingly popular they are not everyone’s cup of tea. Darren from Travel Rants has said they are starting to bore him. [See post and discussion]. This got me thinking as to why trip planning websites aren’t interesting enough for Darren and what we can do about it. Perhaps it is a content credibility issue (which I will come onto at the end)
Lets park the discussion about trip planning tools for the moment and move to a discussion about the content itself. There are three main sources:
UGC – User Generated Content
Generated by consumers. Sometimes these consumers may have just visited a region or “consumed” a product once – hence their view is somewhat biased to the experience they had on that occasion - rather than a complete rounded review. However, when you have a group of consumers who have experienced the same product in the same way – then the utility of UGC increases.
The goal of the travel content website should therefore be to provide an aggregated UGC review – rather than a mass of individual reviews – otherwise the website will be bogged down with edge cases and could be misleading to a browsing consumer.
UGC reviews probably work best where the product consumed by the individuals are constant between consumers – e.g. hotels, flights etc. Probably works least well for destinations, itinerary based tours, tailor made tours etc.
UGC content such as videos can work OK as the end consumer is making their own impression based on the video rather than text that is 100% written by the reviewer. You make your own opinion rather than read someone elses.
Local
Some trip planning websites use locals to write informative guides to their area.
Expert agent
Other trip planning websites (or trip planning sections of agent websites) are written and researched by the agent the content is featured on. These tend to be non-local people although local expert agents have an obvious advantage.
A number of agents are worried that if they are a destination expert (for example) and they put significant content up on their site – then a competitor can come along and “borrow it” – and enter their market quickly. They may be right – but the benefits to your consumers probably outweigh that. If you competitor is that keen on entering into your market they would find other ways to research it so stop worrying about it and stop making excuses.
The benefit of content written by an expert agent is that they are often much more informed about the practicalities of travel to a particular destination (than, say, UGC or a local review). This is because they are selling that destination and have to handle various different combinations of requirements on a regular basis. However, expert agents do tend to focus their knowledge on product they can sell – rather than the holistic trip. UGC is great to find out what people enjoyed – or didn’t enjoy – but the expert agent will be much more likely to be able to write content about how to travel with someone with special needs.
Discussion
Many new trip planning websites start with UGC. This is because it is easy to source. However maybe it is this kind of content that is boring Darren from Travel Rants. I expect this is the case. If the information was genuinely useful (rather than provided for infotainment purposes) then Darren probably wouldn’t get so bored.
Regardless of entertainment value, I think we are going to move back to a more expert lead world…… especially in light of the recent upsets in the travel sector (in the UK). Content needs credibility just like suppliers do.
Health information online
Travel Weekly / Travolution have been blogging the recent Advantage Conference (taking place in Spain over the weekend). Anyone following that? One post that got me thinking was the quote about how travel agents may have a great deal in common with GPs (general practice family doctors in the UK). Of course, they are very wrong – GPs look to minimise consumer activity (at a hospital) while agents look to maximise activity (by selling product) – but that isn’t what they meant.
The point they made was that customers come in ‘pretending to know everything’. A *long* time ago I used to work for the UK health service (I had been travelling for a long time – and my computer skills were out of date – hence just right for the NHS who were a bit behind….). Therefore I actually know how health professionals handle online content very well.
In the health world they have a very nice way for a consumer to distinguish between consumer generated content (that may or may not be correct) and expert generated content (written by a doctor or other medical professional). Their profession has devised a set of standards called the HONcode (Health on the Net). Nearly all medical websites abide by these standards.
Lets look at them in detail and work out how they could fit with the travel industry:
Authoritative – indicate the qualifications of the authors
Are you a travel agent, a local, a previous visitor etc? That would certainly help me make a judgement on whether I should believe a piece of travel advice found online.
Complementarity – information should support, not replace, the doctor-patient relationship
Not sure this works in the travel world. Agents would like to believe that a travel website should support the consumer / agent relationship – but this isn’t always the case. Many content websites have as their ambition the desire to exclude agents completely.
Privacy – respect the privacy and confidentiality of personal data submitted to the site by the visitor
Yes.
Attribution – cite the source(s) of published information, date and medical and health pages
This would be very handy on a travel content website. One of the detailed HONcode requirements is that each item of content must have a “last modified” date (or date last checked was correct). Some of the problems with UGC content is that it ages badly….. and the central UGC website proprietor has no way of knowing what is now correct or not. This wasn’t a problem when UGC websites were new – as all their content was new. Now some of it is old and needs removing. Expert agent lead websites should be fact checking their websites on a constant (or at least monthly) basis. This gives expert agent websites an advantage over UGC websites….. and one that they should promote more and use for differentiation.
Justifiability – site must back up claims relating to benefits and performance
Not sure this is really relevant to travel….. BUT – if someone writes that taking one form of transport between A and B is better than an alternative – these claims should be backed up. That would make content websites more useful.
Financial disclosure – identify funding sources
Just last week at one of the conferences I went to one person mentioned again about you never seeing a negative comment about Expedia written on TripAdvisor. Anyway, regardless of that, knowing how a trip planning website makes their money would help consumers make a better judgement on the validity of the information on a website (and whether any information is likely to be missing – for example if a tour operator has a great destination planning website they are unlikely to mention competitors)
Advertising policy – clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content
Many trip planning websites are funded almost entirely through advertising (or affiliate schemes). This should be clear.
Conclusion
So there you have it. My advice to a travel content website is that in order for you to really earn that credibility that your content deserves you should comply with these guidelines above. If you did so I expect you could take on the mighty TripAdvisor as consumers would flock to your site. You would also reduce the risk of boring Darren.
Bold prediction time – the next “big thing” in online travel for content websites will be a individual content credibility rating! If TripAdvisor do it first then it is “game over” for other trip planning sites – but if other sites get there first this could become the differentiator that they have been looking for.
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I’m afraid I’m someone that was talked about disparagingly in Darren’s post – I’m a traveler, not a travel provider. But, I’ve traveled a lot and I’m knowledgeable, so I’ll put in my two cents anyway!
You know what I thought of while reading this? The information available to travel consumers comes in three basic categories – 1. travel writing, which helps you decide whether to go there; 2. basic information to survive once you get there; and 3. on-the-ground stuff that is particular to you and your vacation goals.
Divided up like that, you could be more efficient in providing the information. The basic information can be gotten (with attribution, of course) from official web sites – emergency numbers, currency, weather, etc. The travel writing can be done by professionals.
But the on-the-ground stuff is where it gets sticky. It’s almost like travel sites need ombudsmen! That’s why I think a menu-type thing would work. Get the consumer to be as specific as possible, and then and only then do you present them with content. Then, the content for each option should be one positive, one negative and one summary by a local expert that balances it out. If they want to read more, they can click over to expand all comments.
Credibility is going to come only when the consumer is confident that someone who knows their $h!t is paying attention to what’s being said on the site. With your credibility rating idea, it’d have to come from an objective source – that couldn’t be user generated.
[...] Interesting post on Alex Bainbridge’s blog from a travel industry perspective [...]
Alex,
Disclaimer: My name is Mark Evans and I’m director of community with PlanetEye, a travel planning service.
Your post – and Darren’s – provide great insight into the kind of information travelers want during the planning process. I can see two major issues – credibility and relevancy.
When it comes to credibility, the question is whose information is the most believable, trust-worthy, etc. Do you trust a fellow traveler more than a professional who can perhaps offer context and a broader perspective? On one hand, the views of a traveler may be more “real” than someone who travels or writes about travel for a living. But as you point out, these reviews can be based a single experience. Not to suggest either approach is better or worse but it really depends on who you want to believe and whether the information is useful.
As for volume, I think one of the challenges facing travelers using the Web is there’s so much information to filter, explore and sift through. The selection is great but how do you effectively find the right information or information that is valuable/useful. In many cases, it’s simply too much of a good thing. This is where there’s a big opportunity for someone to step into an opportunity by providing a valuable snapshot as opposed to everything.
While I’m clearly biased, I believe PlanetEye is taking a measured and effective approach to both problems/issues by offering insight from locals and top-rated places in destinations around the world. Rather than provide a marketing spiel on what we do, I’d like to encourage people to check out planeteye.com. Any feedback would be great.
Mark
Hi Mark and Miss Expatria
Thanks for your first comments on this blog!
I like planeteye (I mentioned it the other day on a post) but may do a more detailed review in the future when I get a moment!
Cheers. Alex
[...] No sé si conocen el blog de Alex Bainbridge, el cual ya hemos referenciado alguna vez en este blog, pero si no han tenido la oportunidad les recomiendo que lo descubran leyendo su último post (en inglés) acerca de la credibilidad de los contenidos generados por los usuarios (User generated Content). [...]