The top user-written review sites in Europe

Photo by MorBCN on Flickr

Some of you know I’m in Europe for a couple months to attend conferences and work with a few hotels. Since arriving, I’ve been trying to learn the nuances of European internet marketing from my colleagues here. Of course, the tactics we discuss in this blog have relevance globally, but there are always regional differences in the sites to target and best practices to use. I hope to share some of these in future posts, but for now here are most popular guest-review sites with European users:

• TripAdvisor (seems to be the market leader in most countries)
• Qype (based in Germany)
• Zoover (based in the Netherlands)
• Trivago (based in Germany)

The decision to focus on regionally popular sites is somewhat controversial. Some hoteliers I talk with say it’s only profitable to spend time promoting their TripAdvisor presence, while others say TripAdvisor is ineffective.

I’ve also noticed that the Italian hospitality mistrust Tripadvisor due its relationship to expedia, whereas independent players are considered a source of objective and honest information about user’s holiday stay. – Michele Aggiato (Italy)

For those of you elsewhere in the world I intend to share regionally-focused lists for other continents as well. For now, you may consider creating a listing of you want to reach European travelers. For example, Qype is quite popular in Berlin – lots of local restaurants have “as seen in Qype” on their windows. However, they also provide reviews in San Francisco, Sydney, and Singapore – so you may want to create a profile there for your business there.

(Special thanks to Daniele Beccari of isango, Dirk de Man of Web Power, and David Marshall of Sirleaf Ltd. for their contributions to this post)