As Micheal pointed out, TripAdvisor has recently floated the idea of charging hotel owners $500 to list their website & phone number on the reviews page. When I took this survey, the listed price had dropped to $300:
TripAdvisor Survey
If TripAdvisor went ahead with this idea, would you pay the fee and get the listing?
I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Here’s why: I know it’s easy for people to find your website & phone number in a Google search, but this opportunity to capture additional traffic and direct bookings would be a bargain at that rate.
I know the volume of traffic that TripAdvisor generates. If you have any experience in hotel internet marketing, you know it is very hard to get this level of exposure for $25 a month. Even one extra booking a month through this would pay for the fee. I’m a pragmatist, and when I look at the potential return on investment here, it looks attractive.
What do you think?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Paying for your web address and phone number on TripAdvisor is ok, but only if they also remove the “Check Rates and Availability” option from the hotel review page when a visitor lands there by following the TripAdvisor widget on the hotel’s own webpage. You don’t want to loose your website visitor to a third party booking engine for which you have to pay commission.
Yes, good point…but I doubt TripAdvisor would want to remove this revenue stream.
Would I do it? Possibly, if I could afford it.
But it is incredibly unethical because it marginalizes hotels that can *not* afford this service, and creates a lower class of people that aren’t able to utilize tools that were supposed to be democratizing across the board. I know TA needs to monetize, but they will be sacrificing some of their equity with people trusting that reviews, hotels, etc haven’t been shown special treatment, or created a blurry cloud between what’s legit, and what’s forced advertising, etc. I might be overthinking this, so I am going to lunch. =)
=)
I don’t know if I would call it unethical. It’s just saving people the hassle of searching for a hotel’s phone number. Guidebooks include this, why can’t a review site?
Good thoughts though.
Cheers
Smart move! This is how I would call it. Considering the trafic TripAdvisor generates I think it is even better than many other initiativesl…. You (as a hotelier) have to consider it as part of the strategical positioning of the hotel, being visible on the right place (considering the trafic) and only for 25 USD/month… Difficult to calculate the rreturn, however 1 reservation per month would cover the 25 USD expence. How much do you earn by being visible at probably the most popular “advisor” site…. priceless…. I would go for it!
I’d pay it in a heartbeat – I know its something our clients ask about all the time! Makes me wonder if their revenue from Hotels.com/Expedia, etc is dropping if they’re looking for another revenue stream…
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see hotels/properties who do NOT use GDS services offered the opportunity first – as that’s not a lost revenue stream for TA.
Great article – will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I think the concept of paying to put your website and telephone number on TripAdvisor is a great one. While customers could Google your hotel once they like it on TripAdvisor, intuitively its always a good idea to reduce the number of clicks a customer needs to make.
But, and I think this is a big but, 600$ or even 300$ is a huge sum of money for a small hotel (10 rooms) like mine.
Instead, I would be very willing to pay for every click I received from TripAdvisor. Now thats a brilliant idea!
If you can’t pay $300 for this, you have no business running a hotel.