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The
Ascendancy of the Travel Consumer
From
the Summer 2007 edition of the Zeitgeist Client Newsletter
 Recent
research has indicated that roughly 25% of the content on the internet
is UGC. While much of this is comprised of the mindless drivel found
on our children’s MySpace pages, an increasing amount is truly
consumer-to-consumer interaction.
We’ve known for some time that four out of five consumers consult
family and friends before making a buying decision. Now, however, we’re
beginning to rely on total strangers.
Call it Consumer Generated Content (CGC) or User Generated Content (UGC),
travellers are increasingly letting others shape their opinions on destinations,
attractions and services around the world. While there are hundreds
of aggregated sources for consumers to read reviews of travel products
and services, the most successful is TripAdvisor.com.
Over 24 million travelers access TripAdvisor’s ten million consumer
generated reviews each month. And, while there are glowing reviews to
be found, one must realize that a consumer’s motivation to take
time out of their day to post is more likely fueled by anger than joy.
It’s just one of the reasons that DMOs will need to dedicate resources
to manage their online persona in the face of all these “experts”
that are expressing their Robert Ebert-esque opinions on review sites
and blogs. We believe that the cascading avalanche of UGC will become
so pervasive that DMOs will need to deploy dedicated staff to monitor
and respond to the plethora of comments that will be planted by consumers.
While we don’t think you need to do this tomorrow...it’s
not far off. The revolution of UGC is at the gate...and it will not
go quietly.
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