TripAdvisor's user-generated reviews now on Canadian site
Online travel bookings by Canadians are on the rise, driven largely the strong loonie.
So, it’s not completely surprising to hear that Canada is one of the most successful local units for Expedia Worldwide, the world's biggest online travel company.
Transactions were up 30% overall last year, with gross bookings hitting a record high of $1.5 billion, the Toronto Sun reports.
Determined to hold on to its dominant position, Expedia, which recently announced plans to split its TripAdvisor unit into a separately traded company, has launched an updated TripAdvisor search engine for Canadians.
Like a restaurant review, TripAdvisor doesn’t sell rooms or offer any actual deals, of course, but it links you to partner sites.
The only drawback: Reviews may include the occasional plant from cronies trying to push up their own hotel’s ratings or flame their competitors, but a profile system for each user makes such posts easier to filter out, T&L reports. Nonetheless, a group of ticked-off hoteliers have threatened legal action over what they perceive as unfair reviews.
Undaunted, TripAdvisor’s Canadianized site offers features including the Fees Estimator (which compiles flight costs with airline and credit card fees included in a single display), airline ratings compiled from flyer feedback and Air Watch airfare alert e-mails that notify you when a better fare comes along.
You can also search flight availability via the Trip-Advisor mobile app. And colour coded seat maps from SeatGuru help you identify the best seats from the worst.
Are you a TripAdvisor fan? Do you find user-generated reviews in general to be useful? Where do you go for information when making travel plans?
By Gordon Powers, MSN Money
* Follow Gordon on Twitter here.
Posted by: Marie | May 30, 2021 9:45:01 PM
I use Trip Advisor to look at comments before every vacation I take.
Posted by: Ken | Jun 1, 2021 9:24:06 AM
I have been a TripAdvisor member for a number of years and have made numerous reviews and contributions on its various forums. The key when reading any reviews that are exceptionally good OR bad is to check to see if the reviewer joined Tripadvisor just to make this one review. This is easy to do by clicking on the user's name and looking at their profile. Any review made under these conditions MAY be a false one. Also don't focus on one review but on the trends of all the reviews.
I can't imagine taking a vacation without using Tripadvisor first.