Trip Advisor used to be an awesome resource with deep knowledge about things to do and attractions in almost every city. Over the past couple of years they made a hard pivot into driving bookings and its now a lot harder to find all of the solid user generated content that used to be front and center. To me, it’s long been indistinguishable from any other booking site, and there’s little reason to visit. The hard left turn toward monetizing their audience feels so short sighted, and this seems like just another optimization tactic heaped on top.
And given that they promoted a non-existing London restaurant to the #1 of London restaurants[1] I'm anyway not quite sure what to think of their rankings.
Reviews used to be much better 10 years ago, but a cotton-industry burping out phony reviews seems to pretty much soil the quality of the reviews.
Based on the astounding level of UX dark patterns on TripAdvisor's existing design I can't say I have high hopes for whatever "revamped design" they come up with.
Yes what's with all these travel sites and shady marketing techniques. The worst of the worst is booking.com.
Oh my god, booking a hotel on booking.com gives me anxiety. The constant notifications like "10 people are going to book it", "sorry we sold our last room", "you missed it by 1 min", "last room booked 2 mins ago" feel like they want to just scare you to death with scarcity. Wtf, this site definitely crosses the line between marketing and just plain shady.
Yes, it seems as if some companies (I'm not saying TripAdvisor's one of them) spend more time trying to hack the minds of their customers rather than trying to improve the viability of their business models or the value delivered by their products.
I spoke to a former VP of tripadvisor when they had acquired Viator. The business model they had was to get commissions on bookings(and ads), and apparently did not get that the volume needed. He compared the experience of browsing trip advisor for booking experiences as 'When you step out of the airport and a 1000 taxi drivers screaming at you all at once to choose their taxi for commute." (he then went on to join Musement I think)
Even now, for hotels they have made it like booking.com. The problem is that I am on tripadvisor for reviews, and would never trust a review from a site when the site is trying to sell me something. Like why would a site show me a negative review if that would mean i would not book the property.
All things said, I think the social feed model could work for them. They are about users browsing the experiences of other users (through reviews, ratings and forums) and this facilitates that. Though other social networks already have a lead in that space. Given their already high distribution, they could have a decent userbase in no time. Eager to see how this one goes.
Showing negative reviews can make sense if this means you will remain on their website and conduct your research there instead of jumping to some other site. Also for them, it does not matter if you do not book a particular hotel, as long as you eventually book something through their site.
They say they are not changing the "things to do" pages as they for people close to booking. I actually think they are for people that have already booked - I have a trip to Geneva coming in 1 week, let's plan my days...
Also I feel that in the travel industry people have their favourite website where they ultimately go to purchase and TripAdvisor is just not one of those. Anyone I know of thinks of it as helpful travel advice, not a booking engine. People find hotels on Booking.com, look them up on TripAdvisor, book on Booking.com.
I tend to use TripAdvisor to explore possible hotels in a location. However, the really annoying modal dialog that pops up to insist that you enter booking dates when looking at hotels on TripAdvisor is starting to make me look elsewhere.
95% of the time I use TripAdvisor I'm not booking anything - I'm just looking.
The most annoying thing about TripAdvisor is that they annexed top search results positions for 'sights in city_name'. Their list is automatically generated, has no attractive photos or any description of the places.
Usually I used it to look for a tour agencies to book specific activity (day tour to a desert or afternoon diving), but the more I travel the more annoying it's become to see simple word 'TripAdvisor".
I would guess user behaviour discovered through AB testing. Not showing the total price probably leads to a higher conversion rate. It's irritating when usability is less important than money
I used to be a major user of the site and i think the reviews on TripAdvisor are a lot more honest and genuine. The problem for me was that TripAdvisor's app did not allow me to book a hotel last time I have tried it, merely provided links to other sites and vast amounts of extraneous features. I ended up uninstalling it.
When you are traveling on an impulse and want to quickly find a room (the whole point of using such an app), the last thing you want is to fiddle with a myriad sites and accounts.
Compare this to booking.com's app, razor sharp focused on getting my card details and book a room. In a few minutes i get a strong guarantee that there is a place to crash to wherever I'm going, and I can go back to enjoying my vacation.
I think I might be in the minority but I use sites like Tripadvisor and Expedia a lot, but they haven't made a penny from me other than through banner ads. If I find a place I like, I Google it and book direct.. solely because I'm paranoid some intermediary might lose my booking or not even be officially representing the hotel or whatever.
TripAdvisor's design team basically just comes up with new dark patterns all day long. A former student of mine worked there and quit after 3 months because their entire team was a bunch of unsalvageable assholes.
They're still using the "free beer and ping pong" method of recruiting to get design grads to work 80 hour weeks.
[+] [-] kbos87|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaptainZapp|7 years ago|reply
Reviews used to be much better 10 years ago, but a cotton-industry burping out phony reviews seems to pretty much soil the quality of the reviews.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich
[+] [-] DoctorOetker|7 years ago|reply
I made a comment roughly describing such a system on the HN thread about jail time for fake reviews on TripAdvisor:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17973147
[+] [-] gomox|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superasn|7 years ago|reply
Oh my god, booking a hotel on booking.com gives me anxiety. The constant notifications like "10 people are going to book it", "sorry we sold our last room", "you missed it by 1 min", "last room booked 2 mins ago" feel like they want to just scare you to death with scarcity. Wtf, this site definitely crosses the line between marketing and just plain shady.
[+] [-] hliyan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] faitswulff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ankit219|7 years ago|reply
Even now, for hotels they have made it like booking.com. The problem is that I am on tripadvisor for reviews, and would never trust a review from a site when the site is trying to sell me something. Like why would a site show me a negative review if that would mean i would not book the property.
All things said, I think the social feed model could work for them. They are about users browsing the experiences of other users (through reviews, ratings and forums) and this facilitates that. Though other social networks already have a lead in that space. Given their already high distribution, they could have a decent userbase in no time. Eager to see how this one goes.
[+] [-] ArrayList|7 years ago|reply
I guess you don't use Amazon.com?
[+] [-] jpalomaki|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure I've noticed a difference in reliability between Booking's ratings and TripAdvisor's.
[+] [-] martokus|7 years ago|reply
Also I feel that in the travel industry people have their favourite website where they ultimately go to purchase and TripAdvisor is just not one of those. Anyone I know of thinks of it as helpful travel advice, not a booking engine. People find hotels on Booking.com, look them up on TripAdvisor, book on Booking.com.
[+] [-] checker659|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|7 years ago|reply
95% of the time I use TripAdvisor I'm not booking anything - I'm just looking.
[+] [-] robben1234|7 years ago|reply
Usually I used it to look for a tour agencies to book specific activity (day tour to a desert or afternoon diving), but the more I travel the more annoying it's become to see simple word 'TripAdvisor".
[+] [-] gagabity|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] invalidusernam3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yholio|7 years ago|reply
When you are traveling on an impulse and want to quickly find a room (the whole point of using such an app), the last thing you want is to fiddle with a myriad sites and accounts.
Compare this to booking.com's app, razor sharp focused on getting my card details and book a room. In a few minutes i get a strong guarantee that there is a place to crash to wherever I'm going, and I can go back to enjoying my vacation.
[+] [-] petercooper|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stupidbird|7 years ago|reply
They're still using the "free beer and ping pong" method of recruiting to get design grads to work 80 hour weeks.
[+] [-] Mindwipe|7 years ago|reply