Tripadvisor, the world’s largest travel advice platform, announced today that it has reached an important and historic internet milestone thanks to its community of travelers: 1 BILLION reviews and opinions.
Tripadvisor was founded 22 years ago by current President and CEO Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinert, Nick Shanny, and Tom Palka. Reaching this incredible milestone comes just a few years after it announced that it had reached half a billion reviews and opinions in 2017. New research shows that the internet platform is now the most important review platform on the internet for millions of consumers and businesses.
Tripadvisor has become a brand that is trusted, known, and loved around the world. It is a resource that millions of travelers and guests rely on to find out where to stay, what to eat, what to do, and how to make the most of their trip – all based on recommendations from a community of contributors who have been there and done that.
“We are so grateful for the contributions that the Tripadvisor community has made over these last 22 years. Trusted reviews and opinions from travelers are the heart and soul of the platform and help make everyone a better traveler, enabling millions of businesses to flourish and drive trillions of dollars in economic value across the globe,” said Stephen Kaufer, President and CEO, Tripadvisor.
To mark the occasion, Tripadvisor has published a new study entitled The Power of Reviews. This analysis of the content of reviews on the Tripadvisor platform shows why the company’s long-form reviews are qualitatively superior to other review platforms, especially when it comes to influencing booking decisions.
Tripadvisor reviews are three times longer than reviews on leading online travel agency websites and search engines. The average length of an accommodation review is 688 characters. It is the detail that these long reviews provide that is so valuable to travelers. Together with the sense of community that Tripadvisor offers to its millions of users every month, this has played a big part in the phenomenal growth of the content – firstly by reaching 1 billion reviews and opinions, and secondly by doubling what was achieved in 17 years, in just five years.
A Look Back and Some Fun Facts About the First Billion
In celebration of reaching this milestone, Tripadvisor has collected some interesting stats about the content that has been submitted to the platform over the past two decades:
- The most-reviewed accommodation ever: Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with over 48,000 reviews.
- The most-reviewed restaurant ever: Pastéis de Belém in Lisbon, Portugal, with over 52,600 reviews.
- The most-reviewed attraction ever: Basílica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, with over 164,000 reviews.
- The longest English language review ever written on Tripadvisor: 17,241 words written by @The_Budges about their stay at the Hotel Playa Pesquero Resort in Cuba.
- The most-prolific Tripadvisor reviewer: @82manuelal from Luxembourg City, who has posted more than 7,000 reviews since becoming a Tripadvisor member in 2015.
- The number of posts in the Tripadvisor forums: 89,426,160 posts (and counting).
- The first forum post: was submitted Aug. 26, 2004, and is still visible today.
- The longest active thread in a Tripadvisor destination forum: “How many days till Maui???” in the Lahaina Forum, with 6,809 replies and dating back to Oct. 4, 2006.
- Hungry anyone? The three most-mentioned dishes in restaurant reviews:
- Pizza (10,400,980 mentions)
- Pie (8,467,574 mentions)
- Salad (7,374,595 mentions)
- The traveler who has posted the most photo submissions: @PaoloRiccardoCarrara, who is from Rome and has contributed a whopping 102,272 submissions, totaling 313,651 photos.
- The award for the most well-traveled Tripadvisor member: @damienstack, who has posted reviews for 176 different countries. He is from Listowel in County Kerry, Ireland, and has actually visited all 193 countries in the world!
Meh!-mory Lane: Everyone’s a Critic
And then there are the reviews from travelers who didn’t quite “get” the iconic places they were reviewing…
- New York’s Empire State Building: “Building is too tall, meaning I felt sick as heights aren’t my favourite thing.”
- San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge: “First off, it is not golden in any way-it’s an ugly brown colour…”
- The U.K.’s Stonehenge: “Why people come from all around the world to see a pile of stones, I will never understand.”
- Arizona’s Grand Canyon: “I’ve been to a number of so called landmarks in my time – but what the hell was this? Just an overblown sandy ditch.”
The Power of Reviews
Tripadvisor helps millions of travelers make travel decisions month after month. After 22 years, the platform now boasts 1 billion reviews and opinions. But what about Tripadvisor’s relevance to today’s travelers or the millions of businesses it continues to serve?
To answer these questions and more, Tripadvisor has published the results of its Power of Reviews study. In 2021, Tripadvisor partnered with an external market research firm to survey 9,000 consumers in five countries – the US, UK, Italy, Singapore, and Australia – to take a closer look at how different types of reviews influence the travel planning and decision-making process.
Some of the key findings from the study include:
- Of all the kinds of feedback types on Tripadvisor and other review platforms — ratings, snippets, and long-form descriptive reviews — 40% of travelers said the content of a review (a long-form description) mattered most when reading reviews.
- Tripadvisor is winning against other platforms in this category, with 100% of accommodation reviews on the platform being long-form reviews.
- 88% of respondents rated long-form reviews as high or very high quality.
- Between snippets, bubble ratings, and long-form reviews, 76% prefer long-form reviews when booking accommodations, 74% prefer long-form reviews when researching restaurants, and 69% prefer long-form reviews when exploring attractions.
- This translates to a higher booking propensity: 68% are more likely to book after reading a long review.
- 3 out of 4 respondents said online reviews were “extremely or very important” when making travel decisions. This is true across the board for accommodations (82%), attractions (77%), and restaurants (70%)
The Power of Reviews study can be read in full here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/PowerOfReviews
‘Write a Review Day’ on May 3, 2022
In the first 10 months of 2020 alone, the tourism industry lost $935 billion in revenue worldwide due to the pandemic*. Sadly, as a result, more than 350,000 businesses have been reported as closed on Tripadvisor since March 2020. The good news is that more than 1,263,031 new business listings have appeared on Tripadvisor during the same period.
To celebrate reaching the incredible milestone of 1 billion reviews and opinions, Tripadvisor is launching Write a Review Day, which will take place on 3 May 2022 and every first Tuesday in May thereafter. The platform is calling on the Tripadvisor community to write a review about a recent hotel stay, a booked experience, or a culinary moment at a restaurant. The aim is to provide valuable guidance to other travelers as they take to the roads, seas, and skies again, as well as helpful feedback to help the tourism industry get back on its feet.
Throughout the month of May, ahead of the busy summer season in the Northern Hemisphere, Tripadvisor will continue to celebrate its reviews, forum discussions, and community posts that help others plan their next holiday or trip.
Avid reviewers and even those who have never written a review themselves – be it a positive or a constructive one – can use 3 May as an opportunity to celebrate the act of giving feedback throughout the month. Tripadvisor will remind travelers how a review can change lives. It will lead those who read them to incredible experiences that create lifelong memories and help those who receive them get the recognition they deserve or the insight they need to move forward and improve.
To take part in Write a Review Day, click here to submit a review. Show your support for the travel and hospitality industry by sharing your review on your social media channels with the hashtag #WriteAReviewDay.
