HOTELMARKETING.COM

Sherman Travel launches hotel review search engine

August 21, 2009 | Online Travel

The Sherman Meter tabulates thousands of international and domestic hotel reviews and ratings – from expert sites such as Concierge, Frommer’s, and Fodor’s to user generated content (UGC) sites, including Trip Advisor, Yelp, and Yahoo! Travel – to deliver the most accurate overall hotel ratings.

ShermansTravel.com, one of the most trusted online sources in the U.S. for editor-reviewed travel deals, Hotel reviews, and unbiased expert advice, has launched the Sherman Meter, a first-of-its-kind, proprietary meta-search tool that takes the guesswork and headache out of researching and choosing the perfect hotel.

The Sherman Meter tabulates thousands of international and domestic hotel reviews and ratings – from expert sites such as Concierge, Frommer’s, and Fodor’s to user generated content (UGC) sites, including Trip Advisor, Yelp, and Yahoo! Travel – to deliver the most accurate overall hotel ratings.

The Sherman Meter functions much like RottenTomatoes does for movie reviews. Each hotel receives a weighted percentage score between 1 and 100, which corresponds with a color code. If the Sherman Meter is green, the hotel reviews are generally positive; yellow means the hotel reviews are mixed; and red indicates that the hotel reviews are generally negative.

All hotels on ShermansTravel.com have already been thoroughly vetted by its expert reporters and editors, so the website factors its own expert rating into the overall score as well. The Sherman Meter ranking also displays the number of hotel reviews that it used to formulate the overall rating. Users can then click on an individual hotel to view Sherman’s Expert Review, followed by individual hotel reviews from many different expert and user generated content (UGC) sites, allowing the user to read any and all hotel reviews all in one place. ShermansTravel.com then ranks the hotels according to its Sherman Meter score, with the highest-scoring hotel ranked first, and so on.

In addition to the Sherman’s Expert Review, each hotel review features the physical address, neighborhood, city, phone, website, and whether the hotel is considered a ‘great value’ or ‘smart splurge’ by ShermansTravel.com experts.

“With so many competing hotel review sites and the rise of user-generated content, it seems like anyone can be a travel expert these days, said James H. Sherman, founder and CEO of ShermansTravel Media.

It can be extremely confusing to someone who is researching a hotel. In the end, it is hard to know exactly who to trust. The best part about the Sherman Meter is that it takes the guesswork and the time-consuming research out of the equation,” he added.

Related Link: The Sherman Meter

Read also Dennis Schaad’s take on The Sherman Meter at his blog

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