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Expedia’s Jennifer Davies on user-generated content and booking conversion

February 17, 2010 | Internet Marketing

In transactional channels, where the booking of travel actually takes place, user-generated content is getting to be more and more influential in the purchase decision and conversion, according to Jennifer Davies, senior content manager at Expedia.

The explosion of user-generated content (UGC) has changed expectations around travel planning content and the ability to share travel experiences both during and after a trip.
Social networking and user-generated content are now de facto components in the travel research and trip booking process for consumers.

For travel companies and marketers, they serve a variety of roles, says Jennifer Davies, senior content manager, Expedia.

In media- and content-focused channels, they are tools for engaging customers around a brand, building community and sharing information. In transactional channels, where the booking of travel actually takes place, user-generated content is getting to be more and more influential in the purchase decision and conversion, according to Davies.

Users and UGC

From consumers’ perspective, online travel researchers use UGC throughout the booking cycle, but different types of UGC.

Citing an example, Davies told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, early in the planning process when travellers are still trying to decide where to go, they might read blogs, seek out destination reviews, or increasingly, look to people in their social networks for feedback. Once they’ve decided where to go, they’re looking for feedback on specific activities and hotels, hoping to be inspired or just find a safe place to spend the night. In the transactional environment, user reviews are powerful drivers of conversion and bookings.

“On Expedia.com, good reviews of 4.0 or 5.0 generate more than double the conversion of a review of 1.0 – 2.9,” shared Davies.

She added that users look for authentic information that doesn’t appear too skewed towards the positive or negative, they want real traveller experiences. Particularly when people get to choosing the individual hotel, they want to know they can trust the content they’re reading.

“That said, users are also getting savvy about UGC, easily spotting the marketer writing about their own hotel or setting aside the one person who had an anomalous bad experience in a sea of good reviews. At Expedia, we rigorously validate the reviews before posting, making sure that anyone posting a review has actually stayed at that hotel, which gives a measure of assurance to our customers that the feedback they see is actually valid,” Davies said.

There is a strong emotional component of UGC which can’t be ignored. For instance, studies have indicated that those online travel researchers who have used UGC for their most recent trip, did so to get excited about their upcoming trip.

There is, however, a gap in terms of UGC’s functional capability to make travel planning easier given the enormous volume of content available.

Davies agrees and says, “Absolutely, one of our big focuses is on finding better ways to surface the reviews from travellers “like me”. With some hotels having upwards of 2000 reviews, finding the relevant reviews for a given user is critical. Also, for destination reviews, allowing users to filter and find the activities and/or neighbourhood reviews most relevant to them can be tricky to get right. We are looking at ways to aggregate and filter content more effectively, but it’s a definite challenge.”

Videos

Hotel video review sites are emerging as a new tool in the online travel planning and buying process. There are sites which have chosen different ways of generating hotel videos and along with it have different business models, with one of the players even paying travellers commission for hotel video reviews.

Davies said video is a growing area, with strengths and weaknesses.

She said, “Watching a video takes time and you can’t skim or filter them very easily to find the ones most relevant to you but there’s always that old saying that a picture speaks louder than words. The ability to share what a hotel actually looks like, what another traveller actually experienced, is incredibly powerful.”

For empowering a website with videos, there are two solutions: Build your own web software to encourage customers to create and share video content or use a Plug & Play widget (no development costs). Davies said there are downsides to both.

“Building your own software gives you control over the implementation and upgrade process while outsourcing gets you live faster without impacting other projects. If your goal is to get live quickly and do some testing, outsourcing probably makes the most sense, but if you’re building a branding campaign around video, you’ll likely want to bring the project in house. Some travel companies are definitely encouraging customers to shoot hotel reviews,” she said.

Expedia.com is focused on integrating the content that is most useful to its customers at the time they are researching its site with intent to book.

ROI

Delivery of content is empowering and critical, but should be tied back to the business objectives that one wants to achieve.

According to Davies, like any other piece of content on the site, UGC should be measured and tracked to understand the impact it has on a company’s brand. She added, “But given that Expedia.com generates more bookings than any other online travel site in the world, we’re able to examine the impact of qualitative reviews on booking behaviour. A|B tests are very useful for testing reviews, allowing you to see page and transaction conversion with or without the content on the page, or testing where the content appears in the booking path.”

She said blogs are more challenging, but those can be monetised with advertising or limited paid content.

Consumers do a lot of research prior to booking, and having a better understanding of what content is most useful at every stage in the trip booking lifecycle can help companies more effectively make that content accessible at the right time.

One can also measure customer engagement by tracking when and how they generate or interact with the content, by linking, sharing, etc.

Expedia’s Jennifer Davies is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference. The two-day conference will take place in San Francisco (March 24-25).

Related Link: EyeForTravel Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference

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