I recently wrote a post concerning Itemized Charges Becoming the Norm in Travel which highlighted American Airlines, United and US Airways new policies of charging $15 each way for a traveler’s first checked bag and $25 each way for their second.

Today Delta upped the ante by announcing they are raising their fee for passengers’ second checked bag from $25 to $50 in an attempt to combat record fuel prices.  Delta does not charge for the first checked bag, but does apply increased fees for items requiring special handling (i.e. golf clubs, surf boards and skis)   See the Announcement on Yahoo here

I typically try to avoid checking any bags when traveling, but an upcoming golf trip to Myrtle Beach will require two checked bags.  The idea of shelling out an extra $50 each way for my golf clubs is not appealing, but what is my alternative?  The fact is, we as travelers often need to check in luggage and the airlines need to find new revenue channels to off set their soaring fuel costs – the two “needs” were bound to meet each other.   For now, its safe to assume itemized luggage charges will become a norm in the industry, so rather than complain I’m going to figure out how to cram my 3 iron in my carry-on.

At FlipKey we work hard to help vacation rental managers collect and manage online reviews.  We are very passionate about the power of guest reviews, as both a marketing and an owner relationship management asset.

Given our interest and commitment to bring guest reviews to the vacation rental market you can imagine my delight when I recently came across a large compilation of statistics on the power of consumer reviews on the Bizaarvoice company blog.

Below I have compiled a few of the key statistics featured in the article I feel are informative and added my two cents below the stat:

• 71% of online shoppers read reviews making it the most widely read consumers-generated content – Forrester Research

It doesn’t matter if I’m buying a book, researching a vacation or evaluating a new digital camera – if I can not find a review I move on to an option for which I can.

• 82% of those who read reviews say their purchasing decisions have been directly influenced by those reviews – Deloitte & Touche

Not only are 7 out of every 10 people reading reviews, but 82% of those people are directly affected by what they read.

• Consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the 26,486 internet users in 47 markets who responded to a global Nielsen survey – “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”

The honest words of past guests are the most powerful marketing assets at your disposal for instilling trust and booking urgency amongst prospects.   A quality website, friendly reservation specialists and smart promotions always help capture conversion… but often a simple and honest story from a past guest can be the most effective sales pitch.

• Of merchants who adopt customer reviews, 58% said improving customer experience was the most important reason for adding reviews to their sites, following by building customer loyalty (47%), driving sales (42%), and maintaining a competitive advantage (37%) – eTailing Group, 2008

The ability to leave a review allows the guest to feel they have been “heard” - thus increasing their loyalty.  I personally enjoying leaving reviews of products and services I enjoy – it helps me a sense of empowerment beyond general ownership and use.

To read the very comprehensive list of over 100 statistics from a variety of sources on the bizaarblog, click here.

Thanks to Bizaarvoice for compiling such a powerful list of statistics from a wide variety of sources.

A few weeks ago TripAdvisor announced it had acquired VirtualTourist.com. I will admit that I was not particularly familiar with VirtualTourist (VT), so I jumped on the site to see what they were all about.

After a brief investigation I realized that I “should have” known who VirtualTourist was.

Summary of Observations:

Based on Compete.com statistics the site attracts ~1M visitors/month. I consider 1M visitors the qualifier for “I’m a major site.” I’m ashamed that I wasn’t aware of the site prior to the announcement.

I’m going to Asheville, NC for a wedding in August and figured I would see what VT had to say about it. I was surprised to find a significant amount of tips, tricks and photos of avid VT users who had clearly spent a ton of time reviewing the area. Although the site has some user experience quirks, the user generated content featured is robust and very useful.

I then decided to register and discovered why users spend so much time talking about the trips. VT actually ranks users based on the volume and quality of the content they post. Their user-community basically competes to have a high “VT Rank” and thus members go the extra mile to upload extra pictures, videos, tips and deals.

Although VT had some great content on Asheville, I did notice it fell short in many other vacation rental destinations.  For instance, a search for “Outer Banks” and “Grand Strand” yielded no results.   With that said, I found excellent content for a number of other vacation rental destinations.

VT allows you to register as a resident of your area and then allows people to contact you if they are looking for recommendations.   With 1M visitors per month on this site, managers would be well served to register, use their local knowledge to enter useful tips, photos of nearby attractions and highlight the availability and advantages of vacation rentals in the area.

Reputation is the opinion and public perception of an individual, a group or an organization/company.  In the vacation rental market reputation is created by the opinion of prior guests’ experiences with the rental properties and underlying hospitality services of a specific rental manager.  If you run a great vacation rental company, telling people your product and service are wonderful is of little consequence.  Let’s be honest, what else would you say?  The only effective way to let future guests know how great your vacation homes and guest services are is by letting the words and experiences of past guests do the talking for you.

To help our users maximize the impact of their guest reviews FlipKey offers free “Extension Tools” that feature our FlipKey Verified reviews directly on the manager’s website.

Mermaid Cottages of Tybee Island, GA recently added the FlipKey Reputation Widget to their ‘Questions?’ page.  The widget automatically updates (no coding required!) as Mermaid Cottages collects additional reviews through FlipKey.  Visitors who click the widget are taken directly to Mermaid Cottage’s FlipKey Profile where they can read specific reviews of individual properties.  With 150 guest reviews and an average star rating of 4.75, Mermaid Cottages is effectively leveraging their guests’ experiences to communicate their strong reputation.

FlipKey offers a number of different tools that allow our manager users to extend FlipKey Guest Reviews directly to their own site. We will report on additional examples and tools in future posts.

We spend our days and nights helping vacation rental managers understand and leverage the benefits of guest reviews.  We built our service based on feedback from the industry.  Now, with over 50 vacation rental managers actively using the FlipKey Guest Review service we wanted to hear directly from our users and get their reactions.

In the spirit of transparency we would like to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

(+) = Positive feedback
(-) = Critical feedback / feature request

(+)  Ease of use / Speed: Many users noted how easy and quickly they were able to get started and begin to collect property specific reviews.

(-)  Review Alerts: Although FlipKey offers automated review alerts when a low rated review is submitted, users have informed us that they also want to be alerted of the POSITIVE reviews!  We are working on new reports to help our users efficiently track all guest reviews – both positive and negative.

(+)  Owner Management: A surprising, yet consistent, point of feedback was FlipKey’s positive impact on Owner Management.   Managers are forwarding guest reviews to owners and finding the owners receptive to critical feedback that is supplied from guests.   (Note:  Owners are much less receptive to critical feedback delivered directly from the management company).   In one example the owner decided to upgrade the mattress in the master bedroom after multiple complaints over the “firmness” of the bed.   In a different example, an owner now has fresh water delivered to the home in case their water (drawn from a well) is not acceptable to the guest.

(-)  Property Detail Info: Some users have noted that the property detail info and calendar info on FlipKey is not always 100% accurate.    We consider this a top priority and are improving our content/data syncing systems, as well as partnering with a number of the industry’s leading software firms to better ensure content accuracy.   (Click here to read our recent partnership announcement with Instant Software)

(+)  Account Support: All FlipKey users are assigned, free of charge, an Account Manager who helps them get started with FlipKey and handles all support needs.   A direct quote submitted about one of our Account Managers:  “Bryan has been incredibly helpful!  Truly an asset….”

Don’t get any funny ideas Bryan… raises aren’t available until year’s end.

In the coming months we will work to publish more useful input and recommendations from our users. Thank you very much to all the people who contributed by participating in our satisfaction questionnaire.

41 Million Trips Planned Avoided This Year

Waiting out an hour delay to take the red-eye from San Francisco to Boston on Sunday, there was no excitement or enthusiasm in the terminal – no one was looking forward to getting on their plane. Yes, all signs indicated that air travel was no longer a luxury affair, but rather a necessary annoyance, like a long bus ride, to get where you’re going.

OK, so it’s the red-eye – no one is ever excited for the red-eye. Well, it appears consumer dissatisfaction and apathy for the airline industry is deeper than that. A recent report from the Travel Industry Association (TIA) estimates that 41 million trips were avoided over the past twelve months at a cost of $26 billion to the U.S. economy. Adding a bit more perspective to this figure:

Roger Dow, President and CEO of TIA said “ . . .more than 100,000 travelers each day are voting with their wallets by choosing to avoid trips.”

We’ve written about airline travel on this blog before, because dissatisfaction with air travel has implications for the vacation rental industry. Less trips means less guests booking accommodations. Although the study did not highlight figures for the vacation rental industry, hotels lost an estimated $6 billion due to these avoided trips in the last twelve months.

Consumer Satisfaction – It’s Personal
Has the core offering of air travel changed that much? Sure, the seats are smaller and security is painful but the main transportation product is the same: fly where you need to go in relative safety. Instead, consumer dissatisfaction grows from the erosion of all the little service touches that made air travel unique. Personally, I miss the small bags of roasted peanuts (food always wins me over).

The personal nature of vacation rentals is the industry’s advantage. With a unique inventory of homes and a highly personal product offering (guests staying in someone’s home) that differentiates itself from other accommodations, vacation rentals capitalize on high consumer satisfaction (generally above 90%) to drive return guests and referrals. As vacation rentals continue to grow as a larger segment of the domestic travel industry, please don’t forget to sweat the small stuff and embrace the personal service touches that make vacation rentals a wonderful experience.