Social Media and Marketing

Thomson.co.uk will add reviews from Holidays Uncovered later this year. The initiative will give customers access to 150,000 more independent reviews. Thomson already has more than 50,000 customer comments on its website.

Published: 04 Sep 2009

Thomson.co.uk will add reviews from Holidays Uncovered later this year. The initiative will give customers access to 150,000 more independent reviews. Thomson already has more than 50,000 customer comments on its website.

First Choice will also launch customer reviews on its website in 2010.

The two companies said more comments would facilitate customers' decision-making and at the same time, it will also provide valuable information to listen to customer views.

Thomson has just launched a dedicated customer web page which will list what the company is working on to improve holidays and will ask customers to email suggestions. In another move, a new UK call centre has been set up to answer consumer questions before they leave on holiday.

Also, Thomson and First Choice staff now have access to a resort blog written by local holiday advisors with updated information on the destination.
Relying on views

Many travellers are "relying on the views of the few" , according to the annual Thomson and First Choice trends report, which includes online surveys of more than 1,700 people.

Dermot Blastland, managing director of TUI Travel UK & Ireland, the parent company of Thomson and First Choice, said: "We've found that only a quarter of people post reviews of their holiday on independent review sites, and just a fifth post comments on travel companies websites. However half of the people we surveyed independently and 70 percent of our own customers say they use these reviews in planning their own breaks."

"Of course these answers reflect the views of people who are already comfortable online and reflect the fact that we've embedded TripAdvisor and customer comments into the Thomson website, but its clear more people are reading than posting reviews and we'd like to see this balance changed and encourage more travellers to share their thoughts, whether those are good or bad."

An impressive 80 percent of people say they mostly trust the reviews they read, although a fifth are sceptical saying they have to be taken with a pinch of salt for three main reasons – they expect reviews to be written by people who are complaining, they think people's standards are so different that what suits one person doesn't necessarily suit another, or they expressed concern that the reviews may have been written by people with an interest in the organisation being reviewed.