Everyone’s a critic. TripAdvisor study finds reviews influence 50% of restaurant reservations

Have you read about the recent study into the impact of TripAdvisor reviews on users’ restaurant and hotel reservations? Over 12,000 respondents were surveyed by PhoCusWright and the key takeouts were:

• 53% of travellers won’t book until they read reviews
• 50% usually or always reference reviews before choosing a restaurant
• 53% of British travellers/46% of American travellers always or usually read TripAdvisor reviews before choosing a restaurant

Importance of reviews

If you were unsure as to the impact and importance of having reviews of your restaurant online, then this study demonstrates just how important they are for getting new diners through your door.
Reviews influence diners’ decisions to book your restaurant or not and are important for giving feedback to management. Good reviews boost takings and promote positivity in your restaurant.
Reviews and their impact on overall TripAdvisor star ratings was investigated by US economists who found a correlation between star rating and how busy a restaurant was during peak periods – just half a star makes all the difference.

Get reviews through simpleERB

In case you didn’t see our most recent update, we’ve added a new reviews feature into simpleERB letting you make the most of good reviews and deter bad reviews from being posted online so you can deal with them directly first.

You can now choose to let your customers review their meal after they dine in your restaurant from their booking confirmation email, and if they don’t, remind them after 18 hours.
These reviews will be sent back to you privately. This gives you the opportunity to catch any bad reviews and respond to them directly with the customer prior to them posting the negative review on social media and review sites like TripAdvisor.
Feeding back to you before posting online is crucial.

Motivate positive posting on TripAdvisor

Secondly, you want to encourage users to share positive reviews they send you.
We’ve added into simpleERB the ability to selectively respond to people who’ve reviewed your venue positively, encouraging them to share their good review on Tripadvisor, Yelp, etc. and social media.
Encourage users to share good reviews, discourage bad reviews being posted by dealing with them first and directly. simpleERB, on your side!
You can view the full TripAdvisor infographic here.