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Travel PR: the impact of negative results in Google

May 4, 2007 by Neil Maclean 

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Travolution has news of a very useful report on the impact of critical results bubbling up in travel searches.

Over half of British online consumers will turn immediately to a competitor if they see negative reviews of a travel business in search engine results.

The survey by digital marketing agency Tamar said 58% of users would make the switch while 42% would abandon their search altogether.

The increased use of social networking and blogging has seen a number of major companies fall victim to finding their brand name appear on search engines for sites publishing negative reviews.

Tamar director Neil McCarthy said: “Brand owners are only just beginning to actively manage their reputations online as negative comments in search results do drive potential customers into the hands of the opposition.”

The survey, produced for Tamar by Tickbox.net, also found four in five consumers would be likely to make an immediate transaction if natural search engine results produced leads that placed them directly on the booking page of a site.

Needless to say, I will make considerable use of this information when pitching online reputation management. However, it would be more useful still if we could have some idea of the size of the survey and how it was conducted.

On the subject of Tamar - if they are listening - I still can’t subscribe to a feed from your various blogs.

Filed under: Destination PR, Travel PR
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Comments

7 Responses to “Travel PR: the impact of negative results in Google”

  1. Kevin May on May 4th, 2007 12:29 pm

    The survey was conducted with a representative sample of 1,500 UK adults, aged 16+, between 20 February 2007 and 27 February 2007.

    Our apologies not including the methodology in the original story.

    klm, ed, travo

  2. Kevin May on May 4th, 2007 12:29 pm

    The survey was conducted with a representative sample of 1,500 UK adults, aged 16+, between 20 February 2007 and 27 February 2007.

    Our apologies not including the methodology in the original story.

    klm, ed, travo

  3. Neil Maclean on May 4th, 2007 1:47 pm

    Thanks very much Kevin. I didn’t realise you had it. I was looking for it on the Tamar site.

  4. Neil Maclean on May 4th, 2007 1:47 pm

    Thanks very much Kevin. I didn’t realise you had it. I was looking for it on the Tamar site.

  5. Blog de Viajes » Empresas turistica y buscadores: el impacto de las criticas on May 7th, 2007 7:39 pm

    [...] a los sitios donde esas críticas negativas se han publicado… (originalmente visto en TravelPR). etiquetado como:buscadores, google, internet, negocios, tecnologia, turismo viajesPublicado por [...]

  6. Ciaran on March 28th, 2008 6:16 am

    Interesting stuff. Let’s take this a (theoretical) step further.

    I’m on holiday. I booked my holiday with XXX. Hotel was awful, flight over-booked and I feel hard done by.

    I (obviously) put something on TripAdvisor. But what if I have a blog? I’ll post on there too - which might get picked up by Google News.

    Maybe I have a flickr account too - cue photos of cockroach infested room. And what about all that video I shot of the horrible staff? Yep, that’s going on YouTube. .

    Cue negative results in the world of Universal Search.

  7. Ciaran on March 28th, 2008 6:16 am

    Interesting stuff. Let’s take this a (theoretical) step further.

    I’m on holiday. I booked my holiday with XXX. Hotel was awful, flight over-booked and I feel hard done by.

    I (obviously) put something on TripAdvisor. But what if I have a blog? I’ll post on there too - which might get picked up by Google News.

    Maybe I have a flickr account too - cue photos of cockroach infested room. And what about all that video I shot of the horrible staff? Yep, that’s going on YouTube. .

    Cue negative results in the world of Universal Search.

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