Trip Advisor has worked for me...

I've been working with Tourism businesses for a little while now (in relation to their online presence) and one key theme has been how much they DON'T like Trip Advisor - negative reviews, fake reviews from competitors and pretty much a bad taste in most businesses mouths. 

So I decided to put it to the test. 

I needed to book a room in Cardigan, an area I've never been to and somewhere which isn't frequented by my close network of friends and family. Found the app for my phone, downloaded it and went about finding me somewhere to stay. 

I have to say - its a great app to use. All the information I needed, great search function but what I liked most of all I was easily able to search the distance of the accomodation from where I needed to be the following day to deliver my social media course. 

I didn't have to look long and I came across Ty-Parc Guesthouse. Rated #1 B&B in Cardigan. Not a tremendous amount of reviews, but all positive. Great selection of photos which gave me a great feel for the guesthouse. Without relying too much on the Trip Advisor information I popped over to their website (had to rely on Google to find this one) and again, have to say that I was impressed. 

A very simplistic website, but had ALL the information I needed. What I loved about it was the homemade video, taking you through the front door and into the bedrooms - giving you a really good feel for the place.

After a bit of a nightmare journey through the thick fog from Tenby (and through the most tinest of roads thanks to my Google navigation) when I arrived a felt a huge relief as the building was exactly what I'd seen in the photos.  The moment I came through the door (around 2 hours later than expected) I was welcomed by David.  

I felt so comfortable - I could have been sleeping in the spare room of my mams house!   And then the following morning a great breakfast and a short journey into Cardigan town!  PERFECT.

Read my Trip Advisor review here

So to summarise - a great experience using Trip Advisor, not only for the reviews but the great app.  More tourism businesses need to:

• Embrace Trip Advisor 
• Encourage customers to leave reviews 
• If someone does leave a negative review about an aspect of their business dont take it personally take action to resolve that issue 

For every bad review, surely there must be a handful of positive reviews?

(I've also had another great experience... another blog to follow!)