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Langkawi Nature Blogs
Trip Advisor
Mark: 27 May 2010
About the rating of Langkawi Businesses in the 'Trip Advisor' -
and how to use the 'Trip Advisor' for promoting your business
The Trip Advisor Forum is a phenomenon.
Why?
Because it is possible to read there which hotel in Langkawi was a delightful experience – and which hotel was infested with cockroaches …
Not too long ago we had indeed exactly this happening: the Citin Hotel got very bad reports and the inflow of hotel guests practically stopped. The management did the exactly right thing: it closed the hotel down, renovated it, painted it new – even outside, refurbished everything, cleaned everything – and went back to the Trip Advisor inviting ‘travel experts’ to visit it and examine for themselves the uplifted standard it now had. With great success.
Every day people ask questions about Langkawi on Trip Advisor – on the Langkawi Forum.
Let’s assume there might be on average 10 people a day asking a question about Langkawi (but at the moment we have less, low season).
Then - if you take in consideration, that normally only A FEW PERCENTAGE of people are active on a forum – and most are lurkers – then these 10 might be about 10 % (this is a rather high guess) of those who read the forum. This would mean that around 100 people would get the messages there every day. This equals 3000 people a month – who are all interested in Langkawi ….. And as travelers are seldom alone – these messages might well influence 10’000 people per month….
This is a very rough estimation. I might be wrong in re to the exact figures, but it shows nevertheless one thing: businesses in Langkawi should do what they can, to have a good ranking and positive reviews in the Trip Advisor. (I have nothing to do with this website, I am not making promotion here, I just state the facts).
Very good and important businesses in the tourism industry have recognized that and are obviously actively pushing this: e.g. Eva (from Damai Indah) and Dev’s Adventure Tour.
Specially Eva shows the rest how it is done: by becoming an active (neutral) travel advisor (without directly promoting her Damai Indah Business) – she has become a well known and much estimated helper and tourists who happen to go on a cruise with her – and already know her from the Trip Advisor - promote her on the Forum.
For Eva this means a lot of work: under the name of Danielschaller – (a pseudonym which has been lifted long ago) – Eva has written about 3’840 posts, answering questions of future Langkawi travelers as a ‘Langkawi Destination Expert’, since March 2007.
An other one is Baskie from Ishan Spa, he contributed ca 1920 post so far.
A business which can be identified by a ‘nice Person’ is much more successful in getting a lot and good reviews and ratings.
Some businesses might promote themselves under pseudonyms … but most businesses in Langkawi still have no clue about all this…
Are the ratings accurate?
Yes and no.
A business with a lot of reviews and a good rating certainly must do something right.
But a business with just a few ratings, might well have organized all the reviews themselves – and practically not be known at all.
Insofar the whole system is a bit flawed – unless we remember to only look at the businesses with a fair number of Reviews.
In other words: if you are not sure the customer will give you the highest rating possible (5) – do not ask him to make a rating/review on Trip Advisor. One ‘4’ will already put your overall ranking down.
The Businesses who have a lot of Reviews do so, simply because they directly – or indirectly - push the reviews.
Businesses which are not active on the Trip Advisor and do not ask their customer to write about them – will only get very few reviews and rankings (and are so very vulnerable in re to any single bad ranking !!).
See e.g. ‘Underwater World”. It got 4 reviews so far!
Below are ALL the 'Langkawi-To-Do-Businesses', rated on Trip Advisor who have 10 or more reviews
Charter Businesses
1 Rampant Sailing 43 reviews
2 Damai Indah 113 reviews
3 Blue Water Star Sailing 16 (connected with Damai Indah)
4 Tropical Charters 14 (new)
5 Crystal Yacht 20
Tours
1 Dev’s Adventure Tours 172
2 Jungle Walla Tours 43
3 Langkawi Canopy Adventures 11
SPA’s/Massage/Health
1 Ishan Malaysian Spa 51
2 Langkawi Ayurvedic Massage 34
3 Langkawi Yoga 41
Others:
Langkawi Cable Car 49
State: 22 May 2010
We intend to do the same survey within one year again and compare it.
