Another TA Article (LONG but worth it)

This link was posted on BedPosts and I read most of it (I admit eyes glazed a bit) but read to the end. It is written from 3 perspectives from the author's experience in each perspective. I have been cynical about TA for a long time but this opened them a bit more - a LOT more.
https://medium.com/choking-on-a-macaron/what-you-don-t-know-about-tripadvisor-15d31d745bdc#.6dyf079cr

There are good and bad with everything. I have a business listing and another inn with one quarter the reviews that I have came up ahead of me (and I have the most and the most 5 star). So having the business listing does not give you preferential placement. Now she does link up with all of the OTAs that pay TA money so I would guess that gives more weight than the business listing. But I can tell you that TA has been responsible for building our business to the highest level and helping a new B&B compete, grow and surpass many of the B&Bs that have been in business for decades. Like it or not, they are here to stay and I'm happy with my marketing dollars. I'd rather have them than some of the directories that I was paying big bucks who have gone by the wayside.

MtnKeeper said:

There are good and bad with everything. I have a business listing and another inn with one quarter the reviews that I have came up ahead of me (and I have the most and the most 5 star). So having the business listing does not give you preferential placement. Now she does link up with all of the OTAs that pay TA money so I would guess that gives more weight than the business listing. But I can tell you that TA has been responsible for building our business to the highest level and helping a new B&B compete, grow and surpass many of the B&Bs that have been in business for decades. Like it or not, they are here to stay and I'm happy with my marketing dollars. I'd rather have them than some of the directories that I was paying big bucks who have gone by the wayside..

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I run on the principle I may not like the game they play but have no choice but to compete - plus find it a useful tool in a lot of ways
(1) what are other BB's offering, doing, supplying better or differently to us? constant free source of ideas
(2) opportunity to reply - give out marketing info of my own - events coming up, facilities offered - its about being clever with your replies and not just doing a row of boring thank you for your review copy and past answers I see from the large hotels - take the free opportunity to show your a real person and individual property.

Jcam said:

MtnKeeper said:

There are good and bad with everything. I have a business listing and another inn with one quarter the reviews that I have came up ahead of me (and I have the most and the most 5 star). So having the business listing does not give you preferential placement. Now she does link up with all of the OTAs that pay TA money so I would guess that gives more weight than the business listing. But I can tell you that TA has been responsible for building our business to the highest level and helping a new B&B compete, grow and surpass many of the B&Bs that have been in business for decades. Like it or not, they are here to stay and I'm happy with my marketing dollars. I'd rather have them than some of the directories that I was paying big bucks who have gone by the wayside..

Click to expand...

I run on the principle I may not like the game they play but have no choice but to compete - plus find it a useful tool in a lot of ways
(1) what are other BB's offering, doing, supplying better or differently to us? constant free source of ideas
(2) opportunity to reply - give out marketing info of my own - events coming up, facilities offered - its about being clever with your replies and not just doing a row of boring thank you for your review copy and past answers I see from the large hotels - take the free opportunity to show your a real person and individual property.
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I do use the reviews of other places to see what guests don't like.

I would agree with almost all of the article although, we pay for a listing and I don't seem to get any better service. I have some major issues with the way they do business. At one point I was sending them a weekly spreadsheet with review numbers from our market. The new changes they have implemented more fairly depicts our current market so I have moved on to VRBO and their new "service charge". TA has however, cornered the market so you need to learn how to benefit from them. We have done very well by improving our ranking and using it as a selling point. There are ways to manipulate the OTA's to help with the boost from them as well. If you study the system long enough, you will either get a terrible headache or, if you are in a market like mine, figure out what others are doing wrong.