TripAdvisor Launches Family Vacation Critic in its Own Image

TripAdvisor, with an assist from its Cruise Critic brand, this week quietly launched Family Vacation Critic, which adds into the TripAdvisor Media Network another hotel review site and advertising/media business.

As with TripAdvisor, people can write reviews of "family-friendly hotels" without any proof that they have stayed at the property.

Family Vacation Critic represents a crafty move by TripAdvisor because some of the content of Family Vacation Critic amounts to a repackaging of TripAdvisor content -- and some of the repackaging is a carbon copy.

For example, if you look up Bishop's Lodge Resort & Spa in Santa Fe on TripAdvisor, you'll see that it gets a 3.5 TripAdvisor Traveler Rating.

If you scroll down and examine the traveler reviews by trip type, you'll see that 22 are family oriented reviews. And lo and behold, the review at the top of the heap is entitled: Beutiful (sic) lodge with a great view and very relaxing enjoyable time with family.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

You'll find a snippet of the same review on Family Vacation Critic if you scroll down the page a bit.

It's just a snippet of the review -- that's important.

Because when you click on that review to read more of it on Family Vacation Critic, it links you back to TripAdvisor.com.

So what TripAdvisor has done with Family Vacation Critic is launch a site that will bring it extra eyes/traffic, bring it new advertising/media revenue from the new site, and drive more visitors to TripAdvisor.com itself to bolster its traffic and advertising dollars there.

Family Vacation Critic's terms of use give it relatively free-wheeling use of user-written reviews. It's unclear to me whether reviews written on Family Vacation Critic can be posted on TripAdvisor.com, but I am betting they can. The terms state: "You hereby grant Family Vacation Critic the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display any message or photo posted or uploaded to Family Vacation Critic's forum or in our published user reviews (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed."

So TripAdvisor basically is leveraging its existing relationships with hotels, adding some family oriented content to Family Vacation Critic to take advantage of a hot travel sector, and segmenting existing reviews and content from TripAdvisor.com to increase its already substantial footprint.

Sure, there are seemingly unique features on Family Vacation Critic, and the site is only in beta and will evolve.

For example, a Deals tab on Family Vacation Critic offers direct booking on the hotels' websites.

TripAdvisor doesn't have a Deals tab per se. Perhaps the Family Vacation Critic Deals tab will lead to a similar positioning on TripAdvisor.com.

After all, deal publishing and "deals" are hot, with existing entrants like Travelzoo and new entrants like getaroom.com and Voyij.com.

Family Vacation Critic undoubtedly will be an effective way for TripAdvisor to slice and dice its content, and to continue its impressive growth.

Royal Champions, Royal Rooters ... Who Knew

I like the Red Sox, but didn't know a thing about the team's historic Royal Rooters, a scattershot collection of brewski and baseball buffs that traced their origins to 1897, until Ted Kennedy threw out the first pitch on opening day at Fenway Park the other day.

It turns out that Kennedy's grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the mayor of Boston, threw out the very first pitch at Fenway Park in 1912. The Kennedy grandad was a member of the Royal Rooters.

Today, the Royal Rooters of Red Sox Nation even have a blog.

So, it seems that Royal Caribbean's Royal Champions, which made for unflattering headlines about user-generated content a few weeks ago, weren't the first "Royal" rooting section.

No word, though, on whether the Boston Red Sox in the early 1900s encouraged the Royal Rooters to post puffy reviews on CruiseCritic.com:)

Corporate Responsibility Advice to Royal Caribbean and Cruise Critic

From a corporate responsibility perspective, here's my advice to Royal Caribbean and Cruise Critic regarding the Royal Champions episode: Come clean.
I have read the statements from the cruise line and Cruise Critic, and read the interview with Royal Caribbean's Bill Hayden.
In short, Royal Caribbean is accused of contacting active, online-cruise reviewers, getting their contact information from Cruise Critic, and then wooing them and seeking to manipulate their writing in ways subtle and not-so-subtle.
What is blatantly missing in all of this in the aftermath of the disclosures is any admission of wrongdoing on anyone's part, other than Cruise Critic saying that "at this time, we have decided that it is not in Cruise Critic’s best interest going forward to contact members on behalf of Royal Caribbean or any other cruise line."
From my days in dealing in crisis communications as an editor-in-chief of a corporate responsibility magazine, I can tell you that the best approach in these types of situations is to let it all hang out, admit where you screwed up and let us know how you plan to reform your ways in the future.
Has Cruise Critic done such favors for advertisers and major travel companies in the past? Was it pressured to do so by anyone? Was there any internal debate about it? Were any privacy policies violated?
And, will Royal Caribbean end any involvement with the Royal Champions? Does it admit that it was wrong to try to manipulate the social-media airwaves in such a manner?
I say to both companies: We'd respect you a lot more if you if you conduct some internal reviews of your behaviors, publish the results openly, and let us know what steps you are taking to ensure that this kind of thing won't happen again.

Reviewing Review Policies on TravelPost and TripAdvisor

Lost in the Royal Champions' controversy, in which Royal Caribbean organized and wooed this group of frequent cruise-reviewers, is the fact that a lot of review websites these days incentivize reviewers to pen their opinions.
As I wrote here a few days ago, I oppose the practice of review compensation.
Now, as it turns out, Kayak-owned TravelPost, in its quest to give TripAdvisor a run for its media dollars, is aggregating and posting user reviews from some sites that compensate their reviewers.
To its credit, Travelpost itself doesn't compensate people who write reviews for TravelPost. And, neither does TripAdvisor pay reviewers.
But, TravelPost is partnering with sites, including IgoUgo, Epinions.com, and BedandBreakfast.com , that compensate reviewers to varying degrees.
IgoUgo offers reviewers Go Points from American Airlines and Amazon; Epinions provides a revenue share; and BedandBreakfast.com makes reviewers eligibile for a $1,000 gift card.
TravelPost provides a way for consumers to filter in or out the source of TravelPost reviews.
But TravelPost, which says it values transparency, should provide explicit information for consumers about the review policies of its partners.
In that way, consumers would be able to make up their own minds about whether they should read or disregard reviews from incentivized critics.
It would only enhance TravelPost's reputation if it does so.