And thinking about it, it strikes me that a lot of “destinations” (a word that could have several different meanings depending on context) don’t actually have any meaningful reviews or blogs about them on the Internet. For example, thinking of all the French gites and chambres d’hôtes I monitor and am in contact with – and that amounts to several hundred owners and properties – few have even the modest level of Internet presence that we have.

Putting on the market researcher’s hat, I wonder if this was a survey conducted by Internet rather than face-to-face or telephone, and hence the respondents would be heavier Internet users than your average Joe? Or if “travel destination” has a particular contextual meaning within the survey which skews the results?

On another point, respondents may say they take into account what they’ve read, but that actually counts for nought if there’s not much choice or information for the destination they have in mind: for heavily visited locations such as NY, Paris or London there is plenty of information and choice, but that’s not universally the case.

Interesting article. As I say, it got me thinking!

Phil

Karen, the 75% referred to all blogs and review sites (ie: TA). I would have liked to see the data broken down to differentiate between the influence of blogs and TA but I guess that they can only ask so many questions.