The latest TripAdvisor survey on word-of-mouth by users finds that 53% of users refer to word-of-mouth reviews every time they choose a hotel. In contrast, the ratios were 27% on a restaurant and 21% on a tourist spot, which were about half of the ratio in choosing a hotel.

The ratios of users reading more than six word-of-mouth reviews were 79% on a hotel, 58% on a restaurant and 47% on a tourist spot. The result represents that users tend to pay more attentions to word-of-mouth reviews in choosing a hotel.

The following table shows the breakdown of frequency of reading word-of-mouth reviews on hotel, restaurant and tourist spot:

The following table shows the breakdown of numbers of reading word-of-mouth reviews on hotel, restaurant and tourist spot:

In terms of how to read word-of-mouth reviews, the most answers were ‘Focusing on updated word-of-mouth reviews regardless of positive or negative to know updated situation (43%),’ followed by ‘Reading as many world-of-mouth reviews as possible over multiple pages to know a variety of opinions (30%)’ and ‘Reading word-of-mouth reviews relevant to myself after looking at titles or the first paragraphs over multiple pages (9%).’

The survey was conducted by PhoCusWright for TripAdvisor in the period from April 8 to 29 2015. The respondents totaled 14,991 in 17 countries including 1,357 in Japan.