New Delhi: India’s largest hotels and accommodation aggregator, Goibibo.com, has rated and reviewed over 20,000 hotels in India. The company expects to expand ratings and reviews to 37,000 hotels by March 2016 with the total volume reaching 1 million ratings.
Unlike other OTA’s that publish TripAdvisor’s ratings and reviews, Goibibo has created its own UGC engine (User generated content) for ratings, photo reviews and question and answers.
Goibibo is also the first OTA in the world to leverage the power of pictures via ‘Photo reviews’ and also harness the power of the knowledge of the community for its questions and answers product.
Photo reviews and question and answers are mobile first features launched to strengthen UGC within Goibibo community. Around 70 percent of hotels on Goibibo have user generated photo reviews and ratings. Typical type of picture reviews generated by consumers comprise photos of rooms, amenities, condition of the rooms, bathrooms, showers, hotel lobby, swimming pools besides a lot of pictures of surroundings of the hotels and places nearby.
Ashish Kashyap, Founder and CEO, ibibo Group (Goibibo, redBus, Ryde) said, “12 percent to 15 percent of bookers on Goibibo participate in generating ratings, photo reviews etc. User generated content has significantly enhanced the trust between travelers and hotel owners.”
“This is clearly visible in our conversion rates and engagement rates. These innovations have also enabled us to strengthen the network effects in our hotels vertical. Besides being the largest online booking engine for hotels we are also now one of the leading travel communities in India. Ratings and reviews form an important part of the ranking algorithm of hotels thereby directly impacting their business on Goibibo’s’ network,” added Kashyap.
Goibibo is ranked number one app under the travel category on the play store. The company has been constantly releasing mobile first innovations such as flights, hotels; GoCash gifting; travelers checklists; Photo ratings and reviews and recent one being question and answers.