BUSINESS TRAVEL
prnewswire | April 17, 2023
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform, released the third edition of its Review Transparency Report, revealing detailed trends around review contributions and the steps taken to ensure the integrity of user-submitted content.
The report, which is published biennially, analyzed a full year's worth of community contributions - over 73 million reviews and opinions in total - to give readers a deep dive into global submissions. The report also reveals how review trends have shifted since 2020, when the previous edition of the report was published. Key trends include:
Strong growth for reviews and business listings
The report reveals a significant increase in the volume of reviews left on the platform during 2022 - up +20% from 2020 levels to 30.2 million - as the world's explorers returned in force following two years of lockdowns, and restrictions. During 2022, Tripadvisor also saw business owners respond to over 10 million reviews, while community members asked and answered more than 940,000 questions from fellow users.
As global recovery continued in 2022, the platform saw an influx of new listings created, with 1.3 million new businesses added to the site, leading to a record 11.1 million listings at year end, up +16% from 2020's total of 9.6 million. Regionally, two out of five newly listed businesses were located in Europe, while Asia and North America each accounted for about 23% of the total.
Success in combating fake and paid reviews
Only a fraction of total review submissions from 2022 (4.4%) were determined to be fake or fraudulent, totaling just over 1.3 million. Of these, Tripadvisor's robust detection and moderation processes prevented 72% of submissions from ever making it onto the platform, a significant improvement on the 67% prevented during 2020.
Reviews from paid review companies represent an even smaller proportion of fraudulently submitted content, but have the very real capability to negatively impact consumer trust. In total, Tripadvisor removed 24,521 reviews associated with paid review companies in 2022. Nearly half of these originated from just six countries: India, Russia, U.S., Türkiye, Italy, and Vietnam.
Once fraudulent content has been identified and removed, Tripadvisor takes a range of actions against offending businesses, including content bans, ranking penalties and for the most severe cases, red badges. The Review Transparency Report reveals that Tripadvisor applied a ranking penalty to more than 33,000 businesses for fraud and issued 341 red badge warnings in 2022, each of these enforced with a ranking penalty.
"Tripadvisor is built on trust, and we will never stop improving our systems to ensure our community has access to reliable content and the businesses listed can compete on a level playing field," said Becky Foley, Vice President, Trust & Safety at Tripadvisor. "The findings from this report show that our approach is working; we're catching a higher proportion of fraudulent content before it is published, with nearly three-quarters of fake reviews never even making it to the platform."
Progress in helping to keep travelers safe
During 2022, almost 600 reviews were posted by Tripadvisor's community that described a serious safety incident during a travel or dining experience. Listings associated with these types of reviews, are subject to additional measures, aimed at increasing awareness among travelers.
Tripadvisor is able to place additional filters on listings associated with reviews that contain warnings or serious allegations, helping users more easily identify potentially problematic businesses. And this approach is clearly working, with reviews that reveal a serious safety incident over 10 times as likely to be read, than reviews that do not.
"I'm incredibly proud of our efforts to shine a light on the more troubling review content submitted by our community," added Becky Foley. "Sharing details of distressing incidents requires courage and all those who have been brave enough to share their experiences will hopefully take heart from the fact that their reviews are being seen by others and are making a real-world difference."
About Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform*, helps hundreds of millions of people each month** become better travelers, from planning to booking to taking a trip. Travelers across the globe use the Tripadvisor site and app to discover where to stay, what to do and where to eat based on guidance from those who have been there before. With more than 1 billion reviews and opinions of nearly 8 million businesses, travelers turn to Tripadvisor to find deals on accommodations, book experiences, reserve tables at delicious restaurants and discover great places nearby. As a travel guidance company available in 43 markets and 22 languages, Tripadvisor makes planning easy no matter the trip type. The subsidiaries of Tripadvisor, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP), own and operate a portfolio of travel media brands and businesses, operating under various websites and apps.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
businesswire | March 23, 2023
Sonder Holdings Inc. a leading next-generation hospitality company that is redefining the guest experience through technology and design, has expanded its business travel segment to include group bookings. Sonder also announced a new partnership with HelmsBriscoe, the global leader in meetings procurement and site selection.
Having formally launched its business travel segment in 2021, Sonder continued to expand this area in 2022, including strengthening its position on GDS platforms, and adding a significant number of corporate travel accounts. This translated into approximately $70 million in booked corporate sales in 2022, roughly 5x growth compared to 2021. The company continues to grow both corporate travel and corporate housing accounts, and is now increasing its share of group bookings within popular verticals such as sports and entertainment, hosting elite athletes and sports teams, as well as film and television production crews. Sonder offers both hotel and apartment accommodations in over 40 markets worldwide, including entertainment hubs and cities that host international sporting events.
“Partnering with an industry leader like HelmsBriscoe unlocks growth in group travel, at a time when corporate travel is still recovering to pre-pandemic levels, and the landscape is evolving with trends such as the blending of business and leisure travel. Sonder accommodations offer short-stay and long-stay groups an elevated experience at a great value. We see exciting opportunities to scale within our existing verticals, including sports and entertainment, and to add others,” said Kristen Richter, Vice President of Global Sales at Sonder.
Sonder’s portfolio now includes properties with on-site amenities and high key counts suited to groups, such as Battery Park in NYC, Business Bay in Dubai, Cielo in Mexico City, Maisonneuve in Montreal, and The Witherspoon in Philadelphia. Sonder spaces provide fast wi-fi, and many offer a comfortable place to spread out and work remotely, with fully-equipped kitchens, living rooms, multiple bedrooms and en-suite laundry.
About Sonder
Sonder is revolutionizing hospitality through innovative, tech-enabled service and inspiring, thoughtfully designed accommodations combined into one seamless experience. Launched in 2014 and headquartered in San Francisco, Sonder provides a variety of accommodation options from spacious rooms to fully-equipped suites and apartments found in over 40 markets spanning ten countries and three continents. The Sonder app gives guests full control over their stay. Complete with self-service features, simple check-in and 24/7 on-the-ground support, amenities and services at Sonder are just a tap away, making a world of better stays open to all.
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FEATURES AND ADVICE
BrainHQ | March 10, 2023
BrainHQ, a brain training system, has recently announced the conclusion of its pilot study, showing that brain training can help space travel. The research was conducted with computerized brain training and Posit Science marketed it.
The researchers found that space travel has a hazardous impact on the brain because of the gravitational forces involved in liftoff and landing, radiation, microgravity, and isolation. These impacts resulted in effects like intracranial pressure, impaired vision, vestibular dysfunction, altered fluid levels in veins and arteries, white matter changes, and premature aging. They grouped the astronauts having qualities like age, education and discipline who are employees from the Johnson Space Center for the Increasing Cognitive Ability/Reserve Using Software (ICARUS) pilot study. It tested their cognitive performance through its assessments and Cognition Test Battery, a software-based test dedicated to NASA.
It trained five of these participants for about 15 hours of training, 18 sessions and over the 90 days. They improved on internal measures of its exercises with a 71% increase on average in primary performance metrics. On the NASA Cognition Test Battery, they showed 19% gains on average. With preliminary findings, the pilot study provided data and feasibility for further research.
CEO of Posit Science, Dr. Henry Mahncke said, “These are exciting results in a new area, which is literally about the New Frontier.” He added, “Whether it’s returning to the moon or colonizing Mars, we know that addressing the cognitive challenges of long-term space flight is essential. These results fit nicely with what we’ve seen in building cognitive reserve in older adults and people recovering from brain injury and brain fog, as well as improving peak performers — such as special forces, law enforcement, or athletes — expected to perform at superhuman levels under extreme time and performance pressures.”
(Source – Globe Newswire)
About BrainHQ
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, BrainHQ, a wellness and fitness services provider, has improved mental ability and performance since 2002. The international team of neuroscientists and brain experts tested its brain training system. Its exercise is scientific-based, and researchers validated its real benefits in their published papers. The experts design, test and redefine its online exercises for cognitive issues, healthy aging and mental conditions. It uses a special algorithm to adapt difficulty in each exercise at the optimum level. Its exercises are divided into different levels for a flexible period, depending on the personal training goals, on any computer or mobile device.
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