Online travel agency Expedia.com has chosen to incorporate all the verified reviews from its sister company, Hotels.com, into its collection.

This move will bring the total number of verified reviews available to Expedia customers to more than 7.5 million.

Expedia recently announced an overhaul of its hotel reviews feature, incorporating improvements that will make its collection of verified hotel reviews, more accessible and relevant to prospective travellers.This new move is part of this overhaul.

Assurance

As more and more travel companies focus on highlighting comments and ratings contributed by consumers on their sites, Expedia has been guaranteeing that all guest reviews are verified as submitted by Expedia’s customers and “reflect their stay” at a particular hotel.

One of the most important changes to the reviews programme is in its relevancy, mentioned Expedia. Travellers can now write reviews for a particular audience. Reviewers have an option to choose their review target audience as families, business travellers, couples, students etc. with the final category an open field.  About two million existing million existing reviews have been categorised as written for families, business travellers and couples.

Also, in addition to the photos provided by the hotels, Expedia now allows reviewers to include their own photos in their review, to make those reviews even more descriptive. The company has also implemented a “thank the reviewer” feature so readers can express their appreciation to the reviewer if that review has been helpful.

Hotels and OTAs are acknowledging that conversations about their services will happen with or without them, so it is better to be part of them and to learn from them.