In most cities, tourists are overwhelmed with ways to spend their time and money and depend on online reviews to help them make their decisions for everything from shopping to dining and hotels. For attraction and museum visitation it is no different, reviews play a fundamental role in the purchase decision for these activities. The most common first step for tourists when deciding on wether or not to buy tickets to a museum or attraction is to read online reviews, with most tourists depending on Trip Advisor and Google for customer feedback.
The first step for international tourists when deciding on what attractions or museums to visit is to look up online reviews at 36%, with US tourists not far behind at 32%. US tourists are slightly more inclined to look for discounts than to read reviews as a first step at 35%. Price will always play a strong role in any purchase decision but with attraction and museum visitation, online reviews are as important as ticket prices.
A high 71% of tourists find reviews to be extremely (32%) or very important (39%) to their decision to purchase tickets to museums and tourist attractions, consistent across both US and international tourists. With the wealth of experiences available to them, tourists need tools to prioritize their activities and create itineraries, reviews are the critical tool in this process. If your reviews are not strong, you risk falling off the itinerary of almost three quarters of the tourism market.
Trip Advisor is the leading platform for both tourist groups, with a high 74% of international tourists depending on this platform followed by 59% of US tourists. Google falls next and is used at the same rate as Trip Advisor by US tourists at 57%. More than half of international tourists also depend on Google at 56%. Facebook provides guidance for about a fifth of the tourism audience, while Yelp is not a popular tool for international tourists but is a primary resource for 32% of US tourists.
Online research is how most tourists find and decide on activities, and reviews provide the critical information driving conversion along with price. Any museum or attraction marketing department should be monitoring reviews at least weekly to not only ensure strong scores but to attain valuable feedback from customers that may lead to changes in the experience and ultimately improve reviews. The good news is that reviews are consolidated to two main sites, Trip Advisor and Google, limiting the scope of review monitoring. Facebook and Yelp should also be monitored but are not as critical to ticket sales.
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