Orlando Travel Sites

Consumer travel information based websites, also known as infomediaries, have an increasing impact on Orlando Florida vacation planning. Some examples of these types of sites include the Trip Advisor reviews portal, Flip Key rentals, and of course this vacation reviews based website.

Our interest was piqued after a recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers travel research report revealed that these consumer information websites have a rising influence on online travel decision making. In fact, travel infomediaries show strong traffic growth trends, especially in Europe. Click here for this previous blog post.

For this trend to continue, we believe there are at least three ingredients that online travel “infomediary” sites must emphasize for the benefit of online travel consumers. These essential factors include consumer trust, content relevancy and information timeliness. Each of these in their own right have a great influence on Orlando Florida vacation planning, the focus of this website. Click here to connect to the City of Orlando’s official website.

The first and most important feature a consumer must maintain for any infomediary travel site is consumer trust. Any prospective consumer of web content should read the site’s disclaimer and then evaluate the advertising (if any) on the site. This may give one insight or balance for possible commercial conflicts. If the site is a blog, do the content editors disclose particular biases a reader will need to know? For instance, this website clearly indicates our bias towards vacation rentals over hotels. We also clearly indicate that our reviews are opinion based only.

Also, what percentage of the reviews receive 4 or 5 star ratings for an online reviews portal? Persistent high ratings throughout the site may indicate “score inflation”. Consumers should prefer sites with discerning travellers or professionals with variances in scoring to indicate a better indication of true quality designations and preferences.

Content relevancy also plays a key role in the rise of online consumer information websites. Does the content posted vis-a-vis reviews pertain to my own personal prospective vacation at that resort, hotel or vacation rental? A good example of a site doing great work in this arena is the Flipkey rentals site with reviews right down to a particular vacation home.

For a vacation home reviews site, it is important to look at the breakdown by resort or community variables. For instance, this site provides decision variables such as location, community facilities, amenities, and driving distances, and then let the consumer decide. This high level of interactivity ultimately has an impact on personal content relevancy for any successful online travel website.

Information timeliness is the third factor infomediaries must fulfill to be successful. For example, some consumer oriented websites retain posted reviews well over 18 months old. These may provide some insight, but we believe resort and community quality is dynamic over time. If new updates are not posted regularly the reviews lose relevancy. This particularly applies to smaller resorts or communities that often get less than five posted consumer reviews monthly.

As you move forward with your Orlando Florida vacation planning, evaluate information based travel websites carefully. With consumer trust, content relevancy and information timeliness, travel decisions can be strongly aided by online infomediaries.

Feel free to consult this website for vacation reviews of over 80+ resort communities along with news on what’s happening in the Central Florida area. We strive to fulfill traveller expectations with unbiased reviews, continuously updated interactive ratings and reliable information profiles.