Bazaar Voice

Review-reading travelers convert 123% higher at CheapCaribbean.com

• Review-engaged travelers convert 123% higher
• UGC engages site visitors

Cheap Caribbean offers all-inclusive Caribbean vacations at their ecommerce site, CheapCaribbean.com. For most shoppers, travel arrangements are highly researched purchase decisions. Travelers conduct extensive research when choosing vacation destinations, hotels, itineraries, and more.

Recognizing this, Cheap Caribbean launched Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews on their site in July 2010. The company sent a past-purchase email to all customers who had made a purchase on the site in the past 24 months, inviting these customers to write a review. Within two weeks, this single email campaign brought in over 8,000 customer reviews on CheapCaribbean.com. Almost immediately, the travel broker saw increased conversion and engagement attributable to these reviews.

What we measured

For a seven week period from August to September, 2010, we compared hotel page visitors at CheapCaribbean. com who interacted with user-generated content (UGC) to those who did not interact with this content, across a number of metrics.

Review-engaged travelers convert 123% higher

During the period, 20% of all order revenue was influenced by reviews. Hotel page visitors who interacted with UGC were found to convert 123% higher than those who did not interact with this content. These visitors also had a 10% higher average order value. Value of each hotel page visit also increased — Cheap Caribbean saw a 144% lift in revenue per visit.

UGC engages site visitors

Additionally, review-engaged visitors spent 76% more time on the Cheap Caribbean site, on average. Visitors who interacted with UGC also viewed 42% more pages per session.