I read in the travel press today First Choice Holidays are to start hosting TripAdvisor comment and rankings on their website. Is this a brave move, or will the danger of seeing complaints against First Choice on TripAdvisor put paying customers off?

My own view of TripAdvisor changes from week to week. I like the idea of it and I'm told by people with a lot more knowledge of these things than me that it's quite hard to trick it. There used to be rumours of property owners logging on to post multiple "brilliant" reviews of their own place to try and encourage custom. Apparently it's now possible to police it quite well so this can be prevented.

The good thing is that people post their reviews, which most of the time are genuine and very informative. As with most review and feedback forms, you tend to get extremes. If you have an average holiday, then you might not be inclined to post anything, However, if for one reason or another you have a memorable holiday, you're much more likely to let people know about it, whether those memories are good or bad.

First Choice - Complaints Through TripAdvisor?

The difficulty I have is that we're all different and we all want something different out of a holiday and this could leave First Choice open to complaints through TripAdvisor. Some people like laying by the pool all day reading trashy novels. Some people like exploring and seeing the sights. Therefore, if you go expecting one thing, but get another, your view is tainted by your own expectation. The person on the sunlounger next to you may have a totally different expectation and those views could result in someone awarding 5* and your neighbour awarding 1*.

Anyway, I digress - back to the point. First Choice have decided to use the TripAdvisor information on their site. It's a bit of a gamble because there's no guarantee that they will get good reviews, in fact they may go in the opposite direction and on their website First Choice complaints on TripAdvisor could be shown.

Personally, I think it's a good decision. It shows that they have confidence in their products and people can make their choices based upon the reviews posted. I also think that with more than 20 million members and 40 million unique monthly visits, there's a good chance that prospective customers would check them out on TripAdvisor anyway. So, if anything, it will stop people clicking away from the First Choice site because the information is already there.

My conclusion - it's a good idea.

However, it will be interesting to see whether customers and lawyers look to the site for ammunition when a holiday does go wrong? When people may be inclined to make a holiday compensation claim for one reason or another, whether it is as a result of an accident abroad, food poisoning, illness or quality complaint, they will no doubt be able to find others with similar experiences. To what extent that will help is questionable, but we will see.

So it looks like exciting times for First Choice, who recently announced that from next year they're going to be selling all inclusive holidays only. From a consumer perspective, this is fantastic. You will always get the protection of the Package Travel Regulations, but also get the additional services. The only downside is that my experience suggests that all inclusive properties are much more prone to food poisoning claims. Let's hope not, because from the holiday claims and stories I see on a very regular basis, that's not fun at all.