Travelguru is India's first travel portal to offers user ratings and reviews on hotels available for real-time booking. Hotel Ka Guru, the most recent consumer interactive initiative has focused on showing customers that specialized service and advice is available to all users who choose to use the Travelguru toll-free numbers to make their travel bookings.

These days, around the world, there is a set of well-informed consumers trying their best to help other consumers. It is this community that says it prefers to rely on the opinions of others like themselves as opposed to the official marketing spiel. It is this community that throws light on the good and the bad – the pros and the cons.

Interestingly, consumers are spending nearly twice as much time online than they did only four years ago. As search efficiency grows, consumers can easily access what they are looking for and spend more time with that content. According to the CompUSA-iPerceptions study, 77% of online shoppers worldwide use reviews and ratings when making a purchase. 86% of respondents said they would trust a friend’s/ user recommendation over a critic’s/expert’s view. As much as 63 per cent of all word of mouth (WOM) publicity is positive. Over 65 per cent of online users researching information gives more credibility to user reviews, even in India.

Users who've booked a hotel through Travelguru are requested to review the hotel in which they stayed in and give it a rating of their choice. This acts as an unbiased source of feedback which benefits all Travelguru users in the long run. This also ensures that only people who have stayed at the hotel can submit a review on the property. As a process, two days after check out, an auto generated email is sent to the customer asking for his review. This review asks him to rate hotels on a rating of 1–5 on the key parameters of Cleanliness, Dining Options, Service, Quality of room and Overall Satisfaction with the hotel.

Travelguru helps the customer make a well-informed choice among the numerous hotel bookings options with exhaustive hotel information, photos, distance to local attractions etc, and the very relevant opinions of customers who have stayed at the property. “The user reviews round out our offering and make it an extremely user-friendly and hassle-free, self-booking option. We will continue to build on our leadership position in hotel-related user generated content to further enhance our customer booking experience,” adds Krishnan. In the future, www.travelguru.com plans to reward the best review on the basis of its utility, description and detail.

About Travelguru
Travelguru - India’s largest hotel network - offers access to over 4000 hotels in India and over 72,000 hotels worldwide. It offers travelers the opportunity to plan and purchase their travel in a transparent, easy and customizable manner. Instant bookings and confirmations are some of the unique features of the travel portal. Strategic partnerships and deep supplier relationships give Travelguru the edge as an aggregator of travel services. Sorting hotels by user reviews and several other criteria are some of the distinctive value-added services at Travelguru. Backed by next generation real-time metasearch technology, and a reservation center of skilled, well-trained travel professionals, Travelguru facilitates a wide range of travel options and recommendations for domestic as well as international travelers. The Travelguru hotel advisors guide you to the most convenient place to stay including rates, amenities, landmarks and so on across India. It promotes properties from budget to luxury, single room to serviced apartment, business accommodation to leisure houseboat. Recently, Travelguru has been awarded the prestigious JuxtConsult Award 2007 for being the ‘Best Practice Website’ in user–friendliness. The senior management team brings significant experience from diverse fields such as hospitality, travel, e-commerce, retail and banking. With sizable investments from blue-chip investors Sequoia Capital India and Battery Ventures, Travelguru is set to redefine the way India travels. Travelguru can be found on the World Wide Web at www.travelguru.com or can be reached by calling the company’s reservation center, +91 - 22 - 4275 4878 (standard charges apply).