So how do you ensure that you convert them at that point? Encourage them to book somewhere despite the lack of availability?

One of the best things you can do is to show your visitor alternative hotel recommendations on the hotel page. Surprisingly, very few hotel booking sites do this, while it is already commonly accepted in the retail industry (think of Amazon's "you might also like...").

Of course those alternatives need to be relevant to the user and close to the place they have just found. But by showing similar hotels in a very prominent place on the page, you are very likely to reduce bounce rates and increase your chances of conversion.

You will also gain trust and loyalty if the hotel recommendations were spot on.

Finding similar products within a database of several thousand hotels is certainly something the LikeCube semantic engine can deliver, so if booking abandonment is a familiar issue, contact us.

HEDNA, founded in 1991, is a not-for-profit trade association whose worldwide membership includes executives and managers from the most influential companies in the hotel distribution industry.

Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, said hotels across Europe were seeking to persuade the EU Commission to overhaul the rules governing website reviews to ensure that they have been posted by genuine guests and not by rivals or people simply out to cause mischief.

The article goes on to state:

Industry leaders called for the rest of Europe to adopt the same standards of authentification that are already in operation in Germany.

While requiring authenticated users is a good way forward (potentially reducing the amount of spam, both positive and negative), it won't fundamentally change the problem: creating authenticated reviews won't prevent people from writing negative comments about hotels if their experience was truly poor; Tripadvisor will still be able to create a Top 10 list of dirtiest hotels; and some hotels will still feel unfairly represented (though one might argue that this is an opportunity for the named hotels to benefit from a surge in publicity).

The very idea of a global Top 10 is the problem.

The question is, do you align yourself with the 80% of negative reviews or the 20% of positive ones? Without knowing the individuals writing those reviews, how can you be sure? We often default for the majority, but that doesn't mean it's the best option.

One of the main complaints about Tripadvisor is that it offers no way to easily know if you can relate to the people writing reviews: Is your taste similar? Do you care about the same things in rating your hotel stay? What if comments are unfair, unjustified or plain unreasonable?

TripAdvisor would be far more useful if they offered personalized content, a personalized Top 10, with tailored reviews from people with similar taste to your own.

It's about to change.

39 of the UK’s leading digital companies have been selected for the second annual Digital Mission to South by South West interactive (SXSWi), taking place in Austin, Texas from 11-17th March 2010. [...] The successful companies were chosen from over 120 submissions by an advisory board of industry experts drawn from the UK community including: VC’s, export specialists, journalists and industry pundits to take part in the Digital Mission to SXSWi.

Full list of participants here.