The influence of TripAdvisor on how tourists choose to spend their money is continuing to increase, according to research commissioned by the reviews website.

Research firm Oxford Economics finds that TripAdvisor’s reviews and scores influenced around $546 billion of travel spending during 2017 – this represents 10.3% of all global spending on tourism which reached a total of $5.3 trillion last year.

The study, entitled Sizing the Worldwide Travel Economy, also reveals that viewing TripAdvisor content led to consumers taking extra trips to new destinations, as well as encouraging longer stays in new destinations and properties.

The report estimates that consumers spent an extra $80 billion globally on 32 million extra trips in 2017 that would not have happened without TripAdvisor.

TripAdvisor’s influence has continued to grow year-on-year since 2007 when the site influenced around 7% of all spending on leisure travel, with the impact on international tourism being “consistently higher” than for domestic trips.

The level of impact that TripAdvisor has on travel booking decisions varies across global regions – the site has the least amount of influence in Asia Pacific (on 9% of travel spending) and also North America (10% of spending), which the report attributes to the high number of domestic trips in the region.

Europe is where TripAdvisor wields the most influence with 12.8% of travel spending from tourists in Emerging Europe being directly affected by the site’s content, while this figure was 11.6% in Western Europe.

Charlie Ballard, TripAdvisor’s director of strategic insights, says:

“The travel category is indeed enormous and outpacing other consumer spending worldwide.

“TripAdvisor not only inspires travel, but also causes more travel – in particular by encouraging travelers to take longer trips by showing them how much more there is to see and do.”

To compile the research, Oxford Economics analysed TripAdvisor user trends from 2004 onwards, as well as data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and tourism figures from 51 countries.

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