Singaporeans Are Wordy Travellers, Among Top Contributors On TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor has announced its top contributors of 2014, based on the reviews and opinions submitted on TripAdvisor from its community of millions of travellers worldwide. It seems that Singapore has come out on top, this time as some of TripAdvisor’s top contributors.

The online travel platform now features more than 200 million reviews and opinions from its global travel community, covering more than 4.4 million businesses and properties in 145,000 destinations. In its latest release, it highlighted its top contributing members and countries, as well as the most-reviewed cities, accommodations, restaurants and attractions on the site in 2014, based on traveller contributions made to TripAdvisor from January to September 2014.

Among the top contributing countries in 2014, Singapore is ranked first in the highest number of words per review, as well as the highest percentage of international reviews (reviews for travel outside of a member’s home country). It seems like Singapore takes to crowd-reviewing sites like TripAdvisor like a fish to water.

“Our global travel community adds 115 contributions to the site every minute, helping to make TripAdvisor the world’s best place to plan a trip,” said Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer of TripAdvisor. “We thank our most active members, as well as each of our contributors. Their candid feedback is the lifeblood of TripAdvisor and helps others find the information and advice they need before they travel or visit a business.”

The People Leading The Way

These are some of the most prolific TripAdvisor contributors from Singapore in 2014.

Singapore’s top contributor with the most reviews is KGB777, with 602 reviews in 2014. An expatriate living in Singapore for eight years, KGB777 has travelled all around the world. He started using TripAdvisor more actively in 2012 as a way to log his personal journeys.

“When friends ask me for recommendations on where to go, places to stay and what to see, TripAdvisor is very useful because you have everything recorded,” said KGB777. “I now refer them to my TripAdvisor profile, as it is similar to having your own travel blog.”

Amazingly, KGB777 has a record of 99% of the world travelled and written about!

Singapore’s top contributor with the most restaurant reviews is TheArcticStar, Elle L., with 228 restaurant reviews in 2014. A Singaporean entrepreneur, and evidently a foodie, Elle has travelled to more than 12 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

“I like receiving ‘helpful votes’ from the TripAdvisor community,” said Elle. “It makes me feel like whatever I wrote has helped someone in their travel research.”

Singapore’s top contributor with the most content and forum posts is mousehunt, with 2,040 pieces of content and 1,830 forum posts in 2014. A lifelong travel enthusiast, mousehunt started using the TripAdvisor Forums in 2005 to seek advice for his travels. Today, he is a Destination Expert for the Philippines, providing guidance to travellers on a daily basis.

“Good service needs to be praised and bad service needs to be made known to the community,” said Mousehunt. “I enjoy contributing on TripAdvisor as I hope to give back to the community after benefitting from others’ help for my travel planning.”

TripAdvisor also announced the most popular Singapore places on its platform. While Facebook has announced that Universal Studios Singapore is the most checked-in location in Singapore, it seems that this isn’t the case on TripAdvisor.

The most reviewed Singaporean places in 2014 are:

• Attraction: Gardens by the Bay (3,397 reviews)
• Restaurant: KU DE TA Restaurant (579 reviews)
• Accommodation: Marina Bay Sands (2,887 reviews)

So if you’re planning the perfect trip, these are the people to follow. f you’re planning to become a travel-mogul, these are the people to beat. I’m not worried. I only have 98% of the world left to cover…