Travel brands are no longer treating customer reviews as a post-purchase asset. Increasingly, they’re turning them into a performance channel.
Feefo's Trust Advantage 2026 research shows that 80% of shoppers believe fake reviews actively damage a brand's reputation, and that featuring verified reviews in advertising increases purchase intent by over 10%.
The travel businesses seeing the strongest returns aren't waiting for customers to find their reviews on-site. They're putting verified proof into every advertising channel, from paid social to TV to out-of-home.
Key takeaways
- Travel is one of the most likely sectors where consumers will always check reviews before buying. In fact, it’s second only to consumer tech.
- Verified reviews drive measurable on-site conversion: a 52% rise in transactions for Lovat Parks and a 31% increase in conversions for CV Villas.
- Most travel brands use reviews only on site rather than in advertising, leaving an opportunity to improve commercial performance.
- Two thirds of UK consumers prefer to buy from brands featuring genuine reviews in their advertising.
- Adding the Feefo logo increases purchase intent by over 10%, with no extra media spend.
- Using verified reviews consistently – across TV, paid social, direct mail and out-of-home – increases trust at every touchpoint.
Why are travel customers harder to convert in 2026?
Travel marketing has always been about inspiration, but increasingly it’s also about verification. Our Trust Advantage 2026 research found that travel ranks second only to technology as the sector in which consumers say they would definitely check reviews before making a purchase.
Holidays are a big investment for most consumers. The average UK holidaymaker spends £975 per trip. Unlike most purchases, the experience can't be returned or exchanged – which means the decision to book carries real financial and emotional risk.
Fake review volumes on major travel platforms have nearly doubled since 2018, and consumer scepticism has risen with them. Two thirds of UK consumers now check two or more review providers before making a purchase. A travel business that can't demonstrate verified social proof at the point of consideration is asking customers to take it on faith – and fewer are willing to do that.
What does verified proof do on-site?
The on-site case is well established – but worth grounding in travel-specific terms. For travel brands, the product page is the booking page. Reviews displayed alongside pricing and availability are doing active conversion work at the moment of decision.
Lovat Parks saw a 52% rise in transactions after switching from own-brand review styling to Feefo-branded widgets. CV Villas saw a 31% increase in conversions after implementing on-page review displays. In both cases, the change wasn't to the reviews themselves – it was to the visible verification behind them.
How are travel brands using verified reviews in their advertising?
Most travel brands have reviews on their website. Fewer are using them in their advertising, and that's where the gap in commercial performance is opening up.
Our research found that two thirds of UK consumers prefer to buy from brands that feature genuine reviews in their advertising. Adding a verified review provider logo increases purchase intent by over 10%.
In the travel industry, where media spend is significant and the cost of an unconverted click is high, that uplift immediately lowers Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – achieved through creative execution alone, with no additional media spend required.
CV Villas have built Feefo reviews into every major channel they use:
- On television, the Feefo rating features both visually and in voiceover – using the available seconds to communicate verified trust rather than relying on brand claims alone.
- On paid social, verified testimonials run alongside the Feefo star rating across Meta campaigns, giving prospective customers attributed, purchaser-verified feedback at the point of first contact.
- Direct mail goes to existing customers and new prospects three times a year, with reviews featured across multiple pages – reinforcing the trust signal across a longer, more considered decision cycle.
Maintaining consistency across channels matters. A customer who sees the Feefo rating in a Meta ad, then finds the same reviews on the booking page, gets a second confirmation that reinforces the first.
That consistency extends to out of home, 98% of UK consumers are exposed to out-of-home advertising, with 33% saying they trust it implicitly. For travel brands with OOH in their media mix, adding reviews to that creative is one of the more cost-efficient trust interventions available.
Hear from CV Villas directly on why they put social proof across their advertising.
Are your travel reviews working as hard as your media budget?
The travel brands seeing the strongest returns from verified reviews are the ones deploying them consistently across every channel – and letting purchaser-verified proof do the conversion work that unvalidated creative can't.
With consumer scepticism rising and acquisition costs under sustained pressure, verified reviews are one of the few levers that improve conversion without increasing spend. The brands pulling ahead in travel aren't doing anything complicated – they're just making sure the proof is visible at every point where a customer might decide.
