by Donald Wood
Last updated: 2:30 PM ET, Thu June 18, 2015
Photo courtesy of Thinkstock
The power of social media is undeniable in today's technology-heavy culture, and one site called Diffbot.com has collected customer reactions from around the internet to help rank the travel industry's top companies based on feedback.
According to Diffbot.com, the site combs through the forums and comment sections of the most popular travel blogs and websites to find out the genuine reactions and feelings toward the biggest brands in the industry.
The website broke the findings into several categories, but it mostly broke down the three top travel industries (airlines, car rental and hotels) in two sections; the most talked about brands and which brands people love or hate.
Starting with airlines, Diffbot.com is reporting that United Airlines has the most mentions by far but is the third-worst in the traveler sentiment rankings. On the other hand, Alaska Airlines has the most positive traveler sentiment, and British Airways has the worst. Delta was the second best on the sentiment index and Southwest came in as second-to-last.
As far as ground transportation is concerned, the top two most mentioned brands are car rental company Enterprise and ride-sharing company Uber. Unlike airlines, though, only two brands find themselves in the positive traveler sentiment (Lyft and Enterprise) with Uber, Avis and Hertz all getting negative reactions from customers.
For hotels, the top three most mentioned brands are all very close, with Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott finishing way ahead of the rest of the field. On the other hand, W Hotels had the most positive traveler sentiment and house-sharing company Airbnb finished second. As far as negative sentiment goes, Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton and Hyatt were the bottom four, respectively.
The biggest surprise was the success of new brands like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb. With more and more millennials traveling, the willingness to try new ways of booking their flights, hotels and car rentals has expanded.
While many of the top brands in the world performed well, this is a telling survey for other companies whose customers don't seem so happy with their service and performance.
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