Asia's becoming the latest battleground for travel reviews, I am just surprised it's taken this long.

And the battle will be between a global, established brand trying to scale in Asia and a local, Indian brand trying to scale outside its home market.

One is bringing in an established model that's worked phenomenally well in the US and, to a certain extent, Europe and has achieved absolute global dominance – I mean, after TripAdvisor, who else is there?

It's a bit like Google, and there's the rest. Or Facebook, and there's the rest. Which leads to another set of concerns altogether of course, but that's for later.

Back to travel reviews – while TripAdvisor has set up presence in India, China and Japan, it has yet to drill deep into the Asian market in terms of content and context and obviously, this is something it wants to change with the appointment of Marc Charron as head of APAC to be based in Singapore. (See article)

Charron used to head Europe and his skills in uniting a fragmented, diverse continent like Europe would come in fairly useful in the Asian context.

The other player making a bid for the Asian travel review market is Holiday IQ, an Indian media portal that claims a unique hybrid content model that gives "cultural context" to reviews. (See article)

It has three layers of content – own generated, user generated, which forms 70% of the content and commercial, comprising supplier listings.

Founder & CEO, Hari Nair, a former partner with KPMG in India, before deciding to live out his passion for travel through a start-up, says his model works for emerging markets which need a blend of facts (own editorial content) and opinions (user reviews).

It also has an enquiry model where the company matches email enquiries with traditional, offline travel companies – fulfilling a need for long tail, specialist experiences which cannot be found easily online.

Both will face their own challenges, we are sure. For TripAdvisor, can it gain local and regional traction? And for Holiday IQ, can it gain scale outside of India?

And are the other English-speaking markets of Asia Pacific sufficiently similar to India in terms of needing "cultural context" to their reviews?

Do Singaporean travellers want to read reviews by other Singaporeans, and can't they find it elsewhere anyway, given the market is so miniscule compared with India?

One has a known global brand. One is building a brand outside its home market. One has big bucks behind it. One is seeking funding for its expansion.

In the end, it doesn't matter who will win because both, we are sure, will find their own path. What's important is what it does to the Asian online travel space – yes, it will surely add spice to the landscape.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com. Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders.

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