By Alan Young

A recent TripAdvisor-PhoCusWright study shows that consumers read at least six to twelve travel reviews prior to booking.

That study was based on trends over the past year. However, the Internet is a fast paced and ever changing world, and there are signs that in the near future, travelers might consume reviews in a different way.

TrustYou, for example, has developed what it calls "the Meta-Review", a summary of a hotel's reputation derived from semantic analysis of reviews across the world.

The claimed reach of more than 50 million monthly unique visitors being influenced by TrustYou data on sites like Kayak or Wego.com is impressive.

We interviewed TrustYou CEO and co-founder Benjamin Jost to find out more:

What exactly are Meta-Reviews?

Meta-Reviews are a trusted summary of relevant reviews worldwide, showing the most talked about and most relevant attributes of a particular hotel, along with some special, important-to-know 'nuggets' of information that are unique to the particular hotel.

Different signals are taking into account; for example, the most recent content carries a higher weight. We also start to experiment with different weighting for verified reviews versus unverified ones.

Bottom line, think of Meta-Reviews as the Cliff's Notes for thousands and thousands of reviews; they give travelers the best possible summary of all reviews for faster, more informed booking decisions.

The rest is here:

Will traditional travel reviews die out? | By Alan Young