Democracy in Panama |
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| Written by Matt |
| Wednesday, 30 December 2009 07:51 |
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The days may be close to long gone, but let's revisit them for a moment. Panama was just beginning to make a splash and the online world was abuzz with its varying forms of Panaphernalia: vacation ads, real estate banners, retirement guides. Everything Panama was rosy, perfect, and pristine. The few resources that challenged its paradisiacal stereotype tended to overcompensate and thus come off as extremists. If you were researching Panama around 2004, it would not be unfair to say that there was about a 95% chance you'd stumble upon something cheery. This did wonders to get first timers in the door, but how would it help shape their ultimate opinion?Â
For a period, Jim Hobart was like a lot of other retailers. His online store AlpacaDirect.com sold luxury wool garments and his website spent the majority of its front-page real estate trying to persuade clients into buying the right piece. Like many other websites, Hobart's site also consisted of a testimonials section that read like a cherry-picked list of ecstatic, raving clientele. Mary from Washington State was a particularly happy camper. "I'd like to say THANK YOU to you and the whole staff at Alpaca Direct," she wrote. "Your products are first rate but most of all I am impressed and grateful for what I consider to be OUTSTANDING Customer Support. The turnaround time, the straight-forwardness of your communications, your cheerfulness and attitude serve as the model for great service. I really appreciate it and wanted to let all of you at Alpaca Direct know that. Thanx again for wonderful service and wonderful products!" Mary, it seems, had a lot of nice things to say. Reviews like these were shown until Hobart decided to take the idea a step further and install interactive review software that allowed users to post uncensored comments about his products. It was a risky move for a start-up company in that they could potentially be playing host to bad press. For example, one early user described AlpacaDirect's golf cardigan as "kinda sweaty" and another called it "a poor fit." Both awarded the cardigan three out of a possible five stars. But a weird thing happened several months into the process. Hobart saw sales climb almost 25% on items that had customer reviews (whether they were positive or not). It was a direct result of his review software, which gave users an opinion-base to consult. Hobart also reported that end users were happier in the long run as they knew more pricelessly what to expect from each particular product. User reviews are nothing new to the travel industry, in fact, arguably the web's largest democratic forum of "social vacationing," TripAdvisor, wields so much power that, as a hotel, you simply can't afford not to be listed amongst its pages. What people appreciate is the forum's neutrality. In some cases, as backwards as it sounds, people stay at the very hotels that show less-favorable reviews! Why? Because they've calculated their risk and feel that a particular destination offers more good than it does bad. In its early stages of tourism development, Panama was not unlike any new product in that no one knew really what to expect. The vast majority of literature online was planted by promoters: it painted an idyllic picture of what foreigners should anticipate and it ignored any of the possible problems. It disregarded them as irrelevant. Internet users rank reviews as the most important feature of a shopping website (according to a recent survey by Forrester Research). And travelers searching for reviews of Panama, who found nothing but positive hype, translated to a whirlwind of first-time visitors (over 1 Million it was said), many of whom left disappointed. Panama's Minister of Tourism Salomon Shamah reported the statistics in June, 2009. "Shoppers return," he said, "not tourists." {adsense} ThePanamaReport is a testament to the challenge one faces when going against the propaganda grain in Panama. People don't like bad publicity. They say it kills business. And in part they're right. But in the long run, disenchanted visitors are far more cancerous. A feedback network provides a sense of consensus and as people like Jim Hobart of AlpacaDirect realized, editing or deleting reviews or information you don't like acts like a red flag to the consumer. Today's shoppers and travelers value democracy in their discussion forums. It helps build trust and it helps designate a more realistic set of expectations. Panama seems to have emerged into a new phase of development nowadays. Fantasy numbers are retreating back towards the realistic and boomtown Central America has been muted to some extent. This non-coincidentally parallels the increase in unbiased information reviews: some of which rightfully praise Panama's highlights and others that caution consumers quite brazenly to beware.
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Comments (1)
  written by Ellen G. , December 31, 2009 Matt, your piece is crude but true. I have been in Panama for 4 years and have seen the amount of information online go from nothing to something in that time. At first, people had nothing but hype to read and this did damage to Panama. I am retired now but used to work for a prominent publication as a journalist and can tell you 100%: avoiding the negative press (in some parts of the world known as censorship) can be insanely detrimental to a developing country.
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