It happened this week – Our 400th TripAdvisor Review!

Ever since our first review on June 24, 2013, we have been steadily collecting amazing reviews on TripAdvisor. The volume of reviews, as well as the ratings and comments themselves, have helped us to receive the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for both 2014 and 2015.

This week, our 400th review came from shan_knight1169 of Trescott, Maine. (If you are not familiar with Trescott, it is 232 miles and almost 4 hours away from Portland in extreme Washington County.)

Thanks so much shan_knight1169 for taking the time to write this, and for being our 400th review on TripAdvisor!

Here is a little more information about how important these are. The chart below shows the rating breakdown that the first 400 TripAdvisor users have given our tours:

So how has this happened?

At the end of every tour, we simply ask for our guests to review us on TripAdvisor. We hand out little reminder cards that really do work! Many people find that card later and then remember to review us on the site.

We also send a thank you e-mail after each tour that contains a reminder about public review sites such as this. Finally, we use a tool on TripAdvisor called Review Express which sends an e-mail to our guests asking for the review. This is why our 400th (and many others) mention that it was “…collected in partnership with this attraction“.

We also know that 25% of people report that they heard about us for the very first time through TripAdvisor. Another 14% report they first heard about us through a Google search, which ultimately will also lead to our TripAdvisor page.

The Google search term that people most often use to find us is “Portland Maine brewery tour“, second is “things to do in Portland, Maine” which is notable as it contains nothing to do with beer or breweries.

So those public reviews matter a ton! They help people find us who may not have even been looking for a brewery tour specifically. They help others who may have heard about us through another source, but also want to read about the experiences of other travelers. It serves as a verification tool for many of our guests, to make sure that we are legit and that they are most likely going to have a good time once they book our tour.

We also now have our own team members who routinely look at our TripAdvisor page to see if their name has been mentioned. They love when they get called out (with real names or nicknames) for doing a good job driving or guiding our tours.

And that very first review in June of 2013? The one that got it all started? Here it is:

At the time, John Bryant was living in Stoughton, MA and was working as a buyer in a retail liquor and beer store. He used a fun industry nickname: Bearded Beer Guy.

These days John is still bearded, but everything else in his life has changed. He is now living in Maine, engaged to be married, and is a sales representative for Baxter Brewing Company in Lewiston. Seems like a little piece of Maine rubbed off on him during his visit in 2013.

We get to see him quite a bit, and each time we thank him for taking the few minutes to write such a great first review!.

Cheers to John, to shan_knight1169, and to all of you who have played a part in building our reviews on TripAdvisor!

Have you now realized that you have taken a Maine Brew Bus tour but haven’t reviewed us on TripAdvisor? You can fix that right now.

Or would you like more information about our different tour offerings? We have that too.

Cheers!