Rankers is 100% locally owned by two good mates (Nick and Cy) who have worked together in travel for over 20 years. Rankers is a proudly local, boutique business.
In a world full of mass information, getting bigger and faster by the day, Rankers is about celebrating small-ness and slow-ness. We aim to make a huge difference to NZ travellers who believe in these values and choose to take the journey with us. Special things happen when you mix time and space together with quality people.
Rankers joins local knowledge and thoughtful curation of info with travel reviews. We then share that information through Maps and Ranking tables so the travellers can best find the special stuff that excites and suits them.
You’ve probably heard the stories around online reviews and whether they can be trusted. After 10 years of witnessing some less than favourable behaviour (by tourism owners and travellers alike), we can say that some of these stories are well founded. Any online review service is subject to the shady side of the online world and it’s a tough nut to combat. But we've learnt alot and do our best. Here’s what we do:
Every review is read by a real person - computer checks are excellent, but they only go so far.
If we find or learn about incorrect facts, then the review is suspended.
Anonymous reviews don’t cut it. Having your say goes both ways, a reviewer has to own their feedback.
On top of online reviews, you can view our face-to-face review results for further depth and transparency.
The ranking score percentage is made up of three key components. The average ranking score, the number of reviews and the age of these reviews. It is not necessarily a direct measurement of the quality of a particular experience as rated by its customers.
The ranking score may include adjustments for credibility and relevancy and is a useful tool to allow travellers to find the best experiences with confidence.
It's important to read the customer reviews for an experience before making any final judgements!
Travellers tell us there are several important aspects to trusting online reviews:
The following points are at the core of the formula that calculates the ranking score:
The average (mean) of all the customer reviews is the primary factor for determining the ranking score.
Fresh reviews are more relevant and as such carry a greater weight.
A reasonable number of rankings is necessary in order for the score to be credible. Experiences with only a few reviews will have a moderated score. This does not mean that the experience or the reviews can't be trusted.
The result is that experiences with a decent number of recent and high-rating reviews will have a higher ranking score.
There are three places rankings come from – through our website, via our Rankers Camping NZ app, and manual collection from travellers on the road.
Every year, since 2007, we’ve met the traveller, while they’re on the road, asking them about the good and the bad from their travels in NZ. Ten years later, over 50% of our reviews are from face-to-face contact.
These face-to-face reviews are as trusted as any review. To our knowledge, we are the only travel review website in the world that has done this (certainly on a consistent basis for over 10 years).
These reviews are our ‘control’. As far as we’re concerned, if a tourism experience checks out ‘Face-to-Face’ then they’re going a long way towards being a trusted operator.
If you want to go into greater depth, feel free to view the average score of just the face-to-face reviews for any experience we rank in NZ. Please note that not every experience has received a face-to-Face review.
It started with us meeting people in person, all around the country. We’re now offering a unique experience at Rankers Koha Experience and travellers come to us 😀
You’ll be helping out fellow travellers by contributing to a trusted source of NZ travel information. Ranking and reviewing tells it like it is.
We only use your email address for verification and in the odd case to request further information to justify your review. This way we have trust in all the information we receive from you folks out there.
We need your email address during signup so we can send you a verification/activation link.
One of the main jobs of the Rankers crew is to look after information that the Rankers community entrusts us with. Rankings, reviews and personal addresses are respected and kept secure. We do not supply your email address to any third parties.
Heck no. We'll never show your email address on the website apart from in your password protected profile which only you can access.
Start by joining Rankers and be sure to activate your account by following the activation link we send to your email address.
When you're logged in and your account is activated, you can start writing reviews. Search the experience you want to review, and click the 'Write Review' button on their Rankers page.
You can also browse the website and find the experience listing. Use the menus at top of the page to look for a relevant activity type or region. Once you find the experience you wish to review, click the 'Write Review' button.
Use the review form to rank the experience from 1 to 10 (higher is better) and write a full review to give other travellers an idea of what you liked (or not).
Alternatively, you can place a review via the Official Camping NZ App. Search for the experience you wish to review ('Settings' then 'Search') and click the speech bubble icon to send your review to the Rankers crew. We'll load it up on the site for you.
Travellers who have experienced the activity/attraction/accommodation or used the transport service in question. Once the service provider has confirmed a booking with the customer then a contract has been formed and the operator can be reviewed.
No. Having two accounts distorts the value of Rankers and is not allowed. While we cannot directly prevent you from setting up a second account, we will find out and take appropriate action.
If any operator you want to rank is not in our system, please let us know. Tell us the full name of the operator, where they are based and your ranking (if applicable).
Negative on that. Once you've decided on a username it becomes permanent. Make sure you choose the right one first time!
That's a tricky question as there's no single thing that makes a great review. Simple pros and cons are good but to make a review stand out, you'll need to work out what made your experience unique. Remember you're writing for someone else, someone you probably don't know, so try and keep the information useful. Last but not least, foul and abusive language is a no go zone – get creative with your enthusiasm instead of offending your gran with your salty lingo.
No. Rankers provides lots of tools for businesses looking to get greater exposure online, but self ranking isn't one of them.
Tourism operators have a right of reply. It provides both sides of the story.
Of course. Learning about things that went wrong is helpful for businesses as it helps them improve their service. This does not mean you can be abusive, however; we’ve got our eagle eye on the rankings and abuse won’t be tolerated.
Visit our contact us page and please tell us what you like and what you don't like, or just say hi.