After posting 2 articles regarding TripAdvisor's role in hotel reviews, I decided to print the initial post that started it all. This post addressed reviews in general and you specifically - the reader. My comments will follow at the end.
"This Oahu hotel had stellar TripAdvisor reviews. We were floored on arrival, and thought about leaving immediately and sleeping in the car. It was the 2005 Pro Bowl weekend and everything was booked solid, except for this hotel. We checked out after one night, which was one night too many.
It all comes down to who do you trust.
According to Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research, more than 83% of us trust the opinion of an acquaintance or friend, while only 30-49% of us trust the opinion of various website editors.
Another study, by Pollara Research, indicated that nearly 80% of those surveyed said they were likely to trust recommendations by real-world friends and family, but only 23% reported being likely to consider a well-known blogger’s recommendation.
For the most part, I found myself in agreement with these studies. It is sometimes difficult to know who you can trust and whether there was any monetary influence in a review. For me, it is more intuition than anything else. Also, does the writer seem to convey a true sense of objectivity about the property. If it is all glowing, that gets me wondering straight away.
Contrast individual reviews with travel review sites like TripAdvisor or Virtual Tourist, in which I needn’t feel trust towards any one author, because there are abundant reviews that I can myself digest and correlate.
A recent Travel and Leisure article spoke about travel review sites and also questioned their credibility. Some sites are making considerable progress in helping you find the truth in their reviews. We’ve previously expressed concerns too about travel review sites, and discussed ways to cut through the muck. TripAdvisor also suffers from an inherent corporate conflict of interest, inasmuch as it is now owned by Expedia.
This starting us thinking about Beat of Hawaii review policies. We enjoy sharing our finds with visitors, and have never received compensation in any form for our reviews. In only one case, (Westin Princeville Ocean Resort), did a hotel or restaurant even know that we would be on site."
Now for my two cents worth. As said previously, I do not think 30% of posts on Tripadvisor or any review site are fakes. I think people have better things to do than scour review sites just to get their editorial urgings scratched. Not to mean there are not fakes out there - but I would be surprised if it were more than 10% - which is probably still too high. Maybe 5% in actuality.
But the point remains the same regardless - you the consumer need to take precausions when reading reviews. Use the methods I espouse in my Hotel Review e-book (only $12.95 for gosh sakes) and you not only will be able to probably SPOT fakes but you will eliminate their impact because you go for averages - not specifics.
As for people who post reviews - I have far more trouble with wanna be bloggers or writers who turn a simple review into a trip down Fantasy Lane. Where they talk about the types of trees they saw and the lovely country lane they rode down to get to their 'favortest place in the world'. It's ok to be stoked up about a place - but let them pay PR or marketing people to pump it up. Just give your experience as far as the lodge or motel or restaurant experience was for you - not how it should be for everybody. And folks, it you are one of the 80% who relies more on a personal tip or attack, you are doing yourself a HUGE disfavor. What happened to ONE person ONE TIME should not be an indictment of a property forever. Issues someone else dealt with (billing, reservations, bad service) are fine to point out but your experience and trouble may have nothing to do with MY experience and needs. Maybe you slammed a place solely because the pool was filthy - but I'm not interested in swimming, so how much should I care? Keep your comments on the overall subject and don't try to micro-manage a review by complaining they did not have your favorite cereal in the breakfast.
What has your experience been with travel reviews? I look forward to hearing your comments.
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