Author Topic: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?  (Read 12378 times)

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Offline JohnF

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Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« on: September 02, 2016, 16:59:02 PM »
Read a good article recently by Marina O'Loughlin, a restaurant critic and food writer, who really dislikes Tripadvisor - what do you think?  Is it a useful tool or is it too full of fake reviews to be of any significant use?

Personally, I think it started out as a good concept but now it's often a case of having to disregard so many obviously malicious reviews, so many 'one review' glowing reviews that at times it can be difficult to get a balanced view.  I've lost count of the times we've eaten somewhere and had an excellent meal, only to find that it's number 972 out of god knows how many in that city.  Whenever we go somewhere new, like Marina O'Loughlin, we tend to try for personal recommendations from friends, locals etc rather than rely on dodgy ratings from TA.

"It was in a small seaside town in Croatia that my dislike of TripAdvisor petrified into loathing. The site’s top listing wasn’t one of the ad-hoc shacks down by the beach that sold the freshest fish grilled over wood (where my nose would have led me), but we went along with it all the same. Never before or since have I eaten in a restaurant where our hosts fished the meal from a vast chest freezer in full view. Remember to write about us on TripAdvisor, they urged as we dolefully paid our bill, giving us a free liqueur that tasted of Cif and cynicism.

Despite the fact that virtually every week brings a new story about how useless TripAdvisor is, how it enables users who are corrupt/greedy/mendacious, the site trundles on like a marauder, spewing an ever-increasing volume of freely given, unpaid “content”, as it has since its conception in 2000. Despite all evidence to the contrary – in 2013 its CEO, Stephen Kaufer, pocketed more than $39m – TripAdvisor has convinced its contributors that it is “one of us”, like a digital version of Nigel Farage or Donald Trump.

Regardless of the fact that it is riddled with fakes and idiots, a huge number of otherwise sensible people continue to give credence to the aggregated opinion of, at best, unqualified strangers. A 2015 government-backed Competitions & Markets Authority investigation found that UK consumers spend more than£23bn a year after reading online reviews. “Only a very small proportion [of respondents] felt that it was ‘not very likely’ or ‘not at all likely’ that the reviews were written by genuine customers,” the report concluded."

Read the rest here: Five stars – says who? My trouble with TripAdvisor


JF



Offline Menthol

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2016, 21:50:55 PM »
I used to contribute to Trip Advisor, but haven't for a while now.

I don't refer to it for restaurant recommendations but have used it for reviews on hotels before making a booking and found it to be pretty much 50/50 on accuracy. Of course that is only my opinion, which is of course the main problem with Trip Advisor - too many opinions.

Offline Scunner

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2016, 22:10:19 PM »
I don't do hotel reviews on Booking.com (although I do use it to book hotels quite a lot). I did three reviews a few years back, two good and one not so good - the two good ones are still there, the not so good one disappeared.

You can make of that what you choose  :)

Offline Highlander

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2016, 22:22:21 PM »
We stayed in a superb hotel in Rhodes (our opinion) some years ago.

Shortly after our return we read a scathing report on the very same hotel. :( :( :(

Offline stoop

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2016, 00:59:44 AM »
We had a 'lovely' stay in a British owned house in Toronto.

The thing is there are a few bad reviews like ours but there are so many that loved it.

To me it was dirty and not well run. My mate and I even had to check in a couple from Israel as there was nobody else around. The dog farted and the cat got everywhere. There's not many places I wont eat but this was one!

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g155019-d290550-Reviews-or20-Pimblett_s_Downtown_Toronto_B_B-Toronto_Ontario.html#REVIEWS

I'm lazerjet by the way.

Offline kayakebab

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2016, 07:37:12 AM »
I must confess to being a review addict.
Used it for all our travels.
 I dont tend to post reviews unless somewhere is dreadful but John always does the reviews.
Hes had over 40,000 readers which he's very proud of.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk


Offline kevin3

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2016, 07:48:06 AM »


  Never used it.  I use personal recommendations, my eyes, my head, and my wallet.  Been fairly lucky so far.

Offline busybee

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2016, 08:13:35 AM »
The trouble is that everyone has different standards, so what would be classed grubby for some, others would say its very clean and so on.  I must admit I do read the reviews on booking.com and would never say anywhere less than 8.00 rated. 

Offline JohnF

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2016, 09:29:21 AM »
I must admit I do read the reviews on booking.com

As do we - the difference between reviews on booking.com and TA is that they are verified, as in they are all from genuine paying customers. 

JF

Offline Anne

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Re: Tripadvisor - do you believe half of the reviews?
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2016, 09:46:38 AM »
I have a nosey now and again but can't say I use it to choose where to eat, holiday etc. 
I prefer to make my own judgements.  If it's crap then there is no one to blame but myself




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