Travel Review Sites

Are travel review sites capable of representing destinations and suppliers without a bias? In a word, no

One aspect of getting at the truth involves a discussion of ways and means whereby travellers are guided in their decision-making and some of the key guideposts are travel review sites. This might also include travel forums and travel blogs. The world wide web has spawned an entire industry engaged in delivering opinions about travel experiences.

Readers place a great deal of confidence in these reports but, they are, at best, capturing a 'snapshot' of the total of available information. While the posts - in themselves - represent what the visitor has reported about their experience, this is but a miniscule fraction of all the possible experiences.

Think, for a moment, about the scale of the problem - over 1.4 billion tourist trips per year - it should be clear that there is absolutely no possibility of coming even anywhere close to reading each and every report from all travellers to all destinations. That would be billions of reports - per year - and mostly they don't exist because the majority of travellers do not report anything. Even useful statistics about them don't exist. Travel advisor sites only capture an infinitesimally small proportion of these - and only those visitors who felt sufficiently motivated to actually post their review.

For example, in relation to crimes against tourists, the truth is: the more than 1.4 billion tourist trips taken annually include a very small percentage involving violent crime. The truth is the rate of violent crimes against tourists is similar to or lower than the rate of violent crimes against residents, at least here in Canada**, so it actually may be safer to travel. But this is not the impression one might take away, reading reports. There can be differences in the way crimes are reported and recorded, so reports may not be directly comparable. Use them as a general guide. Remember that everyone has a bias.

It is also probably a good practice to question the motives of the people posting on these sites along with the validity of the claims, for several reasons. It is not clear:

Although travel review sites say it does not happen very often, still, might it be possible for property owners to embellish reports about their property, or to post fake reports?

Are disgruntled customers or even competitors responsible for distributing and/or propagating false information?

There is certainly the potential for mis-representation. This can occur at the review site itself, or by individuals, hotels or destinations reporting. Everyone is doing their best to look their best or, at least to get a leg up on competitive advantage and travel review sites are an obvious place where this comes into play. Careful at accepting what you read as the final word.

While travel review sites send out a clear message that they are the authority on broadcasting true and accurate reporting, once again, this is only a part of the story. Does the travel review site have an interest in promoting certain destinations or hotels? The onus is on the traveller to corroborate and verify before whipping out the credit card.

Besides travel reviews, there are other components to assessing the truthfulness of a destinations portrayal. Travellers regularly consult travel agents, read guide books, travel brochures, news sources, travel advisories, travel blogs and forums, other people who have visited there, embassies, and so on. Once having read a variety of sources, if there seems to be corroboration of a trend then, fair to say, it has a better chance of being accurate - that is, higher probability of being truthful and therefore useful. And if they're not, what recourse do you have? Outside of taking your question to the hotel itself for their version of what happened, probably very little.

Be aware that the position of the site, or response, is hugely influenced by Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So, in other words, the rich and powerful sites consistently manipulate their position to appear near or at the top of results. This is more related to the mechanics of web searching coupled with website response that has been 'optimized' based on an algorithm and doesn't have much to do with accuracy or truthfulness. It is all about numbers. Most people will accept the top results and look no further.

Basing a decision to spend a large amount of money (and time) on evidence which is difficult to corroborate may not be a good way to go about vetting possible choices. Most progressive owners and managers welcome criticism as a way to enhance or improve their offering. One needs to say: "That was then, this is now" and be willing to consider that the venue has at least had some time to respond to criticism and what has been done to fix the problem.

So, the question still stands: can review sites be trusted? Or useful? And the answer is going to be different for each person reading the reviews. Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

(**See: CBC article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/reality-check-how-dangerous-is-mexico-for-canadian-tourists-1.1136003 and http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/14040-eng.htm?fpv=2693)

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Highly Suspicious: An a-ha moment in the brief life of a web search

Its a kinda situation where there's so much right that there must be something not quite right.

I had been researching Caribbean Hotels when I can upon the site: wheretostay.com. I like the site very much, good selection of hotels and villas, very complete information and so on. Then I noticed that it claims to be the original user review site. And then I noticed that the website also claims the reviews to be verifiable. Verifiable? How?

I was curious what this meant, so, I went bumbling around until I came across the shopperapproved.com logo, where there is a collection of wheretostay.com user reviews posted. I went to this site and as I was looking over the reviews, I noticed that they are virtually all glowingly positive and the site in question —wheretostay.com — has an approval rating of 4.9, out of 5. I said wow, this is fantastic. But then, I thought, what else do these people think about other resellers? I went around looking at some other of the merchant reviews and noticed a similar pattern: glowingly positive.

Then, I reasoned that a site that claims to be a review of user reviews wouldn't last very long if the reviews were negative, and one of those resellers might end up suing their pants off.

So, then I thought, is this a reliable service? So I googled "is shopper approved reliable" and I noticed that there are other sites that offer this service such as trustpilot.com and ResellerRatings.com. One of the links that appeared on the front page of Google was a Guardian article entitled "Fake reviews plague consumer websites" by Mike Deri Smith from 2013. I thought —oh perfect, this will answer my question, so I clicked on the article. What I read confirmed my suspicions, along with the earlier notions that there might be something suspicious going on. Could some, or possibly all, of this be being manipulated to the benefit of some unseen entity?

The article points to freelancers who are allegedly paid to write fake articles for review sites, for money, obviously. Reading the comments — I almost always read comments — brought a little more insight — and a couple of chuckles. Then I thought, that's exactly what is happening, so how does one tell what is really going on? Rules? The rules went out the (monitor) window in the HD crash that is the world-wide-web.

While I'm looking over this article, I noticed an ad for wheretostay.com, right there on the Guardian page (from 2013) and for a location I was Googling, and then I noticed another ad for the same location but not wheretostay.com. Wow, I thought, isn't the internet fantastic to deliver to me exactly what I want in a very concise, compact package? Even the Guardian knows what I was seeking out. Super! Here is a snapshot of the pageview so you can see what I saw:

So, this is what the world-wide-web of today has become. A highly organized promotional battlefield that responds to queries, usually sent through the search interface, to deliver, to your precise IP address, what the advertisers —usually well-funded media companies and/or suppliers — think you want to see. Adding the exact right amount of spin - but not too much - to tweak the appeal without sounding too sryupy. They glean this from the queries that came from your computer, all in milliseconds with virtually as fast a response. So, you get what you went looking for, plus a whole lot more ... Hmmm?

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Online Travel Review Report, TripAdvisor, 2007

Online travel review sites target their reviews at a mostly male, mostly young, mostly affluent audience.

What?? Why market to a young, mostly male audience? "As far as their characteristics are concerned, travel review writers are more likely to be male and young, have higher incomes and have greater Internet skills. They also have a greater tendency to read blogs, write blogs, post comments to a blog, use social networking sites, listen to audio podcasts, watch videos online, post/share audio files, post/share videos, post/share photographs, rate products, rate reviews, maintain personal Web sites and contribute to wikis". (pg 6-7)

One has to be wary that these travel blogs might be creating or building on their own brand of herd mentality. What is the latest - and hottest - destination? Reading or finding out about followers who feel they may have been misled by the blog reports or reviews themselves is bound to be difficult.

And this style of marketing is potentially alienating a huge base of other travellers, such as back-packers, eco-voyagers, females, volunteers, visiting family and friends, home-stay travellers, sports enthusiasts, elder travellers, long-term stay-overs, and on and on.

5 Tips Inspired by Our New Traveler Survey, TripAdvisor Research, 2015
We asked. Travelers answered. An important new survey shows why reviews matter - and reveals key ways to grow your business.

24 insights to shape your TripAdvisor strategy, TripAdvisor Research, 2013
New infographic reveals key travel review trends based on an independent PhoCusWright study commissioned by TripAdvisor.

Best Practices on Monitoring Hotel Review Sites by Max Starkov and Mariana Mechoso Safer, HeBS Digital, 2008
Hoteliers often ask HeBS how they can monitor the Internet chatter surrounding their hotels and whether or not they should pay for services that offer this type of monitoring. What hotel review websites should you monitor? How often should you check for reviews about your hotel on these websites? Should you provide a rebuttal for reviews? These are just a few of the questions hoteliers ponder on this subject. This article offers a free, quick, and easily implemented action plan for monitoring reviews about your hotel.

Deconstructing TripAdvisor by Nancy Keate, Wall Street Journal, 2007
Nancy Keates on how seasoned travelers decode the ratings on the nation's most influential hotel review site.

Game Changer: Cone Survey Finds 4-out-of-5 Consumers Reverse Purchase Decisions Based on Negative Online Reviews, Cone Trend Tracker release and fact sheet, 2011

Consumers rule: How consumer reviews influence perceived trustworthiness

Can todays online travel consumers believe what they read, Deloitte UK, 2011

Fake reviews a growing trend, NYT, 2011

Hotel guests read 6-12 reviews before booking, says TripAdvisor survey. (2014)

Hotels are overrated: Reviews on travel websites are rarely honest by B.R., The Economist, 2016
"good ratings are nearly always one mark too high; bad ones one too low."

Hotel Reviews (Wikitravel)

Olery launches Hotel Review Sites Database (olery.com)

Inside the Mad, Mad World of TripAdvisor | Tom Vanderbilt | Outside Online, 2015
Research almost any travel destination and you'll probably wind up on travel-industry Goliath, where passionate people praise and denounce everything from romantic getaways to cockroach-infested hotel rooms. But who can you trust?

Online reputations: Why hotel reviews matter and how hotels respond by Nicolas Olivier Mayer, Swiss Hospitality & Leisure Industry Leader, June 2015
Reviews usually offer an opportunity to improve perception, reputation and service.

Review Skeptic Makes It Easy to Spot Fake Hotel Reviews by Patrick Allan, lifehacker, 1/05/16

Top online alternatives TripAdvisor trusted hotel reviews : The best hotel review websites (TripAdvisor not included!) by Fred Mawer, Daily Mail, 2010

TripAdvisor Censured over Trusted Reviews, FT, 2012

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