Thursday, November 13, 2014

Do you trust online reviews?

My reviews are un-biased, so I seldom read or write reviews on the big review sites because I cant help suspecting that most of the reviews are written by staff of that particular establishment.

It’s crazy how most reviewers claim that their hotel is “clean” ! I think that is insane. All hotels SHOULD  BE  clean or they should not be in business. The reviewers must have low standards?

I seldom write reviews on these sites, in fact it has been more than a year since I wrote one, so I was astonished that they sent me an email telling me that I am in the top 10%. It is brilliant marketing on their part because I felt obliged to write a review. TripAdvisor  has hotel reviews and travel advice for vacations.

TripAdvisor

If you are in the hospitality industry, whether it is a hotel or a restaurant, it should be clean!!! Even fast food Restaurants know that cleanliness is the cornerstone of a business, so McDonalds and Burger King employ their own inspectors. For those that don’t have in-house inspectors, the Government (City) has food inspectors. Food Safety and Inspection Service by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Tripadvisor has a handy symbol on the Stock Market. TRIP. Liberty Media purchases nearly 4.8 million shares of Tripadvisor from Barry Diller and his foundation so Shares of Expedia were higher on that news. But both are down today. Airfarewatchdog™, the most inclusive source of airfare deals researched is verified by experts as is TripAdvisors. on Nov 13th 2014 launched Hotelwatchdog, – a free new service to compares hotels based on price, location and traveler reviews.  Hotelwatchdog sifts through millions of data points and delivers the most relevant hotel results based on a destination selected by the traveler.  TripAdvisor is still the world's largest travel site for trip planning.They also made an announcement today to launch a new feature that allows users to easily compare and book tours and tickets for attractions Globally by integrating tour inventory and pricing information from Viator, which was acquired by TripAdvisor.

Perhaps I will go to the site more often and take it more seriously than I have due to deriding its content. It really annoys me when I read a review of a Hotel claiming to be “clean” .

1 comment:

  1. You nailed it. I also find all the review sites are the same and lots of reviewers say the hotel was "friendly" well i dont want them to be friendly. I want them to give good service quietly, because I'm paying them for service. I have enough friends and I dont have time to chat.

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