TripAdvisor. Unbiased?

George_Michael

Tripadvisor. "Reviews you can trust"

In the past maybe, but not any more.
Myself, along with a few work collegues have recently spent a couple of weeks in a hotel which is supposedly a 4 star place.

The rooms were extremely poor, as was the food served, and there is no way I could honestly call it a 4* establishment.

A couple of us decided to write reviews on Tripadvisor, and we both gave our honest opinions which weren't too favourable.
The reviews were factual opinions of how we felt about the hotel, and were not overly critical, rude, or extreme.
Neither of these reviews was published.

Just to see what would happen, another of our party wrote another review which was full of praise for the hotel.
This is now showing on the Tripadvisor website.

I think that the management of Tripadvisor are now so scared of any legal action due to poor opinions being posted, that they are either limiting negative posts, or ignoring them totally, which makes a totally mockery of the whole site, so if you are looking for a hotel review, don't trust everything that you read.

malkie76

Were you all on the same IP when you wrote the reviews? (ie at work)?

davidlizard

Dunno - they might have a policy of not publishing negative reviews unless someone has posted a certain number of reviews.

I usually make a point of posting reviews on Tripadvisor for hotels, restaurants and attractions, and try to be as honest and impartial as possible to help others. My reviews range from Excellent to Terrible. As yet, every review I have submitted has been posted (around 200 of them).

There are plenty of hotels and other places on there with a lot of bad reviews, including well known multinationals (e.g. Hilton) which could flex their legal muscles if need be.

I do often wonder though that TA could well be on some shaky ground at times!

dzug1

Trip Advisor does have problems with fake reviews - either favourable ones posted by the hotels themselves or poor ones posted by a hotel's competitors, particularly with smaller places.

I never read them myself

Gloomendoom

They have always posted my reviews, good and bad.

BTW 4* is no guarantee of good quality. The stars just give an indication of the number of facilities that an hotel offers... even if they are all substandard.

Pelican_eats_pigeon

davidlizard wrote: »

Dunno - they might have a policy of not publishing negative reviews unless someone has posted a certain number of reviews.

I usually make a point of posting reviews on Tripadvisor for hotels, restaurants and attractions, and try to be as honest and impartial as possible to help others. My reviews range from Excellent to Terrible. As yet, every review I have submitted has been posted (around 200 of them).

There are plenty of hotels and other places on there with a lot of bad reviews, including well known multinationals (e.g. Hilton) which could flex their legal muscles if need be.

I do often wonder though that TA could well be on some shaky ground at times!

They often take a bit longer to post negative reviews than positive reviews, if you go to your contributions, is the review showing up as 'pending'?

PompeyPete

Me and the mrs stayed in a lovely 2* hotel (Les Citronniers) in Hammamet Sud a few weeks ago. The only reason it was 2* is because it only advertises B&B. Ditto with a perfect, small, locally run hotel (Zohra) in Sousse.
If I want to read honest hotel reviews I use Booking.com or Travel Republic. There's far too much malicious or self-promotion stuff on TA.
It'd be interesting to see what the OP's review said.

Moonchild

Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia.

I suggest you post one post stating 'I booked this hotel with Expedia and it was excellent' and and saying 'I booked this hotel with xxxxxx and it was excellent' and you will see how unbiased it is

They are being more diligent about new members posting excessively negative / positive reviews as there is corporate policy dictating how hotels respond to positive & negative reviews, and some marketing companies have even offered to 'promote hotels within social media such as Trip Advisor'.

However, just ignore the best and worst reviews, and it's still a very helpful tool.

PompeyPete

Moonchild wrote: »

However, just ignore the best and worst reviews, and it's still a very helpful tool.

That's a sign of quality!?
Anybody can write a review on any hotel they feel like on TA. They might never even have been to the country, never mind the hotel. The hotel review site is littered with malicious rubbish and undeserved self-promotion.
Whereas on Booking.com and Travel Republic, you have booked through them, so they know you have stayed at the hotel. Once your stay is over they then e-mail you requesting a review. People who haven't booked through them simply can't post spam reviews. That maintains the quality.

That said I think the travel discussion on TA is usually very good, particularly for the destinations which have knowledgeable Destination Experts.

bezzza

PompeyPete wrote: »

Me and the mrs stayed in a lovely 2* hotel (Les Citronniers) in Hammamet Sud a few weeks ago. The only reason it was 2* is because it only advertises B&B. Ditto with a perfect, small, locally run hotel (Zohra) in Sousse.
If I want to read honest hotel reviews I use Booking.com or Travel Republic. There's far too much malicious or self-promotion stuff on TA.
It'd be interesting to see what the OP's review said.

I wouldn't rate TravelRepublic's reviews either - we went to the worst hotel I have ever stayed at in Turgetreis in October - posted reviews on TripAdvisor and TravelRepublic but TravelRepublic would not publish it as the hotel had disagreed with everything I had said and asked for it to be removed - I sent 3 revised versions and each one was refused! So this hotel gets almost 4 stars in its reviews and it's soooooo not true!

dojoman

I have posted a few reviews and they have always been published, the last one being particularly scathing about the hotel we stayed in.