TripAdvisor Restaurant Reviews....are they real?
 

I've often mentioned here that I do not think TripAdvisor is a reliable site for restaurant reviews. Here is a recent article, from ElPais, that discusses the subject, and the issue of fake reviews:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/08/08/...21_911716.html


When you are contacted by a restaurant or a hotel that you've visited, or by a guide you have used, and asked to write a review, do you comply?

I can't speak to the fake reviews, but I do give my opinion, unsolicited, of places I have eaten at or have stayed at.

I give my opinions, when it seems necessary, or when I am particularly impressed. I think I am "LadyOLeisure" over there.

ekc - I don't always post something but usually I'll post a review especially if it's been particularly good, or there's a problem that needs fixing.

if it's simply mediocre, I don't normally bother.

when I'm reading reviews, like judges of certain sporting events, I disregard the very best and very worst, then read the rest.

I've written a few reviews on the site. But I've also been contacted and asked to write them; this does not sit as well with me.

For example, a tour guide that I hired for a day about 6 years ago recently contacted me by e-mail and asked me to write a TA review for him. I went to the site and noticed a slew of favorable reviews lauding his services, so I suspect he sent out a mass mailing to everyone who had booked with him over the years....and asked them to post reviews.



I'm curious most about this....if you are ASKED to write a review, how do you respond?

Oh my gosh you mean that everything on the internet is not true. Hold my hand Mary! :-)

I write up Trip Advisor Hotels. I tell it like it is, warts and all. I have had three people email me to check (in each case was I gilding the lily?) and in each case I was not and they were happy with the honeymooners sending me a short thank you note.

So at the end your decisions are your own and I have had three of my best meals when I made no decision to eat. At one a man grabbed my hand and took Mrs Bilbo and me into a restaurant to eat at a party that did not have enough guests! At another I'd booked the B&B next door to the pub and they came and knocked on our door to see if we wanted supper and finally a barman said "just go there". It is the fun of the holiday these impromptu things.

BTW, I have never been contacted and asked to write a review...but when I go somewhere based on reviews, I am likely to go back and post my own.

The Italian newspapers are getting very upset about TA at the moment, which given the country's reputation is highly amusing for instance did you know that more "Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil" is exported from Italy than is made in the country for world wide(including italian)consumption.

I've never been asked to post a review but do so when I have something to say about a restaurant, good or bad.

I've never been asked to write a review either. I don't often write restaurant reviews, but I review just about every hotel I stay in - I use TA a lot when planning trips. I think it is important to add to the community and not just take.

>TripAdvisor Restaurant Reviews....are they real? <

No less real than any other set of opinions from an anonymous group of strangers.

Are Fodors reviews real?

((I))

I don't use TA for restaurant reviews. I don't know if they are real or fake, but I don't find them reliable. I can tell immediately by looking at any site's reviews of restaurants local to me, and in the case of TA I feel like the reviews do not generally match my experience .

I have never been asked to write a review; I would do so if I had been blown away by the place, I suppose.

TA is a lot like Zagat, the reviews should to be taken with a grain of salt and a shot of whiskey. Obviously most are sincere. There just can’t be that many unscrupulous hotel or restaurant owners, can there?

We know that there are certain unlicensed “tour guides” who know how to work the system to their advantage, but most reviewers are notably amateurs, lacking the depth of knowledge needed to write a critical review. Instead we get someone’s opinion based on a one-time event. In the vain of uncle Client, you get the good, the bad and the ugly!

It’s a sad state of affairs that so many hotels and restaurants, as well as some tour guides, have become dependent on getting a good review on TA.

To me they are like Zagat. Why would I want to go where the majority of people go? Most things that are popular and successful -- Wal-Mart, Olive Garden, Meryl Streep movies, Everybody Loves Raymond or Dancing with the Stars -- are not things I enjoy. And the basic American diet is not something I eat.

PS: Guidebooks should not be trusted because the overriding factor for selection is (a) view and (b) short walk to big tourist attraction. Worst food recommendations on the planet are in guidebooks published in Britain for British tourists (same for British newspapers).

Go to Chowhound, or read some of the very high end travel magazines, or wine and food magazines.

Also, usually for every country or food region, there is somebody who is really passionate about the local food and is a great cook. Read their cookbooks and books, Track down their interviews online. See what they recommend.

I don't find TA reliable at all for restaurant reviews but do find the hotel reviews helpful. Food is so subjective and I have no idea what the reviewer's tastes/preferences are. I have much better success with a forum like Chowhound or here where I've gotten to know the posters and can better determine whether our likes/dislikes would be similar.

TA reviews require intelligent reading. I throw out the dumb (poor rating from someone who couldn't get a reservation), the informationless outliers (everything awful or wonderful, no details), the clueless (complaints of small portions at a tapas place, "bad service" when no bill is presented until asked for at a European resto, pricey Coca Cola), and the like. Descriptive reports from a poster who has reviewed other places are more trustworthy, especially if the comments mesh with other trustable posters. On the other hand, a poster with hundreds of reviews in a relatively short period of time may be a paid review on demand shill. The more reviews a place has, the harder it is to slip in useless reviews as they are easy to ignore.

As for solicited reviews, the only time my review was solicited I had already formed a highly positive opinion that I intended to post, and did.

If I like the place/places I say so and do not hesitate to comment when not satisfied..haven't been too unhappy recently but did blister Jasper Park Lodge a while back and Warsaw Westin was a disappointment. Have read about and tried several from T.A. and no problems at this time. I do know that the ones I write and those my family write are real!!!

What I posted above doesn't even take into account that some of the reviews may be fake. I just don't think it's a good format for restaurants as it's also based on popularity.

I've posted a few hotel reviews on TA and they've all been unsolicited. I've only been asked to post a review once but that was on Stayz (the Australian version of VRBO) not TA. In that particular case our host had just started renting out her cottage, we enjoyed our stay and I was happy to help.

Some hotels have "encouraged" Trip Advisor reviews, and in itself, that doesn't bother me. Most of these are couched in terms of, "If you enjoyed our services, could you....".

Sometimes I'm "on task" with getting those reviews up; other times, I just ignore the email reminder.

Recently, though, I was told during a tour and afterwards by email that if we had GOOD things to say, could we please post to Trip Advisor. And if we had negatives, could we please just contact them personally instead of posting.

Now THAT was cause for a review! And it wasn't good.

I recently got a TA pm from someone who would pay me to post reviews that they would write. I forwarded the email to TA moderators. I have upon occasion been asked to write a review by the owner of a BnB. I tend to,write a fair number of reviews on places I stay. Writing one that was requested may or may not happen. It doesn't really effect whether I do a review or not. I will say that when I have been asked by the owner it's typical a small place where we had a fair amount of interaction with the owner.

I find the hotel reviews reliable using judgement as I review them. However I don't look to TA too much for restaurant views.

For hotels, I enter a review, whether asked or not. I only remember a hotelier discussing the matter with me once, and that wasn't really a request. It was something like: "if you have comments, please let us know directly or, if you prefer, through TA - we check our reviews there routinely".

To date, I have not been asked to enter a review of a restaurant on TA, and I have only entered restaurant reviews when I had strong opinions that I was not recording comments on a site that better suits my general needs. If I decide to begin entering restaurant reviews on TA routinely, then I will do so whether asked or not, and if I am asked, I will likely mention that in my remarks. I can't imagine that I would enter a restaurant review simply because I was asked. (But stranger things could happen!)

I'm finding this thread informative - thanks for posting the question!

I use TA in addition to other resources when I'm researching hotels and restaurants. I also like to see what are the most popular attractions and what tours are available. I look at the number of reviews posted, whether the business takes the time to respond to the negative reviews and I search for key words of interest to me in the comments. I have been asked several times to submit a review. I'm more likely to write reviews for small places or start up businesses that will benefit from more recognition. Deborah

I use ta for hotels, I read and I write hotel reviews all the time. I contact reviewers sometimes to ask specific questions, they have always gotten back to me. I can say I have booked at least 13 or 14 hotels using the reviews and feel i always got what I expected.

I however find restaurant reviews close to useless, its too subjective of a topic. Someone who normally eats KFC says a place is great, or someone who normally drops 500 dollars for dinner says the food was too basic, you just don't know.

Hotels are either basically clean or not, well located or not, etc I disregard any review that is counter to the majority of reviews( one glowing review 4 so so ones etc).

If a hotel asked me to post a review I would not find that sketchy at all, I post my honest opinions. Just because they asked you to post doens't mean you have to lie right? I can't say anyone has ever asked me though.

I write reviews for any services I feel deserve a review, whether it is a hotel, a tour, or a restaurant. Good and bad. Have never been asked to write one though.

I would venture to say most of the reviews are honest, but the blatent false ones are often reported and removed, and any reader can report them. So, if you read something that sounds false, report it. Reviews written from the hotel IP itself, get tossed automatically.

I rarely write restaurant reviews but I have when it's was really good and then only when it's in a city I don't visit that often.

I don't write reviews about my favorite places in my home town. It's very selfish, but it might just increase my wait time.

I always write reviews for hotels and sometimes for attractions.

I have never been asked to write a review. Just because you have been to some restaurant or hotel does not in any way, shape, or form guarantee that everybody else will necessarily have the same experience you did. And since there are as many different ways of evaluating an establishment as there are people who do the evaluating, implying that a review is "fake" because it doesn't jive with your own opinion seems rather foolish reasoning to me.

Sure there have been fake reviews on TA and TA tries to keep that from happening from what I have seen.

Now, if we could all come together and agree on the actual definition of some of the following "review words" perhaps things will improve:

rude
small
quaint
close
dirty
out of date
hip
chic
terrible, etc., etc.

They are real...Like this one:
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/08/31/news...might-be-fake/

I don't rely on TA nearly as much as I used to. After arriving at a few hotels/b&b's and thinking, This was #1 on Tripadvisor?
I have been surprised at times to see well recommended restaurants way down on the list on TA.

Look up your own hometown or nearby city, and see if TA agrees with what you know. I think more often it doesn't.
I've also seen resto and hotel reviews for places in Italy that have about half a dozen glowing reports, all from the local area, all having no specifics, and all using the same shallow language.
Doesn't take much to figure that one out.
I like reviews on booking.com because you can't post there unless they send you a link after your stay. I also like their pros and cons format, makes it easy to scan through them.

Some of the best meals we have had have been recommended by the hotel/B&B where we stayed, but just as many were equally as bad.
Eckscrunchy, I just look for your reports.

oops ekscrunchy. Good link to ElPais by the way.

Look up your own hometown or nearby city, and see if TA agrees with what you know. I think more often it doesn't.>>

good point, sundried. I did it with my town and the top restaurant [out of 100+] is a coffee shop, but several very good restaurants are quite a long way down the list.

ribeirasacra that was a very funny link.

I can't answer as to whether all reviews on tripadvisor are real but I often post reviews and pictures and I see them up there so at least i know mine are real.

No restaurant or hotel has ever asked me to post a review on tripadvisor or any other website. If they did ask me to do so, and the service was especially good or especially bad, then I would most likely review it.

My reviews are real and were not solicited by the hotel or restaurant.

We should ignore the #1 etc. ratings. It looks like it is just a measure of how many reports are posted. I have never found that metric to be at all useful.

I generally don't review the local places because I think Trip Adviser only when I am traveling, but my local is someone else's detination. I guess I have to rate the local places now to keep TA better informed.

Thanks, SunDried! Love the screen name!



>TripAdvisor Restaurant Reviews....are they real? <

No less real than any other set of opinions from an anonymous group of strangers.>

Ira: I think that there are websites that offer opinions on restaurants that are much more reliable than TripAdvisor, even though the posters are, for the most part, anonymous strangers.



eGullet.com, although not strong for restaurants in all cities, tends to attract posters knowledgeable about food, although obviously there are exceptions, and personally I do not find the site to be user friendly. There is a coterie of posters on Chowhound.com, that are very knowledgeable about the food scene in their own locales. And there are quite a few blogs written by posters who, while they are not known to me, seem spot on when it comes to opinions about restaurants.

And that is not counting the various review sites that are not written in English, for example, 11870, which I often use when selecting restaurants in Spain.



I do use TA for hotels, throwing out the highest and lowest and looking at the big picture when considering places with many reviews. If I find the same issues arising over and over again, I would take heed if it was an issue that was important to me.



<The Italian newspapers are getting very upset about TA at the moment, which given the country's reputation is highly amusing for instance did you know that more "Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil" is exported from Italy than is made in the country for world wide(including italian)consumption.>

BB: Sorry but I do not understand what you mean to say here.

"Product of Italy" means that the bottle contains only oil from Italian olives. "Imported from Italy," means that the bottle can contain oils from the olives grown outside Italy, but blended and shipped from Italy.

I very muchlike TripAdvisor and frequently and often review regardless of bad, good, average or ugly. I have only once been suprised when staying in a hotel that had received wow reviews andundesrved in my opinion, and I suspect there may have been fake reviews which placed it as a number one hotel.

I have also received great advice back after emailing reviewers.

PM'ing posters is a great way to verify reviews and get additional personalized info. Wish Fodor's had that feature

I rely heavily on TA hotel reviews when planning where to stay and feel therefore it's my obligation to also write reviews. I do not pay any attention to the 'ratings', they seem pretty useless. But I read all the comments - and as others have said - ignore the ones that indicate the person doesn't understand European hotels, etc. I find there is useful information in the reviews sometimes that isn't even on the hotel's site.

I have been asked by a couple of hotels to write a review, but I was going to do that anyway. I understand how a hotel can ask you to write a review since they obviously have your email from the reservation. I don't understand how a restaurant can ask to review them. Do they do this in person when you are still eating there? Do they email you (like the hotels do)? If so, how does the restaurant know your email?