What do you trust more: Booking or Tripadvisor?
 

While reviewing some of the hotels in Turkey I noticed a huge discrepancy between Booking and Tripadvisor.

Some of the best rated hotels on Tripadvisor are only rated (6/10) on Booking.com.

What do you think is behind this inconsistency, and which site is more reliable?

Big difference --only people who have actually booked through the site and stayed at the property can post reviews on Booking.

Anyone -- shills for the owner or someone w/ a vendetta can post on TA.

Yes I trust booking.com but reviews lack details..I check all resources.

I don't trust anything on TripAdvertiser.

Look at those Booking reviews closely. Some of them are actually reviews ON Trip Advisor.

If any review lacks detail I suspect the site severely limits the content or the reviewer simply felt more detail was unnecessary.

Don't even THINK about naming any OTHER property as a comparison on any TA review

And btw, Kathie, have you ever posted a review on TA? If not, why? Perhaps if more people posted there who are like you then those reviews would be trustworthy.

I probably trust Tripadvisor more if you mean which do you find more useful. I read both and have never found some big discrepancy between the two where say had an average rating of 2/5 (40%) and Booking had 4/10, for example. The reviews on booking are quite limited in number and in content, so while I read them and consider them, I don't find them nearly as useful as the ones on Tripadvisor.

I have never had the problem some people do with finding a lot of reviews on Tripadvisor that I thought were suspicious. The ones I read and consider have pretty detailed information . Maybe it's the kind of places I stay, I don't know.

I don't use Tripadvisor for anything but hotels but I presume that's what you are talking about.

What exactly do you mean by "best rated" also? Some people pay attention to what rank it is, I don't. If you mean the number rating, I've never experienced what you see myself. In fact, for the places I go, I think they both have ratings on the high end, it isn't a normal curve. So if a place were rating 6-7 on booking it would be really bad, not somewhat above average. Same if a place is 3.0 on TA, it probably would be below average. Also, how many reviews are there on each? Anything can happen if there are only a couple reviews.

sorry, some typos, I think you get my drift -- I've never seen in my searches a hotel that was rated 2/5 on TA but was rated 9/10 on Booking or some discrepancy like that.

I trust booking.com more than TA, for the reason mentioned by janisj. I never book accomodation with a rating lower than 8.6. And I check TA and whatever other information I can find.

I do write reviews on TA but I'm hesitant to do so if a hotel explicitely asks to write a 'nice review'. Some do!

I trust Tripadvisor, but I only read reviews from people with dozens of reviews on their profile. I skip posters with only 1-10 reviews on their profile.

>>Look at those Booking reviews closely. Some of them are actually reviews ON Trip Advisor.<<

The <u>only</u> reviews on Booking are those solicited by Booking after a stay is completed. After every single stay they send you an e-mail asking for your review. Those are the ONLY reviews on Booking. Then they send you an e-mail after your review is posted.

If a similar one shows up on TA - then the customer or property posted it.

I infinitely more trust Booking, because they are verifiably people who have been there.
Some are very detailed, actually.
I never stay anywhere with scores under 8.5.

I'll give you an example.

Holiday Calbis hotel is ranked number 1 hotel in Dalyan on Trip Advisor.

On Booking.com, it has a rating of 7.1 which is really bad by Booking standards.

Trip Advisor has more false reviews. Booking has a more diverse group of travelers while TA has many unsophisticated travelers. Some of the comments on TA are from ignorami.

"And btw, Kathie, have you ever posted a review on TA? If not, why? Perhaps if more people posted there who are like you then those reviews would be trustworthy."

Dukey, I rarely even go to the TA site. Not only are the fake reviews annoying, but the amount of legitimate advertising on the site is overwhelming. I have no interest in wasting my time on TA.

I prefer to use the Forums on TA to ask about specific hotels I am considering; I find the replies are often more reliable.

I used to like their "Things to Do" section in each city but now that they own or are owned by Viator, all that comes up are Viator tours.

Ask on the forums, you will get good answers. I also use common sense when reading reviews. It they have one, two or three, move on.

I mostly ignore the rakings/ratings (the numbers) on Trip Advisor but do pay attention to their reviews and find some reviews extremely useful. I've gotten pretty good at discarding reviews that are obviously biased or uninformed. I've never been disappointed by a hotel I picked partly based on Trip Advisor reviews, though I have been pleasantly surprised more than once. (Sometimes I pick a hotel that doesn't seem well regarded for reasons of price or convenience and find out it's not as bad as I might have feared reading the reviews.)

The reviews on Booking.com are usually far less detailed than TA reviews but can be helpful, too. But I do pay much more attention to the numeric ratings (and their labels) based on all the reviews.

I find it amusing to read Booking.com's descriptions of a hotel's review score. They don't use negative labels, so some translation is required. "Exceptional" or "Excellent" means "good." "Good" means "fair." "Good" means "poor." "Pleasant" means "Awful - stay way!"

I find the TA reviews in general more informative, but I am very careful about which I use. I ignore anyone under a "4", and if a property's first page is all "1" or "2" posters, I ignore the property.

I recently reread the reviews for a place I had booked, and more recent reviews mentioned that the hotel was up a steep hill. I changed my booking...

I prefer booking hotels on booking.com; but, I do read the reviews on TA, especially the poor ones, looking for issues that come up consistently and then adjust accordingly.

Overall, I'd rather take advice from regular posters here.