wemr

I saw a restaurant owner on TV a few days ago in silhouette who admitted he was writing glowing reviews about his own restaurant on TA and also writing reviews about his competition using words like dirty, filthily, bad food, etc.

easytraveler

I post on Tripadvisor haphazardly. Haven't posted a review in a long time. Been led really astray only once - the hotel was terrible, the staff was terrible, the location was terrible, our room was terrible, etc. Not one good thing could be said, but somehow it had been the Number One recommendation on Tripadvisor (granted this was just a mid-sized city with not too many hotels on Tripadvisor)! so I promptly wrote a very realistic review and the hotel plummeted from its number one position.

These websites are just tools for my travel planning. There are other websites with other reviews. I don't read the reviews of just one website. Lately, google maps will have a small icon to a restaurant/hotel on its maps. I'll click on that icon and often a diverse grouping of reviews will appear, for example, from Tripadvisor, bookingdotcom, qype, etc. If the property is really interesting, then I'll do further research and read more reviews from other websites, try to find as many pictures as possible, and google the street view. Then I'll read about the area of town where the hotel is located - in other words, research, research, research.

Giovanna

>

If that is the case, then several of my reviews would be suspect. I was more than enthusiastic in my reviews of a couple of hotels we loved, so guess that would be suspect to some. I guess it's a toss-up, since there is no "fake" detector to use. If I'm shopping for info I use both reviews and the forum. The combination of both usually works out well for us.

Dukey1

Wouldn't you think that SOMEBODY would have mentioned that a hotel "emptied out in the wee hours of the morning" and that it "overlooked a gentleman's club?" And no amount of so=-called "positive" reviews would be able to counteract that for a lot of people. And yet, the earlier poster says (or implies) that this never surfaced until THEY got to the hotel.

I am certain it is true and because of those possible misses what I often do is go in and read all the "terrible" reviews first (and believe me, some of the reasons people think a place is "terrible" can be somewhat, if not outrageously unreasonable) and I also look at the percentage of "terribles" compared to the totsl number of reviews.

Bill_H

And then there's Yelp, which has been sued for allegedly telling companies that they can get negative user reviews deleted from Yelp if they would just advertise on Yelp ...

Suzie

Like Dukey I always read the bad reviews first. Both on travel sites and Amazon as well.

pgoclac1234

Yes. I agree. I have lived in Gettysburg PA and time and time again the COLTON hotel comes up top on the list. I do not understand it . Room doors go right out to parking lot and its old and in need of an update. I am sure there are people writing "fake reviews" all over the counrty

Digbydog

When I returned home from Seattle, I rechecked the reviews, thinking I must have missed the ones mentioning the gentleman's club. There were some poor reviews, as there are for most hotels, but no mention of its view and the resultant noise.

NinaSearching

Hmmm ... I have reviewed hotels occasionally on TA, but I until this thread I don't think I even realized there were forums or message boards. I guess I've just always used it (readiing & contributing) like Yelp. Who knew?

suze

The forums at Trip Advisor are a wonderful resource. They are divided up by destination. Some forums are much more active than others. For a couple of my favorite places, if I asked a question here on Fodor's maybe I'd get a 2-3 replies. When I ask on the TA forum for that destination I get dozens of great answers.

mlgb

The quality of forums varies greatly on TA. Some are dominated by a few, while others have a wider participation which keeps them "honest", more or less.

RainyDay09

Digbydog, what's the hotel in Seattle? Is it in Belltown?

happytrailstoyou

I am wondering the same thing.
I was thinking maybe The Ace.

HTTY

Scarlett

The Buenos Aires forums seem to have more than their share of phony reviews.
Every couple of days it seems, we have some knucklehead coming along, raving about the new hotel he stayed in , blah blah blah.
Clues: They joined TA that morning.
They never asked on question about the trip before taking it ..
They say odd things and generally never return to answer questions from other posters. Especially the suspicious ones who ask for more info about the trip.

Business owners, employees and relatives do it all the time.
Most of the time, if you send it in as inappropriate, TA gets rid of them.

I like the TA forums for a couple of reasons. The posting is about the travel / place and they keep attacks on posters, chit chat etc down to a nice minimum.
The editors are pretty much on top of things..
You can get a nice mix of posts from locals and visitors and even though I live in this place, I learn about things in this city every day from those forums!

TripAdvisor has no patience for nasty posters so there is generally a nice atmosphere in all the forums.

This said .. I never ever use the Review sections. They are at least 75% dishonest reviews.
Or you get the oddball who drives past hotels and photographs them or goes into the lobby and will write a review. So take those for what they are worth ..

We have a DE who owns a wine store and he is very good about not promoting his business.

KVR

"Digbydog, what's the hotel in Seattle? Is it in Belltown?"

I hope it's not the hotel we recently booked for September.

On the contrary, I read all the horrible reviews on TA for the RIU Tropical Bay in Negril, Jamaica and couldn't believe it was that bad and went ahead and booked there. It was a huge regret. The reviews were correct and I should have heeded the warnings.

Same with Breezes in Curacao. Horrid reviews not only on TA but other sites, so we didn't book there and was glad. We loved the Lions Dive. The Curacao forum on TA had some very bias contributers that gave some pretty inaccuarte information. Many, not all, on TA have hidden agendas which makes it quite difficult to get good, correct information.

For our upcoming trip to Seattle and an Alaskan cruise I have read everything on Trip Advisor, Fodors, Cruise Critic and others. You just never know and hope with blind faith that everything will work out. I appreciate all the information from the long standing contributors that have been posting for years like myself. I also include my e-mail address and my picture website in all my reviews and many posts if people want to follow-up or ask questions.

Narnya

I WISH people wouldn't accuse "75%" or throw out any other number as a kind of educated guess as to the number of alleged fake reviews on TA. It's insulting to those who write genuine reviews. I will continue to contribute as I think it is a good resource. Plus, it's fun; I'd take photos of my hotel room anyway -- so I may as well have another reason to share them!

enzian

We found some great places to stay for our last trip to Italy, thanks to TA. I think the fake reviews, positive or negative, are pretty easy to screen. I disregard anything from a one- time poster, and read the others selectively. Sometimes I even contact the person who posted the review via PM. If the person responds, that is good. If not, that is also useful information.

mlgb

Scarlett your experience may be pleasant on the BAs forums but I can assure you that it is not universal and varies between forums.

Graziella5b

I use tripadvisor and sometimes also contribute as truthfully as I can, I read reports carefully knowing some might be fake reports , one of the problems they have is that TA mixs up al kinds of hotels. I mean five stars are mixed with one stars.... it is a little confusing and does not help to choose the right hotel.

FrankS

We have a very average Italian place down the street with a dozen 5 star reviews ranked #1 for our town...its pretty clear in that case
But the clever ones can really manipulate their ratings without raising eyebrows.