Seen this yet? Trip Report: The SWISS “Roche Coach” to Zurich
JW Marriott in Chicago. (Image: Marriott)
TripAdvisor, the huge consumer review site for travelers, has cut a new deal with lodging giant Marriott that provides instant links to Marriott’s booking system from the TripAdvisor site. That’s not unusual in the world of online travel, but it has some observers wondering whether TripAdvisor is putting profits ahead of the reliability of its reviews.
Of course, the veracity of “consumer” reviews on many websites has long been questioned, especially those that require no verification of the poster’s identity or experience. Employees of a particular hotel may have gone online to praise it, and competitors may post harshly negative comments.
Still, TripAdvisor has a generally good reputation and a large following. How will the Marriott affiliation affect that? Ed over at the Pizza in Motion blog noted that a routine hotel search on TripAdvisor turned up a results map with an ad for Marriott properties.
An analysis by the Huffington Post suggests that the affiliation could skew the placement of Marriott’s properties in search results, and is likely to lead to a greater number of positive Marriott reviews on TripAdvisor, according to an academic study.
In its announcement, Marriott says that the TripAdvisor deal will be “mutually beneficial to both partners from a strategic and economic standpoint,” (i.e., TripAdvisor will be paid for bookings it generates, although Marriott doesn’t say how much), and also that it “maintains our ability to control where the rates and inventory for Marriott’s hotels are displayed.”
Related: Do you trust hotel review sites?
Expedia’s verified reviews are posted on each hotel’s booking page
Our advice for folks flummoxed by TripAdvisor reviews is to use Expedia’s reviews instead— there are fewer, which makes parsing easier, and all reviewers are verified as guests… so you can’t fake a review. In fact, Marriott even has its own inventory of verified reviews on its website; comment cards that are filled out by guests are posted word for word, the company says.
How much do you rely on online reviews when choosing a hotel? Which ones do you find the most reliable? What’s your impression of TripAdvisor?
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Love TA. over the years traveling to Europe frequently, TA has proven to be very reliable. Hotel.com and Expedia, on the other hand, I have learned to question. Lack of objectivity, scarcity of reviews and perhaps advertising incentives seem to color perspectives on these sites. Will It happen with TA? time will tell.
I use both TA and Expedia. What I find strange on TA, and it’s probably the result of not verifying posters’ identify, is that the same property in the span of 6 or 9 mos would have 5 star and 1 star reviews. And it’s not like all positive and all negative are posted at about the same time, I could see a hotel making improvements after receiving some negative reviews, or vice versa. But these appear intermixed, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s happening…
Then, of course, there are famous (or infamous) cases involving Yelp reviews…
I always use Tripadvisor, am a Top Contributor, used it to plan and book an 8 week round the world trip last year. I was very happy with the results. I do look at a lot of reviews, and try to sample bad ones to see if there’s a pattern, and to see if and how they were responded to. I realize that there are some bogus reviews, which I usually can tell if the reviewer has only a few reviews, and not in various places, and non-specific or very short with a high rating. I also look at totals of reviews at a given rating and percentage of negatives, and trust more when the counts are high. I still count on Tripadvisor as a generally trusted place and believe in giving back by putting up my honest reviews religiously. I am a little concerned about integrity lately, having encountered some cases where multiple hotels in a small markets were accusing each other of sabotage. I think they should institute some form of verified customer flag, which would seem possible given that they track click thru bookings. Linkages between them and service providers worry me less as long as they don’t cheat on reviews. After all, you guys have sponsors, too. But Tripadvisor needs to take care, their primary currency and raison d’etre is trust, and you don’t get a second chance on that. If you guys are raising the question, they need to act or else they’re history.
Expedia has its own issues. I tried posting a review for a hotel and it got rejected 3 times.
The review was not favourable to the hotel (a budget brand of a large chain) but it wasn’t meanspirited or offensive.
I travel frequently for work and I have posted well over 50 hotel reviews on Expedia (all kinds of reviews) and this is the first time that I had one rejected. I believe I complied with all the guidelines…after all, how else would by other reviews have been accepted?
Request for comment from Expedia has fizzled down to my emails being ignored and no explanation as to why my review got rejected.
Maybe Expedia is manipulating its review as well? Who knows, but my cynicism level just went up a notch.
I always check TripAdviser and generally find the reivews helpful, although some seem a little off. If I find a hotel I’m interested in and there’s a particularly scathing review I’ll check to see what that reviewer has written about other hotels–often they just seem ridiculously hard to please, and it shows up at other locations. The most helpful part of the TA reviews for me are the recommendations for specific rooms to book or to avoid–I’ve followed this advice a few times and been rewarded with some great rooms. It’s also important to check the dates of the reviews, because situations like construction projects might ruin someone’s trip, but if it happened last year it’s probably no longer a concern.
Tripadvisor struck a similar deal with Hilton a couple of years ago. This resulted in a rash of rather amateurish reviews for Hilton branded properties. I don’t know what the financial incentives were for each party, but I don’t think the reviews helped any.
I rely on Tripadvisor as I frequently have travel to different locales for my business. You have to learn how to read the reviews and dismiss the gushing praise with no detail (“It was great – just like being home!…”) and the scathing review based on a single-service failure (“They did not take my room service tray until 10 the next morning! Worst property ever!). You have to read at least 10 or 15 (or more) reviews to see a pattern of praise or brickbats about a property. You also have to realize that the majority of the reviews are leisure oriented and one may have different priorities when traveling on business.
Dan, your post is the worst post EVER on TravelSkills! Have you ever stayed in a hotel??!! (sorry, couldn’t help it 🙂 )
I used to trust TripAdvisor (and likewise found the forum unhelpful), but will now look at reviews on hotels.com instead. I generally look at several sites before trusting one, or go with a brand name such as Hilton, Hyatt, etc. because they have brand-standards that must be met at each property.
Recently I was looking for inexpensive hotels in Manhattan, and I came across the “World Hotel” on Bowery. I almost booked it, and then I decided to check the reviews on TripAdvisor. What I found was so utterly astonishing that I could hardly believe my eyes. All I can say now is thank God, thank God for TripAdvisor’s reviews.
I generally trust the reviews, especially the ones that include photos and describe specific things, such as “Dead cockroach floating in my drink” (an actual review, Google it).
My big gripe with TripAdvisor is the forum… I’ve posted perfectly reasonable questions there and I’m instantly attacked and flamed by strangers who say that my question is ultra-stupid and that I must have an IQ of 30 to even post it. I rarely post in the forum for that reason, but I post all the time in the hotel reviews.