Are Sites Such As Trip Advisor Trustworthy
Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 by Stenberg-Tendys W.L. in Travel
Travel industry insiders have finally expressed their concern that TripAdvisor and similar sites that rely on anonymous reviews, are beginning to wield too much power.
According to the Independent in the UK the concern has existed before, but TripAdvisor’s Dirtiest Hotels list made it an even hotter topic in the past week.
Bob Cotton, CEO of the British Hospitality Association, told the Independent that hotels across Europe are lobbying the EU Commission to rewrite the rules governing website reviews.
The Trip Advisor website is advertised as being unbiased, but is this true? For every bad review how many good reviews? Also, are the reviews written by genuine guests, or rival companies?
“Websites have a responsibility that the person has actually stayed at the hotel or dined at the restaurant,” Cotton told the Independent. Websites also need to check out that the complaint is genuine.
At Seachange Lodge, on the tropical island of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific, there was a complaint written by a disgruntled guest who believed he had been penalized, through his children’s behaviour. He was quick to write to Trip Advisor saying that children were not welcome at Seachange Lodge and advised any family to steer clear of the resort. He filed a complaint also with the Vanuatu Tourism Office.
Another family was happily staying at Seachange Lodge at exactly the same time. The owners/operators of Seachange Lodge offered staff of the Tourism Office the opportunity to interview the other family.
Unfortunately there is no avenue available for operators of accommodation venues to repudiate any complaints publicly claimed by guests.
The world Cyber Space is full of uncontested comments by individuals. While a few are helpful and informative, many are amusing and some are downright rude, incoherent and irrelevant, or biased.
“You can’t ban these on-line comments – that is like de-inventing the atomic bomb – and I am in favour of all these methods of modern communication. But we need a fair crack of the whip,” said Cotton.
The truth is ‘You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time.’ We can only trust that would-be travelers are able to make a fair assessment themselves, over several reviews and not act slavishly to any particular review. Otherwise, sites like Trip Advisor become little more than an electronic version of ‘Indian Whispers’. By the time the saying gets to the end of the line, it is completely changed, with no redress to the original. Entire governments have been brought down by such tactics.
2 Responses to “Are Sites Such As Trip Advisor Trustworthy”
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03. Feb, 2010
[...] Insiders of the travel industry insiders have finally expressed their concern that Trip Advisor and similar sites that rely on anonymous reviews, are beginning to wield too much power. According to the Independent in the UK the concern has been around for quite some time, but Trip Advisor’s Dirtiest Hotels list made it an even hotter topic in the past week. Read more of how the opinion of disgruntled guests can ruin a reputation… [...]
Problem is that many TA reveiwers – even the genuine ones, if you can spot them – are ignorant and poorly travelled with unreasonable expectations. And I say that as the top-rated B&B on TA for our region of France, not because we’re poorly rated. I’m fed up with TA after weeding out false reviews, possibly from jealous rivals, posing as visitors. Do you know that TA won’t accept any form of proof from owners regarding the falsehood of reviews? They need taking down a peg or too – hope the Brits get somewhere with their challenge.
Phil
Here’s the story of just one of my scrapes with TA:
Fake Reviews on TripAdvisor