Article: The Blessing & Curse of Online Travel Reviews

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/online-reviews-blessing-curse/

The Blessing & Curse of Online Travel Reviews is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

The Blessing & Curse of Online Travel Reviews

Online reviews have made it much easier for travellers to research hotels, restaurants, airlines and tour companies. But they've also changed the travel experience - and not always for the better.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[kpc]

Online reviews are both a blessing and a curse for the reasons you mention. Lots of places, guides etc are pushing for a positive review. As I get so many review requests, I generally don't leave any reviews. If I do, it is usually a very bad review as something has really pi$$ed me off...recently, a hotel in Ushuaia and another one in San Pedro de Atacama come to mind!

 

[Captain Halliday]

WRT staff asking you to leave a review, I have a simple approach.

Firstly, I’ll make my own independent decision about whether to write a review.

If I do, I will clearly state that I was asked to do so. Simply transparency.

Finally, even if every other aspect was perfect, asking me to write a review significantly detracts from the experience. Therefore the business can not score the maximum rating on the relevant platform.

 

[Big John]

My rules are simple :

• If I am asked to do a review in return for something (e.g. discount for next purchase, enter a competition to win a prize), I will do the review.
• If nothing is offered, I don't do the review.

Simples !

 

[cambriamarsh]

Online reviews are both a blessing and a curse for the reasons you mention. Lots of places, guides etc are pushing for a positive review. As I get so many review requests, I generally don't leave any reviews. If I do, it is usually a very bad review as something has really pi$$ed me off...recently, a hotel in Ushuaia and another one in San Pedro de Atacama come to mind!

TripAdvisor used to be quite useful but it seems to be getting less reviews, while the Expedia and other OTA sites seem to be getting a lot of short reviews which aren't as thought out or useful. Still it all helps.

 

[Volando]

My go to is always to filter to the three star reviews. They are more likely to be objective and considered. 5 stars may often be the type of solicited review mentioned in the article or gushing and blinkered unless coming from someone with a good bank of previous travel experience based on their volume of reviews.

1 and 2 star will more often than not be over some sort of specific gripe or disagreement. Understandably a coughroach in your dinner is a legitimate issue, but one star because there were mozzies in a room in the tropics is petty and silly.

Another consideration is the country or culture in question. In Japan, giving 5 stars still actually means “above and beyond” in reviews as opposed to the uberfication of reviews where giving a driver less than 5 stars prompts a “what was wrong” survey.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Agree with Volando’s points… for companies providing services, I filter to the one star reviews.

In a travel context, many of those are from passengers simply not understanding their rights or obligations… I slept in, missed my flight, and now XYZ agency is refusing to refund me in full. Or… due to the Iran war my flight was rescheduled by 4 hours which has *completely ruined* my holiday costing me thousands of dollars (errr… no). Or mozzies in the room!

But…the one star reviews where it’s actually not the fault of the passenger are relevant, like being unable to contact the agent, lengthy reply times, high agency fees, or not providing refunds where they are due.

For accommodation the three star reviews are usually on point when it comes to potential problems.

A other thing is the overall rating given by the review companies. A 3.9 score (out of 5) is often classified as ‘good’, whereas in fact, a ‘3 something’ rating is usually cause for concern, and at least on tripadvisor, reason to avoid a service or hotel.

 

[SYD]

I always try and review the low reviews to see what a place is really like (Hotels, AirBnBs, restaurants etc). Yes weed out the silly things eg “No vegan menu at the steak house”.

I’m now more sceptical of restaurant reviews where server “Jill”, Jack” or “Jane” was “wonderful”. They’re positive bribe reviews in return for a complementary aperitif or similar.

As for fake reviews and why you should be less reliant on TripAdvisor, take a look around you home City. Here’s the Top restaurants in Sydney according to TA! Really?

 

[Forg]

^ TripAdvisor may be correct, in terms of the relationship between the expectation for those restaurants & their product.
Which pretty much makes it useless if you’re using it for any sort of ranking.
But … it could be useful if you’re looking for a nearby restaurant that sells that stuff at that price-point. If the reviews aren’t all fake, of course, and there’s no way to know IMHO.

There’s a pretty decent cafe near where I live, the owners of the business took-over from prior business owners with a different idea of what to sell. The price of coffee went up, but also the type of stuff they sell became higher quality; the great big wagyu t-bone my wife & I shared was brilliant, and the price very good for what we got, but yes it was expensive compared to the grain-fed cheap meat the prior owners used to sell.
Pretty much a different product with a different price-point … but they were getting slammed with reviews by people who used to buy the cheaper coffee (from the place which was unable to make a profit) or who wanted to pay the old cheaper prices for the old coughpier food and were writing-off the much better food (at a very reasonable price for the quality) solely on the basis of price. It’d be like … The Fat Duck moving in to where a Maccas used to be, making food as good as they currently do but at 3x the price of Maccas, and then getting all 1-star reviews ‘cos Maccas is cheaper.

 

[Warks]

I love to read Google Reviews when travelling. It's so funny to read the one star reviews on a place with a high 4 star rating. Then you read the review and it's glowing but the reviewer clearly thought one start was the same as "number one!!!"

 

[cambriamarsh]

I always try and review the low reviews to see what a place is really like (Hotels, AirBnBs, restaurants etc). Yes weed out the silly things eg “No vegan menu at the steak house”.

I’m now more sceptical of restaurant reviews where server “Jill”, Jack” or “Jane” was “wonderful”. They’re positive bribe reviews in return for a complementary aperitif or similar.

As for fake reviews and why you should be less reliant on TripAdvisor, take a look around you home City. Here’s the Top restaurants in Sydney according to TI! Really?


View attachment 503859

Point taken

 

[LCC]

If the product/service is important to me I make sure I read every recent review especially the ones that go to the effort of providing more details rather than just a sentence saying everything was wonderful. I shake my head sometimes when one reviewer writes that the "hotel was very clean and the staff were friendly" and someone else writes they have "never stayed in such a dirty place with such rude staff".