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".

 

[TAK]

TA has become less useful since it starters more monetisation of its site and it stopped ranking straight up 1,2,3 etc -I definitely review the worst ( to see if they could be some valid issues- ther’re rare) but I add a lot more weight to the number of reviews a particular reviewer has posted. Also every Expedia brand sents incesant Request - I delete all of them. I do leave stats only reviews on Google but mainly so I can remember where I’ve been or if something has been excellent or terrible I may leave a more detailed review. I have left over 800 reviews ( aren’t I smart) and I thought I was pretty good at weeding things out - however a recent restaurant visit caught me out; it was a 4.9 or something and I experienced average food and faulty towers service - I made it clear in my review this was not a 5 star establishment. BTW another filter is if all the reviews are from Poms ( for example ) and no one else it could be they all came off a tour or a cruise ship - the other red flag is “ we ate at this restaurant several times” - people just love it when a (smart) waiter panders over them and acknowledges them. Their review is about their feelings, not the establishment. Last one - I also check all reviews in all languages and rank reviews based on the establishments distance from the tourist centre.

 

[Trekky1]

I leave both good and bad reviews depending on the product/service I bought. I've done 42 reviews.

When choosing a service or whatever, I usually read the last 12 months of reviews. I try to understand what they are saying in relation to my wants and needs, I know some people are just fussier, than I am.

 

[Forg]

I’ve found, in the past, that reading reviews & seeing negative stuff makes me notice negative things that otherwise would just fly over my head & I’d just have enjoyed myself. Oddly … and maybe it’s because I’m borked … reading positive stuff in a review doesn’t make me notice more positive things & make me enjoy it more.

 

[clifford]

I’ve found, in the past, that reading reviews & seeing negative stuff makes me notice negative things that otherwise would just fly over my head & I’d just have enjoyed myself. Oddly … and maybe it’s because I’m borked … reading positive stuff in a review doesn’t make me notice more positive things & make me enjoy it more.

When reading reviews on eg booking.com, I always sort by lowest ratings first, to give me an idea of any real issues.

Of course, you have to take some of these reviews with a pinch of salt, but nevertheless, it's a useful approach.

 

[Seat0B]

I agree with the points in the article and most of the posts too.

I do use online reviews to help me make up my mind about a hotel - and I much prefer reviews that provide a reasonable level of detail so I can get an idea of whether the reviewer and I value the same things eg “5 stars - this place was so close to the nightclubs and bars it was awesome. At the end of the night I could just walk a few steps and I was home!” For me that would probably be a 1 or 2 star review because I did not get a quiet night’s sleep! Or the very carefully worded reviews like “ this place was authentically rustic and is more for the traveller than the tourist” might mean it’s a great authentic experience even if a bit shabby chic or might mean it’s very run down and just shabby. I too read as many reviews for the last 12 months as I can to get as wide a view as I can. When I leave a review, I try to be as open and detailed as I can eg I have written reviews that say it was noisy for nightlife but that this may be attractive to some guests.

I hate being pressured to “leave a 5 star review for us please.”
I hate being bombarded by automated reminders for reviews.

 

[lowan74]

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.

Sadly I agree. I used to find Tripadvisor very useful for research but it seems to have become almost irrelevant these days with up to date information

 

[JustSlash]

The title says it all, and I tend to agree.

On a recent trip to Vietnam, we were looking for a place nearby and picked a restaurant rated 4.9 with over 4,000 google reviews. It turned out to be underwhelming, service was average in both attentiveness and attitude, and the food was ok but nothing special, especially for the price.

Towards the end, we realized they were offering free drinks in exchange for 5-star reviews, which explains the inflated rating and volume. It did leave us feeling like it was more of a tourist trap than a genuinely top-tier spot.

That said, most places we’ve tried in Vietnam with ratings between 4.7 and 5.0 and over 1,000 reviews have generally been reliable.

Generally, we don’t tend to leave reviews. And when we do, it’s usually because the experience was poor enough that we feel others should be aware.