Do you trust Trip Advisor?

We all use it these days. Booking a hotel direct or through a travel agent is becoming a thing of the past. And to disclose my hand, I am a Trip Advisor Senior reviewer (wow!).

 

But there was a TV documentary a while back (which I didn’t see) that questioned whether TA was quite as objective as it appeared.

 

Although I am sure it has some pretty effective mechanisms for cleaning out scams, it is a certainty that some will always get through.

 

There are the hoteliers who pay for Joe Bloggs to write a glowing review on the place, even though he has never been near it, or even heard of it. For a modest recompense he will be quite happy to e-mail a review written by his benefactor.

 

Then there is the opposite, writing a review that rubbishes the competition.

 

More difficult to trap are those actuated by sheer malice; there’s a lot of nasty people out there who will slag off a place because of some grievance, such as being chucked out of the bar for rowdy behaviour.

 

A couple of years ago, my daughter booked a hotel in the Caribbean for 2 weeks. I checked it out on TA. There was a review that claimed it was a dosshouse, attaching photos of peeling wallpaper, dirty bathrooms etc, etc. She reported back that the place was 5-star and immaculate.

 

There’s a couple of things that TA could do about this.

 

The first is that when a review is obviously ‘rogue’ , it should be deleted. For example, if there are 100 five-star reviews and two are one-star, those two are probably malicious.

 

Our hotel here in Chiang Mai has been awarded a plaque for ‘Trip Advisor Winner Best Value Hotel 2012’ and has just got another award. It ranks 16 in the top 25 hotels in Thailand. There’s some pretty stiff competition from hotels that may charge 10 times as much

 

And yet it has two reviews that rank it as terrible.

 

I happen to know the circumstances.

 

One complained that the taxi driver from the airport didn’t know his way to the hotel (having not read their booking confirmation that the hotel provided free transport for guests), and that it was too remote from the fleshpots of downtown Chiang Mai (not having looked at the location map provided with the booking). They departed and demanded their deposit returned (not understanding the meaning of ‘not refundable”). They wrote a review that was published without them having spent a single night at the hotel.

 

The other had a 7-day tariff, departed after one night, also because they wanted to be within walking distance of the fleshly delights of downtown, and then got angry when they were charged the rack-rate for their one-night’s stay.

 

The second is that reviews more than 2 years old should be deleted. The quality of a hotel can change for better or worse almost overnight. A review of more than two years old is practically worthless.

 

And finally, TA should get a grip on geography.

 

Ever since it opened nearly 14 years ago, our hotel has been in Chiang Mai, and it still is. Without any consultation, they have reclassified it as being in San Si, or Sansai. Even here few people know where that is. In fact it is an administrative district within Chiang Mai, a suburb bordering downtown. This is about as sensible as saying that Fulham is not in London because it’s a borough, or that Queens is not in New York for the same reason.

 

And yet  a hotel in Mae Sa, which is miles outside Chiang Mai, is classified as a Chiang Mai hotel.

 

What is puzzling is that TA is owned by Expedia, the international booking agency and the one that I consult in preference to all others, and yet this bizarre decision may lead to a falling-off  in bookings.

 

My advice is to consult at least two agencies, such a Late Rooms, before going firm.

 

Having said which, TA must be the agency of choice, None other can match it for its comprehensive coverage, and the reviews are entirely based on guests’ reviews, not on those of travel writers who are hardly objective, given that they are on expense-paid jollies.