My Thoughts on Trip Advisor

This adventure and travel blog of mine requires copious amounts of time researching biking and hiking tours, accommodation possibilities, airfares etc. So much of what comes up in google searches is the Trip Advisor website.

So just a few words of warning!

• Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia – just for your information
• Reviewers are a self selected group of individuals – some who seem to have way too much time on their hands or are being offered something to submit a positive rating. Granted, there are many totally honest, well meaning people who do submit a writeup to help fellow travellers but I’m not sure that they are in the majority. Last year while researching the Gulf Islands bike tour I was offered a gift upon confirmation of a positive review and I have been strongly encouraged to write positive reviews. Judging by articles on the web that is just the tip of the iceberg.
• We know nothing about the reviewers and where their bias lies.
• The ratings can be skewed because of the lack of reviewers. How meaningful is a rating system without more than a handful of writeups?
• There are new restaurants, B&B’s and hotels that may in fact be great places to try but are being penalized because of a lack of reviews. A case in point is a new Magog B&B (La Maison Drew) I used on my Eastern Townships tour. It was far better than the #1 rated B&B (which I also stayed in) but didn’t even register on the Trip Advisor scale because there weren’t any reviews.

Use a dose of common sense. The site is helpful in that it gives you the names of the hotels, B&B’s or restaurants that you are looking for in a specific town or city. You can then visit individual websites for more information. As the article points out it, is also a good idea to ignore the very best and the very worst comments. Keep an open mind and if you do use it, don’t treat the ratings as gospel.

And for more information which is in line with what I have found, read the article about Trip Advisor and its’ hotel manipulation scandal.

Leigh McAdam

www.hikebiketravel.com

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