Do You Pay Attention to Online Reviews?

[lisab]

I just read a story about hotel owners threatening to sue TripAdvisor over "false and malicious" reviews.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39799954/ns/travel-travel_tips/

I must admit, I do read online reviews, especially for hotels and restaurants. I'm not totally naive, haha, I take them with a grain of salt. But if they're too positive I assume they're faked (they often use the same tell-tale style of writing in every review ), and that's a red flag. If there are too many negative ones I take that as a red flag too.

I recognize people are more likely to get online to slam a place than to praise it. So I guess one bad one in 5 or 10 is about right, to me.

Do you read online reviews? How much weight to you put on them?

 

[rootX]

Recently, I chose one take out place over other because of the online reviews.. but it is illogical to trust bad reviews more than the good reviews.

 

[lisab]

Recently, I chose one take out place over other because of the online reviews.. but it is illogical to trust bad reviews more than the good reviews.

If the good ones are seemingly written by the same person, in the same style - for example, a ! after every sentence - then that's not true, it's perfectly logical to not trust those reviews.

Apart from such fraud, yes I agree both positive and negative are equally believable. But I do think most people would be more motivated to pan a place than to praise it, so I don't think the ratio (good reviews)/(bad reviews) is representative.

 

[GeorginaS]

Well, it depends on the source, really, Lisa. But yes, say on hotel or travel rating sites, like that, throw out the best and the worst reviews, and I think you'll get a reasonable idea.

There are a couple of sites I rely on for book reviews, and I know which reviewers enjoy the same sorts of work I do, so I know I can trust them. The New York Times bestseller list, though, I'm generally sure I don't want to read.

I'm not sure whether or not that's what you meant by "reviews".

 

[lisab]

Well, it depends on the source, really, Lisa. But yes, say on hotel or travel rating sites, like that, throw out the best and the worst reviews, and I think you'll get a reasonable idea.

There are a couple of sites I rely on for book reviews, and I know which reviewers enjoy the same sorts of work I do, so I know I can trust them. The New York Times bestseller list, though, I'm generally sure I don't want to read.

I'm not sure whether or not that's what you meant by "reviews".

Right, reviews by 'normal' people, haha.

I do feel bad for hotel and restaurant owners who are slammed unfairly, maybe by a disgruntled customer who was going to be pissed off no matter what service they received. There's no recourse for the owners. But fair or not, I put a lot of weight on reviews.

 

[rootX]

I wondered if competitors could write bad reviews. Assuming that those hotel owners are as rational as a HS kid, they would do bit better job in making sure that the reviews they write look real.

If I were a hotel owner, instead of giving myself 10 stars, I would give myself like 7 or 8, write many good and few bad things and perform comparison against others while being realistic. Then go write competitors review and give them 5 or 6. Talk about their real weaknesses.

 

[Norman]

I do read reviews. I throw out any review older than a year and a half since hotels and restaurants change staff so often. I typically assume that a person is more likely to get online and give a bad review than a good one. But it seems reasonable that people are also trying to pad their stats. So I usually throw out the highs and lows and try to look at the distribution.

Interestingly enough I am currently deciding whether to attend a conference or not due to some reviews about the only hotel I can stay at (due to rules of my current job).

Here are the reviews: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g45082-d97269-Reviews-Whitewater_Inn-Big_Sky_Montana.html

I travel for conferences 3 or 4 times a year. This conference (IEEE Aerospace) is at a very expensive resort and my grant rules will not allow me to stay at the resort (it is more than 175% of the federal GSA value)- so I would have to cover about $200 worth of hotel. Something I really don't want to do.

If you read the reviews of the place, the most recent is horrible and is concerned about the cleanliness. But the cleanliness of the hotel in general is mentioned a few times. People typically say the room was of average cleanliness but the hotel halls were dirty. Worrisome.

 

[BobG]

I read reviews. The text is a lot more informative than the rating. I'm more interested in what the problem was and what the good points were since people's standards vary so much. I'm not that thrilled by book reviews, music reviews, movie reviews since variations in tastes make those worthless to me.

You have some that start out at 5 and downgrade for each discrepancy. You have some that start at 3 and move up or down depending on good points/bad points. All in all, the ratings just aren't that reliable.

And you do have to watch out for owners/managers spoofing the ratings sites, especially if it's a local site for something such as apartments since a flurry of perfect ratings can have more effect due to the small number of people posting reviews. You can usually tell. When reviews are usually spaced days to weeks apart and suddenly, an apartment complex or hotel gets 10 reviews in one day in a similar writing style, those reviews are probably bogus.

The ones with pictures are best. The funniest review I've read was for an apartment complex. The tenants griped about the staff cleaning up exterior areas and included a picture of vomit from a pool party as supporting evidence (except you had to take their word that the picture was taken 5 days after the party).