Just how useful are travel reviews?
As you know I recently had the chance to sample Norwegian Cruise Lines’ latest ship Epic. I’ve just been reading through a fairly mixed bag of reviews of the ship – some saying it couldn’t be better and others quoting bad experiences and personal niggles. It’s made me wonder: how useful are travel reviews and do they say more about us than the hotel/ship/airline we’ve reviewed?
According to Nielsen Research 70% of people trust online reviews. But by their very nature reviews are subjective – what suits one person will make another shudder. So why do we place so much store in personal reviews on the likes of Tripadvisor, CruiseCritic and SeatGuru?
There was a time when I wouldn’t consider a hotel until I’d read a truck of positive reviews on Tripadvisor. And there’s a lot to be said for being able to arrive at a place in reasonable peace of mind, knowing what facilities to expect (other than those hoteliers may have hyped up), seeing photos that show off the ugly building site next door as well as the awesome infinity pool and knowing that you likely won’t get food poisoning from the buffet.
But after 500 people have left their views of a hotel, cruise or airline on a review site and 200 say it’s appalling, 200 it’s great and the other 100 think it’s OK, where does that leave you in deciding whether to take the plunge? It’s at times like this that I look to the middle ground, which could leave me no better informed than when I began.
A pinch of salt
But what if the majority of those 500 people are way more fussy than you? We all know someone whose glass is always half-empty and another with a sickeningly cheery outlook on life – does that mean their views are any more or less valid? Surely our impressions of a travel experience are based principally on our own expectations and personal levels of what is acceptable and what’s not. This becomes most apparent when you look at reviews from people from different countries and cultures. For example, I usually take reviews by Americans with a bigger pinch of salt than those from Europeans. It’s not that I don’t trust Americans’ views, purely that they often have different expectations to us Europeans. Many Americans used to a great service-culture expect very high levels of service and look for rooms larger than most European hotel conference halls. So not only do we have to be aware of the glass half-empty or half-full reviewer, but also of cultural differences in expectations, when what we really need is reviews from people who are just like us.
Added to this we’re now well aware that a lot of these sites get infiltrated by ‘reviewers’ from the company in question or their competition posting positive or negative reviews accordingly.
So what do these review sites tell us about ourselves? Perhaps that we need reassurance in our choices. Years ago this was the job of independent travel journalists – to go out there, try it and tell us what it was like. But now consumer-generated feedback and social media are changing the way we research our travel destinations. In many respects for the better, but as with the examples given here, how do we know we can trust that the people leaving their thoughts on review sites really are just like us?
Do you use review sites when planning your travel? How do you filter meaningless, over sensitive and one-off bad experiences from the useful reviews?
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Gray
7/6/2010
Good insights! I do use reviews at sites like TripAdvisor, and as you say, weigh the positive and negative and assume it’s something in between. The more specific a reviewer is, the more helpful the review. If someone says they hated a hotel because the room was “filthy”, that doesn’t tell me much, because I don’t know what their definition of filthy is. But if they say there was mold on the shower curtain, crumbs from a previous tenant in the carpet, and somebody else’s hair in the sink drain, that tells me all I need to know. I’ve also learned to spot the diva complainers; some of their reviews are just ridiculous.
Gray´s last [type] ..Counter Dining in Style at Disney
Sarah Lee
7/7/2010
Hi Gray
Yes I think you’re right. Specifics go a long way in helping us decide whether the reviewer is pernickety or there as some real problems there. But then you can also find that one reviewer complains of mold, crumbs or dirty bedding and the next says it was spotlessly clean. Who do you believe!? As you say there are a lot of divas out there. Perhaps spotting them is an art in itself!
Adventurous Kate
7/7/2010
This is a great topic. Of course reviews have value, but I place a higher value on sites like Yelp, where people are encouraged to hone smart, funny, well-written reviews, and where they interact as a community, so there’s a greater need to maintain a profile (as compared to the ghost profiles of TripAdvisor). I find it’s better to pick out the accurate reviews on sites like that.
Simon
7/8/2010
Very interesting post, Sarah.
I used to refer to Tripadvisor quite a lot in the past, but now I have a look only when I travel for business and need to find a hotel with a decent value for money level. The problem with these reviews websites is that as you and Gray pointed out, comments need to be interpreted. And in the last 2 years, I’ve increasingly read reviews that are clearly driven in one way or another.
Now, I mostly rely on independent bloggers having a ‘travel style’ close to mine. And I always try to keep in mind that travel is such a personal experience and that that objective facts can be strongly influence (for the best or the worst) by personal moods.
Simon´s last [type] ..Vienna Hofburg Palace Remembering ‘Sissi’
Sarah Lee
7/8/2010
Thanks for your comments. It’s fascinating how important personal profiles are becoming in judging the reliability of reviews, perhaps this has been galvanised by the dominance of social media where we share more of ourselves online. It’s also made it easier for us to build relationships with like-minded people who we don’t even know.
@Adventurous Kate I haven’t really used Yelp properly I’ll have to take a look at it again, but I think you’re right that it’s the person’s profile which becomes as important as their review. This helps you find people like you and weedle out the whingers.
Good points Simon and interesting again that it comes down to finding people who like similar things/travel in a similar style to you. You’re right – there are so many excellent travel blogs out there you can really find one that talks to you and even build a relationship with the blogger or at least get an understanding of who they are, thus adding validity to their views.
Jack
7/9/2010
Very interesting article highlighting some of the issues about who to trust when it comes to reviews. Sites like Tripadvisor are useful, but they are terribly subjective. Like others have said, the more specific, the more you can trust them.
When there are 20 good reviews for a place and one bad I’m automatically suspicious of the bad review. Many times the negative review turns out to be more of an insight into the person who wrote it than the hotel/restaurant etc.
If the 20 reviews say that staff at a hotel are very friendly and the negative review says they are incredibly rude I’m willing to bet the negative reviewer is a bit of a nightmare to deal with.
Like others, I prefer to trust like minded blogs.
Jack´s last [type] ..Living on Tenerife – My Sole-idarity With Spain in the World Cup
P&O Cruises Girl
7/9/2010
What I find amazing is that people will read a handful of reviews, most of which read great and 1 or 2 are negative. It is the negative ones that stick in your mind and put you off. Like you say, reviews re very subjective and one man’s rubbish is another man’s treaure! A classic example of reviews playing an important role in helping people decide on a holiday is with MSC Cruises. MSC is an Italian Cruise line with a very Mediterranean approach to everything on board from food to decor to entertainment. I personally would love this style of cruise, but then I would go on expecting things to be not-British! MSC reviews really slate food etc, but this isn’t because it’s bad, it’s because it’s different – it’s just British people aren’t very good with different!!
I would never allow reviews to out me off something. If I have decided something is for me, other people’s personal opinions are irrelavant. I only ever read reviews if there is something specific I need to know
Sarah Lee
7/13/2010
I agree with you Jack – reviews often say so much more about the reviewers themselves (grouchy!) than the thing they’re reviewing.
@P&O Cruises Girl – this again points out how cultural differences/expectations can impact our impressions of a travel experience and subsequently why we have to take it all with a pinch of salt. As you point out though, reviews can be good for checking on specifics – I often look them up to see if hotels are offering free wifi (even those that have it don’t always state it online).
Michelle Chaplow
7/13/2010
As a travel photographer, the photos are actually more telling of a hotel than the text. As a general rule any hotel that hasn´t invested in professional photography, won´t be good on attention to detail.
However, I have seen the reverse where the photographer has done a fantastic job and the hotel is a “let down” on arrival. Thankfully this is an exception.
I also heard of cases where rival hotels have had “friends” write deliberate bad reviews. Plus many travellers are guilty of staying at a fabulous hotel and not bothering to write about it later, for one reason or another.
This year to date, I have spent one night in 3 in a hotel, the ones that I choose when not on assignment were chosen for the following criteria, geographical location, crisp white sheets, free wifi, good imagery & preferably a room with a view.
Alastair McKenzie
7/14/2010
I tend to ignore the conclusion of love/hate reviews because, as you say, they are too subjective to be of use. They are often ‘incidental’ as well; the fact that the receptionist was rude in one account and went out of their way to be helpful in another is immaterial – different circumstances / different receptionist!
However, whatever the conclusion, the content can often be useful.
CruiseCritic reviews are a good example. I comb those for nuggets of useful info, even the complaints. Eg. “We were dismayed to discover if you choose the second sitting for dinner, you miss out on these shows. Why didn’t they tell us?!” is a useful snippet. (They didn’t tell you because you’re a muppet, but thanks for the tip!)
What makes reviews useful is that we can learn both from people’s mistakes or misfortunes, and from their successes or lucky breaks.
Jools Stone
7/22/2010
The problems with TA start either when there are hundreds of reviews (so that you can always find some bad ones to put you off!) or when opinion is clearly divided. And obviously the travelers’ photos thing is handy, esp when room numbers are displayed. But the point about using them to check specifics is a good one.
I wonder though, are there any sites out there which really crunch all the specific elements of hotel reviews (beyond generic stuff like ‘service’ or location) like say beds, food, shower etc? That could be pretty useful.