Tips on Using TripAdvisor, or How to Not Get the Room Next to the Jackhammering at 5 a.m.
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 06.01.07 | 6:39 PM ET
Most experienced travelers are well aware of the potential pitfalls of making hotel decisions based on TripAdvisor reviews. Which reviews to trust? Is a negative review legit? Or is the writer simply out to help a competing business? The Wall Street Journal has published a helpful look at the many ways that experienced TripAdvisor users sort through reviews to find ones they can trust. The article’s author, Nancy Keates, quickly moves beyond the obvious tactic of looking for patterns and discarding opinions at odds with the bulk of a hotel’s reviews. What other strategies do readers use?
* Some study where reviewers live to gauge their sensibilities. While one Boston man says he doesn’t trust any reviews written by New Yorkers, a Manhattanite trusts other Manhattan residents because, she says, they share “certain standards.”
* Others look at previous reviews by particular writers to gauge their sensibilities. “The jackpot [for one user]: Finding someone who has reviewed a property where she’s also stayed so she knows if they’re in sync,” Keates writes.
* Some even make judgments about a review based on a reviewer’s username. One user thought a review by “crzy4cncun” was likely trust-worthy because the reviewer probably had a lot of experience in Cancun.
Keates suggests that TripAdvisor can be particularly helpful in breaking news about hotels.
“When certain key words (‘hurricane’ or ‘construction’) pop up, TripAdvisor is at its best,” she writes. “It is one of the few places to find indications that a recent event has affected the hotel’s quality.”