Any Trip Advisor users here?

[langpark]

Basically, I've been working in the tourism industry for nearly a decade. Trip Advisor is considered by most of us one of the most influential sites on the web to travellers. But I've often wondered if it's just us within the industry that have maybe over-estimated its influence. That's why I'd like to hear from 'regular' people (outside of the industry) what their view of it is.

Mainly interested to see if anyone here actually uses it (just read reviews or actually write reviews as well). Also, how much do the reviews on TA influence you when choosing where to stay/eat/drink/visit etc....

 

[Vic Mackey]

Just got back from that US and my mrs wouldn't go eat anywhere unless it had good reviews on TA, same with the accommodation she booked.

 

[McLovin]

Not TA but i've used sites like booking.com and webjet. Whenever the missus and I go on a trip somewhere, be it for an overnight stay or week or longer, we always do our own hotel bookings and organise flights ourselves. We could spend a good hour or two looking up reviews, locations, prices, etc... picking and choosing. We aren't big on restaurants, i'll eat anywhere. Haven't been to a travel agent in my life. I find the convenience and the ease of doing it at home to be ideal...

 

[horrie hastings]

I use Trip Advisor sometimes for accommodation overseas and local but more so for restaurants and dining out.

 

[moffla]

Trip advisor pretty much saved my girlfriend and I when planning for Tasmania. So many factors can influence whether it's worth going to certain places and TA reviews of places helped when deciding.

Never use it for restaurants or anything though

 

[langpark]

Not TA but i've used sites like booking.com and webjet. Whenever the missus and I go on a trip somewhere, be it for an overnight stay or week or longer, we always do our own hotel bookings and organise flights ourselves. We could spend a good hour or two looking up reviews, locations, prices, etc... picking and choosing. We aren't big on restaurants, i'll eat anywhere. Haven't been to a travel agent in my life. I find the convenience and the ease of doing it at home to be ideal...

Booking.com I agree, is great for seeing decent pictures of a hotel, but the best part about it is that you HAVE to have made a booking and actually stayed there in order to write a review. So you know all the reviews are genuine, unlike Trip Advisor.

 

[horrie hastings]

There was one property that I stayed at on the mid north coast where you have had to have already stayed at before you could do a review on it on Trip Advisor, this is the first time I have ever seen that on Trip Advisor, maybe it was because the property had just been listed on the site and had not had any reviews done before hand.

I love reading the reviews on Trip Advisor and quite often pick up mistakes in them and quite often work out that the reviewer has even done a review on a different place than the one where they have stayed at or dined at.

I also think sometimes with certain restaurant reviews that the owner and all their friends can get on and give the place 5 stars or you could get a disgruntled ex employee giving the place a zero or one star, I'm not saying that happens all the time but the system is open for it.

 

[kdalymc]

It is great for motels and whatnot but for stuff to do, their really needs to be an "underground" trip advisor where stuff is off the tourist track

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

Use it for overseas trips a bit, yeah its good. Found plenty of things to do/to avoid/be aware of on it.

 

[sportive cupid]

I look at it when planning a trip to somewhere I'm unfamiliar with. I woukd say I've had mixed success with the information I receive from it and have come to appreciate it for what it is .- the experience of others who may or may not be like you.
But to he honest I have found it more useful than many travel agents I have encountered who kay not have personal experience of the place Im going .

The thing i like best is the travellers photots of hotels /landmarks/experiences etc...can be vastly different from the glossy brochures.
Oh and the forums about a specific thing ..like local transport .But only if its up to date .
Ive been know to contribute to these at times

 

[_Johnsy]

It doesn't matter where we travel to if it doesn't have a good TA rating (coupled with other limited research) we don't even consider it. It has never steered us wrong.

 

[_Johnsy]

I also think sometimes with certain restaurant reviews that the owner and all their friends can get on and give the place 5 stars

I found exactly this at Shiraaz Indian Restaurant in Geelong, had good reviews but god awful food, way way too salty. Worst Indian I've ever had. It had decent reviews (4/5), so either all family members review it, or the people of Geelong wouldn't know decent Indian if it crawled up their blurter.

 

[Mr Angry]

I use it and have made reviews

 

[Dogs Of War]

I found exactly this at Shiraaz Indian Restaurant in Geelong, had good reviews but god awful food, way way too salty. Worst Indian I've ever had. It had decent reviews (4/5), so either all family members review it, or the people of Geelong wouldn't know decent Indian if it crawled up their blurter.

I find it's the people. We have 3 Indian places where I live in Brisbane, 1 is amazing and fresh with great variety on the meny, the other 2 not so much (generally slop that tastes the same), yet locals rave about the dodgy 2 places. Others who came from Sydney etc know which is the good one and go there.

 

[Paullyboy]

I find it hard to believe anyone would make a booking without using TripAdvisor.

Then again I have mates who just go to a travel agent and go with whatever they're told is good, I personally rather book everything myself so I can find exactly what I want. I just got back from the Maldives and the resort I found through extensive TA research was so much better (and cheaper) than anything any travel agent could recommend to me.

 

[Paullyboy]

I look at it when planning a trip to somewhere I'm unfamiliar with. I woukd say I've had mixed success with the information I receive from it and have come to appreciate it for what it is .- the experience of others who may or may not be like you.
But to he honest I have found it more useful than many travel agents I have encountered who kay not have personal experience of the place Im going .

The thing i like best is the travellers photots of hotels /landmarks/experiences etc...can be vastly different from the glossy brochures.
Oh and the forums about a specific thing ..like local transport .But only if its up to date .
Ive been know to contribute to these at times

The key is to read through the reviews and not just look at the star ratings. You can quickly work out that some people give a hotel a 1 star simply because they were dissatisfied with the brand of the TV or something ridiculous. Some of the unjustified whinging you get on that site is beyond comprehension.

 

[The EELiminator]

The key is to read through the reviews and not just look at the star ratings. You can quickly work out that some people give a hotel a 1 star simply because they were dissatisfied with the brand of the TV or something ridiculous. Some of the unjustified whinging you get on that site is beyond comprehension.

there are reports some tripadvisor reviewers are shills paid to either talk up a dump or trash their opposition
what i do is let the best and worst reviews cancel each other out and look at the trend of the middle of the road reviews if they are negative too i'd tread carefully but if they are mostly positive it should be ok

p.s. lots of negative reviews complain about rude staff my question is how did you treat them?
some people think because they are paying to stay somewhere that means the staff are their personal minions to scream at and order around as they please i have stayed in places with "rude staff" and never had an issue

 

[deluded pom?]

there are reports some tripadvisor reviewers are shills paid to either talk up a dump or trash their opposition
what i do is let the best and worst reviews cancel each other out and look at the trend of the middle of the road reviews if they are negative too i'd tread carefully but if they are mostly positive it should be ok

Agree with your assessment. The rule of thumb is to ignore the best and worst ten percent of reviews and follow the middle ground. We rarely go to a hotel, home or abroad without consulting TA. We also try to leave reviews whenever we can.

 

[Paullyboy]

Agree with your assessment. The rule of thumb is to ignore the best and worst ten percent of reviews and follow the middle ground. We rarely go to a hotel, home or abroad without consulting TA. We also try to leave reviews whenever we can.

I'm trying to make a conscious effort to leave reviews at places that are either awesome or horrid (luckily I haven't had any really bad ones).

 

[duck]

We swear by Tripadvisor. Fantastic travel tool.

The missus is a genius at deciphering it. Three trips to UK/Europe and many interstate getaways and we have a 100% satisfaction strike rate.

Accommodation. Restaurants. Day trips.

We also write reviews for each and ensure others know about it.