Overwhelmed by the volume of user-generated hotel reviews out there in the blogosphere? Don’t know who to trust, or whether a disgruntled ex-employee is on an online rampage? Matthew Stone, a travel and tourism professor at Prince George’s Community College in Washington, D.C., weighs in with his own experiences and shares his tips on deciphering online hotel reviews.
When did we start trusting strangers over experts? Before we booked a trip, we consulted “experts” like travel agents and AAA. Now, we log in to look at the unfiltered views of the computer-literate masses, and we often trust what they say as the truth.
How can a hotel be ranked one star by one traveler and five stars by another for the same time period? Individuals can be a little brutal with their subjective ratings. Not happy with a hotel? Put your comments online.
Did the hotel fail to give you connecting rooms? One star!
Parking cost $30 and Internet cost $15. One star!
Did that make the staff less friendly, the bed less comfortable, the decor less chic? Unlike AAA which uses rating criteria, independent travelers have their own subjective rating scales when posting online reviews to sites like TripAdvisor.com, Orbitz.com and Hotels.com.
So…how can you wade through the ocean of Web clutter to find usable advice? Try these tips:
To save time, narrow your search down to a handful of hotels before looking at reviews.
When surfing for travel reviews, be careful when comparing numerical ratings. According to TripAdvisor, Denver’s number-one hotel is the Homewood Suites Airport and the number-two hotel is the Country Inn & Suites Airport, ranking ahead of the Ritz-Carlton, the Brown Palace, and Denver’s seven other AAA 4-diamond hotels. Odd, indeed.
Only pay attention to the most recent postings. A review from 2005 will still affect a star level, even if it is outdated.
Do not focus on the individuals’ numerical star ratings (which vary greatly), but why they chose that rating.
Use comments to identify recurring problems, such as noisy rooms, poor air conditioning, or an unsavory location.
Look for individuals with the same needs. For example, a guest may mark down a hotel for poor parking, but that would be irrelevant if you are taking a taxi. A family disappointed in the size of the pool may have no impact on your stay.
Look at pictures posted by individuals. These will tell you what a room actually looks like, not the perfect room in the hotel photo shoot.
Take each opinion (positive or negative) with a grain of salt. Even the nicest hotels have bad days, so be careful about trusting every review. It is never certain what motivated someone to write a review: an honest recollection of a poor stay or revenge for a hotel charging a high room rate.
Remember that negative comments often stay online even if a hotel has been renovated or a problem corrected.
Lean toward hotels that have responses from the hotel managers on TripAdvisor. While a bad review cannot be erased, this shows that they are actually listening to their customers … even the anonymous ones.
Always visit the hotel’s own website to compare.
After your own stay, post your own honest comments online to help future travelers.
The best advice of all is don’t obsess over online review sites before making your reservation. It is easy to spend hours poring over the sites, and reading the reviews to find the perfect hotel. Yet, the more reviews you read, the muddier the picture becomes.
Get an idea of the hotel you want, double check your gut feeling, and then go travel.
For more insider tips on hotels, check out:
- Travel Tip: Look Before You Book Hotel Web Sites
- The 10 Best Airport Hotels Worldwide
- How To Find Gay-Friendly Hotels That Are Fabulous
By Matthew Stone for PeterGreenberg.com. Matthew Stone is a hotel industry veteran and a professor of hospitality and tourism, author and lecturer. Visit him online at www.globalpostmark.com.
