Comments on: Can You Trust Trip Advisor?

By: Betty

Betty — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:06:37 +0000

I couldn’t agree with you more. Trip Advisor needs to be taken to task for their biased views where travelers are allowed to say anything, no matter how false or libelous, and owners are censored especially if they say anything negative about the company.

Some of their punitive tricks include exploiting the provocative by emphasizing it in their reviews to bring more hits to their site. They often will disrupt the sequence so the negative review from the past shows while more recent positive ones do not. Also, if their site is not coming up high enough on the search engines, they will take out ads in the name of the business in order to show up on the first page of listings.

Trip Advisor is not listed as a Better Business Bureau accredited business and have been given a C+ rating based on unresolved customer complaints. They show 1 complaint in the last 36 months which is deceiving because the BBB won’t even accept a complaint against Trip Advisor that doesn’t involve a financial transaction. That negates any complaints regarding false and libelous reviews which I’m sure would be numerous if they were allowed and lower their grade to F.

“Get the truth, then go” is a joke when they allow anyone to post anything whether they have been to an establishment or not, and ignore their own guidlines. For example, their guidelines prohibit public slur campaigns but then they allow such reviews to remain posted anyway.

The Attorney General of Massachusetts has said that she will take action against them if she receives enough complaints. So I urge your readers who have such complaints to submit them to her.

You can also post comments on ClarkHoward.com since he is a big fan of theirs as well as Yelp and is repeatedly plugging them.

By: north

north — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:08:18 +0000

I think they did not publish it because of the slur against the Iowa people. I have published reviews on TA that mention hotels.com with no problem.

A bigger problem on TA is the squabbling amongst “regulars” on the forum and cluesless newbies whining when they are told their naive plans won’t work. TA lets this go on and on to generate page views.

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:44:35 +0000

I work in the travel industry and it’s well(ish) known that for a hotel to get rid of its negative reviews it must join Expedia, as Expedia doesn’t like the hotels it pushes to have too many negative reviews.
Tripadvisor is basically part of a scam. Anyone who is in the know doesn’t take it seriously. It’s just there to sucker tourists into clicking links.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:45:26 +0000

What’s wrong with people from Iowa?

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:11:10 +0000

Maybe it was because TravelZoo, their competitor was mentioned in the review. Perhaps you can re-submit your review without the mention of TravelZoo to see what happens. I’ve seen them remove links to competing websites on many reviews.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:14:31 +0000

Thanks for your comments Pua. We asked Trip Advisor twice to publish our review or explain why they couldn’t. They refused and would only say that it did not meet their criteria.

Regarding the impact of a bad review on a small hotel or B&B, Trip Advisor allows the owner to write a management response if they disagree with a review.

You’re right that consumers need to do their own research. Jeff has a follow-up post coming this week on, “What travel industry consolidation means to your trip plans.”

In his upcoming post, Jeff mentions that Trip Advisor allows you to click on the name of the reviewer to see everything that he/she has written. This may help people decide if the review can be trusted.

We hope that we feel better about Trip Advisor in the future. After submitting many reviews over the years to them (without issue), we’re left wondering.

Aloha from Rob at Beat of Hawaii

By: Pua

Pua — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:12:56 +0000

I would definitelely contact Trip Advisor and ask them what the problem is with not publishing your review. Seems you are right there with conflict of interest.

I just talked to a Big Island B&B owner who has been running a quality B&B for 15 years on the Big Island about trip advisor reviews. She is not all so happy about it. It can really damage your reputation when people take tripadvisor as a vent for not having been happy with the weather or other parts on their vacation, not related to the accommodation.

But guess what this even happens with the ‘Big Island revealed’ (and other Hawaii Revealed Books) book. I was so astonished by a few really bad reviews which I could not agree with but there it’s printed, so tourists take it for granted. Always use your own judgment and do your own research. Aloha, Pua