I'd like to throw a question out there for everyone.

When you're planning your trip and you're all over the web looking at lodging (and I'll use the word "lodging" to indicate ALL types, whether it's vacation rentals, B&Bs, hotels, huts ), what weight do you put on the past guest reviews that are written? Are they a major influence for you in making your decision? Is it a matter of the ratio of good to bad reviews that makes you say yes or no? Is it a matter of "one person's cardboard box is another person's castle", or is it just someone's opinion and not everyone agrees? What makes you click past and go searching elsewhere? If you see five good and two not-so-good, do you think "hmm, staff got a 2 on that one, but 4s and 5s on the others -- was the guest in a rotten mood when they wrote this or didn't like the person's hairdo?"

I thought this might be an interesting topic. I know there are a lot of question marks in that paragraph, but it all boils down to one.

When looking at hotels I always look on tripadviser and do place weight on the reviews, especially budget hotels in major cities which do tend to be very variable. B & B's are rarely reviewed, or perhaps just not the ones I generally look at. Vacation rentals - I place a lot of weight on the reviews on this site - allowing of course for personal preferences etc - e.g. depending on the season we would always go for an outdoor area and location over size of bedroom or luxury of bathroom. But things like cleanliness and ease of dealing with owner or representative are important.I do not take a lot of notice of other reviews - especially the one-liners from the guest book. As we would stay in a vacation rental longer than a B & B or a hotel I do a lot more research and take more care with that decision - which is why this site is a fabulous resource.

A good topic - thank you for asking it!

I tend to take most reviews with a very large grain of salt. It depends to a large degree on the source. I trust reviews on ST more than on other sites, largely because I follow the discussions here and have some sense of where the reviewers are coming from.

I'm much more sceptical about reviews on a "bigger" site like TripAdvisor or Venere, just because I don't know anything about the reviewers or their tastes and expectations. I will look at them and note anything that's really strong one way or the other, but I try to remember that anyone can have a bad day (read my restaurant review of Cavolo Nero in Florence for an example) and that some people will be happy almost anywhere while others will almost always find something to be unhappy about.

When reading reviews I look for insiders tips and all the things the lodging would never dream to tell you like "be sure to ask for a room on the back" or "there was such and such things for breakfast" "Yes there is a car park but it is small and unattended".
Some people are put off if they don't have eggs and bacon for breakfast but as I don't like eggs myself (the odour makes me sick!) it would be a good point for me!

I tend to consider the reviews pretty heavily, but also with a grain of salt. I understand everyone looks for different things and what I like may be horrible to another (and vice versa). I more or less look at the overall view from a variety of reviews. I won't consider a place if most reviews are bad or if I read things about it being in an unsafe neighborhood. But if there is the occassional bad review mixed in with a lot of good ones, I will still consider the place.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin Clark:
I trust reviews on ST more than on other sites, largely because I follow the discussions here and have some sense of where the reviewers are coming from.

I agree with you Kevin. I also look for details. A general 'It was a wonderful Villa, we loved it and will return' does nothing for me. Of course the same is true of a vague bad review!

I want detailed pros and cons - then I can make a decision based on those elements that are important to me.

Whilst we are on details - one of my pet peeves is reviews that do not state the actual apartment rented. There can be quite a difference between various apartments at the same location. Please note the name or number of the apartment you are reviewing then (where there are a number of reviews) others can decide whether to rent apartment A which has a great kitchen, or apartment B which has a breathtaking view!

{ fixing quote }

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This is my first major trip planning for Italy and doing it myself and I have relied on the reviews on this site for my selections. As with houseblend I try to look at the overall variety in the reviews. For instance I read every review for hotels in Venice. One hotel had lots of great reviews and reading what everyone said even though they were great, there were little things that just said no for me. And for some reason I was drawn to this one hotel that had only one review so I went on tripadvisor and I liked what everyone had to say about it so I booked it.

I am so glad that everyone takes the time to write such detailed reviews here instead of just saying "wow place was great" or "place was a dud" and thats it. It really gives a person a sense and feeling for the place.


"do you think "hmm, staff got a 2 on that one, but 4s and 5s on the others -- was the guest in a rotten mood when they wrote this or didn't like the person's hairdo?"

I think about this, Because I know this happens or maybe it was the guest that ruffled the staff the wrong way. I did take these places off of my list if there was more than one bad review about the staff because that was my #1 criteria for Venice since this is my first time and I am looking for some guidance from them once get there.

Laurie

The reviews on this site are excellent and I've recommended it to many travellers I know.

I also look at lonely planet thorn tree because many of the lodgings reviewed on this site are too expensive for my budget, though it is a lot spottier than this site and I take some of the reviews with more than a grain of salt.

I do look at tripadvisor et al but the comments vary so widely that they can only give the most general of ideas.

I do wish a general idea of prices could be included in the reviews here, although of course they vary with season and length of stay.

Thanks for the responses so far -- very interesting! Let me qualify one part of the question though, as I read some of the responses so far. On a place like SlowTrav, the reviews are very detailed. What about the reviews that, although given the space for comments, give no comments whatsoever but just a numerical review? If there's a low numerical score, but no further comments such as why, do those weigh as heavily?

Just another part to the overall question!

I place much reliance on the reviews posted on Slow Travel. The hands-on presence of the Administrator and Moderators here are one more guarantee that reviews suspicious of either unfettered enthusiasm or those brutally negative will receive thoughtful scrutiny. The structured format of the ST reviews are also a great framework helping to sort out the various aspects of the rental experience. Besides, we "meet" here everyday and we learn over time (over four years for me) what the preferences and experience of the posters are; this is a small family (well, maybe not so small anymore...) and we learn to trust each other.

The only other site I have ever looked at for reviews was tripadvisor, and there only for hotels. In my view it is very difficult to discern on tripadvisor whether some positive reviews were placed by customers or by the owners themselves, or their friends and relatives or, reversely, if negative reviews were posted by competitors or people out there to have some evil "fun". Even here, some critical filtering helps to gain at least some image of the place, its services and staff attitudes, location, rooms, etc. In these cases, I apply the gymnastics and figure skating judging principles by ignoring the wildly enthusiastic or the painfully negative.

Great topic!

If a review site only has numerical weightings, I don't pay much attention, as it is the written detail that I crave when looking at a review. The sites that only have numerical ratings are not much help to me, I wouldn't choose one place over another based only on this. There is one in particular, that I can't remember right now, that only has 1-5 and not many people write details. That doesn't help me at all.

Tripadvisor for this reason is a great resources, especially if there are a lot of reviews. I can take the good and bad and decide if it makes sense for me. A "mixed" review can actually give one a good sense of a place, and the perspective of many types of travellers. The best reviews will say things like, "there was no hotel bar, but that is not important to me, it may be to you"

Sometimes bad reviews are the best deciding factor for me, especially if a really bad one is mixed very several good ones, sometimes the bad one is from someone very unlike me (as far as I can tell in a short review!) in preferences and vice versa, so that really helps in decision making. For example, if a complaint about an Italian hotel/B & B is "they didn't have a full breakfast, no sausage and eggs" then I know it is a good place for me! Or if a restaurant review says, "Great value, huge portions!", I stay away

We take into account, when reading reviews of the different types of lodging, that all travelers have different preferences or tolerances for various factors. For example, lack of amenities isn't a big deal to us, but cleanliness is, such as when considering a hostel. We enjoy the social atmosphere, but some prefer more privacy.

Other times, a traveler can have a unique bad experience at a hotel, but I look for: how did the management handle it? In Niagara Falls at a major chain hotel, part of our ceiling fell on our luggage, due to recent rains leaking into the walls or ceilings. Old hotels face deterioration and expensive upkeep, but more importantly, the management moved us to another room immediately and comped the cost of our hotel stay.

B&B reviews are important to us. They give a clue as to quality of food, cleanliness, attention to detail or other things we consider important, such as the general atmosphere. If reviews are consistently positive and enthusiastic, it's easy to overlook any minor negatives.

Also, if a favorite place to stay has changed hands, a review will let you know if the place might not be as good as you remember.

As expensive as it is to live and travel these days, reviews help with decisions on how we will best spend our money; how we might get the most for our travel budget. If we consistently read "skip it" over and over in reviews, that is a great clue to not waste your money, unless you want to gamble.

In fact, just recently, on the KC BBQ thread, many suggestions of restaurants and hotels (and concrete reasons for those suggestions) were posted. I trust those opinions, and value them greatly and will take a list of all suggestions the next time we go to KC.

I do pay attention to a numerical or star evaluation. If it is too low, I don't look at the hotel at all. I usually ignore certain things in a review like, "room and bathroom were small". I figure that is from an American who didn't realize that is the way things are in Europe unless you pay quite a price. (And we are very cheap.) I also ignore many of the breakfast comments as I realize most of the places I am willing to pay for will have just coffee and a roll and that is fine with me. Again, many Americans don't realize that "breakfast" in Italy doesn't mean eggs and sausage. I am willing to ignore one negative review amongst several positive ones as someone is always disgruntled. I am likely to pay close attention to comments about the staff's disposition. Why pay money to be treated poorly?

quote:

Other times, a traveler can have a unique bad experience at a hotel, but I look for: how did the management handle it?

I agree with Kevin, and I also agree with this comment from kayjay. Every hotel can have a problem no matter how good it is. How the management responds is very important.

I also look at the pictures! I realize photos are taken from the best vantage points and show only the nicest rooms. But there are some hotels that sound great in reviews but when I see the photos I realize that hotel just doesn't seem to have the ambiance I'm looking for or whatever. I don't use ONLY the photos to make my decision, but they do count!

FYI, I booked a vacation home in the San Juan Islands last year and it looked EXACTLY like the photos on the website. It was perfect.

I never used to look at reviews but I have started to do it now. I very much agree that the numerical values don't mean much, because we don't get to know the story behind the numbers.

My mom, my sister and I are going to Mexico for Christmas and I was in charge of finding a place. I found a rental that looked great and seemed to fit our needs, but it had some negative reviews on Trip Advisor. However, when I started reading them I realized they talked about things that we already knew, such as the cancellation policy, which seemed quite normal for vacation rentals. The place, the service, the location got great reviews so to me that is more important. And since I booked it I have noticed several great reviews so that makes me feel better as well.

I don't really look at the numbers that much unless every single person has rated a hotel wonderful or horrible.

I feel that the comments give me more information. When reading them, I try to decide whether the complaints written would be things that bother me and the positives would be things important to me.

I also like to look at the pictures (but I have also been deceived by the pictures) and try to remember that.

I put more stock in the slow travel reviews but also have found some good hotels through venere.com.

The thing that is most challenging though is that many of the reviews are for double rooms and since I travel solo, single rooms sometimes are a whole different ballgame. The one number I do look at is the space if it was a single room.

Maria:

Not only do I consider reviews when making my booking decisions, I depend heavily on them:

Source – I place value on a recommendation depending on the source. I’ve booked at least 3 places based solely on ST recommendations. I do have confidence in reviews from Venere, but have not yet used Trip advisor.

Priority Rating-Certain things are more important to me (ie.,location, private bath, service). If someone rated location and service high but considered the rooms too small or the breakfast a little skimpy, I might still book the place. If a location received consistently bad comments about any of my high priority issues, I move on.

Numeric Ratings - I don’t place a lot of value on general numeric ratings (unless they have a lot of low rankings from a majority of the reviewers). I would probably give the numeric ratings more weight if they were more specific. For example, a separate numeric rating for location, for service, for comfort, etc.

Considering the Ratio – I do consider the ratio. If there are too many bad reviews on things that I consider important to me, I move on. If the reviews are overwhelmingly good with just one or two bad reviews. I’ll spend more time researching the place. I click on the photo gallery, I’ll check out the location, hotel amenities, I might even do a google search just to see, etc. In my opinion, sometimes you just can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Number of Reviewers - On the big sites like Venere, I also take into consideration the number of reviews a place had. For instance, if a place had 36 people that took the time to send in their reviews (even if they were general) versus a place with one or two reviews. I consider that to also be significant. If 36 people took time out of their lives to submit a positive review, it tells me that it made an impression on them.

I agree that this was an interesting topic.
Kathy

Reviews can be tricky. It so depends on the expectations of the reviewer, their tastes, what's important to them, what kind of traveller they are, high end, high maintenance etc. Without knowing that you have to read between the lines. Here on ST we have begun to get feel for where people are coming from. Tripadvisor it is a bit more of a crap shoot.

None the less we read some reviews on TA of Castello di Ripa D'Orcia and decided against staying there. The reviews were really polarized. It was either great or a nightmare. The nightmare was the rude and indifferent treatment by the staff and owners. What was hard to tell was if they brought it on themselves by being bad guests. Of course the way they tell it they are innocent travellers abused by the mean landlords.

The place looks amazing, but in the end it was just too risky to spend all that money and travel that distance to take a chance that the owners might have a bad hair day. We do plan to go there and have a meal and tour the grounds. Hopefully we can get a feel for the place and make our own decision.

jb

{{Edited by Amy at JB's request}}

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quote:

Originally posted by Doru:
In my view it is very difficult to discern on tripadvisor whether some positive reviews were placed by customers or by the owners themselves, or their friends and relatives or, reversely, if negative reviews were posted by competitors or people out there to have some evil "fun".

I thought they checked with the sender, don't they?

Gloria

Trip Advisor, which is the 600 pound gorilla in the web hotel ranking game, tries very hard to verify that the reviewer is legitimate. I just read in some programming magazine that there is a program out there now that these websites use. Basically it looks for key words and combinations in a review. If it is too enthusiastic they spend serious amounts of time verifying the poster (same if it is too negative). Sometimes they just throw them out.

Here in the USA I use AAA. Over the years I've found that anything less than 3 diamonds is always a bad experience when it comes to hotels. And actually I've had some bad experiences with 3 diamonds. The US hotels I'm looking for tend to be in places like Black Duck, South Dakota or Grain silos, Kansas so there aren't a lot of "review" sites for those locations.

In Europe we rent for longer periods of time. I have discovered on various owner websites that definitely in Italy "what we have here is a failure to communicate" on some issues. In Rome we rented a vrbo listing that had no slow trav reviews. We rented "a good location..." which we discovered is a GREAT location - if your an italian. It was located in Monte verde in Rome which is extremely popular with romans as a place to live. But if your a tourist and want to go into centro every day then the location was pretty crappy. Also "short walk" to tram line was 6 blocks. Nowhere in the USA is 6 blocks a short walk. But in Italy it is very typical.

As said I appreciate reviews (and listings) that are specific. I wish the "good location" review had said - 6 blocks to tram stop - all uphill!! Somehow it seemed uphill both ways. Or the via Chiavari apartment saying - minimal utinsels, 3 burner cooktop and microwave.
Words like gorgeous, convenient, etc are pretty meaningless. We stayed in a Vegas hotel last month and the review I wrote for trip advisor was brutal and specific. The bed spread had blood stains, the room smelled moldy, etc..

Straight number or star websites are meaningless unless it is a rating system like Italy. One star means no ensuite bathrooms etc.. "I liked it so I'm giving it 3 stars" is worthless.

So to answer your question - here in the USA I don't use them unless I'm going to a major city/tourist destination. Then I use them to determine the nicest place for the cheapest amount.

In Italy I'm completely addicted to slow-trav when it comes to various locations for rentals. So far they haven't steered me wrong.