Don't Trip up.. (tripadvisor.com)

Member Name: helencb

Product:	tripadvisor.com
Date:	25/06/06 (626 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good honest feedback from other guests

Disadvantages: Site is a little busy, and can be confusing

Prior to the widespread use of the internet worldwide, it used to be that if you wanted to travel to a hotel, you had to rely on word of mouth or the Travel Trade Gazetteer. Not so any more. Now, there are that many review sites offering information on hotels, including consumer sites such as Dooyoo, and Web Channels such as Expedia.co.uk, which have provision for guest comments and rating.

I have found that while Dooyoo and other sites like it, have their strengths in terms of quantity of reviews in some categories, unfortunately, do not have the volume of contributions about individual hotels for any consumer to seek reassurance that a hotel can consistently offer a level of customer service consistent with the expectation. Enter www.tripadvisor.com.

TripAdvisor is in fact owned by Expedia.com. They currently hold over 4 million independent reviews on over 200,000 hotels worldwide. While even that latter number is a drop in the ocean compared to the actual number of hotels worldwide, I have never had a situation where I have found a hotel on line, and cannot find it referenced within TripAdvisor.

Although I have used Tripadvisor in the past, I have used it most recently earlier this year when planning my holiday to California. We planned a five day break in San Francisco, followed by a five day tour stopping in 2-3 other hotels along the way.

My first dabblings with Tripadvisor were simply to check on the average star rating and number of comments for a particular hotel, after I had found a hotel (and a rate!) I was interested in via any of the Web distribution channels such as Laterooms.com; Travelocity etc. While the star rating is cumulative, the reviews are shown in date order beginning with the most recent and once you have clicked the title of the first review, the others follow on and are therefore very easy to read. Most reviews are quite short, perhaps one paragraph or two, while the occasional writer will write something that are longer, but nothing like the 2000 word epics from other sites.

In my opinion, the overall reviewers' star ratings needs to be read in conjunction with the volume of reviews submitted to gain a fair balance. I find it is hard to find many hotels with more that 4 reviewer stars (in my price range!), although there is always the occasional gem. Hotels are categorised geographically, and I particularly like to see the ranking of the hotel, compared to other hotels in that town. You can then search all the properties to quickly see the average room rate paid, average reviewer star rating and a snapshot of the most recent feedback for all other hotels in the area.

(Note: The reviewer star rating is not the same as the official hotel class, it is a measure based on the reviewer's experiences, value for money, cleanliness, service etc!)

This feature is particularly useful, as I find I am always keen to find out which hotels are rated the highest by other guests, so I can then chase rates for those hotels instead (or just look at their sites and become jealous, if I realise they are way over budget!)

It is worth bearing in mind that the average price is simply a guide. If you are canny enough in seeking out a bargain, then you can often beat this still. For example I settled on a 4/5 star property in SF, with a decent rating on TripAdvisor although only ranked 71 out of nearly 300 hotels in the area. Although Tripadvisor's average rate was £130, we managed to get two rooms for £95 a night per room (tip: for accommodation abroad, get a holiday/citybreak brochure such as Virgin or BA holidays, and if you do not book flights, then you can often get the "Extra Night" hotel price, which are typically the lowest available rates on the market. We saved over £200 compared to the cheapest websites by doing this, for the same hotel).

You cannot book accommodation directly with TripAdvisor, and therefore it is necessary to keep switching sites as you find properties which might meet your requirements. The QUICKCHECK functionality allows you to check the rates for the major web channels from the TripAdvisor site, simply by opening additional windows for you e.g. hotels.com; expedia.com; opodo.com etc. Depending on the property, this may mean you can check 6-8 different websites more easily than completing all the search information on every single site.

I have found TripAdvisor has stopped me from making some potentially poor choices too. I had found some great rates via the web channels and shared them with my sister, who I was travelling with. I always check out the hotel websites too, and we both loved a particular group of boutique hotels across SF. In fact, when I went on TripAdvisor, while the feedback was very mixed between the very good and the appallingly bad, there was just too much negative and recent feedback for us to risk it. Yet their website; and any brochure would depict a wonderful property. That said you cannot please all the people all the time - shortly after we booked our hotel, I read an extremely poor review on our hotel which was described as jaded. (It was more traditional than contemporary, but it was absolutely stunning!)

Reviewers have the ability to post their own pictures on the site, and I find that most reviewers do not bother to do this, but those who do post loads. Again, this is a useful way to get a different angle from the professional website photographs.

Hotel owners can contribute to the site, although their comments are clearly shown. For example if they receive a particularly bad review and have taken action to remedy the complaint then this would be a valid thing for them to do. As I work for a national chain, I can confirm that hotel managers definitely read the feedback on TripAdvisor, although some feedback might be beyond their control e.g. parking issues, unattractive location etc).

The site is actually quite overloaded with other information. For example, for any particular region, there are tabs for dining, deals, day trips, weekend getaways (from the area you are researching..!) I find that for these kind of things, there is almost too much information. For example SF has nearly 2500 restaurants listed. It seems fruitless to even try and find one, as they can only be sorted by reviewer popularity or alphabetically (not cuisine even) and for that I feel a good guidebook would be better. However, it is easy to use tripadvisor to research the particular areas you are interested in, and I am sure, for many, some of the reviews on the actual destinations are as interesting and as useful as the hotel feedback itself.

To contribute to the site, you have to provide minimal information e.g. name, postcode and email address. I have also joined and have now started submitting my own reviews and comments on the hotels I have stayed in most recently. I have not seen any obvious signs of abuse on the site, but there is always the small risk that either a customer with a vendetta, or even a struggling hotelier could skew their feedback scores up or down to suit their own agenda. The reviews I write on there are much more condensed, perhaps three or four short paragraphs covering the major aspects of the hotel, such as cleanliness, service, food and location

Overall, wherever you are booking a hotel, I would say that a quick visit to tripadvisor.com for some independent feedback from ex guests is essential.

Recommended. (Dooyoo bug still there, saying no when I selected YES!)

Summary: An essential site to visit before booking a hotel.