
How TripAdvisor Changed Travel - jjar
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/17/how-tripadvisor-changed-travel
======
Panoramix
I do a lot of traveling. My experience improved dramatically when I stopped
using TripAdvisor and similar apps. I just go with the flow. Talk to real
people. Like a bunch of American tourists (insert any country here) would know
what, say, authentic Thai food is supposed to taste like. It all comes down to
a bunch of -at best- uninformed people ranking stuff, at worst fake reviewers,
bots and scammers. Why would I want that?

The worst part is that now if I don't want to look at their stupid logo, it's
not enough to uninstall the app. They are everywhere. Restaurants and hotels
begging for you to rank them positively, lest you enrage the child gods and
send their business into ruin. Beautifully serene temples disgraced by a 15
foot high real life Tripadvisor logo to commemorate that they made it into the
top 10 that year. A temple going back more than one thousand years, with trees
and rock and the shitty green and black TripAdvisor logo ruining everything.
It made me very sad.

~~~
4ad
I agree that Tripadvisor is useless for restaurants, but how do you find/book
hotels? In general hotels are more expensive when booked directly and not
through an aggregator, however, how do you even _find_ them without sites like
Tripadvisor?

~~~
lotsofpulp
The big US chains are always cheaper directly
(Marriott/Hilton/IHG/Wyndham/Choice). Use roomkey.com and you can search them
all at once. This is because the brands own room key so they don't pay
commission so pass on some of the savings to you.

You can also contact a hotel directly and say you're thinking about reserving
on so and so website (aka travel agent), and if you reserve directly, they
might give you a discount for not having to pay commission.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I find there is a problem here - hotel chains "sell" some of their room-nights
(#) to the third party channels. I think it works like options - but it means
I phone the hotel to book a room i can see is available on all these third
party sites (including trip advisor) but the hotel cannot sell that room-night
to me because the channel has first dibs.

which seems like the hotel is cutting off its own nose

(#) notnsure of the industry term but you get the idea

~~~
lotsofpulp
None of the big US brands do that. They each have a best price guarantee that
gives you a free night or 50% off or something if you are able to reserve for
cheaper than on their official website.

The only thing they might engage in is opaque pricing, which is Priceline and
hotwire auction. But that is different since it's not a publicly advertised
price, the buyer puts in how much they want to pay and they are stuck with
whatever hotel Priceline or hotwire give them.

But reputable hotels don't resort to that since that attracts price sensitive
guests that aren't desirable anyway, such as prostitutes and drug dealers.

~~~
Scoundreller
> But reputable hotels don't resort to that since that attracts price
> sensitive guests that aren't desirable anyway, such as prostitutes and drug
> dealers.

Maybe at the 1 or 2 star level, but every other hotel on the planet secretly
loves the price discrimination that Priceline and Hotwire offer.

You won't see a $1400/night boutique hotel on there, but a $300/night place
will offload for half the price if they're relatively unbooked.

------
chadash
I'm fed up with TripAdvisor, Yelp and similar review sites. Too many of the
negative reviews are off topic and they bring down the overall ratings
(similar issue for positive reviews as well... people tend to rate things they
love or hate, but not things in the middle). For example, Amazon is loaded
with one-star reviews from people complaining that they received counterfeit
items. This has nothing to do with the product itself and everything to do
with a supply chain issue at Amazon (and more so its 3rd party merchants).
Similarly, on TripAdvisor and Yelp, I regularly see one star reviews from
people who have a specific issue and don't review hotels/restaurants on their
own terms. For example, if you are a health nut, you really aught to not post
a review of a BBQ joint to complain about lack of healthy options. Family
taking a vacation? Don't post reviews of a hotel in the financial district
that caters to business travelers because you are upset that they lack good
facilities for kids. I highly prefer professional reviewers who have a breadth
of experience and also know to review movies on their own terms. That's why I
find the aggregated professional movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes more helpful
than the crowd-sourced reviews on IMDB.

I think there's a solution that would _help_ the problem a bit though. Have
two tiers of reviewers. For example, on TripAdvisor, the first tier would
include everyone, similar to what you have right now. Second tier would be an
aggregated number by "gold" reviewers. To qualify, a gold reviewer would need
to have:

\- More than _N_ number of reviews

\- An individual review would only count if it was more than a minimum number
of words

\- Let users mark reviews as helpful or not helpful. A gold user will need to
be above a threshold for percentage of helpful vs not helpful reviews, with a
minimum number of helpful reviews.

Amazon already marks some reviewers as being, for example, a "top 1000
reviewer". What I'd like to see is for those top tier reviewers' reviews to be
broken out as a separate score.

~~~
agumonkey
is there a term to express our this era technology is just allowing useless
noise to pass as signal ?

when myspace et al started to pop, web 2.0, dynamic webpage interactions was
the fastest way to heaven, now it seems we read the map upside down.

ps: maybe we're rediscovering how mobs are bad

~~~
tjr225
There is a great flattening in what it once took to publish a thought or an
idea and have it reach an audience. Unfortunately almost everybody is deluded,
insane, stupid, at the very least totally uninsightful - or some sort of weird
combination of all these things.

The web is a great place to be uninformed or even deceitful, I strive to be
cognizant of this.

~~~
agumonkey
I don't understand the last part of your comment. But I wonder hard almost
weekly about that flattening effect of the computer era.

People (and I at times) complained how institutions were imposing too much on
whatever content (articles, music, movies). Without their curating effect,
everything goes. Some say it's better because now you're sure you'll never
miss a great thing that would have been killed by some radio or studio. But
I'm less and less convinced of that.

~~~
tjr225
I was thinking about that part of my comment and I believe what I failed to
convey was that there seems to be no real cultural or educational priority to
question what you see communicated on the internet, at least to my limited
understanding.

~~~
agumonkey
I think culture needs to hit the wall and then people will re-learn that tech
is not a magic bullet.

------
ryanackley
Really strange to see the negative comments. My favorite thing about
TripAdvisor is that I feel empowered when I have a terrible experience at a
venue. I can just go leave them a crappy review. It's very cathartic.

Also, I find most of the reviews to be generally accurate. It sounds like
other people disagree with that which is strange. I've never used TripAdvisor
to find a restaurant or a hotel and then felt like the reviews were faked.

~~~
kbar13
i think your story is a great example of why open review aggregation sites are
a broken model.

these reviews are not comprehensive. a lot of people only go there to post
about a shitty experience or out-of-this-world experience. it's also broken in
situations where reviewers are not familiar with the culture or standards of
the place they're visiting, i.e. critiquing the service/cleanliness/decor of
an authentic hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Why would you not want to be aware of bad service or cleanliness in a
restaurant?

~~~
kbar13
because there's a different standard you should hold a street hawker to vs a
high end restaurant.

to be clear, you should be paying attention to the tastiness of the food
(usually comfort food) and the atmosphere of something like a street stand in
asia, where you might comment on attention to detail and innovation at
someplace like coi.

~~~
lotsofpulp
In my opinion, clean and not bad service is a standard every restaurant should
be able to meet.

------
Canada
I look at TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other regional restaurant review sites.
Tablelog is the only one with overall ratings that seem to reflect reality,
but that's Japan only. Even though the big two are more noise than signal as
far as reviews go, at least I can see pictures. Often I use these sites while
sitting in the place to decide what to order. I'm starting to use Google Maps
more because TripAdvisor and Yelp sites suck so bad and I refuse to install
their low quality, spammy apps. What I wish existed:

\- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.

\- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks,
etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.

\- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only
the best quality ones that are recent.

\- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu
neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a
stream of photos of the food.

\- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into
searchable text.

\- Let me privately rate the food.

I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course.
Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.

~~~
4ad
> Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks,
> etc.

I agree that photos of people are ridiculous, but I want photos of the
interior. The ambiance of a place is even more important than the quality of
the food (to me), and it's one of the attributes hardest to portray in reviews
(mostly because people who review are not professional reviewers). Good photos
help here.

~~~
Canada
Fair enough. What makes a good interior shot is more subjective. The idea with
the food pics is that it's very easy to tell which photo of the same thing is
better.

I think the big sites must know this and they could do it, but users who
contribute might get discouraged if they throw out so many uploads.

------
whitepoplar
Tips that have improved my travel experience:

1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much
of its income from tourism.

2) Trip length: not too long, not too short.

3) Make a loose itinerary, but rip it up occasionally.

4) Bring a phone, but no laptop. Don't use TripAdvisor/Yelp/etc. Ask around.
Walk around. Have strange conversations. Don't be afraid to stay in non-
traditional lodging.

5) Invest in a place before you go: learn some of the language, read a great
book from the place, etc. This will make it much more interesting and
memorable.

6) Don't go on trips just because your friends posted about their "amazing"
vacations and you feel like you have to go, too. Travel sucks if the
excitement doesn't come from within.

7) If you're on a limited budget, don't go to expensive cities and scrimp.
It's no fun. Go to cheaper cities and splurge. Or have a blast and go camping
with your friends a short drive away.

8) Get fit and dress nicely. Whether you like it or not, this is how people
judge you. It's easier to be a good-looking guy/gal in a new place.

Happy travels! :-)

~~~
dpeck
| 1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too
much of its income from tourism.

This is good advice. Generally the "second cities" of a country gives a better
experience. More open borders and intermixing has been wonderful, but it does
mean that a lot of capital/primary cities feel very similar.

------
cageface
I've seen a _lot_ of cases here in SE Asia of restaurants and hotels posting
fake bad reviews of their competitors' businesses. It's commonplace enough now
that I generally disregard TripAdvisor ratings.

------
CaptainZapp
This :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich)

says everything you really need to know about TripAdvisor and their ilk.

------
eaenki
I travel quite often. My 2 cents are: look at the 1 star reviews. If the one
star reviews are less than 1:500 and the pictures are that of a well designed
restaurant, it should be good with a 99% chance. Obviously, that’s kinda hard
to find - but that should be the threshold.

Regarding hotels/apartments:

On Booking it should be 9.1+ And it should have an amazingly curated breakfast
(check the pics too).

On Airbnb it should be either a “plus” or a “super host” with 5 star reviews
only. Read the reviews tho. They often mention noises or lack of hot water.
Those might be considered red flags.

And as a general rule of thumb, when you think you’re getting a great deal
because it’s cheap, you’re not. Trust me, you’re not. Following the above
advice, I never ever had a bad experience - but it definitely costed above
average.

------
trophycase
If you're the kind of person who likes unstructured travel instead of a
checklist to get all those instagram pics, TripAdvisor really isn't the place
you should be going. I recently used Yelp/TA in Jamaica and it put us at
Rick's Cafe, one of the most highly rated and visited places in all of
Jamaica. They had a gift shop and their $25 "jerk chicken" was literally baked
chicken breast covered in barbecue sauce. Absolutely embarrassing and I felt
shame for even giving them my money. I could have gone across the street to
any jerk center and got something an order of magnitude better for 5 bucks.

~~~
ekovarski
this is why I agree with panoramix comment; ditch yelp and travel advisor and
talk to the locals. It's like using Waze during rush hour, it steers everyone
to the same route and in this case tourists trap. Not that the locals are
always right either, as tastes differ, but it sets you off in the right
direction.

... and yeah Rick's Cafe is overrated. You want to find the places before they
become the "it" place to be put on the 'gram.

------
dpeck
Highlights the larger problem that reviews have become untrustworthy and
overwhelming for all but the most gullible and most discerning. The middle is
stuck in roughly the same place they’d be without any reviews at all.

------
splonk
Simple rule for using TripAdvisor in any even vaguely touristy place: Ignore
the top ~20 or so restaurants/hotels when sorted by rating. You can pretty
much guarantee that at a minimum, they're soliciting reviews from a pool of
satisfied customers, and a good chunk of them are just flat out buying
reviews. This rule doesn't work as well for attractions, since the big ones
tend to make their way to the top regardless, but the attraction list is
pretty useful on its own if you dig down a ways. I've found lots of
interesting small places that I'd have never otherwise found down in the
sub-50th percentile rated attractions.

I do generally like the trick mentioned below of only looking at bad reviews,
but I'm fairly relaxed about certain things. Bad neighborhood, overpriced
food, poor valet service? Meh, don't care. Room smells of smoke? Not staying
there. Most of my hotel research is based on filtering out unacceptable
things, rather than optimizing the positive aspects.

For hotels, I have vaguely more trust in booking.com reviews, since in theory
you have to stay at a hotel to leave a review there. (I do mention every time
in these threads that the booking.com review scale is wack, and the median
score was actually something like 8.1/10 when I scraped a lot of them, so take
those 7.0 "Good" ratings with a grain of salt). In theory in the US Opentable
ratings would work the same way for restaurants, but that's restricting the
pool of restaurants to those that take reservations, and I don't use those
ratings myself, so I'm not totally sure how accurate it is. Still probably
beats Yelp, and definitely beats TripAdvisor.

------
ddelt
I found this article to be very well written and brought up new facets of this
problem that I hadn't previously considered. It was a great read.

~~~
kzzzznot
The Guardian has fairly decent journalists working for them. I don't always
agree with their politics, and the writing isn't as good as it was, say, 10
years ago but pieces like this show it is still of a high quality.

------
rfvisuals
Based on previous posts I feel comfortable sharing a project with the HN
community in this thread. It's a web app with for anyone to post travel
related tips/thoughts. I'm open to honest feedback. www.worldpeer.com Thanks!

------
Nursie
The main problem I have with tripadvisor ratings is that they don't actually
give you a quality guide.

A 5 star tripadvisor rating doesn't mean the 2 star hotel under review is
actually a 5 star property, merely that most people enjoyed themselves and got
what they expected. Which also means that allegedly 4 and 5 star properties
that are crap can get great reviews if their customers are ignorant but leave
happy...

And that's before you get into the area of honesty, competing motives etc etc

------
cesidio
I hope that many reviews help having a better idea of the place before going,
but I don't trust them too much, for they can be not authentic, or driven by
personal feelings. I rely more on qualified reviews like lonely planet guides,
8 out of 10 times they work well for me, and the remaining times are just
average, nothing too bad.

------
CodeSheikh
Any good alternatives to TripAdvisor?

What about: \- Conde Nast [www.condenast.com] \- TripSavvy [www.tripsavvy.com]

~~~
adrr
I use wikitravel and buy books from publishers like lonely planet. If I rent a
car, i always try to find some smart-phone app that can do narration based on
location. A lot of these apps are done by a local person/company and provide
information on what their favorite places are.

------
rglover
Just... _go_ places.

