
Tripadvisor lays off 25% of workforce - sp3dy5
https://skift.com/2020/04/28/tripadvisor-lays-off-25-percent-of-global-workforce-closes-some-offices/
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suzzer99
Tripadvisor has been worse than useless in a lot of places for a while now.
Even back in 2015 when I went to India every place was gaming it hard. In
Costa Rica a hostel we stayed at offered free shots in exchange for a TA
review.

Like Yelp, review sites are a weird niche where if you get too big, your
subjects start working to game the system, and the value of your product
begins to degrade. Stack Overflow has experienced a similar effect.

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WrtCdEvrydy
I mean, if gaming it gives you a chance at an extra 10%, 20%, 30% of business,
why wouldn't you?

Unless you make the penalty for gaming the system a 'black hole' approach (ie,
you no longer show up on searches), people will game the system hard.

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suzzer99
Of course. But that's why as a user the service degrades to a point where it's
worse than nothing at all.

I stayed in a place in India with glowing Trip Advisor reviews that had rat
turds on the bed. When I checked some of the reviewers, I noticed they were
cranking out very similar boilerplate reviews for properties all over the
place. Almost every place I stayed at in India begged me to write positive
reviews for them. I know TA has since tried to clean a lot of this up.

But if you can find a less popular source of reviews which isn't worth
someone's time to game - then you get a much better chance at an authentic
rating/reviews.

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code_duck
I was almost stranded in Colorado while driving during a snowstorm. I reached
out to my girlfriend and asked her to help me look up motels as I didn't have
good internet service.

She said that a small motel near me had great reviews. "This was the best part
of our trip to Colorado!". 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor.

I decided to check in. It was clearly immediately a mistake. There were so
many red flags - from the weaving, amphetamine addled check in clerk, to the
smoke stained room with ripped, stained bedsheets, and how the proprietor
didn't even give me a room key. The room door could not be locked from the
inside - the knob was smooth and no deadbolt. There's no way those reviews
could be legitimate. The hotel was terrifying and I left after 20 minutes and
filed a CC chargeback.

I looked it up myself and the place had 1.5 stars on Yelp, 2 on Google, 5 on
Facebook and as mentioned, 4.5 on TripAdvisor. Upon reading and comparing, the
Facebook and TA reviews seemed obviously fake. Yelp contained stories of the
manager talking to the children of guests at the vending machine in an
incoherent way and asking 'if they'd seen Billy' and various other disturbing
stories.

I looked into the manager, Wayne, and found his Facebook page. It was filled
with references to Satan worship, group sex and demonic possession. The
necklace he wore which I thought was a Star of David was actually a pentagram,
as displayed in his collection on FB. He had photos of his dog that he claimed
depicted demonic possession on his FB page, as well as photos of their satanic
altar at the motel.

So, my conclusion was that TripAdvisor and Facebook are very, very bad at
preventing false reviews compared to Yelp or Google.

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kubmit
I like TripAdvisor. It's been amazing on trips around EU and such. Sad to hear
about the layoffs :(

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z2
Same, despite what people have been saying on gaming reviews, I found the best
coverage through Europe in terms of local reviews for smaller places. There
were even heated arguments with the owners on how a particular dish was
mangled or not, and I took this to represent authenticity.

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mschuetz
Tripadvisor has become pretty bad anyway. There are so many great experiences
in any new city, but Tripadvisor is pushing hard on the ones that benefit
them, rather than me.

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dano
My travel experience in the UK was immeasurably better without TripAdvisor
results in a google search. As soon as I removed TA's results I found
[https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/](https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/) which is
a terrific way to explore the Scottish Highlands.

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1cvmask
Surprised it is only 25 percent as there is minimal or no travel around most
of the world (with maybe some in China).

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marcogarces
this is just the beginning... and add nothing to do with covid.

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Despacito2019
I fear this is only just the beginning...

