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Tripadvisor.com is one of the most successful online travel businesses and a huge company to boot. It enjoys more than 50 million online visitors per month, 20 million members and 30 websites, translated into 21 languages and in 2010 they had a eye-popping turnover of 486 million dollars. The company operates under Trip Advisor ® Media Group which consists of 20 distinct websites, which include holidaylettings.co.uk and holidaywatchdog.com
Trip Advisor started in 2000 with a mission to help travellers all over the world enjoy the perfect holiday. Today the company has approximately 1200 employees and it makes its money through advertising, flight bookings and hotel reservations. In short, Trip advisor has created an overwhelmingly exciting business.
But have they achieved their mission to help travellers?
A phenomenal percentage of travellers now use the Internet to make a specific search on our desired destination. The more specific we are about where we want to go, the more results we get back from Trip Advisor. They offer plenty of reviews on restaurants, hotels and great travel tips.
Can we trust the reviews of others users?
Trip Advisor says that they check each review manually and perhaps this is or was the case. But it's hard to believe that with 50 million reviews and approximately 1200 employees, they are really able to offer this manual review service. In addition, there are growing user scams that make it impossible for Trip Advisor to always post reliable reviews.
Fake reviews
There is a huge competition on the Internet and everybody knows that a good review on Trip Advisor is the same as an increased sale. A bad review is just the opposite and therefore the competitors use every opportunity to set up fake reviews about their competitors. Very simple. But is that possible if Trip Advisor is checking all the reviews manually? There is a huge amount of information on the Internet about how to cheat Trip Advisor and even if you're not an expert, it doesn't require great skill to do it. The blog http://tripadvisorwatch.wordpress.com give you advice in this area.
Blackmailing
The latest example is hotel blackmail. An area where it is not possible for Trip Advisor to keep up with people's constant creativity. It appears that hotel clients are blackmailing hotels for cheaper prices or an upgrade to a better room with the threat of writing a bad review about the hotel on Trip Advisor.
So the company with the world's most reliable reviews comments that, "it is against this type of scam and that it is illegal". But Trip Advisor do not help the hotel owners who can lose out financially through these blackmails. And why should it stop there? Blackmailing could also eventually spread to restaurants and holiday rental apartments.
I hate Trip Advisor
Frank McGready started the website http://www.ihatetripadvisor.org.uk where he expresses his dissatisfaction with the company. Here you can also find plenty of examples of cheating and deception. On Twitter there are plenty of criticisms about Trip Advisor and a search on #TripAdvisorLies provides plenty of interesting reading.
The conclusion on whether we can rely on reviews found on Trip Advisor must be a resounding no. Of course there will be real reviews, but if you can't sort out the real from the fake, you can't guarantee you are going to enjoy that holiday of a lifetime.
Of course the original idea of a website such as Trip Advisor was beautiful, but in reality it has become an impossibility. Rely on your common sense and take advantage of any companies you know and have had good experiences with.
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