Sites or apps like TripAdvisor, Yelp, or Google Now - Places are great tools when it comes to finding out what is in the area and what are the most popular places, and what are some of the bonuses or issues with the places you are interested in.
After years of researching for our vacations and other trips I developed my own way to read the Trip Advisor (or any other) reviews. Funny enough I always read the worst first...why you may ask?....well, I wanna know what is the worst thing about the place, wouldn't you?
If the worst review is about mosquitoes, children splashing in the pool, coffee machine plugged in the bathroom, a person that is reviewing the place before they stay there....I completely disregard them.
Keep in mind that there are some stuff that are out of the control of any establishment and should never be held against them. If you can not control the mosquito population in your backyard you can not expect a hotel to have that power over them...can you? If the place has a pool that is available to children you should expect children to be children and play (I may hold it against the parents/guardians if the children get out of hand...but not the hotel staff).
Trip Adviser is full of bad reviews that really have no value, but sadly they impact the star rating of a very good place and if all you look at is the star rating you may lose on some nice experiences.
The list of bad reviews that in my opinion should be disregarded can go on, and on, and on for many pages. There will always be some people that will find something to complain regardless on how good they felt. Not all the bad reviews are from actual customers....some are from disgruntled employees or the competition so take everything with a grain of salt.
Now...to me it is just as important to see in the event that the management replied to the bad review,,,how they replied and what is their tone. If the complaint is about rude staff or poor conditions of the place and the reply is rude or in any way insinuates the "If you don't like it don't come back" I would side with the customer and will not give the place a chance. If the reply is polite and professional even if they disagree with the customer I will further consider.
A perfect example is the response I got to my only bad review so far (http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g47990-d254818-r215786032-Super_8_Kenmore_Buffalo_Niagara_Falls_Area-Kenmore_New_York.html). The owner/manager replied shortly after the review was published. His response was short polite and to the point...apologised for my inconvenience and taking my complaints as constructive criticism, he informed me that plans are in place to correct some of the areas I found less them appealing, and more important then everything he expressed his "hope" that we may give them another chance when in the area....
This response not only makes me consider giving them a second chance, but if I were just researching the place...I may consider going in and seeing if they changed and maybe stay there.
Now we talked about the bad...what about the good?....well sadly plenty of the good is sometimes fake....how can you tell? well, you can never be sure but here are some that could definitely be questioned: someone from the same town/village saying they were in that town for the first time...yeah I saw that, or someone contradicts all the other reviews (place was spotless clean and friendly staff when 10 other people say the opposite in the same month)...not a lot of people writing reviews will use elaborate or correct industry terms (unless they have some kind of background in that industry...or have been reviewing for a longer time)...if it is from someone with a lot of reviews I may believe it but I question it from someone that only writes one review that sounds like the Food Network (no way of knowing...but I question them)
I also look at the number of reviews and read some of the other reviews that person wrote...you can not be unsatisfied with every place you go...and you can not believe that every place you go to is 5 stars....even with all the research we do sometimes something may just go wrong, or nothing ever pleased you and all the reviews are of 1-2 stars.
Knowing where to go to make sure you receive the standard you expect is getting easier every day with the use of these blog and review sites....as long as we learn just as fast how to read and review the reviews available, sounds funny but it's true.
I hope this will be of some use to you in the time you spend researching your next destination and keep in mind that glitches are just part of the adventure.
Until next time
happy travels
After years of researching for our vacations and other trips I developed my own way to read the Trip Advisor (or any other) reviews. Funny enough I always read the worst first...why you may ask?....well, I wanna know what is the worst thing about the place, wouldn't you?
If the worst review is about mosquitoes, children splashing in the pool, coffee machine plugged in the bathroom, a person that is reviewing the place before they stay there....I completely disregard them.
Keep in mind that there are some stuff that are out of the control of any establishment and should never be held against them. If you can not control the mosquito population in your backyard you can not expect a hotel to have that power over them...can you? If the place has a pool that is available to children you should expect children to be children and play (I may hold it against the parents/guardians if the children get out of hand...but not the hotel staff).
Trip Adviser is full of bad reviews that really have no value, but sadly they impact the star rating of a very good place and if all you look at is the star rating you may lose on some nice experiences.
The list of bad reviews that in my opinion should be disregarded can go on, and on, and on for many pages. There will always be some people that will find something to complain regardless on how good they felt. Not all the bad reviews are from actual customers....some are from disgruntled employees or the competition so take everything with a grain of salt.
Now...to me it is just as important to see in the event that the management replied to the bad review,,,how they replied and what is their tone. If the complaint is about rude staff or poor conditions of the place and the reply is rude or in any way insinuates the "If you don't like it don't come back" I would side with the customer and will not give the place a chance. If the reply is polite and professional even if they disagree with the customer I will further consider.
A perfect example is the response I got to my only bad review so far (http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g47990-d254818-r215786032-Super_8_Kenmore_Buffalo_Niagara_Falls_Area-Kenmore_New_York.html). The owner/manager replied shortly after the review was published. His response was short polite and to the point...apologised for my inconvenience and taking my complaints as constructive criticism, he informed me that plans are in place to correct some of the areas I found less them appealing, and more important then everything he expressed his "hope" that we may give them another chance when in the area....
This response not only makes me consider giving them a second chance, but if I were just researching the place...I may consider going in and seeing if they changed and maybe stay there.
Now we talked about the bad...what about the good?....well sadly plenty of the good is sometimes fake....how can you tell? well, you can never be sure but here are some that could definitely be questioned: someone from the same town/village saying they were in that town for the first time...yeah I saw that, or someone contradicts all the other reviews (place was spotless clean and friendly staff when 10 other people say the opposite in the same month)...not a lot of people writing reviews will use elaborate or correct industry terms (unless they have some kind of background in that industry...or have been reviewing for a longer time)...if it is from someone with a lot of reviews I may believe it but I question it from someone that only writes one review that sounds like the Food Network (no way of knowing...but I question them)
I also look at the number of reviews and read some of the other reviews that person wrote...you can not be unsatisfied with every place you go...and you can not believe that every place you go to is 5 stars....even with all the research we do sometimes something may just go wrong, or nothing ever pleased you and all the reviews are of 1-2 stars.
Knowing where to go to make sure you receive the standard you expect is getting easier every day with the use of these blog and review sites....as long as we learn just as fast how to read and review the reviews available, sounds funny but it's true.
I hope this will be of some use to you in the time you spend researching your next destination and keep in mind that glitches are just part of the adventure.
Until next time
happy travels
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