A Plug for On The Road Travel

I was cleaning out my inbox recently and came across this blurb from a newsletter that I get. Its called the Travel Insider and is written by David Rowell - I think on a weekly basis.

I've occasionally visited websites like TripAdvisor.com when researching hotels to stay at.  These websites are full of ratings from previous guests, and give you a chance to see how other people describe and rate the hotel.  In theory, this is an excellent way of getting real opinions from real people.
But.  The reality is often different.  Firstly, we all have different standards, and there is no consistent grading system applied by the amateur reviewers.
Secondly, hotels change over time.  The hotel with worn out dirty carpets last year  might have brand new carpeting this year. The hotel with noisy renovations or roadworks outside today may be the hotel with beautifully landscaped gardens tomorrow.  Reviews can quickly become obsolete.
Thirdly, 'average' people seldom rate hotels they stay at and have average ordinary experiences at (how many reviews have you contributed of ordinary acceptable hotels you've stayed at?).  Instead, you get people motivated by a desire to complain about a hotel they stayed at, and a few people motivated by a desire to praise, which is one explanation for the extraordinary swings from highest praise to harshest criticism in reviews.
These various factors massively reduce the value of such user rating systems.  This is unfortunate because, in theory, they represent what the internet is all about and - again in theory - could be massively helpful.
And now, Chris Elliott writes in the NY Times and on his website about a fourth factor that takes away from the value of such reviews, and offers a different explanation for the widely varying reviews on each property.  Apparently some hotels are bribing shills to write falsely glowing reports.

I couldn't agree more with these comments he posted back in February. The problems he sights with Tripadvisor are becoming more and more of an issue and they are the main reason that we have developed OTR the way we have. It's a great, cheap, model to rely on users to generate your content, but this content can only go so far. How do you know that the reviewer travels the way you do? What if they have never traveled outside of their home country before and really have no basis by which to compare their opinion. What if they are used to the Four Seasons and have decided to deviate for a weekend, only to find that there really is a reason these hotels charge what they do, even though the place they are 'testing' is quite a find given its surrounding. Worst of all, what if the person doing the review has set up a profile specifically so that they can tout their own hotel or service and mis-lead oblivious readers?

It may not be as straightforward a model, but the reason we have built OTR the way we have is ultimately to enable people to travel independently without having to spend an enormous amount of time culling through information to find out what's valuable and what is not. We do the research so you don't have to. We personally investigate each of our recommendations and classify them based on the type of traveler they are suited to. Our local editors make sure that our information is up to date and, more importantly, that it is relevant to you.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Joe Sharkey quoted Igougo's Marketing Chief with the following 'Knowing someone's general taste and outlook  gives you a clue about their take on the world and how to evaluate the review'. Igougo has hired editors who work with writers to review it's members' travel journals and make their articles more appealing. As he puts it 'the goal is to present "passionate, inspirational, biased, great content, and bring travel to life...rather than hundreds of one-line anonymous reviews, I'd rather have three or four well-considered, well-written reviews and let you know who is behind them". Again, I completely agree, however the majority of Igougo's travel journals provide little more than interesting travel stories. It's tough to plan a trip based on someone's travel story that doesn't mention routes, tips, hotels or restaurant names. But they are definitely fun reads when you are procrastinating at work!