Originally Posted by
t325
I tend to ignore any "This is the best place ever!" 5 star reviews and any "This is the worst place ever!" 1 star reviews on TA. I think that helps weed out a lot of fake reviews. I figure that properties aren't going to pay somebody for a 4 star review and competitors aren't going to give a 2 star review.
I will give some weight to 5 star reviews where the reviewer does mention something they didn't like or could be improved upon ("everything was great except the bed was a little too firm for my liking") - again, no one getting paid to write a glowing review is going to indicate anything was wrong.
One part I really like about TA are the user posted pictures of the hotel. Pictures on the hotel's website can be deceiving if they were taken at a certain angle or just flat out photoshopped. The user pics are a more accurate depiction of the hotel.
I'm not a hotel owner, but if I was, and I wanted to use fake reviews, I would absolutely go with 4 stars, and with 'minor' complaints in the review to make them look more real - you know, the stuff people really wouldn't base a decision on 'Overall excellent, but the trouser press didn't really get hot enough' or "Fantastic resort, beach perfect, pool warm and wonderful, but there were lizards on the path which I didn't like very much' or "The staff were wonderful, with one exception, there was one waiter who didn't really seem to want to be there, but he was by far the exception". Any reasonable traveller knows there can always be one member of staff who isn't great, that tropical resorts have wildlife around, and really, does the hotness of a trouser press affect your decision?
I suspect the far savvier hotels write / commission the 'it would have been 5 star, if only for the [minor thing]' reports than the glowing ones.