Originally Posted by
Visconti
Not annoyed, but sometimes surprised, unless they're from the Vegas hotels.
Since the inception of TA, I've posted maybe 2 or 3 reviews? Unless I've had an exceptional experience or the property had gone above and beyond during certain issues during a stay (voluntary quid pro quo), I won't write a public review. I never write negative experiences, but opt to discuss them privately with hotel management.
After reading some Yelp reviews on steaks (only food I'd consider myself a true connoisseur) and TA reviews on some of the properties where I'm a frequent guest, I find them more often than not (1) inaccurate, (2) uniformed, and (3) written with a hidden agenda. After reading on Yelp, "terrible restaurant, ordered well done filet mignon and it arrived burnt, charred, and dry! And, took forever keeping others waiting!" At best, I'd never take anything TA/Yelp/OnlineReviews seriously again.
Online review sites play various roles. Although touted as a place to post your experience, many seem to have have glowing posts made by the owner and/or friends of the business, slamming reviews by their competitors, or posts by the uninformed. Just like some sports scoring, you throw out the highs and the lows and hope what's left is close to what you can expect.
I post quite a bit on TA and they are not good about removing, or even noting places that have been closed for some time. And their mapping service mis-locates businesses that their support staff doesn't appear to know how to fix. I worked for a new store that someone wrote a Yelp review months before we opened saying how dirty the store was. They wouldn't take it down until after we signed up for a $500/month ad campaign. The BBB caters to it's paying members and is not a consumer oriented service.
As I've told people since the BBS days: You can't trust half of what you read online and the other half is suspect as well.