Exactly.^

Regarding TA, what I meant was that you post, and your post stays.. unedited and unfettered for the most part.. unless its offensive and beyond inaccurate of course, determined by the moderators, just like this forum.
No I don't remember honestly.

I don't remember neither honestly. Why don't you show me the quoted link before accusing me posting such garbage.

Where did I say that YOU posted that? Unless you were posting multiple padded reviews for Fat Bike Tours of Paris, or Segway Tours of Milan, why are you getting upset?

I'm pointing out why Trip Advisor is unreliable, which happens to be the topic of this thread. Any website which lists a segway tour of one of the most interesting cities in the world as the number one attraction is not reliable.

By the way, the ASA does not agree with you about Trip Advisor. Read the link I posted for more info. They had to change their claims over here.

What do you mean? That is one HELL of a HGI :D

That is one of the most glaring weaknesses of TA... the fact that hotels are held up to totally different standards.

e.g., the $40 a night Howard Johnson room actually provided clean towels and had free wifi? 5 stars.

The $325 a night St. Regis room was dimly lit and had a smudge on the bathroom mirror? Outrage! 2 stars.

Not to mention cultural differences, or the ignorance or bias of the reviewer. I was reading reviews for restaurants in Italy and so many contained things like 'the server refused to speak English even though I KNEW he spoke English?!!!!!!1111111' that I had to switch to just reading the reviews written in Italian. (Actually a decent feature that one can sort reviews by language)

I actually switch TA sites quite often depending on where I am going. For instance, if I am staying in a 'local' hotel in India I may want a different view point than if I am staying in a chain hotel in India.

I contacted TA on July 11 concerning a hotel in Barcelona which they flagged as wheelchair accessible. I forwarded to them an email from the hotel confirming they weren't.
Apart from the usual standard reply from TA, nothing has been done!
This would have been a quick and simple correction.

This is one of my biggest beefs with TA. I've emailed them several times explaining to them that restaurant X no longer exists, has moved, or the map is horribly wrong. They have NEVER bothered to make any changes to these listings.

Still, I continue to rely on TA when visiting places that don't have good coverage on other sites. For the most part, I would say that they have at least pointed me in the right direction.

Yes I do too and I haven't had any disappointments with them particularly when visiting the US.

The whole point of TA is to get away from the limitations of a guidebook: it represents what one person thinks and what that person found on one day, often when management knew that s/he was a guidebook writer.

One major guidebook to Scandinavia a few years ago mentioned, in their History section, that Admiral Nelson bombed Copenhagen during the Napoleonic wars. Unfortunately, the British bombing of Copenhagen was in 1807, and Nelson died in the Mediterranean (at the battle of Trafalgar) in 1805. They may have fixed it since - I wrote to them and haven't checked the current edition - but guidebook authors are often not the "experts" their publishers would like you to believe.

A historical error in a guidebook causes a fraction of the frustrations travelers who find a restaurant no longer exists or a hotel is not wheelchair accessible when they're handicapped receive.

Only those knowledgeable about the topics you've listed, would post on such peripheral topics. You seem to know about these topics intimately.. so you must post quite a bit on those topics?

guidebook is the perspective of one viewpoint, and not necessarily indicative of the best value for the money.

TA is real time, up to the day.. hard nosed facts by those who spend their hard earn money giving spending their valuable time to give feedback. Wading through the piles of information that sometimes seems fluffy, I always find the gem piece of information I'm looking for, to conduct a knowledgeable stay.

Well i really don't agree with your point that trip advisor is not reliable.Even today people who are looking for good accomodation while travelling first look on the trip advisor for the reviews,how is the dining facilities, staff, rooms and many more things .

The only reviews I rely on now are those on the actual hotel websites. First of all, those guests are verified and actually did stay at the hotel, and although I first thought that it may end up creating a bias based on editing, I can't see any evidence that any review is actually deleted, because I have had some pretty bad experiences and yet the reviews have stayed. I do think that if there is any horrible language that they would rightly be able to edit those, or delete the comment but keep the rating.

I don't know why TripAdvisor seemed to be so good a while ago, but I can no longer rely on the ratings, just like others have posted, I find it troubling that a Days Inn can outrank a Four Seasons Hotel...

That is where common sense comes in. Are you a 4 Seasons person? Then you should know that you are not going to be happy at a Days Inn, no matter how it is ranked.

I have never paid much attention to their ranking, as it never has been completely accurate. Like anything else, take it with a grain of salt.....

:confused: You obviously are having difficulty in understanding what I wrote, so let me try and write it differently to help you understand my point that Trip Advisor is not neutral. (And by the way, unlike some here, I do not have a Trip Advisor account, have never posted a review on Trip Advisor, and while I am quite intimately acquainted with Paris have never taken a segway tour there or anywhere, and the only payment I have made for a bicycle in France is for Vélib’)

In recent days, the top rated attractions in some of the major cities of the world included:
- Edinburgh: gokarting
- Munich: helicopter ride
- Rome: American tour guide
- London: team building game (this one is consistently rated THE top attraction in London)

My point is that none of those can be considered the 'best' attraction in any of those cities out of hundreds of options, let alone in the top five. Someone is consistently rating them five stars, with no four/three/two/one star ratings.

It's doubtful that EVERY SINGLE PERSON found those things perfect, yet those types of things (plus segway tours, and bike tours costing more than $100/person for a few hours) seem to always have perfect ratings, and push their way above historic sites, museums, and other true top attractions in some of the best cities of the world.

As to the ASA comment, there is in Europe a lot more scepticism about Trip Advisor, hence they had to change their claim to be unbiased and truthful. In London, the number 11 rated out of more than 10,000 restaurants was actually closed (it was a short term pop up), yet continued to receive perfect reviews and rate highly long after anyone could possibly eat there. Another restaurant which was actually a fake rated number 29 in Brixam, even though the address was actually an alleyway filled with rubbish bins, and the restaurant had never even existed.