I've learned a couple of things from this discussion.

I was about to write that one of the annoying things about tripadvisor's policies is that they discourage including any discussion of hotel room prices in reviews, but I just took a look at the current review guidelines, and I don't see any prohibition there against mentioning prices. I could have sworn that there used to be a rule prohibiting price discussions, but either my memory is just wrong or they have changed that policy. If I am right that that used to be one of their rules, the rule made it hard to compare reviews over time since so many reviewers take price into consideration when judging their experience yet prices change over time.

The other thing I've learned is that tripadvisor does not prohibit business owners from asking guests/customers to write reviews (not that there's much that tripadvisor could do to prevent this from happening if they did have such a rule). There FAQs actually says owners can ask guests/customers to write reviews.

I don't see anything wrong with this, as someone who had a negative experience will not do a business a favor.

I actually did this for a guest house in Chiang Mai. They had just opened and I was one of the first guests. When I left I told them that it was a great place and wished them well. They mentioned that it would be helpful to write a review on TA. I did so because they were a nice family that had just invested a lot in their guest house and it was great value for the price. Can't see any harm in that.

I'm not sure why you have to read about 150 hotels. You are unable to narrow your search based on location, other recommendations, price, etc.? I've never had to read reviews on more than a handful of properties in a city that's new to me. I suspect you're not exactly using all of the resources available to you.

I always read them and discard the ones with a context of "had to wait 5 minutes in line" or "we asked for our party of 250 to have the bill split on 500 different credit cards and 3 gift cards and they wouldn't help us"....

Tripadvisor.de does not publish bad Reviews from some Hotels?
 

Hello

As we had a very bad Experience in a Hotel in Bulgaria (Rainbow, Sunny Beach), we wrote a accordingly Review about that Hotel.
We did not wrote anything rude, just explained about the un-cleanless and very unfriendly Staff.

Also some of our friends, who had the same Experience few Weeks ago, and wrote a Review, didnt got the Publishing of their Experience.

So, is here anyone, who could tell us, why they do not publish the Bad entries?

(So from now on, we are little bit carefully with Tripadvisor, because if the do not publish the True of some Hotels, why i should look to their Page, if i want have a fair information about my Hotels i want to inform me?)

maybe you're confusing TA with Priceline or Hotwire, where discussion of prices and /or amenities will keep your review from being published.

Since you only have 1 post on FT, I am ignoring you. :D

Just kidding. I've read this complaint before, but since I've written 50-100 reviews on TA and everyone's been published, I can't give you an answer. I did have one replaced, which was a shame. I returned to a favorite hotel in Paris 3 years later and wanted to update my original review. They published it, but deleted the original.

I'm one who reads the reviews and looks for certain things. If one reviewer mentions a cleanliness issue, I don't book. Better safe than sorry.

One thing I'm taking from this thread is the need to identify the room number when I have an issue with the room. Sometimes it's just one room, floor, or side of the building that gives offense.

And yes, I read reviews for entertainment value as well.

I've written some (very) honest reviews of bad experiences and I've never had any of them removed from tripadvisor. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, though.

I usually add the room number, especially if we had a particularly nice view, but I realized it's also one more data point they could use to identify me if they wanted to track me down (the city in my profile and the month of visit are others). Fortunately I've never had to write a review thoroughly trashing a place. Maybe it's because I use TA to pick hotels in the first place!

Actually, I am still usually it very often and I didn't have a chance to adds more cities where I've visited. I have more than 200 cities were there in Florida and etc.

It's certainly possible I am confusing tripadvisor with another site, but unlikely to be priceline or hotwire, as I've never booked with hotwire, and I don't recall trying to write reviews on priceline.

Overall I've found TA helpful, and where the reviews in TA have helped sway my hotel choice, the postive reviews have been matched by my hotel stay.

However, I only used TA as a guide, and try to find consistent reviews on other sites. I find TA good to get a price guide on hotels in certain location, then go hunting for a good deal. Photos are helpful and as others have mentioned, tips about neighbourhood, local transport etc I look for.

I do feel a little guilty for my lack posting reviews myself. So lets all make an effort to post genuine reviews to balance out the more questionable ones.

I find the Tripadvisor reviews entertaining to read, but I don't think they have really swayed me ever on a hotel, restaurant or attraction choice. The photos are particularly useful though as I never believe the official website photos anymore.

I don't like the fact that Tripadvisor is now owned by Expedia, but that being said I don't have any concrete reason to be suspicious of that fact.

I pay no attention to the marks or ranking (although this does decide in what order the website shows the hotels to me). Having an overall ranked hotel or attraction doesn't make a lot of sense for me, particular as they are only subjective customer reviews, taking no account of hygiene, security or Fire safety systems.

I'm glad that so many people on FT have the sense to use the reviews wisely, but I'm not sure that less seasoned travellers do.

Edit: A pet peeve i have on TA though is when it gets very personal. By all means state your case about the hotel or restaurant but I don't think it is fair to specifically mention people, good or bad. I don't think they signed up for this .. although I suppose it is the way the world is going!

I like my research to include local independents as well as local chains.
I rarely stay at Marriotts or Hiltons, especially outside the US -- and I do most of my traveling outside the US.

Where do you get your "other recommendations" from?

I probably was confusing tripadvisor with expedia and travelocity. I used to write reviews after booking with expedia, and I either used to write reviews after booking with travelocity, or at least was planning to write reviews after booking with travelocity. Both expedia and travelocity have prohibited including room rate discussions.

As far as I can tell, it is correct that tripadvisor itself never prohibited discussion of room rates in their reviews -- I must have just assumed that that was a standard policy across hotel review sites!

HOW TO USE TRIPADVISOR SCORES

There is a lot more information in the tripadvisor numeric review scores than is captured in their simple blob system.

Always have a look at the little barchart of votes cast and do two mental calculations:

1. LUXURY RATING.

The number of "excellents" divided by the number of "very goods".

This is a very good guide to the true luxury status of the hotel. Less than 1.0 and you are definitely in three star territory. Above 3.0 and you are in solid luxury territory. 4 and 4.5 star quality in between.

2. SERVICE ISSUES.

The number of "poor" plus "terribles" as a proportion of all votes.

Less than 5% is very well run hotel, less than 10% is ok, above 15% and there are some real problems.

Try it out on some hotels you know already. You'll get a feel for the numbers, it is quick and easy to calculate mentally. Hope this helps.