Fair point though I found it to not be noticeably smokey at all, especially in the smoke free areas. And I'd hope that if you did find it too smokey, you wouldn't insult all the locals while complaining!

I thought it was more humorous rather than insulting, but I guess personal feelings can vary.

But lets get back to topic:

Just back from a trip to Australia, used TA in couple places, and was never disappointed by the reviews. But the majority of restaurants just picked randomly and later double-checked with TA about their reviews. Basically, they had pretty much the "correct" ratings from what I've felt they should be having. All in all, I was rather happy with TA, both for hotel and restaurant reviews "down under".

Sounds like Trip Advisor is starting to become a factor for restaurant reviews. Usually, there are enough other sources I can check out more easily i.e. Yelp, or local magazines, coupon books, brochures, and even onsite concierge/front desk for recommendations.

A few queries on Trip Advisor for restaurants, and I was quickly frustrated. There's lots of information.. its navigating through filters. Perhaps I can try google and click the link straight away.

I agree that bashing a hotel for a small slip is churlish though it's reasonable to rate its customer service in responding to that mistake. I try to make it clear in my reviews that that's what I'm doing. For example I might write:

True - often there is just too much information when "searching" randomly in a city.

Usually, I'll either search for a certain restaurant, or check out a few places which got interesting reviews (meaning, not necessarily the best ratings)

I do find that many guests can be passive aggressive. They find something wrong, don't bring it up or mention it to staff, and then go out and write negative reviews.

Many times I have issues, a call to front desk gets it resolved. Even on severe cases, like bed bugs, the hotel staff was very apologetic, jumped hoops, follow up emails, bonus points, apology letters, etc. I judges that hotel from management's response.

The Iapp is a bit confusing too.. I would pull up reviews more often, but the use of the app is unreliable.

Perhaps, Trip Advisor can improve the ease of use of the App. I don't want to spend 20 minutes navigating, when I can google and get all the review indications I want in an instant.

The New York Times had an article about Trip Advisor today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/bu...l?ref=business

The best thing Trip Advisor COULD do (and which would make me using the App like a gazillion times more often) would be an "offline mode" for the app, where I could download reviews about restaurants (or hotels, or sight seeing stuff, anything I define) from a certain city/area to my mobile, and then use them offline. I know there are (theoretically) ways to download and use offline all restaurants from place X into my browser from the TA website, but it's complicated and especially the reviews couldn't be properly displayed..

If the app had the function to do this, including maybe even pictures and reviews, then I could REALLY use TA "on the go".. right now, I do need internet to use it, and unless I bought a local SIM, or found a Wifi, I won't have it. What do you think of this?

Report this to TA. They will have visibility on this since he contacted you through their messaging system.

Personally, I think if it downloads on Internet and saves a few pages I'm ok. Using up valuable memory on my phone to download reviews I might use say once every 2 or 3 years is a bit out there. Especially with restaurants, if I have a feel its a good restaurant, then I'm there. I'm not needing to review restaurants everytime I'm going for lunch or supper.

Lots of review at work, and at home.. something easier to work with would be nice.

But hey, if they can have an option to evaluate offline.. why not? Just because it might not work for me, that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it.

. . . . .

The attractions section of TA is the worst! I’ve given up on trying to use TA to figure out the “Can’t Miss” attractions while planning vacations as the good stuff is always buried under Segway tours, bus tours, and pirate ship excursions.

I’m also disturbed at the cover-up of crime that goes on in both the forums and reviews. On a few occasions after reading a news article about a crime committed against tourists I’ve tried to get perspective from people who were there at the same time only to find multiple closed threads on TA about the incident.

So my question is, if they have enough employees monitoring forums to quickly shut down any threads that speak negatively of a location, why can they not seem to find the time to correct inaccuracies in hotel or restaurant listings or weed out fake reviews?

That being said, I’m a senior contributor on TA, with hundreds of forum posts and almost all my reviews are positive because TA has never steered me wrong. I give back to the community, hanging out on the forum after returning from vacation in order to pay it forward. In picking a hotel:

1) I start off in the forums rather than the reviews, searching on specific criteria: “hotel with snorkelling off the beach,” “best hotel for kids” “close to DC attractions.” Because the best hotel for one person may not be the best hotel for me. Another reason why overall rankings are useless.
2) Then I move to the review section and read the last 20 reviews for my list of maybe 4-7 hotels, noting number of the reviews of each reviewer, especially if it’s 1 or 5 circles. I note comments that appear in multiple reviews. I note comments that are polar opposites (“Loved Fred the bartender!” “Rudest bartender ever!”) and try to put them in the context of the entire review and the reviewer themselves.
3) Check the photographs posted by reviewers
4) Do a wider Internet search. Some countries / cities have their own local forums. Bloggers. Google images. Love, love, love Oyster.com for unbiased reviews that are much more detailed than anything you’ll find in a guidebook, accompanied by unbiased photos. I would use it before TA except for my often quirky initial search criteria
5) Check various travel sites to compare prices on what is probably now a short list of 2-3 hotels
6) Pull the trigger
7) Blitz search the forums and reviews for every helpful tip on my chosen hotel. Best section of hotel to request (I never request a specific room), a signature dish at the restaurant I have to try, how to catch the bus to downtown, which lifeguard tower the best snorkelling is in front of, do I need to bring my own Earl Grey for the room, where is the nearest grocery store, decent restaurants within walking distance, etc.
8) Check the forums and reviews in the weeks leading up to my vacation in case they suddenly close a pool or start renovating a section of the hotel which would require changing expectations, or making a room request away from the construction

I agree that this is a huge problem with TA. However, it is not the TA employees reading and removing these, it is the DE's and regular users, who are offended by people posting less than stellar things about their home or favorite destination. Some people want to view the world through rose colored glasses. They click on "report inappropriate content" on posts, which then flags TA employees to read and close threads.

I have also found (although rare) DE's who will post many things warning people about certain areas, and things not to do. I really appreciate those. One such forum, is the Hawaii BI forum. Those DE's tell it like it is, with no white washing. One of the worst for removing posts, is the Puerto Vallarta forum. Mention ANYTHING about crime, and it will be removed. When I questioned TA about it, they told me that because the posts do not affect 90% of travelers, it is not pertinent. My reply was that it would be pertinent if I was one of the 10% that it DID apply to. I would rather have a warning, than go into a place thinking it had no problems.

This won't make TA's cut, but describes how I feel about them
 

TA is almost completely useless in Nanning because:

-venues come and go, but you fail to keep up with the times
-smart restaurant owners game the system to their advantage (i.e. ratings are useless... though I get the fact that 5 stars in Nanning are equivalent to 2 stars in first tier cities)
-addresses are always insufficient

Gu Cheng Lu, Nanning, China

This is what TA lists (the name of a street, no phone number or anything in Chinese). If you can't do better than that, please do us all a favor and delete the establishment in question.