I think hotels send emails to past guests that include a link to writing a TA review. I know I received one of these links from a hotel in the not-too-distant past.

I know of more than one hotel that independently encourages TA reviews. Hotels generally take TA reviews very seriously - more than those of us "in the know" tend to.

Yes, it is called "review express". Unfortunately, the hotel gets to pick and choose who they send it to, so of course they are not going to send it to anyone who did not have a great stay. I had always defended TA, but this latest invention makes the title of this thread accurate in my opinion. I will still use TA, but it is all the more difficult to weed out the solicited posts.

We are getting the same type of e-mails but not from the innkeepers, but from Trip Advisor. Trip Advisor is now all over the TV promoting itself.

I don't know if Trip Advisor was just recently acquired by Expedia, or Expedia has kept a much lower profile for Trip Advisor than it has in the past, but it is certainly promoting it now. And we never book via Expedia.

If I even look at a hotel I get an e-mail from Trip Advisor asking if I want to book it! Kind of scary in a way.

We always stay in the same 2 inns in Italy - we happen to really like the family that owns both properties and are booked with both again for next summer. There is a lot to be said for hospitality.

Recently someone wrote an absolutely dreadful review of one of the properties - it was 100% incorrect by any standard and the owner wrote a reply. I suspect the review was written by the competition. The owner did manage to have it removed but not likely before many people had seen it.

My husband has to stay in a certain hotel in NY for his conferences. I hate this hotel. Everyone hates this hotel. One meeting was held at a different hotel and every single person remarked on how much better it was. We do not require a lot - just a clean room that is relatively quiet. But the hotel keeps getting these great reviews all of a sudden. And it is a well known hotel.

I didn't realize they could pick who the emails were sent too - that's disappointing.

I think TA is still a good tool. In general I ignore the "I hate this hotel more than anything in the world" reviews. Those are either written by people who are never satisfied with anything in life, or if they are a legitimate bad stay, most often is something that can happen anywhere. Examples I've seen are reviews that had 1 star because there was a fire at the hotel. Well OK, fires happen. It could happen at a Motel 6 as easily as at a Four Seasons. Or another one I love, the lost reservation, hence this is the worst hotel ever and I am never staying here again. Again, yes, reservations get lost. It happens. To me those are not legitimate reviews.

So I look at the 3 and 4 stars to get an idea of what people thought of the hotel who liked it and the 2 stars to get an idea of what people thought of the hotel who didn't like it too much.

No hotel is going to please everyone. But if I read 10 reviews with a mix of good, bad and ugly, I can get a sense of what to expect. And with a couple of exceptions, TA has been on the money for me.

I have said this all along, until recently when they started using TA express. Now you have to read 5 pages, to get a single, legitimate, review.....

For an example, look at Hotel 1000 in Seattle. Look at how many reviews that were solicited by TA in partnership with the hotel, and how far back you have to go to find ones that were NOT.

I will still use TA, but will probably not even give a second glance to any hotel that is using this system. Fortunately they are few and far between at the moment.

Comment cards normally get auto generated to the email address on file. If the email address is removed from a guests profile, no comment card is generated..... If you have a guest that you know is not happy, remove the email address. Front desk clerks have been doing this for years.

From management perspective, this is not a good practice, as you cannot make a stay right, and the bigger the chance bad reviews will get out.

I wonder why hotels even bother with the generic, fill in the blank responses to reviews:

One of the complaints I made was how small the lobby is and I didn't even mention the fitness center (which I might add had no lock on the door)

I'm unclear why this matters. Were you worried that outsiders were going to use the fitness room? Was it directly off the lobby, or in a place where outsiders would be inclined to go? Or was it in a secluded area that presented a personal security risk?

I admit that I've never given whether a hotel fitness center was locked or not much thought. I suppose most or all of the ones I've used were locked, but I never thought that an outsider would want to visit a hotel gym to "steal" exercise or cause harm to guests.

Well if you're going to tout your amazing fitness room, it detracts from it when there's not only no lock but no doorknob assembly, it doesn't look very good. Plus, this isn't in the greatest of neighborhoods and also there's a liability issue with children amongst the machines as well. I wouldn't have called attention to it until they did as like you I had never given it thought before.

it doesn't seem like it's generic to me, but there is no mention of how long after your stay you reviewed the place and how quickly they responded.

They mention a recent refurbishment of their lobby and gym. Without knowing details, it could have been done between the time of your visit/review and answering your review.


I consider a generic review to be sorry for your experience, your visit is important, please give us another try without responding to anything said in your review.

I wrote the review the day after I checked out which was in fact...last week :cool: TA of course requires the month you stayed too.

Actually it's a huge problem. And in many gyms where the stair masters or treadmills are fully in use, having to wait behind someone who it turns out shouldn't be there is an issue.

One feature I'm missing about Tripadvisor would be to select a time range of when the stays were - ie, for the "overview".. of course you can sort the reviews by time, but it needs a lot of manual browsing etc. for example, I've just now been looking at Hotels in Paris - one had very average reviews with a lot of "bad" and "don't go there" ratings - apparently those were mostly old reviews, and the hotel had been refurbished/under new management for quite a while.

I had to browse through the more recent reviews, which were mostly in the 3 and 4 points mark (it's not a luxury hotel, but if you know Hotel prices in Paris, you know what I mean) and mostly content/happy with the hotel.

So, despite the hotel having a very low rating from those (mostly) older reviews, I went ahead with it. If I could have just said "display me the green bars for any reviews from 2012 onwards", it would have saved me quite some time.

TripAdvisor can be very reliable as a TOOL used to help selected accommodations, accommodation specifics (room categories, etc.), tourist sites, and more.

As with any tool, it has its strengths and weaknesses.

Obviously, its biggest weakness is the authenticity of each review. I therefore ignore the "rankings" and also ignore any reviews by contributors with fewer than 25 reviews. I give more credence to reviews by contributors with more than 50 reviews and by contributors who have other reviews at the types of hotels I know or often consider for my travels.

The biggest strength is the ability to EASILY authenticate reviews. I always private message several contributors whose reviews have the most impact on me (after screening as above). If I get a reply, I judge that review as more authentic; if I don't get a reply (which rarely happens, actually), I judge that review as fake. The fact that I almost always get a reply is a testament to ruling out reviews from contributors with just a few reviews (that often can be fake).

I also pay far more attention to the reviews based on the timeframe I'll actually be visiting. If I visit in low season, and there are bad reviews in high season, I won't necessarily rule out that property--since low season often heralds better service. If a property has great reviews even in high season, I tend to think more highly of that property--since its service can only get better in lower season. But if reviews from the same month I'll be visiting often talk about horrendous weather or conditions, I'll avoid it--and possibly the entire destination!

TripAdvisor is a tool. Those simpletons/lazy folks who simply look at the overall ratings based on TripAdvisor reviews deserve the bad choices that are made. With a little effort, it is a fantastic resource that can easily outmatch some of the best travel agents IMO. I've used it so often (along with other resources) that I've now been able to easily put together complex itineraries for trips abroad even in some of the most remote regions without any assistance from a travel agent. (Sometimes, though, using a travel agent to actually book can be advantageous due to the ability to get discounts and better upgrades and amenities through preferred vendors!)