TripAdvisor Review

If you like to travel as much as I do, then you are likely the type who utilizes the internet for news and official information about your destination, activities, and the like. You probably also consult the internet before you make a selection for your place of lodging and one site to which many seasoned travelers are fully aware is Trip Advisor, a web service that specializes in reviews of different places of lodging.

Web Service Commentary:

Trip Advisor is, like its name suggests, a web service dedicated to the traveler who could use some advice on finding places to stay and things to do. This web site offers member reviews on places of lodging, restaurants, and more. There is also a trip ideas section that asks a few questions and helps you select a place to travel, as well as access to free travel guides for thousands of destinations.

Trip Advisor is most notable for its massive database of places of lodging and this is one of the main reasons I visit this site as frequently as I do. There are several places on the internet in which to read reviews of hotels, resorts, and more but few can match the sheer numbers offered by Trip Advisor. I have stayed in some lesser- known condo resorts that I could not find any reviews for, anyplace on the internet, until I checked Trip Advisor. The site also assists users by offering a chance to check the rates for a place of lodging. Trip Advisor compares the rates being charged by several different travel web sites, to help its members find the best deals.

Trip Advisor, in spite of its massive database, does a decent job in helping consumers manage the data. It defaults its lists of data to one that is sorted by popularity; i.e., based on member ratings with the highest rated first. The listing can be changed and sorted alphabetically, or the list can be narrowed to include only those places that fit a defined set of criteria. For example, in the restaurant search, the results can be filtered by type of cuisine, by price, or by type of service offered (kid- friendly, delivery, etc). Places of lodging work the same way. You can first enter a city, then narrow down to a specific section of the city, a specific price range, and more. There are also a section of photos, maps, and amenities for most of the hotels, even though these are nothing more than links into other sites, such as Expedia.com and Hotels.com.

The huge database and organization of this site are nice assets but the main reason people come to Trip Advisor is, of course, to read the reviews. Unfortunately, this is one area where the site is somewhat lacking. There are some very good reviews from individuals who are experienced travelers and know what to look for, but there are also many garbage reviews from people who rated a hotel either high or low for idiotic reasons. Members can rate a review as helpful or not helpful, which is supposed to then influence the review's placement and, hence, its overall helpfulness. But a quick glance through the site confirms that this system doesn't work very well. Some of the supposedly high rated reviews consist of two sentences and tell you next to nothing about the place of lodging. Yet, Trip Advisor members rate them highly anyway.

Bottom Line Viewpoint:

Trip Advisor offers some good advice on lodging from actual people who have stayed at a hotel or resort and are willing to share their direct and sometimes candid opinions. There is some good material in this site and some solid reviews from passionate travelers. However, the site includes many amateurish reviews and inconsistent advice and thus is best used as a supplement to other sources of information.