Trip Advisor or other Hotel Review Sites

For Europe, I go to a wonderful bookstore near me that has comfy wing-back chairs and look through many guidebooks, including RS. I write down websites of ones that sound good. I then come home, look them up and and cross check them on TripAdvisor. For our trip to NYC last Feb, I relied solely on TripAdvisor and was extremely happy with the hotel I chose based on TA reviews.

I use Trip Advisor and find it very helpful, but I never use it as my sole source of information. As far as the lawsuit, everyone knows that each review is just one person's opinion. And Trip Advisor gives hotel managers a place to respond to a negative review. Plus, how do we know that there aren't some fabricated positive reviews planted by hotels and other establishments? This lawsuit will go nowhere.

While I do use Trip Advisor in my research, it is certainly not my primary resource guide. I'm a big fan of travel books and will typically buy at least 3 or 4 plus look at other online sources. I try to read all reviews of a hotel in the last 2 months (depending on number of total reviews it may be a longer or shorter period). Also, I think it's important, like any other source, that it is so subjective. But I will admit, that if a place has a number of poor reviews in the last little while and I can't find any other sources of information on the place, it's unlikely I will stay there. On the other hand, what do the hoteliers expect, that I will rely solely on their own website that shows pictures of their biggest and best room and only see the comments they've seen fit to post on their site? I think it's important to have this central place for "impartial" comments, but that users need to be able to judge for themselves whether to take the comments at their face value or not.

We use Tripadvisor a lot, more than we use RS guides because we like to get a bit more off the RS tour path. We have found some great places that way. Anyone who uses Tripadvisor should know to ignore the posts from "one hit wonders", whether they are positive or negative. I agree with Tom that the lawsuit will go nowhere. The hoteliers are unhappy because there are a few unscrupulous people who basically try to blackmail them; they ask for a discount or refund for some perceived deficiency, and threaten to post a slam review if they don't get it. Tripadvisor gives the property owner an opportunity to respond to negative reviews and tell their side of the story. (Sometimes it is pretty funny.) I think that is a good way to handle it.

I like using Trip Advisor for the simple reason, that when I find a place I like, I go to that cities' forum and post a question about it. The Destination Experts will give you great, true and very up-to date answers. Pretty much the same way that people on this forum ask me questions about Frankfurt, how are the neighborhoods, is this a good hotel or not, where can I find a place with charm? You can get this on Trip Advisor for 1000's and 1000's of destinations all around the world. Everyone knows to read the reviews with a certain eye on how they are written. Again, one can report positively fake reviews, both positive and negative. The Destination Experts have a pretty good eye for this too. The only problem with guide books is that all the hotels in there may only get checked or reviewed every few years and then you only get that one persons opinion. Sorry, but I will go for the fresh, up to date reviews for my hotels, tours and restaurants.

Someone at Frommer (might have had the same last name as the company) in a blog in the last year brought up the problem with Trip Advisor reviews and suggested you exclude the most glowing and the worst TA reviews, and then consider the rest. The thinking was that the "too good to be true reviews" were probably written by someone connected with management of the hotel in question, while the very worst nightware reviews were probably submitted by the competing property across the street.

I have found booking.com easier to use and more thorough than tripadvisor, but I use both and when I narrow a list to four or five hotels, I like to see how the ratings compare with one another on both sites. If the ratings differ a lot from one site to the other, I get suspicious and throw out the one that seems less balanced.

I have used Trip Advisor as an accommodation guide for our last two overseas trips. I have found it to be a reliable and informative accommodation source. I run with the theory if an establishment has at least 75% positive reviews, I will go with that.
TA enables you to access many more accommodation sites than the guide books do.

I use TripAdvisor hotel reviews and the forums. As has already been pointed out, you always need to look at the number of post a person has when you're looking at a review on TripAdvisor. One interesting feature of TripAdvisor is that you can see all of a person's posts. That way you can gauge the experience of the poster and their view on travel. Also, I love the forums as they are local people responding with local solutions. Sometimes you need a tourist perspective as well which is what you get here (except for Jo and few others who actually live in Europe.) Pam

Jo, I wish you would stop promoting TripAdvisor. They are, IMO, nothing more than a commercial WHORE. Go to their website and look for a property. They might review it, but nowhere will you find a link from which you can contact the property directly for reservations. They'll only direct you to someplace like Expedia. You have to know immediately that their listings are only places from which they profit directly. How ethical is that? In 2007, I stay in the vicinity of Weikersheim, on the Romantic Road. I personally know that there are 4 hotels on the town square, two more close by, and several in surrounding towns. Tripadvisor says, "No rooms found." Now, how good advice is that?

Excuse me, but THEY don't do the reviews, people do. And some of the review listings DO have a direct link to the hotel website. If you do happen to click on the "check prices" link instead of going to the hotel webiste, you'll get prices from about 6 different vendors, including Venere.com, Hotels.com, booking.com, etc. in addition to Expedia or whichever is the one affiliated with Tripadvisor. So I think using the "W" word is a bit overstated. What I like about it is that if you post a question on the forums (as opposed to the review section), you will often get answers from locals---people who live there, not just travelers.

"I personally know that there are 4 hotels on the town square, two more close by, and several in surrounding towns. Tripadvisor says, "No rooms found." Now, how good advice is that?" Tripadvisor lists 4 hotels in Weikersheim in the "reviews" section: Hotel Laurentius, Hotel-Garni Gehringer, Gasthof zur Krone, and Hotel Deutscherren Stuben. Only one of these has reviews, and they are in German. Maybe you should write reviews for the others? If you are trying to use Tripadvisor as a search engine for booking rooms, as opposed to reviewing them, I think you are expecting too much. I think hotels and B&B's have a choice whether to allow their rooms to be booked through third-party agents like Expedia, Booking.com, etc. Many smaller places to not want to give up control like that.

Actually, a lot of the property listings in the review section have both a link to the website and a direct link to e-mail to the hotel for reservations (mine goes through Outlook Express). I don't understand the source of the rant. I think that lots of smaller places choose not to link up with booking agencies and therefore you won't see them if you do an "availablity" search on Tripadvisor. The last time we were in Germany (2007) we stayed at a 3-star hotel that is not listed anywhere---you have to know about it and e-mail them to get a reservation. And that is just the way they want it.

Tripadvisor does include links to most hotel's websites. I know that some hotel managers have become very savvy about responding to criticisms on Tripadvisor. I posted a negative review this summer and the manager responded within a day of my posting (It usually takes a couple of days for a review to be cleared for posting). He politely acknowledged my criticisms but went on to insist they were because of factors beyond his control. He continues to use the same approach with negative reviews that keep coming on to Tripadvisor. I think the pattern is obvious, and for that reason, like this feature of Tripadvisor.

Maybe you get some kind of booking privileges, but when I go to Tripadvisor.com, and put in Weikersheim for Feb 16-17, I get "No rooms found. Please try modifying your search." This seems to be what a reasonable person, looking for a room, might do.

I only read guidebooks to find either websites or addresses to contact local tourism information offices, and then request listings of all accommodations in a given area/city/town. This works for me because I seek out small, family owned places that may not be listed anywhere else. I never use TripAdvisor, and I never book through any agency - just the owners. I've found some great little places this way, and I enjoy recieving all the brochures, maps, booklets, etc. the tourist offices send, usually but not always free. Sometimes they ask for a couple of euros for postage. I did look at some reviews of a B+B in Venice where I'm planning to stay, because I got excited about going to Venice and didn't want to wait, and the Italian B+B website I found was very well organised. The reviews were all positive, and that did influence my choice. After I went to the B+Bs website I felt that the reviews rang true. I'm on a tight budget, so I look for the cheapest possible rooms, and I almost always find them through the tourist offices. I guess "snail-mail" is alittle dorky, but that's how I roll.

Lee, I do not agree,,, I use tripadvisor,, not as my ONLY source of info but I most definately do use it and read all the reviews. I then google the name of a hotel that sounds promising and read reveiws posted about it on other sites. I have booked NINE hotels in Paris this way,, and I have posted more then nine hotel reviews( I post on other destinations also). I do not use guide books, they will only list 4, 5, maybe 6 or 7 hotels in my price range and they are then not cute little "hidden gems" but glomed with the THOUSANDS of other guide book readers,, often resulting in surly take it for granted staff, and higher prices .

Lee, I just think that means that those hotels in Weikersheim (some listed by Sasha, I checked them too) choose not to turn over their booking process to the agencies. (I wouldn't either if I ran a small hotel or B&B). You can find listings for some hotels there (just Google "Tripadvisor Weikersheim hotels" without going to the "availability" search function on TA). So what if you can't actually book them? Why would you want to book through TA anyway? Use it to find places and check reviews, but don't book that way. I don't see how one's inability to actually book these hotels in a small town in Germany on the website makes TA the evil empire.

"Actually, a lot of the property listings in the review section have both a link to the website and a direct link to e-mail to the hotel for reservations " Please send me a URL with an example of this. I have been looking for years for a Tripadvisor page with a URL to the actual property, because I have wanted to know, but I have never found one.

Let's see if this works: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187895-d195703-Reviews-Hotel_Casci-Florence_Tuscany.html That is one of Rick's recommendations in Florence. You can link to the webiste or link to the e-mail right on the Tripadvisor page. And FWIW that's the first one I tried.

Maybe this website works better for Italy. I've tried for years in Germany to get hotel addresses and had no success. How come I've put in Weikersheim (Baden Württemberg) a dozen time and gotten "no rooms"? I tried it for Bad Mergentheim. Looks like you can book through Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels, or Booking, but not through the hotel itself.

Tripadvisor is the main site that I look at when choosing hotels. It is not the only site that I look at but in my opinion, I find the greatest amount of information about hotels on TA. I have always been satisfied with the places that I have chosen by looking at TA reviews. I find the reviews with actual room photos to be the most helpful. Yes, I agree that you do have to be mindful of fake reviews, overly positive an overly negative reviews. One of the things that I like about TA is that you can click on the reviewer and see if every post they have written on TA. This also helps me sort through the reviews. I don't use TA as a hotel booking engine. I concur with Lee that TA is limited in that sense. If you search for available rooms on TA, it only shows you those hotels that I use the major booking sites. However, if you simply look at the hotel list and read the reviews, you will find many smaller hotels and also B&Bs with just name and address. To use Lee's example, TA lists 4 hotels in Weikersheim (only one has reviews), but none of them come up when you use the available room search engine. I've found it best just to search on the town in the regular search box and then click on the hotel link. However, even with its limitations, I find TA to be a good starting place. That is just my opinion. Another source that I find helpful is google maps. If I know what neighborhood I want to stay in, google maps can help me find which hotels are in the area. While I also use guidebooks, guidebooks usually have just one or two sentences about a hotel. The RS book might say something like "hotel xyz is a block off the main square and offers 20 good-value rooms". If I go to TA, I might find pages and pages of reviews about that same hotel. Once I have read through those reviews, I usually have a better feel of what to expect.

Lee, I would think most reasonable people, having chosen a hotel, B & B etc. would go to TA to view the forum and do as I have done and contact the hotel directly via their web site. No requirement whatsoever to use the Expedia booking service or similar. Not sure where you are coming from here!!!????

Gosh Lee, a bit extreme? First of all, I said zero, about booking hotels on TA. I use it to find hotels and seeing how it is a matter of 2 clicks to find the said hotel on line, it doesn't matter to me if they have their own website on there. I did Data Entry for the Dept. of Commerce and they dealt a lot with tourist destinations in the US & Germany. Part of my job was checking on websites for places. There are a lot of small places that do not have their own website, they are only listed on search engines like HRS.com. Why? Maybe they don't have a skilled computer employee, or feel they get more bookings from other countries because they didn't want to write a website in multiple languages. I have worked in the hotel industry and the main thing you want to do is keep your hotel booked all the time. The easier it is for people to find you, on multiple websites and search engines, the fuller your hotel. Here is how TA worked for me when I planned my trip to Edinburgh. I posted on the forum, asked for suggestions, named my budget and got great ideas from the Destination Experts. The B&B was listed on TA, had its own website, but was not listed with any hotel search engines. We had a wonderful visit in one of the most charming little guest houses and on returning, I wrote my own glowing review. I then went back to the forum, thanked the DE's and wrote a little trip report. Now, Lee, if you would like to continue calling this a whore of a website, when one gets responses like this, then I give up. Was this B&B in Ricks book? No. How many hotels in each city are in each book? How often do you think they get reviewed. Lets say there are 50 hotels for Munich, ranging from 5 * to hostel. Do you really think someone from RS comes each year and stays overnight in each of these places to see how they are? I think I will stick with fresh reviews, photos and the TA forum to find hotels. I just don't book with them. Who does?

We almost always stay in vacation rentals for our holidays. We use Slow Travel ( http://www.slowtrav.com ) for recommendations. The website has quite a few reviews for hotels and vacation rentals I am also active in the forum where I can ask questions, as well as answer some. Happy travels!

Love TripAdvisor, but I never book through it. Once I like a place, I google for a URL and go from there. I like booking direct when I can, however...... .... For Euro travel I lean on Venere too. The reviews are only by people who booked rooms through Venere, so harder for shills and crackpots (although not impossible) to post reviews. I have booked directly through Venere and had really good experiences with it. I have yet to stay at a RS endorsed place I didn't like, but I still do a triangulation between RS, TA and Venere. On the average trip I can book an RS endorsed place about a third of the time, for the rest I rely on that whore, TA. Does that make me a John, Lee?

As a non resident DE on Tripadvisor (we have a mixture of resident and non resident DEs on the Forum) I can assure you that we do read the reviews and report any that we think are iffy. Does not always work because some are quite cleverly done. The usual caveat is to look carefully at glowing/very bad reviews from one time posters. Learn to read between the lines and also consider whether you would be bothered by the issues raised. There was a recent poor hotel review from someone because they had to carry their own wineglass from the hotel bar to the hotel restaurant! Another one at a well reviewed place because the person did not get a personal greeting from the hotel manager. Both UK reviewers I'm afraid! As well as hotels there is at least one restaurant that regularly tops the poll but it is an out and out tourist trap and there are many much better in terms of food and value. I also look at a range of sites before deciding eg booking sites like Venere or Booking.com where reviews, unlike TA who cannot prove it, are only allowed from people who have actually stayed in the properties.

We like TA for its timeliness and real people reviews, and rely on it far more for lodging than any tourbook. We also like to deal directly with the hotel or B&B and have done so easily. TA was more than helpful in planning trips to Europe and Japan and here in the US, from tiny B&Bs to megahotels, and for more than just lodging, as others have noted. It is one of several resources we consult.

One thing I've learned in many years of travel is the need to get a feel for which guidebooks' recommendations suit my taste best. (Karen Brown, Alastair Sawday, or Cadogan for me; not RS.) That being said, I always cross-check on Tripadvisor. As Linda pointed out, you need to see if bad reviews are about issues that matter to you. There's the stereotypic American complaint about small rooms or continental breakfasts. Occasionally, a well-rated property will be slammed, for losing a reservation. I can understand how this could happen. If there are several mentions of lost reservations, however, I would rethink that choice. Also relevant would be how the issue was handled. Sometimes, you can get a sense of hysterical anger from a reviewer who has decided to claim major flaws when there was really one issue with the management. I've also wondered, sometimes, if the reviewer came on like a ton of bricks and provoked an uncooperative response. TA is just one tool for planning and needs to be used judiciously.

Lee, I'm not sure how you got such a burr under your saddle. You're usually such a calm and helpful person. I never use the clickthrough on TA to check on rooms, I use TA for finding the lay of the land, and getting a usually fairly balanced appraisal of the properties. Nobody said you have to use the clickthroughs, although that's clearly where TA gets some of the money. I then copy the name of the hotel I like the sound of, and paste it into Google. They give me the website, I click there, and make my decision, directly with the proprietor. I've travelled to Germany plenty but had never heard of the town you mentioned. I fired up TA and put it in the first input line. You said 4 places in the centre? I got 4 places, the first of which has decent, balanced, recent reviews. They were: Hotel Laurentius £102 - £104 ($165 - $167) Avg. price/night* #1 of 4 hotels in Weikersheim 3 reviews " Kulinarischer Hochgenuss " 5 Oct 2010 " Kulinarischer Geburtstagsausflug " 29 Jun 2010 Gasthof Zur Krone Be the first to review this hotel Hotel Deutschherren Stuben Be the first to review this hotel
Hotel Garni Gehringer Looks like it works in Germany, too ?!!?

Hotel Laurentius's website (www.hotel-laurentius.de) is shown on the town website for Weikersheim. If you had gone to Laurentius's website, you would know that the $165 room is for what they call their Kabinett DZ. Other rooms run from $267 to $340 per room, double occupancy. But you didn't get that information from TA. In this case, Hotel Laurentius is apparently not bookable from Trip Advisor. However, if it were, you'd be stuck with having to book through one of those booking websites I hate so much because they still wouldn't show the website URL. And, if you do a Google search, you'll probably have trouble finding Hotel Laurentius's website amongst (after) all of the booking websites (and several for Trip Advisor).

Kind of stretching to find fault, I'd say. Just about everyone here said they use TA to find the name of the hotel, then use Google to find the hotel's own website and book there. It's not hard, even if the hotel's own website is down 4 or 5 places in the list. And no one pays any attention to those prices listed on Tripadvisor. They are usually wrong. For one thing, they don't reflect seasonal variations, weekend specials, early booking discounts, etc. It seems like you hate Tripadvisor because you aren't using it right.

I love Trip Advisor, and I almost never book some place to stay without checking their reviews. Of course I take them with a grain of salt. If you use the site often enough, you get a pretty good idea of what reviews to pay attention to and what reviews to ignore. I find it extremely helpful.

Another huge fan of tripadvisor here. My strategy is to use a guidebook to narrow my range and options and neighborhood. Then I check the choices on TA. As long as there are at least 100 reviews, you can assume an accurate picture of the hotel based on the percentage breakdown. I do read individual reviews as they offer more detail than guidebooks can. Plus I like seeing photos of real rooms, not the fancy ones posted on hotel websites. Once I have a choice, I call, email or online book directly with that hotel/pension. I use TA merely for reviews, not for booking or price comparisons. Where TA falls short is when there aren't many reviews for a hotel. Then you really have to read each review carefully.

Like others, I used TA for reviews and then Google to find the hotel's direct site. I did get bitten by ONE place that was highly ranked at the time, and I didn't notice (my fault) that all of the reviewers only had one review each. I reported the B&B on my return to TA. They haven't removed the suspicious reviews, but I have noticed that the ranking has ped way down in the meantime. I read the reviews, look at the candid pics, and get a flavor for what people are picky about (LOL at the not carrying the wine glass!) and check to see how many reviews the positive reviewers have given to make sure they are legit. I don't like TA for restaurant reviews as much. I found that RS and TA matched up really well for me, once, in Berlin (Pension Peters). That was a great place to stay! : )

When reading reviews, I read only those that are less than two years old. So many hotels have upgraded and remodelled in the past few years that older reviews may not apply. I try to read the reviews that are in languages other than English. It's not too hard to pick out key words. It's also useful to note the type of traveler writing the review: single, family, senior couple, etc.

Like anything, the more research you do...the better. Take everything with a grain of salt. And be thankful, that with the internet, it is so much easier to get the right room for you!

I took the "W" comment to mean he thinks they only list places for which they get paid. As he said "their listings are only places from which they profit directly. How ethical is that?" But then the example he gave to illustrate his point actually proved him flat-out wrong, as those hotels in Weikersheim ARE listed, you just can't book them through Tripadvisor (which means they don't make any money off them). So how ethical is it to make a false accusation?

I never use tripadvisor.com for booking. I always contact the hotel directly, through a combination of the hotel's website booking mechanism, e-mailing and telephoning (to give credit card information). However, I always use tripadvisor.com/forums for searching out reviews, which I use in conjunction with guidebooks, for both European and North American holidays. After a bit of reading, you learn how to assess the reviews, which to discard and which to add to the mix. Sometimes the hotel page in tripadvisor.com/forums gives the hotel's URL; sometimes it doesn't. However, if it's not there, it is just a matter of googling to find it. For me, half of the fun of the vacation is the planning, which includes finding the hotel, pension, B&B, etc., that seems to best suit our needs. Right now, I am planning Europe 2011 that way and having a wonderful time occupying my time during our dreary November weather. I know that some people have very strong views about TA, the RS website, Fodors, etc.. However, I just take what I need from each site I follow, chuckle at some of the posts, and get on with my own holiday plans.

I start with the RS book of the region I am going to. I then go on that accomodation's website. I then go to trip advisor to see what people say about the place and then I look at all the pictures. While I look at pictures, I look to see if people write about the number of the room they are in. If I see the room that I want, I then book with the hotel from the hotel website and request the room that I want. So really, I like TA for its pictures and I love it when people get specific on what room they were in. But I would never book a room from TA. I would never book a room from expedia either. I go straight to the source to do that. It seems you get a better deal anyways.

I use TripAdvisor quite a lot and have never had a problem with a place I found on there that got good reviews. I also check sites like booking and venere for additional reviews, as well as looking for posts in the TA forums. I agree that it's quite easy, most of the time, to spot the shill/fake reviews. Funny enough but I often learn more about an establishment with the negative reviews than the positive. when someone says "the location was great, the bed was fine, breakfast was OK but there was a stain on the floor" (or something like that) and gives it 2 stars, I know that this place is probably fine for me, LOL! I put in an awful lot of time researching to find the best mix of location, price, comfort, size, and amenities, and i think that's why I've never been disappointed by a choice. I think I've been pretty lucky to find an awful lot of very cheaply-priced hidden gems and I think it's because I take the time to read and ask questions, just as I'm sure a ton of others here do, too. that said, like others, I have only ever booked directly with the hotels.

TripAdvisor is right underneath Rick Steves on my favorites. I always use it. I have stayed at some awesome places abroad that I don't think I ever would have found had I not looked on TripAdvisor. Some of the places that Rick recommend got awful reviews. So I sort of use both Rick's books along with TripAdvisor to find places... I would never stay at an establishment that got terrible reviews on TripAdvisor. And I don't necessarily stay somewhere just because Rick recommended it. They're going to give him the absolute best service because of who he is. I want to know how other Joe Blows like myself enjoyed their stay...

I've actually been using TripAdvisor a lot more than ETBD lately (oh no!) because Rick doesn't really cover Sicily. There are other guidebook options, such as Lonely Planet, but they are all slightly to very out of date and while I am using them for general information, I don't want to rely on them for hotels or restaurants. I don't give any review especial weight without a good reason (i.e., I know the reviewer) but rather look for the overall tone and contents of all of the reviews. If most/many reviewers complain that the staff is unfriendly, I'll conclude the staff has issues. If one person complains about the staff, I'm likely to conclude that the staff member either was having a bad day or that the reviewer did or said something to cause the staff member to have a bad day! I also use the reviews to gather (hopefully) factual information that the guidebooks don't have space to print--like the pizza joint across the street has the best pizza in the neighborhood. I never book via TripAdvisor so that isn't an issue for me.

I agree, Liz..... The chances of having a nightmare stay somewhere that's rated #1 with 1000 reviews is slim. But if a hotel is rated #100 out of 110 in a city's reviews (and has a bad overall rating), and there are 50 reviews, there's a good chance that it's a craphole...

I've been on several trips to London, Paris, Rome, and Florence within the past 5 years and each time, I always cross reference the hotels with Trip Advisor and have made decisions based on the reviews posted. I can assure you that I have always been happy in every hotel that I picked. I generally use a travel agent and always showed up with my list of hotels that they are contacted with which I have crossed referenced with TA before hand. My advice is that it cannot hurt at all to use the site. It is travellers like you and me who normally post those reviews.

Lee, here is the TripAdvisor page for Weikersheim lodgings: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g1115251-Weikersheim_Baden_Wurttemberg-Hotels.html . (Put 'Weikersheim, Germany is the search box at the top left, not the 'Plan the Perfect Trip' search box. You are correct that TripAdvisor rarely provides contact information. For an innkeeper's establishment to have contact information, I believe the innkeeper must pay a fee to TripAdvisor. By requiring a fee, I agree with your 'W' comment. Still, four hotels are listed for Weikersheim and their contact information can be found with a Google search if they have any web presence at all. Like others, I find TripAdvisor reviews helpful and the forum help better still. TripAdvisor forums have much more activity than this Rick Steves forum and a much broader range of posters. This forum is good for fairly frugal travelers. If you want information about the Ritz or Michelin dining, go to TripAdvisor.

Like others, I use TA alot, BUT - I read about every review for a hotel that I can in order to get a general impression of the place taken as a whole. I have seen people rate a place low because of issues that show the reviewer's ignorance (the best one - no "top sheet" in a German hotel!). Between negative reviews based on ignorance of how hotels are run in Europe, and the occassional "bad day" on the hotel's part, a place can have a few bombs here and there. That is why you need to read as many reviews as you can in order to form a fair opinion. I have only left one negative review for a Munich Pension and that was based on MY assessment of a very bad experience. But, the vast majority of reviews are very positive. So, what should others carry away with them after reading all the reviews? That the place is fine.

The big issue with TA has been hotel owners and competitors "gaming" the reviews: competitor hotels submitting bad reviews and owners submitting rave reviews. TA has acknowledged this problem and says it's taking steps to curb gaming reviews; but some have asked, "can they catch all of them?" It's been suggested that a user of the site disregard or discount both the rave and nightmare reviews.

Once in a while the hotel owner will respond to a negative review and then it gets interesting. If the negative review is in the forum section, there can be a back and forth discussion, and sometimes the problem gets resolved, with the owner admitting there was a problem and offering a refund. This happened just yesterday on the Barcelona forum. On the other hand, sometimes the owner's response demonstrates that the slam review was unfair or bogus. It's always interesting to read the other side of the story.

I always use trip advisor, never for booking a room but to check user reviews. I have found a lot of useful information that way. You find information you wouldn't get otherwise such as noisy construction going on across the street or a convenient market a block away. Most of the reviews I have read for hotels we have stayed at have been pretty accurate and I appreciate the tips and advice of fellow travelers. I should also mention that I post user reviews myself with information I think others might find helpful. I always try to be very fair and accurate in in my reviews and try to provide information that others might find helpful.

Chip, that TripAdvison page you cited (which I had already seen), is a perfect example of what I don't like about TripAdvisor. They "mention" four hotels in Weikersheim, but only give three reviews, all for the most expensive one. There are no website links, no email addresses, no telephone or FAX numbers. Now, click on, for example, Deutschherren Stuben. It takes you to a page which has no additional information on Deutschherren Stuben, but does direct you to other properties, all 20 miles away, that can be booked through TripAdvisor. If you do a Google search for Deutschherren Stuben, the first link in this case is to the hotel's own website, but five of the next six links are to TripAdvisor webpages, which have no information about Deutschherren Stuben, but will try to direct you to other hotels that they do "book". This case is unusual. In most cases the hotel's own site is buried many pages back, preceded by multiple links for TA pages, giving you no information, just directing you to other hotels they book. This is a lot like bait and switch. On the other hand, the webpage for Weikersheim, www.weikersheim.de, shows ten "hotels", six in Weikersheim, four in adjacent towns. All ten show phone and/or FAX numbers, seven show email addresses, 5 have links to websites. It also shows a long list of apartments and farm houses.

I am still having trouble understanding why you label this website a "whore". Your original rant is that "their listings are only places from which they profit directly" and you mentioned this small town in Germany as an example-you could find no listings for Weikersheim. That was provenflat out WRONG by several people (and you have never acknowledged that) They list four hotels in that town, and they do not profit from listing them (because you can't book these hotels through Tripadvisor). So now you complain that 3 of the hotels have no reviews-but it is up to people who stayed there to write a review; Tripadvisor doesn't write them. All one has to to to write a review is a membership (just like here) and then write a review. Why don't you do that? Finally, you complain that there are no links to these hotels on the Tripadvisor website, and that if you go to Google their websites are lost among six others that are Tripadvisor sites. I'll just suggest that most people can tell the difference and know how to find a hotel's own website from the list that Google offers. We do it all the time. And I don't care if Tripadvisor offers a link because I wouldn't use it anyway; most people prefer to investigate the hotel's website and then e-mail them directly. That is not a legitimate complaint and a poor excuse for labeling the website a "whore". As for the commercial aspect-don't' you think that this website also serves to drum up business for RS books,tours, railpasses, luggage, etc? Nothing wrong with that, is there?

And Sasha has hit the nail on the head.

What is the point of the discussion of Weikersheim? I have never been there, have no idea of where it is in Germany, no idea as to why I should care and, even though Germany is my favorite destination in Europe, absolutely no interest in ever going to Weikersheim. Lee does not like TripAdvisor. Others do. So what?

ROFL...just a sec - gotta go get some more microwave popcorn and another beer...this is too funny... Count me as another firmly in the TA camp - I really like the photos that I can compare to the hotel's website photos. Also, as someone else pointed out, there's often a point in the reviews where the tide turns - perhaps a change in mgmt - and things go from great to awful, or vice versa, and that is often helpful info itself (terrible reviews until Dec 2008, then a chg in mgmt and now all's sunshine and unicorns). You just have to read between the lines...Americans want 'this', Brits don't like 'that', Germans appreciate 'this', etc...After a while I think I get a fairly good read of the place. Of course, some reviews are better than others...meaning more useful info, and not just a rant. The really good reviews flesh out a place, esp. when there are several of them saying roughly the same thing. And even at that, that doesn't mean they all agree thumbs up or down. For instance, 2 reviewers say, 'The room was small, and there was no top sheet.' #1 gives it a thumbs up, while #2 gives it a thumbs down...One is making a judgement, while the other simple stated what he experienced. I might stay somewhere with a tiny shower stall, strange breakfast, surly hosts, and highly recommend the place! The location is fantastic, can't beat the price, and breakfast didn't kill me; it was just 'different' LOL. Person #2 might have demanded his money back after the weird breakfast and immediately posted his review on TA.

I have also used Venere.com, and others, but start with TA. THEN, I go to the hotel website (per Google) and book directly with them. FWIW, I usually go to TA to look up a property I already have in mind, but TA saved my bacon when I needed a hotel in Bayeux on short notice (for Normandy). They had what turned out to be a pretty complete list of hotels, so I was confident that I had basically left no stone unturned. And I flipped over EVERY stone there!

If going to Europe I find a couple of places in the RS book then go to TA to see the recent reviews. Always disregarding the ones that complain about the rooms looking old etc. For US trips I have been very successful using TA solely as my means of finding a hotel.

Lee, one thing to consider is that a business (i.e. hotel) has to sign up with TripAdvisor.com in order to be listed - it's not automatic. Whether or not there is a fee involved with signing up, I do not know. We stayed at a small establishment in Bosnia a couple of years ago, and when we got home I wanted to give the place a glowing review on TripAdvisor. However, the place was not listed. So I contacted the owner, explained what TA is (turns out she'd never heard of it), and within a month she had her establishment listed and I gave it a review. More reviews have since followed mine. In your example of Weikersheim, where TA only lists a few hotels but you have found there are others out there, it could be that the other hotels are either not aware of TA or have chosen not to be listed. But TripAdvisor is not responsible for that, nor does it claim to list every hotel in the world. The business owner is responsible for deciding whether or not to open themselves up to the review process. TripAdvisor is simply a vehicle at which they can do so, and, it would seem, is among the most prevalent sites used by the traveling public worldwide.