Yes, yes, user reviews are important and everyone likes them and finds them useful. Funny how the New York Times wrote this article since we at Perfect Escapes wrote one very similar to it a few months ago, although our take was a bit different: The Problem with User Reviews. We also ran an article from Hotel Chatter that exposed a hotel writing its own review on Trip Advisor but not being transparent about the practice.
Sites like Trip Advisor, Igougo, FlyerTalk, Travelpost, Gusto and others do provide a service, such as finding out information from real people who stayed at hotels you are interested in learning about. But these are how reviews have been done for years.
I’m still more interested at how reviews like this can be more integrated, such as in a Wiki (see either Wikitravel or TripAdvisor Inside (their Wiki section), or our very own Great Hotel Description Wiki Experiment, Volumes 1, 2, and 3.)
But it is interesting to see the New York Times cover the topic of hotel user reviews.
Below is a brief of the article by Nana Rausch and the link to the article:
The Web Gives Hotel Guests the Last Word
NEARLY every morning, over his second cup of coffee, Tom Brady, general manager at the Affinia Chicago, logs onto his computer and surfs over to TripAdvisor.com to see if there are any new postings about his hotel.
“It’s an obsession,” he said. If the review is positive he moves on. If it’s unfavorable — like the complaint posted in March from a guest who had received a $90 parking ticket because of a valet’s error — he’s on it immediately. In that case, he marched straight out to the valet to find out what had happened. After identifying the guest, he made sure that the company issued an apology and a reimbursement for the ticket.
“This is all over the world,” he said, describing his concern about any negative comment on TripAdvisor. “Everyone is looking at this. I’ve got to make sure it’s solved quickly, so God forbid someone else doesn’t have the same problem.”
The individual traveler’s word is weightier than ever. Before the advent of travel review sites like TripAdvisor, IgoUgo.com and MyTravelGuide.com, customer complaints about dirty showers or threadbare sheets typically went to hotels directly and discreetly in the form of comment cards, phone calls or e-mail messages. But as review sites have become more popular, customer feedback that was once viewed only by a hotel’s staff is increasingly being posted online for all to see, enabling guests to share their praise or air their gripes publicly.
Tags: Chicago, New York, Perfect Escapes
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