Democracy in America
MANY people rely on TripAdvisor when booking their hotels and there is a kind of vicarious thrill to be had from reading about people's dreadful experiences: the dead rat found in the room fridge, the vomit left in the washbasin. But what about the rave reviews?
It seems likely that people will only be inspired to write a review if their experience is either very good or very bad, with the result that reviews will cluster in the five-star or one-star categories. Nevertheless, suspicions should surely be aroused when a hotel has a large number of five-star reviews where the contributor has reviewed no other establishment. Researching one establishment in California, your blogger found that more than half the five-star reviews were by sole contributors (or by people who had only reviewed this same hotel on more than one occasion); in contrast, three-quarters of those who awarded fewer than five stars were multiple reviewers.
Now it could be that regular reviewers tend to get more choosy about handing out five stars. But it could also be that hotels get friends to plug their establishment and move it to the top of the rankings. So how is the traveller to tell?