I travel at least 5 to 10 trips a year, checking in and out of hotels, trying out restaurants and tour companies, many times on my own money, so I can remain unbiased in consulting with my clients.

And I was astounded a few years ago when I made a trip to one of my favorite small Caribbean islands, I stayed in 3 hotels during my 6 nights of close inspection. I had only intended on staying in 2 of them.

I went 2 nights ahead of the Island’s Tourist Board Fam trip for selected travel agents, so I could look around on my own, and stay in a hotel that had high ratings on Trip Advisor.

The Resident Manager told me that he read Trip Advisor every morning at home before coming to the hotel, to see what comments were made about his hotel and also had his key staff members to the same thing, and at their weekly meeting discussed it.

He had worked very hard since coming to that hotel from another top property to correct and teach his staff, and had moved the hotel higher in the rankings of Trip Advisor by really listening to those comments and improving his hotel.

I applauded his efforts as it showed. Even though he was very careful in what he said about the next hotel I was going to check into, (based on trip advisor comments, it was in the top 10) he warned me that since I was a person who honestly looked at everything, I would probably find it hard to fathom how the next hotel stayed in the top 10 on Trip Advisor for that island.

He was correct. This hotel had been sold about 8 months before, by an owner who was very well liked, but had run out of money, renovating his small hotel and quietly sold it. Most travel agents and the general public were not aware of this.

The new owner had grand plans, moved in construction equipment and huge bags of supplies in the front and parking lot, which caused lots of dirt, tearing up of the flowers and shrubs, and made it quite an eyesore as one arrived by taxi or car down the driveway.

The swimming pool, which was supposed to have been totally redown, was cracked, with wierd looking water, and the lounge chairs around had seen better days. Since the pool was right next to the small separate check in building, you could not help but notice this.

Then came the rooms, plumbing did not work correctly, the cable tv was always on the fritz, and the air conditioning either worked some time or did not, it was a crap shoot.

They had one great asset, the place was on a great beach, but their beach stand with the “comp” snorkel gear, beach chairs, beach towels, water for guests and beach attendant was not happening.

Then their was the “renowned” restaurant on site, that was quiet and empty 90% of the time, because it also had possibly a “new owner” and had a cook that was not very good. The Tastee diner in Fairfax Virginia has better meals.

So the restaurant/bar would just close at different hours if they did not get enough reservations. You would walk to dinner, and find the place had closed for the evening or closed early. IF a dining spot posts hours, which they did, and you don’t expect it to find it shut.

That forced the small amount of us, who were in shock by day 2, to rent a car or call a cab and go out for dinners. Then there was the fine hotel security, they boasted in their ads of having.

One night as several of us came back by cab at 10pm after dinner, hardly a late hour, the outdoor lights were mainly out ( I guess to save money) so as we were walking to our rooms, in the dark, this tall image emerges on the sidewalk, yelling at us to halt. We were in shock.

Since he was wearing a tee shirt, rumpled shorts,and bare feet, how were we supposed to know he was the security guard, much less the entire hotel security force.

He turned out to be from Jamaica or Haiti, and lived at night on the site, mainly because so much of the construction supplies were getting stolen. How he could think 4 older ladies, dressed up, were a security threat, I am not sure.

Our maid told us they should have just closed the hotel down for a year and fixed it up right, instead of trying to have guests, (so they could get some room revenue) She said, guests love the beach, but they are in shock about the quality of the hotel, and keep saying, it sounded so great on Trip Advisor.

So I asked a couple of the local hotel General Managers and owners, and I was amazed at their answers. They said the guy has his friends and relatives in the States and the UK (which make up about 80% of the travelers to this island) write good letters about the place.

I replied, you mean hotel owners and executive managers actually have old friends and relatives write positive reviews, when they have NEVER even stayed theres.

They laughed, and said, you with all your world travels over the years, are naive about the abuses online, there are no laws or rules that are really enforced on these websites, we do the same thing.

I was in shock, as many of these people had 4 and 5 star properties, why would they need to do that. Simple they said, the ratings on these sites, like trip advisor. The public believes all these comments and ratings, and a dump can be rated number one for a while, if the owner gets enough high ratings, then our hotel gets down in ratings and the public does not book us as much.

So we all engage in having postive comments written by friends and relatives, they don’t publish any full names or addresses about the “travelers” commenting and they don’t ever seem to check on any comment, positive, or negative. It goes up.

One GM who does run a fine property highly rated, said, for a while when all these internet advisor sites came on the scene, most comments were from REAL travelers, but just like anything else, there are a few slippery owners or managers, and when owners found out, they could have friends writing high comments about their hotel, and nobody stopped them, this started the fake reviews, and it is wide spread now.

While I can appreciate trip advisor, and many other sites like it, I really don’t see trip advisor or any site doing one darn thing about checking up on the validity of comments and removing hotels. It would cost them too much money.

From Jaunted (Conde Nast):

Royal Caribbean Cruises Has Web 2.0 Viral Infection

No surprise here: Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has a viral infection. For once, however, it’s not the Norovirus but that new-fangled byproduct of Web 2.0, the viral marketing infiltration. According to Consumerist, a group of fifty “Royal Champions” was outed by their own creator, the Customer Insight Group, as being a successful project whereby frequent positive cruise commenting on sites such as CruiseCritic was rewarded with free cruises and other perks.
So what’s the big deal? Well, it seems that the “Royal Champions” weren’t always up front about their status as compensated reviewers, effectively misleading readers of CruiseCritic forums with their positive comments. Add to this the fact that CruiseCritic admins assisted Royal Caribbean in choosing the fifty, with one of the stipulations being quantity of posts, “with many having over 10,000 message board posts on various Royal Caribbean topics.” From here, the hole just gets deeper.
Now that many RC fans feel slighted at not having made the ranks and most everyone else is disgusted at the covert trade of cruising for happy juicing, the trustworthiness of such forums is under fire.
Due to CruiseCritic’s ownership by TripAdvisor, which is in turn under the Expedia blanket of travel sites, a viral marketing stunt gone awry could possibly continue to negatively ripple. Does news like this affect your ability to trust good reviews on travel sites, or do you already consider yourself an excellent shill-spotter enough to weed out the solicited from the unsolicited? While this whole ordeal is mired in serious muckety-muck, let’s hope it serves as a lesson for future viral marketers and as an argument for transparency.

They do not realize that:
1) Much online (and print) content is not written that way anymore. For instance, many sources are to reliant on sponsors to ever criticize them. Especially in the travel industry, many “travel journalists” are given free stays or meals. Check Ruth Reichl on how that corrupts honest reviews http://www.ruthreichl.com/?ID=2

2) It is not the individual reviews that count in web2.0. It is the synergistic totality that counts. Users understand very well that some people are grumpy or easily excited. As much as you would trust the advise of one paragraph in a guide book, you need 15 paragraphs, preferably from three websites in web2.0 to be sure.

However, it is really hard to corrupt 25 million reviews, just as it is really hard for a guidebook publisher to visit as much hotels and restaurants as the public does.

Last. Anybody who doesn’t believe in the power of web2.0, go ask the Iranian leadership how that’s going for them.