What You Should Know About TripAdvisor.com

Picture Courtesy of: TripAdvisor.com

Okay so here's the deal with TripAdvisor.com, it's not accurate and you shouldn't rely on it entirely.

What's TripAdvisor.com?

It's a website that allows travelers to rate and comment on their hotel/resort, quality of food, location, beaches, targeted travelers and a lot more. It's a great and interesting site, but the fact that it's an open forum where anyone can write and post comments, leaves a lot of room for inaccurate ratings from people who in reality have never even been to these locations.

Why Should I be Careful?

Everyone has different expectations about what their dream vacation should be like and yours isn't necessarily theirs so someone might give one hotel/resort a really bad rating while an other fully enjoyed and recommends that very same place. That's why you have to be careful, trusting word by word someone's rating just doesn't give a global, overall view of what places have to offer.

Is There Anything Good About TripAdvisor.com?

Yes. What TripAdvisor.com is really good at doing, is providing travelers with precious feedback. With that feedback, TripAdvisor.com then takes it and averages the ratings to provide you with their own rating. This is good. When you search for a certain hotel/resort, you'll notice on the top right corner the TripAdvisor.com rating for your search result, if it's low, that means most people didn't like their experience. This gives you a pretty clear idea that if most people were disappointed then you might be too, but again be cautious and don't take everything for cash. This is what the TripAdvisor.com page looks like when doing a search. You'll notice that another good thing about this site is that you can browse easily through it, very user friendly.

Things To Remember

1. TripAdvisor.com isn't all bad but it isn't all good either. Just remember that everyone is different and everyone's expectations are different too.



2. The higher the rating the more likely you are to enjoy the vacation.



3. Low ratings don't mean anything unless the are so low that perhaps you should rethink that specific location, destination, and/or resort/hotel.



4. It's a great research and preparation tool but shouldn't be taken too seriously.



5. If you're not certain and some comments are making you reconsider, try contacting a participant, usually, those who post a comment leave an e-mail address, so ask them personally what exactly they didn't like and, of course, what they did. This will give you more context on the actual rating.

Researching and preparing for a vacation should be fun, not stressful. Many people get caught-up in the ratings and get discouraged or put themselves in doubt, the purpose of TripAdvisor.com is only to give a very isolated glimpse of what others thought about the place you want to visit. Take it with a grain of salt and remember, a bad trip can turn into a great trip if you so choose it that way. You are master of the outcome.