Thanks for writing about this Arthur (and for the mention of our website).

The problem isn't just the hotels and their staff, but their competition and their staff, the PR firms and their staff, etc., etc.

The state of our economy and the dire situation in the hotel industry has rapidly exacerbated the problem.

Aloha, Jeff
http://beatofhawaii.com

I'm also surprised that not every hotel owner has rallied all his/her friends to bombard the internet with positive reviews. Wouldn't you?

I have used Trip Advisor for years and found it to be pretty reliable. You have to look at the bulk of the posts and see what's up. If a place is truly bad, but the owners are having friends post positive reviews, then the actual people who do stay there will post WTF reviews. I found some of the best hotels ever using Trip Advisor, such as Park Hotel Tokyo and Denali's Lakeside Lodge. I always post after I stay someplace also. So here's a vote for the utility of Trip Advisor from someone who has used it for years.

REMEMBER CRUISECRITICGATE (CRUISE CRITIC IS OWNED BY TRIPADVISOR):

From Jaunted (Conde Nast):


http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/3/16/12635/4598/travel/Royal+Caribbean+Cruises+Has+Web+2.0+Viral+Infection

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.

Give me a break! Hotels and many other large hospitality properties have been hit by the economic downturn and are hurting for transient business. Because of their lower occupancy rates and perhaps even reduced rates, they are not staffed in such a way to send all these so called fraudulent/fake reviews we're reading about. That would be a luxury at this time to have staff available to "pad the ballot box!"
TripAdvisor.com can be and will continue to be a valuable tool for travelers. Just like any other resource available to us, we need to weigh its value.I'm a very small business owner in the hospitality sector and if I ask my guests to share their B & B experience and they are indeed very pleased with this "value added" experience, they are more than willing, even excited to say "Hey, this is great! More people should try it out." I'm committed to the belief that if I give a 110% my reviews will be positive. Thanks, TripAdvisor.com....when I get a chance to getaway, I look to you for help!