Manipulating hotel reviews?

How do you tell if someone is manipulating a review for a hotel? I have reservations at two hotel’s in Paris, one is the Hotel La Perle. I’ve been monitoring reviews and I’ve noticed that the rank for the hotel is climbing. However, very few reviews are written by people who have contributed other reviews or forum submissions. The last two reviews were posted (2 days apart) by people on opposite ends of the globe but they both joined TA in February (1 day apart) and both have stayed at Hotel La Perle but have no other submissions, history etc. Doesn’t that seem strange? Elcybeth

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As some might say on this board, %26quot;at least you were doing the searching before you came here!%26quot;.

Nevertheless, an excellent question you pose......... How DO you differentiate between hotels than have different reviews but the most recent are from %26quot;new%26quot; posters? If a new poster lists a link, I generally check it out. However, there have been several other threads over the last fews months that seemingly question whether certain hotels employ this board to %26quot;talk-up%26quot; their establishments at the expense of the others.

Best response, post as you did, soliciting individual comments regarding certain hotels. Keep an eye on the boards over the next several days, you should probably find an unbiased opinion. Check other boards like Venere.com or Virtualtourist.com for the same hotel.

Good luck!

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Elycbeth, I love the revewi board here, BUT, I also use others. I never accept just one bad reveiw as gospel,, I look for patterns.

I also go on Venere( the hotels have reveiws listed) and sometimes just type in the hotel name and review and fiind out what I can google.

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The short answer is that you can%26#39;t. What you need to do is look at the entire body of reviews. If you do, in the instance of the Hotel La Perle, that the hotel has been receiving very good (4) to excellent reviews (5) and comments from an overwhelming majority of past guests, over a fairly long period of time--3-4 years.

As previously noted, if you look at the %26#39;..pattern..%26#39; of reviews for this hotel, you will find that its satisfaction rating with past guests has been fairly consistent...and so two rave reviews within a day or two may be coincidental...but in the absence of any other suspicions, scarcely strange.

But with this---or any other--hotel or hotel rating system, what you should do is discard 25% of the most glowing and 25% of the most damning....and the 50% remaining is probably as close to any %26#39;..truth..%26#39; you%26#39;re likely to find.

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Elcybeth, a disproportionate amount of reviews by posters who have only that single review to their names would raise doubts in my mind. As others have said, check other sites for reviews. Venere has been mentioned, Expedia have recently started adding reviews %26amp; Active hotels are good to check for ratings.

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Of course, everyone has to have a first review and may read forum submissions but not contribute, so have genuine history on TA that isn%26#39;t visible yet .

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Just for fun and maybe to give people a specific chance to post something, I asked for lurkers to post their favorite bar, restaurant, and activity in Key West. At least a dozen people came out of the virtual closet to say that they followed the threads but didn%26#39;t think that they could contribute until asked. They appreciated the invitation. I%26#39;ll bet many people would reply if this were done here.

I follow the reviews of hotels and activities for Key West and it is amazing how many are posted by people whom I%26#39;m sure never post anythng on the forum or who asked a Q there before going. There have been some suspiscious posts for bars, but IMO none for a hotel on the island.

The curious thing is that there are occassionally replies posted as a review by the owners of a restaurant or hotel in an attempt to explain something that happened to cause a negative review.

Pjk

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Based on my own experience, I would say that at least when someone first starts posting they are more likely to make the effort if they were extremely impressed (whether positive or negative) and want to get the word out. Over time and as I read reviews for the purpose of researching hotels for my own stays, I came to realize that even so-so reviews are helpful (and regardless, one should try to explain why). But I don%26#39;t think you should necessarily suspect %26quot;the worst%26quot; just because there are only one or two from a particular person (among other things, it might be the only time that person has been to France, e.g., so they don%26#39;t have anything else to say at this point).

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Maybe they are lurkers.

I frequently tell people about this site.

Many people look at reviews and forums (without ever posting because they do not sign up as members) however I do not know if you have to be a member to post a review.

They may also feel they had previously had nothing to contribute as they had never traveled to Paris before and were hesitant to ask questions.

Before my trip I made a spreadsheet based on several items, TA ,Venere, and Booking.com, reviews and price, then sorted by area. I also looked at what people were objecting to in their reviews. I know the rooms are small in Paris however that was not my deciding factor. However if even one recent review said it was noisy it was deleted from my list. After I narrowed it down to the price range and area I was interested in I looked at that hotel%26#39;s website.

I then inquired about items that were not clear from any site.

I have just written a review for the hotel in London and am working on the one for Paris.

as someone else mentioned check other sites. one easy way to do that is click on the Check Price on TA, then uncheck any you do not want i.e Orbitz (which does not always bring back the hotel you are looking at). Then do a google search by the hotel name (and I used address also) to see how they describe themselves.

I like parisby.com, usually has a good selection of pictures but no reviews.

I booked through the hotel website for both London and Paris and got great deals. I was very satisfied with the both hotels. The one in London was getting very mixed reviews but for the location, price and amenties it was what I was looking for.

I would also consider the wording of the reviews, did they sound too similair, were their ratings for items such as suitable for? the same., were their stays at the same time?

However maybe they traveled together for a reunion (just a thought as I was hoping my son could join me and he lives in CA, I live in MO).

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