30/11/2022
Crowdsourced Mistakes: How to Use (and Not Use) Review Sites for Your Next Trip
Dreary December can be a good time to start thinking (and dreaming) ahead to future travels. Like a lot of people, when I'm scouting a trip, I spend a lot of time looking at "crowdsourced" review sites, such as TripAdvisor, Booking.com, or Yelp. However, because I'm also a guidebook author, I take the "advice" I find on those sites with a grain of salt.
This week, my travel memoir, The Temporary European, is on a big sale: The print edition is 30% off at the Rick Steves Travel Store (https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/temporary-european), and the Kindle edition is a screamin' deal at just $1.99 this week only at Amazon (https://a.co/d/eqW0GqT) . (Of course, you can also pick up a copy at your favorite local bookstore.)
To whet your appetite for this perfect stocking stuffer, and also suggest some "pro tips" as you plan your next trip, here's an excerpt from my chapter called "I've Been in Your Hotel Room: A Day in the Life of a Guidebook Researcher":
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On a sultry autumn evening in Dubrovnik, under a hazy pink twilight sky, my wife and I were enjoying a quiet, romantic dinner on a back lane. Five minutes in, two boisterous American couples were seated a few feet away.
Soon they began chatting us up, completely missing our signs that we preferred to dine alone. When meeting fellow travelers in Europe, I make a snap judgment whether to "out" myself as a travel writer — depending on the mood I'm in and, frankly, whether they seem worth getting to know. In this case, after they flat-out asked, for the third time, what we were doing on our trip, I committed the tragic error of saying that I was updating a guidebook.
Usually this sparks a lively conversation. But for this gang, it glanced off their windshield. "Guidebooks, huh?" they said. "Yeah, I guess some people still use those. We don't bother. Have you heard of TripAdvisor? That's all we need! Our rule is to always stay at the number one hotel on TripAdvisor, and only eat at restaurants in the top five."
And then, unsolicited, they rattled off horror stories from their trip. At a rental apartment, they'd come home one afternoon to find the proprietor's father making himself at home, watching TV on their couch. They reported unimpressive, overpriced meals with unfriendly service. They'd wasted time and money on overhyped activities while completely missing beautiful little experiences between the tourist traps. They were about to leave Croatia disappointed and unimpressed.
It took every fiber of my being not to connect the dots for them. But why bother? Clearly, they already had all the answers. My wife and I finished our meal as quickly as possible, skipped desert, and disappeared into the once-again-sleepy back lanes of Dubrovnik.
Crowdsourced review sites — like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and Yelp — have become a juggernaut on the travel information landscape. European businesses are both impressed and horrified by the power of these sites. One flustered French hotelier told me, "I don't like those sites. The commissions have gotten so high. But I can't just refuse to work with them. After all, you have to be in the supermarket."
Railing against review sites is as futile as complaining about the weather. But let's consider how they relate to the work I've been doing for 20-plus years.
I wouldn't blame you for thinking that guidebooks — with information printed on paper — are old-fashioned and hopelessly out of touch. But guidebooks have the advantage of being carefully assembled by experts rather than an anonymous panel of amateurs.
A tourist-driven review site reflects the collected opinions of people who've been on vacation in a given place for just a few days. They can report only what they personally experienced, without the benefit of comparison. A guidebook researcher is trained to assess and describe a wide cross-section of options. We're curators, not tourists. Frankly, I don't put much weight in the opinion of someone who had ice cream once during their trip and then raves, "The best gelato in Italy!"
All of that said, I do refer to these sites when researching guidebooks. A pattern of terrible reviews — for example, noise complaints — is cause for extra scrutiny when I visit. And if a new business is getting raves, I may be more inclined to check it out. But everything is independently evaluated, in person, by a trained researcher.
And that's how I suggest travelers use crowdsourced review sites: Don't dismiss them out of hand. But take their "advice" with a grain of salt, and supplement them with other types of information.
A few pro tips: In general, hotel ratings are more reliable than restaurant ratings. Regardless, don't just skim star ratings; delve into details.
Learn how to read between the lines. On a site with a mix of local and tourist reviews, put more weight in the former.
If people rave about the business owner with suspiciously few details about the business itself, they were charmed by the personality but, perhaps, disappointed with the rest of the experience.
And if something in particular matters to you — for example, noise at a hotel, or vegetarian options at a restaurant — search within the reviews to isolate the relevant ones.
No matter how good a review site is, a trusted local is even better. For example, in small towns in Great Britain, nobody has a better handle on the restaurant scene than a B&B host. They welcome a steady stream of guests looking for dinner recommendations — and then, the next morning, they spend breakfast debriefing their guinea pigs. If a place is slipping, they'll hear about it. If there's a hot new table in town, they're on it. If the town has four seemingly interchangeable curry houses, they know which one is cheap, which one is the best quality, and which one you should avoid. Busy as I am, I'll lavish time on getting the restaurant scoop from a B&B owner even if it means I have to scramble the rest of the day.
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What are your best tips for how best to use crowdsourced review sites?
If you've enjoyed this except, consider picking up a copy of my book, The Temporary European — at your local bookstore, for 30% off as part of our Holiday Sale at the Rick Steves website, or for the low, low price of $1.99 on Kindle...this week only!
