About Trip Advisor — Trip Advisor Advisory

There’s a lot of great information to be had and helpful consumers posting insightful and useful reviews on generated content marketing sites like Expedia.com's TripAdvisor but according to Fox News "Right now, the fake review problem is endemic." and specifically "You'll find them on TripAdvisor." 

They go on to warn "Beware! The Internet can be full of lies and misdirection." and describe the same sort of fraud that The Today Show highlights in the segment below about Fake Reviews and Fraud on Trip Advisor in Costa Rica.

Fake Reviews on TripAdvisor have gotten so bad even the fake reviewers say it's out of control as seen in this 2011 story on the Today show

Costa Rica fake reviewer 'Billy' - "if it takes a fake review on tripadvisor to get more people in your door, I don't see why that's wrong."
Today Show reporter - "Billy admits he's been doing it for years, setting up fake e-mail addresses and user names...Why are you coming forward with this now?"
'Billy' - "I think it's gotten out of control, it's gone - it's gone way bigger... it's just gotten way out of hand."

travel writer Edward Hasbrook - "I was at a travel conference not long ago where one of the largest advertising agencies told this audience they had an entire division in a third-world country where labor is cheap who were already prepared and available to post favorable reviews and say good things about whatever their client paid them to do."

Avoiding The Fakes
The advice given by "experts" at the end of the video on how to avoid the fraud is shockingly naive and leaves you completely at the mercy of the con artists,
Today Show reporter - "The key is take the amazing ones with the over the top language 'this was the best time I ever had, the most fantastic meal I ever had.' and the worst, right 'this is the worst time I ever had, it was skanky and filthy' - throw those out."

Throw out the best and the worst since they are obviously fake and just look at the middle ones is terrible advice. Unlike 'Billy" in the video most of the con artists are not marketing amateurs - small hotel owners who post obviously fake reviews that get removed by tripadvisor's moderators or ignored as extreme - they are professionals with teams of copywriters who turn out "middle ones" by the dozens.

They aren't trying to convince you that you'll be carried into the night by cockroaches if you stay in the hotel; they're trying to raise the average rating and make you reasonably certain one place is better than another. They're better at writing "believable" reviews than real people are - they're professionals and the extreme reviews you toss out may well be the overly enthusiastic experiences of real people who just had a fantastic or terrible time.

I’ve participated for years and contributed thousands of (hopefully helpful) answers and reviews to many travel sites and communities…BUT…as a traveler you should keep in mind that not onl are they used professional fraudsters to con and lie to you but they were designed, created and are operated by teams of professional marketers at companies like Expedia (the parent of tripadvisor) with the goal of profiting from your visit.

TripAdvisor is a Sales Tool for Expedia
Few people are aware that TripAdvisor is a for profit sales and marketing tool for Expedia.com.  Of course it works better as a sales tool if people aren't aware they are being marketed to. Expedia sells the hotels and restaurants being discussed and rated and other travel services are prohibited from ratings because they compete with, rather than rely on, Expedia.

Any comment or rating that does not benefit Expedia.com may disappear from TripAdvisor without explanation. There is no appeal or review process.

Not only is TripAdvisor biased by their profit motive they sometimes wander into questionable marketing territory as evidenced by their use of pop-under advertising and other dirty tricks more commonly utilized on gambling and adult web sites.

Even if you assume that TripAdvisor would shun profit in the name of fair play, you've already seen in the Today Show video report that some of the contributors will not.  Just as there is a multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to moving websites to the top of the Google search results there are professionals who make a good living moving hotels up in the ratings (or their competition down) on TripAdvisor and the manipulation is readily apparent in a small independent market like Costa Rica.

Internet Savvy is the Same Thing as Knowing How to Run a Lodge…Right…?
A less sinister bias is introduced by the difference between savvy and naïve businesses. 

Owners who recognize the big profits to be made from good ratings on trip advisor use all sorts of techniques like computers with free internet in the lobby that have trip advisor showing as the homepage or offering free drinks or discounted rooms in exchange for a review.  We haven’t seen any attempt to limit it to good reviews, but really, how many people are going to have the chutzpa to write “this place stinks” then request their discount?

I'm not suggesting that businesses who understand and use internet marketing are unethical, but many places with excellent, settings, service and amenities (especially mom and pop local operations) aren’t aware of the power of TripAdvisor so don’t make an effort to move up or defend themselves against spurious attacks. 

In 2011 a Costa Rican hotel and a Costa Rican B&B made it into the TripAdvisor top ten in the world in their respective categories.  They’re both nice places and we recommend them at times.  But, I’ve been around the world and neither belongs on a list of the top 1,000 let alone the top ten.

They are on the list because of advertizing professionals who know how the system works and know how to work the system.

Do you really want to choose a hotel based mainly on how marketing and internet savvy the management is, or how much money they have to spend on “rankings advisors”?

Attitudes Count – a Lot!
Even if you manage to identify legitimate sober contributors, good luck getting anything useful out of them. 

We’ve seen totally opposite reviews of the exact same property and the strange thing is that everything in each of them is completely true.  Take the two hypothetical examples below.

Zero stars – The racket every morning was unbelievable!  Even with the pillow over my head I couldn’t sleep past 5:00 a.m. and when I finally gave up and climbed in the shower I had to jump back out and call the manager because there was a lizard the size of my hand on the wall.  We had to postpone - and finally cancel - our guided hike because it rained every afternoon.  We had to climb practically up a cliff to get to the restaurant and the food was boring and awful and they didn’t have a single one of my favorites on the menu.  What totally stunk was that there was nothing else around for miles so we couldn’t even go somewhere else.

Five stars – The wildlife and isolated setting was amazing.  Howler monkeys and cicadas started calling us out to the trails before dawn, and one morning when we returned drenched (it is the rain forest after all) but happy we watched for half an hour as a gecko hunted right in the corner of our open air shower.  One evening on the short walk back from dinner to our room we saw three sloths, a huge tarantula in its hole on the embankment, and these incredibly unique wild eyed hopping birds called night-jars. Speaking of dinner the food was simple but all organic and very fresh (they have their own garden) and I was delighted that everything on the menu was a chance to try a new local dish.

Now I’ve made the contrast almost a parody of two types of travelers so it would be pretty easy to decide which review fits your own style but it’s not always so obvious.  Mr. zero stars might have benefitted from speaking with a Costa Rican travel professional who could have arranged accommodations that kept the wilderness at a comfortable distance.

Another thing to consider is that a VERY small number of travelers and “experts” make up the vast majority of the contributors.  Around two million visitors travel to Costa Rica every year.  Based on the number of responses on the top 20 sites, less than one in ten thousand travelers contribute or comment - and remember some of those responses come from professionals with profit motives.

Guide Books and Forums
Communities maintained by guide books can reasonably argue that only by providing an environment conducive to sharing accurate, helpful and unbiased information can they achieve their goal of being the authority that you should choose when it comes time to purchase a guide.  They may make a sincere effort to “keep it clean” but there is no way they can completely prevent outside professionals from promoting and mudslinging.

When you receive an answer to a query on one of these sites keep in mind that as many as half of the responses may be profit motivated.

So Who CAN You Trust?
We’re not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that the only things you’ll find on TripAdvisor are paid placements or reviews blurred by the influence of free cocktails.  Some of what you see is real, just be aware that some is not.

In one six month burst of activity I personally answered over half of the Costa Rica enquiries on a dozen guidebook and travel forums.  Just for fun I became the expert on each of them in about an hour a day.  Now I know I could have made thousands of dollars doing the same thing and simply skewing my answers in a promotional manner.

I rarely answer enquiries on travel sites now.  However, if you e-mail me a question I’ll still do my best to respond - free of charge and with no bias other than my personal opinion.

When it comes right down to who you can really trust the answer is probably only friends and family.  First hand recommendations are a great source, especially since you know the recommender and can adjust their comments based on them being more adventurous or luxury minded than you. That's why our business has no marketing department or budget and rely on word of mouth and excellent performance to grow.

Get professional help.  There are businesses out there whose existence depends on providing helpful, accurate professional travel advice.  They publish guidebooks and operate travel agencies. Use someone recommended by friends or family if you can, then make sure they’re certified with the Costa Rican travel associations (ICT and Cantur) and check them out with the Better Business Bureau or other organizations that specialize in protecting consumers from bad business practices.

Toucan Maps Inc. - Costa Rica Guide is a U.S. based corporation whose main objective is to provide useful information and planning assistance for travelers including publishing the best map in print and the most current, informative and helpful integrated map, directory and information website available for Costa Rica.
Pacific Trade Winds S.A. is a Costa Rica based company whose main objective is to provide exceptional value for full service planning, no nonsense prepaid reservations and in country client support for worry free private vacations in Costa Rica.

In order to provide full service to travelers each company is independently owned and operated because there are some things a U.S. company just can't do in Costa Rica and vice versa. Each company is certified by the appropriate business and travel quality assurance organizations (see details)