When perusing user reviews such as Tripadvisor, I believe the credibility and quality of these need to be looked at with a critical eye.  I have used Tripadvisor and Urbanspoon on quite a few occasions and I believe they can contain extremely useful information and reviews.  However, I never read just one or two comments, I read many to understand the overall idea as to what the ‘general consensus’ is.  As long as one reads them with a critical mind, I believe they definitely have a place in the world we live in and I have had great success by choosing cafes or hotels based on these reviews.

I believe they could be used as evidence of the quality of services or products, however I do not believe this can be done alone as there needs to be other types of evidence to back this up.  This may include a panel of people who review these hotels or restaurants based on particular checklists and you can then make comparisons and put them together to get a ‘general’ idea.  It is like any review, people have different needs and wants as well as different opinions, some may agree with you and some may not.

It is difficult to believe that hotels would charge patrons who leave negative reviews and it is difficult to believe that this can even be legal in this day and age.  However, I am sure it has happened which is very disheartening to think is possible and it is also concerning as patrons who are aware of this act will not write what they actually believe and then the ‘general’ pattern of reviews is not as evident, or it may be written in a way that does not necessarily reflect the service.

We are living in an age where anyone can have an opinion published and I strongly believe the most important thing is to have a critical mind and encourage others to do the same.  Many of these reviews can be helpful as long as one keeps in mind how they may be filtered and what the reasons could be behind some of the comments.