Reviews have become an important part of the decision making process perhaps more so in the travel sector where the choices for transport (plane, train, bus, other) and accommodation are plentiful.
Wading through five hundred places to stay at a destination is made significantly easier if there are reviews about each place. Certainly for me, this a very important aspect when selecting where to spend my time and money.
Photos uploaded by reviewers are also important as is any info in addition to the official line of blurb.
Some sites will push up five star reviews; whether this is by design or because of vendor sponsorship, I don't know.
I write reviews for Booking.com because a 10 percent 'Genius' discount is given as a reward once a certain number is reached. Brilliant.
But the way Booking.com calculates the review is based on answers you give to a series of questions. Fair and means the system is designed to g
This week I came across a new - devious - review method.
On a travel site - not Booking.com - someone had left a review with five stars (the highest accolade) and a stunning endorsement in the first line.
So far so good.
But the reviewer then used a second paragraph of around 200 words to explain why it was far from a five star experience. It was a total trashing. The post ended with a third line repeating the first line.
I don't know if it works or whether people complain and the stars are downgraded. Yet it does achieve the objective of leaving a review that fools people into believing it is positive feedback.
Imagine being an employee of a hotel and reading the latest five star review only to read something negative? Fooled by the opener and destroyed in the second paragraph.