Hotel reviews are a great way of determining whether a hotel is worth handing over cash to or not. However, an influx of “scam” reviews could see holidaymakers disappointed. Experts reveal how to tell the truth from fiction. Hotel reviews have changed as the internet has evolved, with many guidebooks being pushed aside in favour of online reviewing platforms. Furthermore, in many parts of the world hotel review systems vary compared with the official ratings in place in the UK. Travel journalist Simon Calder and former BBC producer Mick Webb for a new this week discussed how travellers can spot the ever-growing hotel review “scams” which often catch holidaymakers out. Joined by Lonely Planet guidebook writer David Else, they identified how best to spot accurate reviews. The prevalence of hotel scams is one that is particularly relevant when it comes to online “customer written” reviews. This is largely because these often anonymous reviews are sometimes not really written by the general public at all. There will be reviews online which might be written online by somebody who may or may not have stayed in that hotel. According to Mr Calder, there are some simple ways to distinguish who may have written an accommodation review. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. This is true of hotels in the UK as well as those further afield. The second from the proprietor’s spouse or partner, again very favourite. What he suggests is weeding out some of the top and bottom reviews, to get an overall opinion of what the hotel is truly like.
In the Girls Under-12, the rating favourite was Machteld Van Foreest from the Netherlands, the only player who was rated above 2000 (her two older brothers Jorden and Lucas are grandmasters). However, she started with a loss and could not really get into the big fight for the medals, although at the end tied for the third. The other rating favourite, Amina Kairbekova from Kazakhstan, stood well but finished badly. Thus the battle for first place was between Umida Omonova from Uzbekistan and Savitha Shri from India. The former made one draw more and had to settle for the silver. “Congratulations to Savitha Shri Baskar for winning World under 12 girls championship! Coming from a very tough economic background, this is a fantastic achievement. Like many talented players, she will face the similar challenge of finding someone who can financially support her for further progress. The bronze went to Emilia Zavivaeva from Russia, thanks to her having the best tiebreak.
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Each review also includes photos from when the reporter stayed in the hotel (not the fancy photos pulled from the hotel’s website), a map with nearby hotels, and user comments/reviews. Currently, Oyster, which launches in beta tomorrow, only provides reviews for hotels in Aruba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Miami and plans to add New York City and Las Vegas in the near future. These lack of options are no doubt limiting and even in the current coverage areas, not every hotel is listed. For example, in Jamaica, there are only 40 hotels listed for the entire country. TripAdvisor lists over 300 hotels, in addition to lists of vacation rentals and B&Bs. To date, Oyster has raised $6.4 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Accelerator Ventures and angel investors in March 2008 and plans to raise a Series B round in the near future. The co-founder of Oyster Hotel Reviews, Elie Seidman, says Oyster will make money off of traditional CPM based ads from relevant partners (Jamaica’s tourism board, airlines etc.). Each time a user books through one of these engines from a lead created by Oysters, the site gets a cut. The online travel industry has a whole is incredibly crowded-and there are many services out there that provide reviews of hotels including TripAdvisor, Fodors, Frommers and TripKick. I think the comprehensive, journalistic, unbiased style of Oyster’s reviews are certainly useful, but the startup will need to scale its number of reviews and coverage areas to be a serious competitor.
