How to trust online reviews
When it comes to travel, there is an abundance of information available online. You can find reviews on everything from hotel booking sites to airport parking services, from reviews of tourist attractions to places to eat and more. But, how can you trust the reviews you’re reading?
Check the information out for yourself
We recommend that your first port of call should be the official page of the establishment or company you are thinking of using. This is because the data in reviews on third-party sites can often be outdated or incorrect. Worse, sometimes the review for a hotel, restaurant or company is accidentally referring to the wrong one altogether!
Trusting reviews can be hard, as some people just like to complain, so the reviews aren’t always fair. Similarly, people are often more likely to take the time to write about an issue than they are to report a positive experience.
That being said you will, more often than not, find some really useful information about a company, airport facility, or your next travel destination through reviews. To be on the safe side, we’d recommend checking a variety of review websites and the official company website to make sure you have the right information to hand. You don’t want any surprises on your travels after all.
Speak to friends and family about their experiences
Utilising the knowledge of your friends and family is a great way to get recommendations and information, especially when it comes to travel hacks. If you’re heading away on a European trip, there’s a good chance someone you know has already travelled to the most popular European destinations. With cities like Rome and Paris on a lot of bucket lists, you’ll probably find that there’s a huge wealth of knowledge available from your acquaintances about the key places to visit once at your destination too.
Getting recommendations about local transport, airport parking, where to stay or the best places to eat are often gained from chatting with people you know. So don’t be afraid to use this information to your advantage when deciding where to fly from or what airport facilities to use. Of course, everyone’s needs and wants can differ a lot. For example, if you’re driving to the airport for a city break, some people prefer off-site parking options as they are often cheaper, while others favour the convenience of parking close to the terminal so that it’s just a short walk away. Shopping around and finding the best deal is really easy online. So if you’re not sure which option to choose based on what you’ve learned from your friends, check out reviews and use that extra knowledge to make your final decision.
What to look out for in reviews
Reviews should really be a fair assessment of things that are within the control of the business or place that they are talking about. For example, you might read a negative review of a hotel that states there was a lot of traffic in the city, which meant getting to the hotel was difficult. This is clearly not fair to the hotel management because they can’t control the traffic flow of the city. So when looking at reviews, use your judgement to take those reviews with a pinch of salt when needed. Additionally, we recommend reading reviews from a range of dates and not just the most recent, as well as reading both negative and positive reviews. This way the reviews will paint a more accurate picture for you.
Are the reviewers active frequently?
Some reviewers leave a review for an array of experiences they’ve gone through. Other reviewers might leave one review for a good meal or a poor experience and then never write another review again. You can learn a lot about the accuracy of a review by reading other reviews from the same person. Are they all positive (or negative) comments? Or, do they have a range of feedback within their reviews? This will give you a good idea as to whether they’re fair in their assessments, or overly positive or negative on the whole.
To sum up
Reviews can be very helpful, but be wary of those that are extremely positive or extremely negative. Read several reviews, ideally from both the general public as well as more formal reviews from places like newspaper travel sections. Ask family and friends for their views and check the business sites themselves before deciding on the services to use.
