Every time I do my research for my next travel destination, I realise the problems with today’s review system and how broken it is. Between Google ratings, Yelp and TripAdvisor, I think most people have their sites for reviews covered. The problem lies not in the vagaries of reviews (the same place in the same week had a 1 and a 5) nor with the abilities of gaming the system (this one is hilarious if it was not so easy), the problem lies with not knowing the person who has given a 5 vs a person who has given a 1 and their likes and dislikes.
Before you read on, I do not have a solution to this conundrum.
I thought years ago, Google was on the right track when it created circles within its Google+ offering. It was brilliant, you could have hundreds of friends, but you could add them to different categories (without them knowing, o
f course). Taking this feature further, if this could be integrated with various review sites, you would then have a realistic understanding of what kind of people love (or hate) a place basis the categories you have placed them in. A person looking for a luxury stay will rate a backpacking stay much lower even though to the backpacker, it might be really good. And that is impossible to differentiate on a review site.
But then, Google+ never caught on, lost steam and eventually is getting retired this month. (Maybe, it has already been retired).
And we travelers keep going through the same set of reviews and websites and only hope for the best!
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