A place I used to work was absolutely obsessed with their TripAdvisor rating, like literally to the point that they were afraid if they got one bad review, it would start a snowball effect and ruin them. Do people really think of the reviews on their as a totally accurate representation of everyone's experience at a particular establishment? My experience has been that a lot of the people who actually take the time to sit down and write reviews are actually the whiners who like to whine about everything and they don't represent the majority of customers at all.
I have a friend who is a tour guide and it's really important to him. If they get bad reviews the owner always replies and they like to say they are the number one attraction on Trip Advisor in town. For them it's business and it matters, but you can sift out the good reviewers from the whiners.
I think reviews are important to the business owners. I, myself always read the reviews before I go to a certain restaurant, hotel or place to give me an idea of the place and what to expect and not to expect. Not all reviews are bad and just what Theo said you can sift out the good reviewers from the whiners.
Companies worrying about the reviews on sites like trip advisor can only be a good thing. It shows the websites are doing their job and it makes sure companies know how the public feel about them. If they get a bad review, they know what to improve on.
Like others have said, it's easy to spot the people who probably wouldn't be pleased with anything. You can tell by the "ranting" tone they tend to take. I'll often take a quick look at Trip adviser before I go somewhere but I certainly don't base my decision on whether to visit or not solely on the reviews.
People usually want to inform themselves before making a choice regarding the place they will visit/stay at, and Tripadvisor is the most popular website that offers this kind of information service. It makes sense for hotel owners, for example, to ensure that people have a great time at their place, not only because they will fidelize those specific people, but they will do so with a wide range of them, so it's important for them to have positive reviews all over the Internet and be careful about every single one, because a bad one could cause a chain effect and make them lose even 100 potential clients.
I don't really pay much attention to the reviews because not all of them are authentic. I'm in the SEO field and we often have clients from the tourism industry that commission my colleagues to write good reviews for them at particular sites. That's why I'd rather go and see the place myself instead of rely on reviews.
I love Trip Advisor and a bad rating would definitely affect my decision to book somewhere. Whether I buy through priceline, hotels.com or any site I still check for good ratings to determine where I want to stay or what I want to do.
I do think TripAdvisor is important as it's global and comes up high on search engines and also advertises the properties. It keeps standards high, but it also allows the disgruntled to air their views unfairly. I mean why complain online when you didn't do anything about it at the time. If you did and it wasn't resolved, fine, but some people seem to want to find fault for the sake of it. Fortunately you can spot the whiners.
I always tend to browse Tripadvisor, but less to read the reviews and more to look at the photos. I tend to look at the photos of guests rather than those from the hotel, as it gives a less airbrushed picture of the place.
TripAdviser, like most travel websites, contains a large number of fake reviews. That's just part of being a review site. I do find the site mostly reliable nonetheless, and I check out TripAdviser for various tidbits of information. Rating's not the only factor I'll use to choose accommodations and attractions, though.
