Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor makes it easier for you to book your flights, trains, hotels and so on by compiling a listing from various travel websites. It doesn’t carry out the booking process itself but maps and compares the data like, prices, reviews and information about the specific category.

Even so, it would be best if you verify the rankings, reviews and the prices on the respective websites before making your decision as the company has a reputation of manipulating the information it posts.

Pros

• Saves time
• Gives a general overview
• Built-in translator tool
  

Cons

• Unreliable
• Unverified reviews
• Sponsored listings
  
  

Saves time

When booking a holiday, most of us want to go for the cheapest deal we can find and this process can be really cumbersome.

The unique selling point of TripAdvisor is that it is very useful for getting a general overview. Instead of separately opening every website and searching for the desired service, you will find an amazing compilation here.

Incredible Filter system

Almost every travel website offers filter system, but what is different about TripAdvisor’s is that it is well-detailed and covers a lot of options.

Select the filters according to your requirements and the results are going to be bang on, meeting each and every one of your preferences. Suppose you are selecting a restaurant, you can choose the cuisine, dietary preferences, meal time and so on, to get the best ones for you.

Built-in translator

Since, people from all over the world leave reviews on the website, they may be in a language you don’t have the faculty of and so, the portal has a built-in google translator tool. It translates the detected language to the target language proficiently.

Unverified reviews

Because the website doesn’t take the bookings directly, it is a tad difficult for them to verify the reviews. Thus, leading them to be easily manipulated. In fact, the portal has come under fire a number of times for posting fake reviews and last year only they removed millions of fake reviews from their website.

Even though now the company is careful and immediately takes action against the manipulated data, it takes time for the removal. So, the reviews shouldn’t be trusted blindly.

Unreliable

The rankings that have been given on the digital travel site shouldn’t be trusted either. The portal has been in the news several times for rigging the rankings with false reviews- undeserved got higher rankings, while the good services got lower. This is often a consequence of either people reviewing fake or reviewing the wrong service or company.

Don’t take their rankings seriously. We would suggest you to verify the information and ranking on the respective website before you make any decision.

Sponsored listings

If all this wasn’t enough, TripAdvisor has also introduced sponsored listings. In order to generate more revenue, their entire system becomes lesser customer-centric as the traveller is constantly pushed to book the sponsored service instead of being introduced to an assortment of it.