Sites like TripAdvisor and booking.com already play a big part in the travel world. Why is that? What makes you look on a website like TripAdvisor? Let us know in the comments below! Or are hotel reviews overrated? We certainly have our own opinion about them!

We use sites like the ones mentioned above to compare hotel X with hotel Y or because I want to read some reviews. Recently I started to think about the whole review business. It became big business. But are the reviews still honest?

Honest reviews?!

Nowadays you can pay a person to write a good review for your hotel. As a hotel manager it’s natural that you want more good reviews than bad ones. Hotels and restaurants will pay up to five dollars per review. But you as consumer are being fooled. So why would you believe the 8.9 on TripAdvisor for hotel X?
If a hotel has a low rating it’s extremely hard to turn that number around because everyone is so focused on numbers these days.
I have to admit it is also more easy to remember the worst review of them all. Even if 8 out of 10 reviews are positive.

What did you expect?

Also expectations plays a roll when you are the one writing down a review. If you are used to stay in luxurious hotels and you are in a budget hotel at the moment you’re review isn’t going to be the same. And the other way around if you are used to stay in budget hotels than even a slightly more luxurious one will feel like a palace.

Every review is different because every person is different. But as a reader it’s hard to find a review that covers the topic you want to read about. I’m interested in the vision of a hotel and maybe you like to know about the pool. How can you find a review that tells you everything you want to know?

Come Stay With Me

We are going to try to solve that problem for you. We started a project called ‘come stay with me’. Instead of writing a personal review of a hotel we film a review where I include information about the hotel, the rooms and the service/staff.

In this post you can find the first video of the series ‘come stay with me’. I review hotel drottning Kristina in Stockholm – Sweden. I hope you enjoy the video. Any feedback is more than welcome.

Q: What do you find important when you stay in a hotel?