Website of the Week: www.tripadvisor.co.uk
To most Internet-savvy travellers, TripAdvisor needs little introduction.
The enormously popular and influential website holds literally millions of often highly revealing warts-and-all reviews of hundreds of thousands places to stay all around the globe, posted by punters who have stayed in the properties.
Tripadvisor can help travellers pick the right room for a suitable price...
But there is much more to the website than that. Choose a hotel, and you can often see professional reviews displayed (of the type you might find here on TravelMail), and if you decide you want to stay, TripAdvisor will do a speedy price comparison of leading on-line agencies that can book the hotel.
Also, the reviews cover a huge number of places to eat and attractions, and for many cities and resorts you can download and print off free, succinct guides that highlight top-rated hotels, restaurants and places to visit.
Strengths
The 'Popularity Index', which employs a mathematical formula to rank hotels in a city or resort based on how positive the reviews are, is an invaluable (though not necessarily infallible) tool for establishing the "best" hotels there. You can narrow down the list to show, in order of popularity, hotels in a particular neighbourhood, or with a specific number of stars, or that are good for certain types of traveller (eg families, honeymooners).
Separate indexes rank b&b's and "speciality lodging" (mostly hostels), and there are useful new "Top Values" indexes - so I can tell you that reviewers reckon the best-value hotel in Paris is the Hotel du College de France
(average price £85 a night).
Tripadvisor is one of the world's most comprehensive travel websites...
Popularity ratings also apply to restaurants and things to do, and throw upsome surprising results - the most praised thing to do in Paris is a course at a cookery school in Montmartre.
Weaknesses
To some degree, the website is a victim of its own success, with many hotels now having a dauntingly large number of reviews to sift through - as many as 2,500 for a big Las Vegas property.
Fabricated reviews - perhaps by hotel owners, or those with an axe to grind - do occasionally slip through the net.
And unhelpfully, TripAdvisor doesn't give out hotels' phone numbers and websites: it would like you to book through an agency such as Expedia, which is part of the same company as TripAdvisor.
Ratings
Inspiring 4/5
Useful 5/5
Easy to use 4/5
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