Why you can’t trust Tripadvisor’s Top 10s

According to Tripadvisor, when we checked earlier, the best hotel in London is a Travelodge just off Whitechapel High Street. 

That was the case when we Googled ‘Best London Hotel’ back in October and clicked on the first Tripadvisor link to appear promising ‘THE 10 BEST hotels’.

Similar searches brought up links claiming that there are two Travelodges among the top 10 hotels in London, two in Brighton and at least one in many other UK cities we looked at.

Even in Barcelona it said that the eighth best hotel is the Travelodge Poblenou.

This investigation first appeared in Which? Travel magazine

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Tripadvisor’s bizarre Top 10s

We emailed Tripadvisor about the bizarre results we found. It didn’t respond but, in December when we checked again, the results were different - but still odd.

The Google link to ‘THE 10 BEST hotels’ in London had disappeared but when we Googled ‘Best hotel London Tripadvisor’ - Travelodge had been dethroned as the best hotel in the capital. Instead the number one on its list was a Premier Inn.

Tripadvisor rankings boost hotels that pay

When Tripadvisor started, it ranked hotels and restaurants by the star ratings given by reviewers. For many years, though, its default lists seem to be based at least as much on revenue that it receives as on star ratings. 

If you click on the information it provides about its ‘Featured’ lists it says: ''Featured’ sorts properties using exclusive Tripadvisor data, including traveller ratings, confirmed availability from our partners, prices, booking popularity, location and personal user preferences. It also takes into account any compensation that may be paid to us by accommodations and booking sites.’

The hotels that appear when you click on one of its ‘THE 10 BEST hotels’ links vary from day to day - but it’s clear that they’re not just based on reviews.

 See how travellers rated Travelodge in our survey of the best hotel chains.

10 Best Restaurants let diners down

The lists of best restaurants on Tripadvisor are just as unhelpful. In October, we Googled ‘best restaurant London’ and once again a Tripadvisor link ‘THE 10 BEST’ appeared in the first results.

It included a restaurant that even Tripadvisor’s own summary of the reviews warns has ‘diminutive portion sizes’, ‘sporadic quality’, ‘disappointingly rushed service’ and loud music that ‘detracts from the dining experience’.

We tried again in December and - although that restaurant had disappeared - the top 10 still included restaurants that had just four stars - lower than hundreds of others in the capital.

‘The Best Walking Tours in London’ - that aren’t in London at all.

With hotels and restaurants you can at least switch from Tripadvisor’s default ‘Featured’ setting to ‘Traveller ranked’. This isn’t the case for tours.

We Googled ‘best walking tour London’ and its page ‘THE 10 BEST walking tours in London’ included three experiences that aren’t in London and seven that aren’t really walking tours. 

However, a trip to Paris ‘with optional lunch at the Eiffel Tower’, and a coach trip to Stonehenge, did appear in Tripadvisor’s bizarre top 10.

Tripadvisor didn’t respond to a request for comment.

How to use Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor is still useful for making sure you avoid hotels or restaurants that have large numbers of very negative reviews.

If you do click on any of its links, make sure you switch to ‘Traveller Ranked’, where it lists hotels or restaurants in order of their review rating.

You still need to be sceptical about reviews, but it’s hard for really bad establishments to avoid a deluge of one or two-star ratings, once they’ve been open for a while.

If a hotel or restaurant has large numbers of one-star and five-star reviews - but not much in between - you should be wary. Our investigations in the past have suggested that this can be a sign of the use of fake reviews. 

See our advice on how to spot fake reviews.

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