Very nice list Darren!
All the best, Jens

Darren - From one who has been living Travel and related SEO and PPC … Posts like this one scare me. Sometimes you come up with great stuff but we all know TripAdvisor is top-loaded by the hotel owners, and despite recent improvements, will probably always be. Try searching a niche market. You can literally see them battling it out. Not to mention, of course, that one is MUCH more likely to post a bad experience than a good one?

Hey cool, we won best community! Thanks Darren; that rocks! Charlie, I know where you’re coming from but tripadvisor is still insanely good at the review thing for popular destinations. I’ve been known to check it on occassion if I want to be sure a place I’m spending a lot of money on for a longer stay will not be absolutely terrible. I take the ones that seem too positive and too negative with a grain of salt and stick with the more well formulated ones and it usually ends up pretty accurate.

An interesting list but I miss my favourite community in the lineup… The comment from Sam I Am is very true ito some reviews being at extremes, but in general I’ve found the information at trivago to be quite reliable. Add to this the multilingual platforms and real time price comparisons and you’ll understand why I consider them to be better than many of the other options.

Jens, thanks

Charlie, I disagree. Whilst I am sure their system is not 100% foolproof, it’s always being reliable when I have booked hotels.

I read a bad review of a hotel in London, I should of gone with their review, but it was the only hotel left and needed a place to stay.

The review was spot on, it was a dive.

Hear Hear Sam. I agree. I also think its a good idea to compare different review sites. For example I always check Holiday Watchdog and Trip Advisor.

Pierre, you wouldn’t work for Trivago.com would you?

It’s the first time I have come across this site and it looks good, but will test the reviews out when I travel next.

Hi Darren - thanks for your comment and willingness to test out trivago. To answer your question: no, I am not a member of the trivago staff. I do however contribute as a member of the international community and, after more than a year, have had plenty of opportunities to compare them with similar sites… favourably

Pierre, the reason why I asked the question is that you seem to spend a alot of time promoting trivago on the internet.

I am sure more communities would love to have people like you being members.

Haha Darren, too true. If I’m not mistaken I’ve deleted ‘pierre’s’ stuff from TP before. You don’t have to have a lot of google skills to figure out that he’s at least being compensated in some way for promoting trivago. Tons of guestbook and forum spam. He’s either the inhouse ’seo’ or he might even be a guise name for one of the founders….hmmm, now there’s an idea for me!

Tut Tut.

Pierre, if your working for Trivago, it’s less embarrassing to admit it beforehand. Trust is important for travellers and consumers.

I’d hate to think that any travel company was fabricating comments and reviews.

“I’d hate to think that any travel company was fabricating comments and reviews.” So would I …
@ Sam I Am: If you are seemingly so conscious of my web presence, you may have noticed that I am in Cape Town - quite a distance from trivago which is based in Germany, no? I reiterate: I am a member of the community - nothing more, nor less.

clearly this website is not a public forum - some of my posts have been edited…

freedom of speech is what i beleive in …whatever you want to say

and i bet you wont post that will you admin

Spenny, none of your posts have been edited.

You posted a comment which was promoting your companies website and not participating in discussion.

Maybe you would like to email me the actual comment which was edited?

Darren - Your most-recent post about further consolidation in the hotel advice web space troubles me even more. At least, that way people have a comparison of websites to use. As far as my earlier comments, take a look at the parent company of TripAdvisor and who else they own. I’m glad you had a good experience. I think the concept is good. They still need as lot of work on safeguards and are becoming much more widely used every day.

I was looking for travelling in china TripAdvisor is Too pumped up with adds and the search engine seems to pick it up automatically even if there is no relevant content are there any good China specific websites so far my best info has been from travel blogs which tend to often be a little outdated

Just to clarify I will be travelling to quite remote places for work purposes that probably wouldn’t qualify as profitable enough warrant a display on any promotional sites such as Trip advisor thus my luck up till now being limited to a few travellers own blogs however as Ive mentioned these are quite outdated. And although I can speak Mandarin I cannot read it so even the chinese sites dont help much.