Hotel Review Sites…

Can you believe them?

The travel industry is changing. With the advent of budget flights, many tourists prefer to arrange their own holiday, choosing a hotel that suits their needs rather than accepting the hotel that the package tour operator uses. And there is good reason behind this; package holiday hotels tend to be more mass-market, less up-market. That's assuming it's not an 'allocation on arrival' deal which can be a big step into the unknown.

But is choosing a hotel as easy as it would appear?

The first port of call is the internet, where searching for hotels in your destination will bring back literally thousands of results.

The 'sponsored adverts' at the very top and right of the page often make exaggerated claims: "save 80%" – hotels would go bust in a week if they discounted that hard! So if it looks too good to be true, it probably is! Looking at the main results you will see that they are almost exclusively bedbanks (resellers) and review sites out to make a buck. Book with these and it's difficult to know just who you are dealing with.

You may find real hotels in the 'local' section where they will almost certainly have X number of reviews and here's the caveat… take these reviews with a pinch of salt, well a bucket may be more appropriate! Anyone can write a hotel review, the hotelier, his friends, his competition and if they are a bit canny, they'll get away with it. There are some genuine reviews but generally, high praise and scant criticism should be ignored. Indeed, so bad has this become, allegedly, that the Sunday Times ran an article on a particular review site a while ago and to date, nothing seems to have improved. It's not uncommon in the industry to be contacted by 'Reputation Management' companies offering (for a fee) to write good reviews, or bad ones for competitors. This is now apparently so bad that there are Reputation Rescue businesses flourishing that deal with specifically this type of online defamation.

How to make the right choice.

Firstly, forget the bedbanks; they are just there to shift room/nights at a low margin, quickly. They have no concerns with the quality of the accommodation.
Comparison websites are little better; all you get is based solely on price – they will be taking a cut too remember!
Dealing directly with a hotel or its appointed representative is favourite. This way you know exactly who you are buying from. And if you do find a cheaper offer on the same room, the odds are that the hotel will match it. After all, its their reputation, they want you back again, you will be a valued guest, not a number on a coupon.

For hotels in Madeira, visit this page and be sure in the knowledge that these hotels are offered by a company based on the island of Madeira, not in a call-centre in some far-flung corner of the globe. They know the hotels and represent them with the confidence that only a close-working partner can.