Both Tripadvisor.com and Virtualtourist.com are my favorite travel review sites.
If I’m going abroad, I would go on the two travel review sites to check the online information on the country I will visit – where to stay, dine; what to see and do; travel tips and tour traps, etc.
Tripadvisor and Virtualtourist are really good network places where common netizens share their reviews on hotels and vacations. There are moderators monitor each post, especially avoid any commercial posts. That’s good. Nowadays people rely more and more on the travel review sites to collect travel information.
But everything has its two sides. Nothing is perfect. Take the travel forum at tripadvisor.com for example, in my personal opinion, its travel forum still has a long way to go before it really becomes a great travel review forum.
1. Still easily abused
Though monitored by responsible moderators, the forum still can be easily abused by some business-oriented members who write fake feedback promoting the hotels or services in order to boost the business concerned.
2. Controlled by “time-honored” contributors
Sometimes the forum is controlled by some “time-honored” contributors, or often called “destination expert”. In some cass, they will reproach some members if their ideas or thoughts are not in compliance with them. They even work with moderators to have that “guy” disappearing from the forum.
3. Moderators are not robots
Moderators try to be fair. But they are not robots. They are human beings. Human beings make mistakes. They also reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.
4. Some members are biased
Some members are biased. Their suggestions can be misleading.
But anyhow, tripadvisor is undeniably a good travel review site currently.
