The Positive TripAdvisor Ratings Taking the Sting Out of Online Reviews
Skift Take
Critics who blast the negativity of reviews on TripAdvisor may be surprised that the average review rating is 4.12 out of 5. But some hoteliers say a property's ranking in the pecking order in any given city is even more important.
There's so much chatter about negative reviews on TripAdvisor, but it turns out that the average review on TripAdvisor sites globally is 4.12 out of 5 rating, according to the company's internal data.
With some 150 million reviews and opinions on TripAdvisor sites, it turns out that reviewers rate their stays overwhelmingly positively at 4.12, which was the average mark through January 2014.
What does it mean, and does this number say anything about the state of the hotel industry?
A Cornell University study of online hotel reviews in 2013 found that hotels with relatively few reviews tended to have lower ratings, and that by the time properties collected 101 or more reviews, their review-rating average increased to between 3.5 to 3.9.
There are several ways you can interpret those findings. Among them, guests tend to t
