How to choose the right hotel

So you’re going abroad, you’ve chosen your destination and now you have to choose a hotel.

Ten years ago, you’d have probably visited your local travel agent and trusted the face-to-face advice you were given by the so called ‘experts’. The 21st Century way to select and book your hotel is of course on the Internet, by using travel websites.

But how do you sift through the amazing choices on offer? And more importantly, do you really trust the photographs and descriptions of the hotels that they have awarded themselves with the motivation of getting bookings? Traveler reviews can be helpful, but you need to exercise caution. They are often biased, sometimes out of date, and may not serve your interests at all. How do you know that the features that are important to the reviewer are important to you?

The more reviews you read, the more you notice how they tend to cluster at the extremes of opinion.

Then there’s the problem of the reviewer’s motivation. The more reviews you read, the more you notice how they tend to cluster at the extremes of opinion. On one end, you have angry reviewers with axes to grind; at the other, you have delighted guests who lavish praise beyond belief. You’ll not be surprised to learn that hotels sometimes post their own glowing reviews, or that competitor’s line up for the chance to lambaste the competition with bad reviews. It makes sense to consider what is really important to you when selecting a hotel. You should then choose an online hotel directory that gives up-to-date, independent, impartial information that really matters.