Croatia Travel Blog

Archive for the ‘Croatia Hotels’ Category

The problem that has bedeviled Tripadvisor for years has recently come to a head with a report that hotels are regularly approached by companies offering to plant positive reviews for a monthly fee.

Planted Reviews

The travel industry site, Travolution, reported that one hotel received paid positive reviews before it was even open. The allegations were picked up by the Telegraph (Can We Trust Hotel Reviews on Tripadvisor?) who noted that “if it was possible to unearth all the fake reviews, there might not be enough red pen to go around. Like drug users in sport, the people committing the offences are nearly always one step ahead of those trying to catch them”.

Tripadvisor Response

Tripadvisor claims that it devotes considerable time, energy and money to weeding out fake reviews but is it enough? A combination of human screening and automated tools is supposed to identify fraudulent posters but reviewers and hoteliers have complained that the system is still manipulated. Responses to an article in Budget Travel on the subject included users disappointed with supposedly wonderful hotels and  hoteliers bludgeoned into upgrading guests brandishing a potentially negative TA review.

A Network of Shills?

Some users claim that they can spot a planted review because the reviewer has a meager profile with few other reviews. Not so fast. Edward Hasbrouk of The  Practical Nomad attended an industry conference in which “Elias Plishner, V.P. of the interactive division of the McCann-Erickson advertising agency, boasted that, “We have an entire division in Singapore [where labor is cheaper than in the USA] devoted to seeding online forums and bulletin boards with targetted content” for our advertising clients. Worse, these people are paid to spend months, in between assignments, creating profiles and posting “neutral” messages to establish a credible online persona and background from which to post their secretly-paid advertising messages. . .” (see blog post)

The Solution

So how to get credible hotel reviews? Frankly, I don’t use Tripadvisor. I have better things to do than wading through dozens of reviews trying to figure out which ones (if any) were planted.

There are a number of hotel booking sites that post reviews by guests that have actually stayed there. I use either booking.com or hostelbookers.com. Here’s how it works: after your stay the agency sends you an email with very detailed questions about the establishment. The review is then posted, anonymously if you wish. ALL of the guest reviews on these sites are necessarily made by REAL guests. Sure, there are fewer reviews but the ones that are there are more reliable. It’s your choice.

The online price comparison site, trivago.co.uk recently compared European beach destinations to find out where, exactly, visitors were happiest. It turns out that Dubrovnik scored an astounding number 5 out of the 50 destinations reviewed. So how was customer satisfaction measured? By analyzing over 380,000 hotel reviews posted on online booking sites like booking.com for more than 4,000 hotels. It turns out that the 47 reviewed hotels in Dubrovnik have an average rating of 78.77 points out of 100. The five-star Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik lifted the average quite a bit by scoring a whopping 89 out 100 on the scale.

I say congratulations to the hoteliers of Dubrovnik. It looks like all the renovation, construction, reconstruction and upgrading has paid off big time.

Wanna buy a hotel? You’ll have an array of choices on the Croatian coast but there are a few catches. Reuters’ reporter Adam Tanner has penned a detailed article on the problems facing Croatia’s government as they try to unload hotels that dated from the Tito period.

You would think that owning a hotel on Korcula Island, for example, would be a license to print money but nearly 20 years after Croatia’s launch into privatisation, the hotels in Korcula are still state-owned. Buyers are shying away.

First of all, the hotels are fairly outdated and require a substantial injection of capital to bring them into line with today’s expectations. But investors want to see a return on the investment and, so far, what they’re seeing is a thicket of problems. Korcula residents also want a piece of the pie in the form of a stake in the company, just as Hvar residents did with the privatisation of some of  their state-owned hotels some years ago.

Although not mentioned in the article, islanders want a commitment from the hotels to keep staff employed, or at least paid, for an entire year, not just during the tourist season. Islanders want to see young people stay on the island and build lives, not just breeze in for a few months every summer. They have a point but from the POV of an investor, the tourist season is too short to make this kind of a commitment.

Some privatisations have gone well. Mr. Tanner refers to the lavish reconstruction of the Hotel Excelsior in Dubrovnik as an example. But other hotels in Dubrovnik (the ravaged Belvedere for example), Rab, Opatija, Trogir and Hvar are still waiting for their Prince Charming.

Having stayed in both state-owned and privately owned accommodation in Croatia, I can tell you that there’s a big difference. Many of the state-owned hotels are throwbacks to the 70s both in design, amenities and service. Concrete-block architecture, chunky TVs and irritable waiters provide a stark contrast with the newer luxury hotels with their enthusiastic staff. Let’s hope that the situation sorts itself out.

Read more about Croatia hotels.

Congratulations to the Hotel Le Meridien Lav in Podstrana for winning four major awards this year from the World Travel Awards. Considered as the “Oscars” of the travel industry, these prestigious awards are voted by 165,000 travel professionals in 175 countries.

This year, the five-star Le Meridien Lav won in four categories: Europe’s Leading Casino Resort; Europe’s Leading Conference Hotel; Croatia’s Leading Hotel; Croatia’s Leading Spa Resort.

That’s quite a cluster or prizes! And the recompense is richly deserved. Located just a few kilometres outside Split, Le Meridien Lav is a palace of pampering with indoor and outdoor pools, a lavish spa and ultra-luxurious rooms. The only problem is that you may never want to leave!

Find out more about Le Meridien Lav or other luxury hotels in Split.

Are five-star hotels seeming a little too shabby for your taste? Looking for the hotel experience of a lifetime? Tiny Solta Island, a short hop from Split, has stepped up to the plate.

According to World Architecture News, a new resort is in the works that will include the world’s first rotating hotel. Ever had the experience where you and your wedding party want to rent out a hotel but not everybody can have a seaview room? Awkward. This new hotel will have three storeys on a giant turntable, rotating at the dizzying speed of 1.3 times per day. As the diameter of the place is 61m, you probably won’t get dizzy and you are guaranteed to experience a view across the bay to Split as well as the new luxury marina (yet to be built).

The planned hotel will have individual infinity swimming pools and an infinity edged swimming lake that drops down to a spa below in a series of steps.

Construction hasn’t yet started so you’ll have time to start saving up for your experience. Let the kids pay for their own damn college.