The best hotel can vary widely depending on your priorities and price point. A good hotel will offer a comfortable bed and an appealing location. A great hotel will provide exceptional service, a variety of amenities and an excellent value. With so many options, choosing the right hotel can be a daunting task for any traveler. Luckily, there are plenty of resources to help you find the best hotel.
In an era of anything-goes, unverified hotel reviews, it’s difficult to determine who you can trust to deliver unbiased advice. But, the era of crowdsourced reviews may be coming to an end thanks to new research from CivicScience. The company surveyed 1,789 U.S. adults about the websites they use to find hotel information. Its findings were surprising, if not altogether unexpected. A few big names — TripAdvisor, Google and Trivago, for instance — topped the list of most trusted sites to find hotel recommendations. But some of the top contenders were a bit less well known, and their reputation may be even better than their big-name competitors.
Whether you’re traveling for business or leisure, finding the perfect hotel can make your trip truly memorable. But with so many hotel review sites out there, it can be tough to discern which ones are worth your time and money. To help you narrow down your options, we’ve put together a guide to the most trusted hotel review sites on the web.
TripAdvisor
This site is the largest and most influential of the bunch, and its reputation certainly precedes it. Its reviews are based on the experiences of real travelers, but it also includes ratings from industry professionals and experts. TripAdvisor’s reviews are a great way to get the lowdown on what a property is really like before you book.
Expedia
This OTA is one of the most transparent in terms of pricing, at least for domestic hotels. It includes all fees (including taxes) with the first results it displays, unlike some competitors that hide them behind a sometimes-hidden filter button or don’t even include them in the search at all. Expedia has also carved out a strong niche by offering “Secret Deals” that give you $10-$40 off the hotel price when you book a room through its website.
Hilton
Despite its long history of hotel evaluations, this independent hotel rating organization remains an invaluable resource for consumers. HTI employs professional inspectors to conduct surprise visits, conducting facility evaluations lasting up to two hours and anonymous service evaluations that last a night or more. Its ratings range from one to five pearls, and it licenses its rankings to some of the biggest hotel companies. Its online hotel reviews are vetted by HTI editors before they are published. Its ratings are based on hundreds of questions and supporting data, and each property is reevaluated every year. In addition to its hotel and vacation rental rankings, it offers detailed information on more than 170,000 properties worldwide.
