As readers will know, I’ve been a fan of the way in which the internet generates reputational information which greatly improves the efficiency of markets. Still it’s surprising how tricky these things are, something I’ve been pondering while using Airbnb for quite a few stays in Europe. There are several major problems with Airbnb’s rating system, which are enough to have me much less keen to use it.
Firstly it seems that there’s a happy clappy vibe in collaborative consumption. Perhaps once people have met others they don’t want to reflect on them invidiously. Perhaps they are hyping the vibe of collaborative consumption and how luvvie duvvie it can be. Or perhaps they’re thinking of the incentives. I don’t like leaving bad reviews because when I’m seeking to rent a place, hosts can look up my previous reviews, and if they’re lower than others, they mightn’t want me to so review their place. Perhaps this drives grade inflation on the system.
And perhaps to prevent that, Airbnb do separate out streams of feedback including feedback for all, private feedback for the host and private feedback to Airbnb.
But there’s another problem. Airbnb’s survey is the kind of survey that irritates me when I get one from a hotel. It asks for five stars in various categories which make logical sense.
Accuracy, Communication, Cleanliness, Location, Check In, Value. The thing is, it remains quite possible to have a flat that is more or less uninhabitable whilst retaining a four and a half star rating. How do I know? Because I’v been staying in such a place in Barcelona. It gets four or more stars in all categories and a four and a half star rating overall. About half of the reviews are very positive. So on a quick squiz we booked. Four and a half stars overall? What could go wrong? Here’s a not untypical review from the remaining reviews.
Jordi met us, and gave us a lot of great information about the neighborhood and the city. The location and price are excellent.
However… I must mention that this is the noisiest place I have ever stayed. The apartment is upstairs from Bar Mariatchi, which is open until at least 3am EVERY DAY, and which has loud music that you will hear through the walls, making sleep nearly impossible, even with earplugs. Plus, you can count on street noise–talking and yelling–until the wee hours EVERY DAY. The noise factor derailed our rest, pushed our sleeping to the “quiet” times (7am-noon), and thus rather derailed our daily sightseeing plans.
If it weren’t for this excessive noise factor, I would recommend this apartment wholeheartedly. As it is, I can only recommend it to those who plan to party into the wee hours every night and sleep the days away.
Note how people are at pains to be nice, even if their time has been effectively ruined. Yet the place keeps getting it’s four and a half plus ratings. Enough to swing my preferences back towards hotels I’m afraid.
Nicholas, I agree, (or at the least these ratings need a fair bit of salt).
On the opposite end of the range many of the places in Hoi An region get ‘trip advisor’ ratings as , ‘ too quiet ‘. The number of sites we have been to where reviews have been,it’s ‘musty’ ‘not hot’ and its a museum,where ‘it’ is literally a museum, can not begin to count :-).
The street food, people and everything about the Hoi an region is fantastic, would recommend it to anybody,with a soul :-)
So how do you choose a hotel?
Common sense helps :-)
If the location is popular with randy twenty something’s, it provably is not a good place for a quiet night.
Re hotels- It’s worth cross referencing a few sites such as TripAdvisor ,Agoda and the like. And also looking at the reviews that are about the sub prime to good to ‘average’: are these reviews of the ‘ I expected silver service, for stuff all, winge type, or are they of the ‘no water ,bed was ok, but breakfast was inedible, but what can you expect in that town.
Fdb, Sorry about the typos.