Rather Fingering the Reviewers.

Purview: Passengers In a Pinch. 

Take air travel, si vous plait. No seriously, what are we looking at here? Because this late into 2019/20, too many of us are:

Still stymied, navigating a glut of online booking sites and fare come-ons that appear and disappear, delay and change by the minute and hour—with the chaos and confusion that manifest—if the carriers survive to takeoff at all.

We’re still getting hung-up, blindsided by DHS rules and TSA checkpoints: Bumped, cancelled and redirected by airlines playing fleet strategy and scheduling games, only to get further sandbagged by the sine qua non of 2020’s Real IDs.

Inflight: Invites and Infights.

Just more cabin fever and fervor: whither civil accommodations or verbal/physical altercations? Since once aboard, we scramble for safe placement amid overcrowded cabins, to secure ever shrinking seats and rows. We’re still haggling, fighting over forward versus aft cabin, window versus aisle, farthest seating from the plane’s galleys or cramped, restive lavatories.

Hassling over what and where in fact are the safest seats, the noisiest areas, or rows nearest the aircraft’s emergency exits. How do we get some good sleep to combat jet lag, particularly when we’re crammed into a long-haul transcontinental flight? And how do we avoid being exposed to and stricken by global viruses/illnesses, from being in close quarters for so long?

How do the various forms of insurance and any (post-1978 deregulation) consumer ‘safeguards’ really protect U.S. travelers, as they do in many other nations? Are we better off going in guided groups or solo on the open road?

More broadly, we increasingly face onboard security and privacy debates. Technically speaking, how strong and competitively priced (or gratis) is an aircraft’s WiFi? How plentiful and diverse are the flight’s digital information and entertainment, whether on devices and seatback screens? Then how is the inevitable data tracking being monitored and disseminated?

Shifty Steering and Selling?

Lead or be led? In answer to such issues and questions, we face that veritable swamp of ticket/reservation web sites and a dearth of legitimate, unquestionably reliable reviews.

Whether third-party or proprietary air carrier sites, they have customer profiling and profits down to a fine digital data science. Expedia, for example, now employs facial recognition/reaction to tailor messaging and manipulate trusty tourist/travelers into itineraries and packages with optimal margins and quotas in a hotly contested, overplayed commercial space. That is, too many sites are chasing the same tired booking model. Thus we call it shape shifting pure traveler serendipity into focus-grouped consumer surrendipity—through algorithmically informed text/image lure and capture—not necessarily on our behalf.

Guidance or Data Grab?

Google has joined the online touristy crapshoot by launching a do-all, be-all, one-stop shop—goodly piling on the commissions and data points with Google Travel/Maps, overreaching on the chemtrails of its omnivorous digital brand. Like, totally awesome techie planning and packaging ‘tools’, right? Just so long as you devote and restrict your travels to the data guided confines of GoogleWorld. But if that zombifying prospect doesn’t yet have you grabbing the dramamine: for your consideration, one more smother of a commission mill to gripe about…

Upon Further Review.

Case in point: there is that purported unbiased platform, Trip Advisor (TA). Touted as the world’s largest ‘soapbox’ for travel/tourism-related reviews, this New York-based company (headed by tourism industry heavies) has been publishing, er posting such stars and barbs for going on 20 years. All along, TA has claimed that it only accepts first-person reviews so as to ascertain their validity and veracity.

The site counts nearly 800 million entries thus far—aggregated, moderated through human analysis and algorithmic ‘filtering’ processes, policies and practices. TA states that, with its vast global reach—and its 8.5 million listings for airlines, lodging, restaurants and fabricated experiences—the site ‘enables many millions of people to safely, reliably plan and purchase their trips’ every month. Trip Advisor thereby significantly impacts how and where tourist/travel consumers spend their hard-earned business and/or discretionary coin. Still, travel agency is as online travel agency does: and there’s nothing neutral or unbiased about it.

So greasing the wheels of e-commerce—or greasing the tourism skids? For the sheer volume of Trip Advisor reviews can’t help but breed a streak of skepticism. Given the larding of T/T related accounts, from booking to overnight bedding and back again, an increasing number are proving to be suspect, if not downright false. In general, online review sites, from Amazon to Yelp, estimate a 30% rate of ‘inauthentic’ entries; TA recently reported it rejects nearly 1.5 million postings out of 66 million or so.

A Tripped Denier?

But that scarcely accounts for the fake ‘reviews’ that slither through those TA filters. A swamp of bogus submissions, false positives and negatives, click-farm spam, prepaid nano-to-mega ‘influencers’ and burner account troll games inflate ratings and generate sham approval icons.

This, to where a wave of ‘watchdog’ sites find it necessary to aim their algorithms at the repetitive language, same-day blasts of fraudulent content from the same IP addresses to assess authenticity, and still can’t keep pace with the illicit boasts and barbs.

That is not to overlook the problem Trip Advisor has had with accusations it is something of a launching pad for sexual and other criminal assaults, prompting protest petitions and demonstrations outside its corporate offices in Manhattan. Still, TA defends its policy of first-person postings from an individual’s authorized e-mail account—while citing its revised “visibility” and pro-active safety features, nevertheless cautioning that “(…the site) is not a law enforcement body, nor…arbiter of fact.”

As in, we’re just the messenger, folks, not the message—keeping ‘don’t blame us’ distance, apparently in full Trip Denier mode. Little wonder many e-commerce observers warn that the only online reviews to be fully trusted are those posted by people one knows, by sharing recommendations with actual friends and neighbors.

Fortunately, Vamigré intends to turn the corner on this reductive corporate reality, with our accent on reliable quality, not just quantity in the skies, all around. (MMTC…)