If you go on vacation and don't leave a review on a website, did it even happen?

Online reviews have become a part of the modern travel experience. Travelers complete satisfaction surveys after everything from car rentals to hotel stays to local tours, finding the last step is often a link to a major review site.

Before the Internet was in widespread use, many travel agents would rely on experience reports from their clients during post-trip follow up calls. Clients filled in the gaps for even well-traveled agents who visited their most popular destinations frequently. They'd share that a new restaurant had opened, or the service at a hotel had gone downhill, or planned renovations were noisier or more substantial than they'd been led to believe.

Today, a lot of that feedback goes online, to the benefit of both agents and travelers alike.

But online reviews can often be hit-or-miss. Travelers are diverse-they have wildly divergent tastes, opinions and needs, so reading online reviews won't necessarily give an accurate impression for travelers who value their experiences differently.

I like to say online reviews tell me far more about travelers than they do about hotels, resorts or tour companies, but there are still some ways to get value out of online reviews-mostly by cutting through the unnecessary fluff.

When I review a property for an article, I never check reviews until after I complete my stay. I prefer to gather my impressions and then compare notes with other travelers post-travel. OK, so I wasn't the only one who thought the pool was crowded-got it.

When I travel on my own as a consumer, I read the reviews, but with a lot of caveats. Here are a couple of tricks I've learned to distill online reviews down to their most useable extracts.

Compare Photos

I once returned from an all-inclusive beach resort and did some research on the website. One thing immediately caught my eye: the website showed a vast stretch of white sand beach with less than a dozen beach chairs dotted across the white sand.

The reality was that several hundred of the beach chairs lined the waterfront, packed so tightly together the sand was barely visible-the beach was a sea of chairs.

It's important to compare user-submitted photos with the marketing collateral. Most of the time they match pretty closely (although guests hardly ever seem to remember to photograph their rooms until they've been well lived in). Bear in mind, however, that users can also misunderstand or misrepresent their accommodations (thinking they've booked an oceanfront room when they've booked a partial ocean view room, for example).

Lean on Facts

Many sites are full of reviews that are quite honestly useless. Of particular frustration are non-descriptive terms such as "excellent" (i.e. the salmon was excellent) that don't convey anything of value beyond the fact that the reviewer liked them. Ultimately, we're reading reviews in search of information, not value judgments from strangers whose personal opinions are frankly irrelevant.

Far more helpful are reviews that answer informational questions. Where was the salmon sourced? How was it presented? Was it the same portion size described on the menu? Was the server knowledgeable?

Everybody perceives service delivery differently. A review isn't a crystal ball and can't possibly predict how you'll perceive your interactions with staff. When sifting through reviews, seek relevant facts like "the hours listed for outlets in print materials in the room didn't match" or "Guest rooms in a specific building are a long walk from the pool."

Look for Trends and Policies

Looking for recurring trends in reviews is one way to value otherwise subjective service quality. It one guest thinks the restaurant is slow it could be an issue of perception or a one-off staffing situation. If three guests mention it in separate reviews at different times, it's safe to bet it's a dependable occurrence.

Another thing to be on the lookout for is on-property policies that might not be communicated ahead of time. Resorts, for example, rarely go into details regarding pool chairs and towel use on their websites, and overly aggressive nuisance policies will typically show up in online reviews.

Reviews can also be good places to get information about incidental costs. Many hotels and resorts habitually omit food and beverage or activity pricing from online menus (if they post menus online at all). While some reviewers unhelpfully describe on-site pricing as "exorbitant" (everybody values products differently), several others will lay out specifics on costs, or even take photos of pricing-included menus.

Pay Attention to Responses

Hotels, resorts, and tour companies often have the ability to respond on review sites, and these responses can also be worth reading-they give travelers an idea of the property's response to service recovery. In most cases, the response will be a "thank you" for a positive review, an offer to contact via e-mail for a less-than-positive review, or a rebuttal or correction for a review that shares incorrect or misleading information.

Companies that actively engage on review sites can typically be counted on to take ownership of complaints during a guest's visit, and that's really when deficiencies should be addressed. Overly hostile responses or a number of poor reviews without any response at all would be a concern.

The Bottom Line

The takeaway is that while review sites are helpful, they shouldn't be a primary information source. Vacations are a significant financial investment, and it simply wouldn't be prudent to stake one's time and money on travel advice from strangers on the Internet.

Use review sites to gather information and collect a diverse variety of perspectives, but there's simply no substitute for gut instinct, advice from friends and family and a well-cultivated relationship with a trusted professional travel agent.

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