Should I book tours in Vietnam on TripAdvisor?

In some articles, it has been written that booking tours in Vietnam on TripAdvisor brings you many benefits while others advise you to book directly with tour agencies. Vietnam’s tourism industry is different from the remaining part of the world because most of the tour operators promote their businesses by hunting for as many reviews on TripAdvisor as possible. Fake reviews and accounts are popular, higher prices on TripAdvisor are some problems you may not have heard before.

Pros of booking tours in Vietnam on TripAdvisor?

• TripAdvisor is the top 1 travel review website in the world. It is known as the most trusted travel review system. List of tour agencies and tours, as well as rankings, are the most reliable.
• TripAdvisor has large data sets, from 435 million reviews and opinions.
• It has a large volume of visitors, about 390 million monthly unique visitors.
• The team is in an effort to examine the data to preserve the value of the data. TripAdvisor tries to verify reviews as carefully as possible.
• They have been improving the ranking system so that visitors can search for the best agencies and tours based on ratings and reviews.
• TripAdvisor is one of the best websites to search for expecting tours thanks to the logical categories. Visitors can filter by cities, types of tours, prices, durations, languages, etc.

• Booking tours on TripAdvisor is a good way to support them to improve the system and bring more benefits to users. Lots of customers click on tours advertised by TripAdvisor on Google Search Network or on Google partner sites. TripAdvisor changes travel industries by introducing tours in the world to people in the world.
• TripAdvisor provides vouchers, coupons, promo codes and others to retain customers.

When you search for Tripadvisor promo code, you receive a large number of results.

• TripAdvisor team experiences most of the top-rated tours in order to verify the reviews, ratings and ranks are reliable.

An employee experiences a top-rated tour listed on TripAdvisor.

• Many tours on TripAdvisor offer free cancellation 24 hours before the tour.
• Booking and paying on TripAdvisor system, you do not need to deal with cash on your trip in Vietnam where you must withdraw money from ATMs with a high  fee, or exchange US dollars into Vietnamese Dong at currency exchange stalls, banks or gold shops.

Cons of booking tours in Vietnam on TripAdvisor?

• Some tour agencies do not sell their tours on TripAdvisor due to the high commission rates which are up to 25 percent. So that you will miss the tours provided by these companies.
• Some companies increase tour prices in order to cover the commission. Booking directly with these companies is the best way to save your budget.
• However, you can also see the prices on TripAdvisor and prices provided by sales managers of tour agencies or on their websites are the same. Booking directly with tour operators helps them to develop their companies.

Visit the website, call or email the company to book directly with them. The price of Saigon Unseen Tour on TripAdvisor is $30.77 USD, the Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) Sightseeing & Food Tour by Scooter provided by Scooter Saigon Tour on TripAdvisor costs $39.50 USD.

Saigon Unseen Tour costs only $27 USD, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) Sightseeing & Food Tour by Scooter costs only $34 USD on their website.

• Since 2018, TripAdvisor tends to promote companies (or individuals) selling their tours on TripAdvisor. For example, the Top 1 Food & Drink Tours in Ho Chi Minh City is Saigon Back Alley Tours which are run by local students, sold at cheap prices and the best seller Food & Drink Tour in the city. The tours of this company attract lots of customers thanks to the very cheap prices, less than $20 USD, including foods, guide and motorbike. The more tours are sold, the more reviews Saigon Back Alley Tours get. The company is ranked as the top 1 and customers continue to book the tours. How do you think about cheap tours run by local students are ranked as the top 1? This is unfair for other companies which providing professional tours, including delicious and safe foods.
• Some companies in Vietnam pay for reviews on TripAdvisor. The top 2 is Street Food Man Company which pays VND 30,000 for tour guides who have their names in the reviews. Certainly, the guides do everything to push guests for reviews. A smart guide can make 5 guests in the group write 5 reviews and receive VND 150,000.
• The staff of some companies in Vietnam create many accounts and leave fake positive reviews. They can also have their friends in other countries write some 5-star reviews.
• It has been said that they can buy reviews or hack reviews on TripAdvisor.

Top 1 of Food & Drink in Saigon – Saigon Back Alley provides cheap tours run by local students. Top 2 of Saigon Food & Drink is Street Food Man pay VND 30,000 for each review.

How to deal with fake reviews and unfair ranks on TripAdvisor?

Tips on learning about reviewers

Click on the avatar of the reviewer to see his profile and activities. You will know when he joined TripAdvisor, the number of contributions (reviews), the number of helpful votes, the number of cities visited and how many photos he posted on TripAdvisor.

Click on the account name in order to view the profile and activities, all photos and reviews.

Which are unreliable reviews and fake accounts?

• You should not believe reviews left by the inactive accounts. The account that visited TripAdvisor, logged in, left one review and never come back. The account has no activity except for posting the only review. A positive one-time review or review posted by an account with no more activities on TripAdvisor can be posted by the staff of the company or one of their friends. A negative one-time review or review posted by a “dead” account can be posted by a competitor.

* In fact, there is a number of travelers who do not usually surf the Internet and visit review sites. This kind of people left the only review for the company, tour and guide because he/she really was satisfied with the services and wrote the reviews as a special thank.

Marten M has only one review.

There is no follower, following, no hometown and country, and more intro except for the month of joining TripAdvisor.

• An account, which never leaves a 5-star review but all 4-star reviews, is rather hard.

For example, you read a 4-star review about a tour which you are going to book and consider if the review is reliable.

Checking other reviews of amaral82, you can see he never left 5-star reviews, all of the reviews are 3-star and 4-star.

Which are reliable reviews and real accounts?

• Reviews with some helpful votes.
• Reviews posted by accounts having some contributions. The number of contributions is the number of reviews and opinions the account left.

eric306 left 139 reviews, 25 accounts thanked her votes.

• You can believe the reviewer who posts diverse reviews: 3-star, 4-star, 5-star reviews.

This account has some terrible and poor reviews so that his excellent reviews are valuable to you. Accounts posted photos are real.

• Reviews with photos and accounts posted photos are reliable. The more photos they posted on TripAdvisor, the more reliable his reviews are.

TravelAddict617 loved to post photos on his reviews.

More photos posted by TravelAddict617.