Zagat's is not "professionally written" although you could argue it's professionally edited.

Both professional reviewers and regular customer reviews have their advantages and it makes sense to read both.

I have run a review website since 1997 (reviews of backpackers hostels) and we have both our own paid reviewers and customer reviews. I think both complement each other since a professional reviewer is trained to look at things objectively and is an expert on the product or service being reviewed and individual customers can provide a better review of the more subjective aspects of what is being reviewed.

Our professional reviewers will look at every single hostel in a given destination, which means gives more weight to a comment such as "it's the worst place in town", as they have actually seen all the others too. I can't speak for other guide publishers but our own reviewers are trained and they fill in a detailed assessment form to ensure that they have as much information as possible and are able to give an objective assessment.

I find that professional reviewers are better at assessing the more objective aspects such as facilities or security where they can mark everything off against a checklist.

However customers are better at rating the more subjective aspects like cleanliness and atmosphere and the average of the collective wisdom of 10 or 15 customers provides a really accurate idea of what the place is really like.

User reviews give you an opinion from first hand experience, not from someone who was paid for their opinion.

It is so easy to collect various insights and experiences these days, I tend to collect a variety from both pros and recent users.

Reviews and sources of knowledge are becoming increasingly important. I use them daily to figure out which books to read, what restaurants to eat at, and what services to use. Personally, I look for reviews that corroborate one other from different sources. Meaning, if the CNET editor's review gives a product a 9, but the user's give it a 6... it tells me something's up. I think too many times we read something on the internet and take it to be true without critical evaluation. Our proper judgment of their judgment is the best judgment.

I don't consult any reviews.

Just as success breeds success, good experiences lead to the next good thing.

How would the quintessential New Jersey boy that I work with even know that rodeos are actually great fun if we weren't first exchanging book recommendations?

Published reviews will just send the reader to the same well worn kitschy places that everyone else goes to.

While in Japan many years ago (while in the Marines) everyone would go to the same places that they had heard about from friends. Long story short, we went to those places as well, but some of our best times were just taking the train to "wherever" and spending the weekend looking around.

I have recently (within the past couple of years) become a big fan of reading user reviews for making decisions on music/books (Amazon), movies (IMDB), food, etc. But it is important to not make up your decision solely based on one or two reviews but to look at the overall ratings.

Travel and entertainment is not really the same as Food.

And Travel is not the same as entertainment.

Travel is less subjective and more black-and-white - if a hotel is literally a flea pit and dirty, there is little subjectivity in that.

Entertainment is way too subjective - and depends on how it is done, so if someone reviews a certain movie to be great, then it is true for that person but not necessarily me. It would help if there is also info on what other movies that particular reviewer liked. Like Amazon's "people who bought this also bought that". And for movies in particular, I would trust a critic more than the masses because of the technicalities involved, like casting, script, acting, score etc etc.

Generally I will check all the usefull information including professionally written guides and user reviews, and make my own decision.

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