The Dominique Factor

We've obviously been heavily reliant on the internet during our travels.  Booking tickets, researching locations, checking maps to figure out, literally, where on earth we are, the world wide weber has played a starring role in ensuring the smooth moves.  Conversely, its usage by vagrants like us has substantially limited travel spontaneity.   During college (in the stone age), we showed up in a town or city and phoned accommodations pulled from a trusty guidebook at a payphone in the train station; there was no other way.  Now, even hostels can and often must be booked in advance.  One the one hand these advances take the anxiety out of the arrival, on the other they deprive us the joy of living on the fly.

Lately, I've become a good bit more dubious about sites like Tripadvisor.  I love user-supported content as much as the next liberal.  But we've recently stayed at a few top-rated joints in SE Asia and I've begun to notice something I've named 'the Dominique factor.'

When I was in middle school I was a devoted watcher of General Hospital (insert joke about academic achievement and intellectual development........ here).  During the year or so that I watched, a featured character was Dominique, the girlfriend of mobster Sonny Carlino, who was also being semi-stalked by Brenda (played by Vanessa Marcil).  As an aside, Brian Austin Green, I tip my hat.  Vaness then the Fox? What kind of jewelry/drug/waterboarding cocktail do you give these women?  Anyway, Dominique was constantly referred to as "pretty."  It was like the writers couldn't go three lines without inserting dialogue about her ethereal attractiveness.  But, like, she's not that pretty and she's always standing next to Brenda who could make anyone look like a dog.  Even so, Dominique is supposed to be the more beautiful.  The thing is... over time I started to think that maybe Dominique was the hotness because that was beaten in like a drum.  I found the beauty in a fairly average face because I was brainwashed into believing and, so, the 'Dominique factor.' 

I'm developing a theory that the same happens with Tripadvisor.  Since the vast majority of reviewers are tourists, they have limited knowledge against which to benchmark their experience.  The scenario, as I see it, plays out thusly: a visitor checks in to a hotel and has a good to great time and writes a glowing review.  A reader chooses the hotel on the merit of that blurb and is pleased to find that it lives up to the review written.  That person piles on another good to great review.  This happens several times until the hotel's reviews and averages paint it a fantastic choice. 

Here's where the Dominque factor comes in.  Down the line, a traveller books in to that hotel and he already knows he's going to have a great experience.  He checks in with the understanding that this is an awesome hotel and that belief positively impacts his time there.  Because, when he sees that the shower needs re-tiling, or the owner is tipsy, or there is noise from the street, he doesn't let those things detract from the experience he thinks he's going to have.  Like my watching of Dominique, he believes the place is fab because so many have agreed that it is.  And, sometimes, regardless of his true assessment, that confidence lets him overlook the warts (or Dominique's way-too-big-forehead) and merrily enjoy the experience he expected to have rather than the one he actually has.  Maybe even to write another positive review.

Coming to this realization hasn't made me trust travel sites less, its just put them in a different context; perhaps a context you all have previously considered.  In reality, the people reviewing a bungalow on a small island in SE Asia probably haven't been to any other bungalows on that small island.  There is no ability to compare so the baseline is an arbitrary expectation.  I've started to realize that when a business has experienced this statistical grace its likely merited, but there are probably a dozen other joints down the beach just as good.

Deep thoughts...