It takes years to build a reputation and only a day to destroy it.

Last week, there was a story about a hotel in New York, which had to close because of some nasty reviews that had been written about it on TripAdvisor. Apparently staff were seen smoking weed in the bedrooms as they went about their cleaning duties, rats were prevalent in the kitchens and mattresses stank of urine.

Yet this had been a well-respected family run hotel, that had done well for many years.

According to the friend that told me this story, the negative reviews were posted by a rival hotel rather than real customers.

The fact that there were lots of really favourable reviews on TripAdvisor for this same hotel becomes irrelevant if you think there’s a chance that your mattress is going to smell of urine – however good the other aspects of the hotel may be. TripAdvisor, to be fair, does give any hotel the chance to respond to this type of comment, but who would you believe?

“I stayed in that hotel and the mattress stunk of wee”
OR
“ I can assure guests that if any mattress stunk of wee, it would be replaced immediately”

Recommendations from people you trust though are worth their weight in gold.

They may not always be good recommendations but if you know the person providing the recommendation, chances are that you will be able to put it into context. If one of your friends has got a bad breath problem and they recommend a particular product for easing the problem, that’s a very valuable reccomendation. Compare that to a beautiful celebrity endorsing a fresh breath product – you sort of know that they only endorse it for the money and you suspect that their celebrity breath smells beautiful anyway.

That probably explains why, in a recent study, friends recommendations were trusted by 65% of people and only 8% trusted those of a celebrity. Yet still many brands spend millions on getting celebrity endorsement and they wouldn’t do that if it didn’t work.

The moral of the story – if you want to buy something or go somewhere, before you do nything else , ask your friends.

BRILLIANT – A FANTASTIC ARTICLE ON THE TOP NEW HOTELS IN NEW YORK, PARIS AND SOMEWHERE ELSE

What do you do, when that article that you read over someone’s shoulder recommending all the new hotels in your favourite cities, steps off at the next station?

You google it of course.

But then when you type in “Top new hotels in New York and Paris”, the article doesn’t appear on the first few pages of results and you are besieged by a mass of sponsored links...

So most people give up.

Those with a bit more patience will eventually find the article and may then bookmark it, along with everything else they have bookmarked.

Chances are the article will never be seen again (For those that are interested, you can find all of the Guardian's Travel recommendations on LoveThis).

Wouldn’t it be good if you could organise all these recommendations into a single place, and where you can search for it whenever you want?

That’s basically what LoveThis lets you do and then lets you see all your friends recommendations at the same time.

So if your friend has just stayed at the Design Sorbonne in Paris, you’ll know that it really is good.

James

P.S. - Once you've found a hotel, take a look at the most recommended restaurants on in New York and London on LoveThis, the place to find the things your friends recommend.