Travel professionals go by many names. The forums are filled with local experts (other TripAdvisor users who answer lots of forum questions and leave lots of reviews) to help you asking questions like: What bar in Miami Beach shows the NBA Playoffs?,” What restaurants in Charlotte are dog-friendly?,” What’s the best way to get to the zoo in San Diego?” If you have a specific question, the TripAdvisor forum is the place to ask it.

The second program, called Worldwide Hotel Program, gets travelers access to the best available rate at more than 40,000 properties worldwide, access to rooms that typically show up on a hotel’s inventory as “sold out” and amenities that vary by hotel but could include breakfast or parking.

Instead of proposing that the average person, which happens to be the person I’m looking for when I’m looking at reviews, not even be counted when it comes to positive or negative experiences while traveling, how about instead recommend that the average person using TripAdvisor be a little more thorough with their review searches and take everything with a grain of salt.

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And there is a huge push behind the scenes by TripAdvisor to convince owners that they need to manage” their page by adding photos, videos, and interacting with the reviewers in order to maintain a high rating, then post the TripAdvisor widgets on our websites and stickers in our windows to promote our businesses.