Night view from the beach at Placencia. Image Credit: Chabilmar Resort.
Several Belizean tourism properties have received recognition in TripAdvisor’s 2013 Traveler’s Choice Awards. Belize.com Managing Director M.A. Romero extends congratulations to all the country properties honored. “This is proof of the hard work and dedication to the tourism product by the industry even in the face of a challenging environment of competition from neighboring countries and the rising cost of doing business in Belize. The recognition awarded is well deserved, and helps to show how much Belizeans pride themselves on quality service. We have surpassed many countries in our region and rank highly alongside some of the largest around the world.” Belize.com is the leading Independent Travel Guide to Belize and produces its own Best Belize and Hotels Directory.
Even though TripAdvisor has lost points in recent years over the belief in some quarters that its ratings are lacking, the scores do serve a useful function in placing hotels in a ballpark range of good properties. While TripAdvisor “does a good job for a lot of people, its popularity index can be easily and significantly manipulated,” claims Chris Emmins of Kwikchex, a British reputation management firm. The TripAdvisor Choice awards now in their 11th year, select the top 25 hotels in various categories. Fodor’s Belize Travel Writer Lan Sluder for his part commented on an online travel forum that “These awards are well-deserved, but I do think TripAdvisor this year missed some other great places in Belize.”
Belize dominated in the categories of “Top 25 Small Hotels in Central America” and “Top 25 Hotels for Service in Central America.”
The results are as follows:
Top 25 Small Hotels in Central America
1 Hamanasi Adventure and Dive Shop – Hopkins, Belize
2 Pelican Reef Villas Resort – San Pedro, Belize
3 The Phoenix Resort – San Pedro, Belize
4 Coco Plum Island Resort – Dangriga, Belize
7 Turneffe Flats – Turneffe Islands, Belize
9 Chabil Mar – Placencia, Belize
10 Xanadu Island Resort Belize – San Pedro, Belize
18 Turneffe Island Resort – Turneffe Islands, Belize
19 Matachica Beach Resort – San Pedro, Belize
22 Belcampo Lodge – Punta Gorda, Belize
24 Pook’s Hill Lodge – Belmopan, Belize
25 Maya Beach Hotel – Placencia, Belize
A total of 12 Belize properties were awarded, giving Belize 48% of the total.
Top 25 Hotels for Service in Central America
1 Hamanasi Adventure and Dive Shop – Hopkins, Belize
2 The Phoenix Resort – San Pedro, Belize
5 Pelican Reef Villas Resort – San Pedro, Belize
6 Chabil Mar – Placencia, Belize
11 Coco Plum Island Resort – Dangriga, Belize
15 El Pescador Resort – San Pedro, Belize
16 Black Rock Lodge – San Ignacio, Belize
17 Xanadu Island Resort Belize – San Pedro, Belize
18 Mystic River Resort – San Ignacio, Belize
21 Pook’s Hill Lodge – Belmopan, Belize
24 Athens Gate – San Pedro, Belize
A total of 11 Belize properties were awarded, giving Belize 44% of the total.
Other Central American categories were:
Top 25 Hotels in Central America
5 Victoria House – San Pedro, Belize
8 Coco Beach Resort – San Pedro, Belize
10 Grand Caribe Belize Resort and Condominiums – San Pedro, Belize
11 Las Terrazas Resort – San Pedro, Belize
Top 20 Luxury Hotels in Central America
1 The Phoenix Resort – San Pedro, Belize
7 Las Terrazas Resort – San Pedro, Belize
9 Turtle Inn – Placencia, Belize
10 Blancaneaux Lodge – Cayo District, Belize
12 Kanantik Reef & Jungle Resort – Stann Creek, Belize
Top 25 Bargain Hotels in Central America
3 Colinda Cabanas – Caye Caulker, Belize
8 Villa Verano – Hopkins, Belize
15 Captain Jak’s Cabanas – Placencia, Belize
18 Pook’s Hill Lodge – Belmopan, Belize
19 Hopkins Inn – Hopkins, Belize
24 Clarissa Falls Resort – San Ignacio, Belize
Top 25 Small Hotels in the World
2 Hamanasi Adventure and Dive Resort – Hopkins, Belize
16 Pelican Reef Villas Resort – San Pedro, Belize
20 The Phoenix Resort – San Pedro, Belize
Top 25 Hotels for Service in the World
5 Hamanasi Adventure and Dive Resort – Hopkins, Belize
Belize.com extends enormous congratulations to all winners.
Travel Writer Lan Sluder On TripAdvisor Ratings
TripAdvisor is very helpful, but we have to be aware that it can be gamed to a certain extent, by both owners (owners of a large condo property especially can put up a lot of positive reviews) and negatively by competitors.
Also, and this is a personal bias, TripAdvisor ratings and reviews are mostly by people who have only stayed or eaten in a few places in a destination like Belize. The reviewers really don’t have much with which to compare one place, especially hotels and resorts, to another in the same area or country. By contrast I’ve stayed in maybe 150 to 200 hotels in Belize, and although you might disagree with my opinions and preferences, or that of other travel writers or frequent visitors to Belize, you can sort of figure out what I like and don’t like and factor in my biases.
More important, TripAdvisor is not transparent. No one knows the algorithms they use to rate and rank hotels and restaurants. A hotel or restaurant with just a few reviews, but very positive ones, can quickly zoom to near the top of the rankings. And sometimes a hotel or restaurant with a lot of five-star ratings loses out to ones with lower rating but more reviews.
I’ve noticed, for example, that very inexpensive places, like ice cream shops and bakeries, often are among the highest ranked “restaurants” in many cities. In part that’s because they attract a lot of customers who can afford a couple of bucks for a sweet roll or a scoop of ice cream and then write a review, whereas a sophisticated upscale place may not get that many customers because of the price.
Another factor, which I didn’t realize until I was talking with my young adult kids recently, is that TripAdvisor seems to attract more tourists and older people who do ratings than, say, Yelp, which attracts more locals and probably more young people. My son, for example, who lives in Boston, says he and his friends rely on Yelp and rarely even look at TripAdvisor for restaurants in Boston, but he does use TripAdvisor when traveling in Asia, Europe or Latin America.
That issue is probably less important for Belize or other travel destinations. Belize gets virtually zero TripAdvisor reviews by Belizeans or Belize residents and , but it gets a lot of reviews from travelers, and I don’t know if there’s even a Yelp for Belize.
In the case of the Travelers’ Choice awards, I suspect (but don’t know for sure) that it’s stacked in favor of more-visited countries and larger hotels and resorts. As I noted, the majority of winners in Central America were in Costa Rica, which gets the most foreign tourists in the region, nearly 10 times as many as Belize. So naturally it’s going to get a lot of votes.