Travel and Restaurant Recommendations - how reliable are they?

I was just looking at articles on cosmetics and health in a national newspaper, and received scathing comments from my family on relying on popular promotions.  I have a family of researchers including experts in statistics and search engine optimisation. I've been thinking about reliability of recommendations.

All through childhood we rely on one person, a parent or grandparent, and at school we rely on one person, a teacher or tutor. Learning to drive or play the piano or speak another language, or changing a light bulb, one helper can be effective. A single teacher can be a hundred per cent successful in teaching us facts or skills. My parents took me on holidays to Cornwall and later to Europe, to France. A mentor at work, or to help you start public speaking in Toastmasters International can be very effective.

Teachers, Mentors and Guides
Very often one to one teaching succeeds because the other person is one or two steps ahead along a set path. Teaching can have two aims:
1 To introduce us to a subject and inspire enthusiasm so that we continue to explore and enjoy on our own.
2 Health and safety. To warn against common pitfalls or dangers encountered by beginners. In a school or adult painting class you would be shown how to avoid smudging the paint with your elbow by starting at the top of a large page or canvas, or not to trip over an easel or brushes dropped on the floor. Travellers might be given links warnings about pickpockets or links to jackets with inside pockets.
3 Providing the tools for the job. At school this would be books. Parents might provide stationery, sharp pencils. Travel advisers can offer timetables, tips, links to websites.

Now let's look back at a newspaper survey of cosmetics and travel. I read stories about adventure travel simply for entertainment, to avoid going on difficult journeys. I did not climb Everest or die aged under thirty, though I am interested to read about those who did.

Looking at cosmetics, improving your hair or skin, for a local newspaper run by one person a survey of one tester, especially if they have expertise, is amusing. But for a national newspaper to do a survey, one person's reaction is insufficient.

A newspaper has a limit of often one thousand words. But a survey requires at least three testers for variety.

If I read reviews on Amazon, I do not take only one person's comment as verification. A study in a national newspaper should select three people.

I went back to a statistician for their comments. A proper statistical test would have a minimum of fifty, plus a control group receiving nothing or trying plain water and before and after comparisons.

Statistics
My statistics expert (yes, I admit, just one) says a medical study (of as many people as possible, over time) saving one cancer patient out of ten from dying, would be progress. (Assuming you have a control group showing this is not just chance; nor caused by outside factors; nor the fact that being selected for a test has given them hope - testing placebo affect; nor the fact that being surveyed has made them self-conscious so they start watching their diet.)

But a beauty product with only one in ten success/satisfaction means nine out of ten product returns, or nine out of ten customer complaints to the shop, and would be a financial and PR disaster.

Travel Surveys
Now, let's see how this affects you and me and travel articles. I read trip advisor to see a section of views on a restaurant or hotel. I look for facts. I know that I will be annoyed by a twelve and a half per cent service charge in a London restaurant.

Tripadvisor
I know I won't mind waiting for my main course in the evening if I am given free nibbles. Never mind that Mr Impatient, catching a plane, or rushing back to work at lunch time, was incensed at waiting more than ten minutes for his first course. Tripadviser is great at sending me a selection of views. It's also nice to know that I wasn't just having a bad day, or being discriminated against because my clothes weren't smart enough, the waiter is always rude.

Reading For Facts
What can I offer my readers?
a) Entertainment - an amusing look at places they already know, don't know, would like to know.
b) News - Handy news and pictures of what's new - with time-saving links to websites for further reading.
c) Attractive photos which aren't available elsewhere. (New restaurants in the UK, places in other countries.)
d) Armchair travel for others in my age group.
e) What I learned when I wrote for Brides magazine, something at three price levels, bargain, middle range and luxury, so every reader can find something suiting their budget.
f) Detail - the cute cutlery and crockery and crystal clear glasses and bright colours and kinky artwork on toilet walls.
g) Basics - where long articles in national newspapers focus on the quality of the cumin, I can show the outside of a restaurant in the street so you can find it.

Balance And Bias
I have learned from this exercise what I think I should tell you, which is the arguments for and against every location.  That is how I was trained in journalism.

For comedy, you exaggerate and rant about trivia. But for a fair survey, you give both sides, for and against. For a comprehensive survey, in a restaurant I would ask those sitting at table both sides, others in the queue, plus the restaurant manager on their pricing policing and what makes them unique. If I had time I would also check back on TripAdvisor and other websites and ask my friends.

Fuss Post
But I know my friends. I have discriminating friends with unlimited budgets who like luxury restaurants. They expect unusual wines, and all food hand made to order. One lady, ex colleague, who now makes a fortune in sales, sneered, "Cheap chocolates from a supermarket."

Thank You Gifts
Gosh, I have to be careful what I buy my hostess as a thank you gift for taking me to a wonderful restaurant. My small Tesco bargain was not well received. She presented me with a box of chocolates twice the size of mine for her. Even my thought of Marks and Spencers' big best box of Belgian chocolates is not good enough. I worry all through the meal.

Next time she treats me to lunch I need expensive seasonal chocolates with unusual ingredients, tied with ribbon, hand made, from an upmarket shop she doesn't know. So I scanned the late Rainbeaux chocolate shop, and am now searching Hotel Chocolat shops, with her requirements in mind.

Bargains
Bargain hunters are satisfied with anything cheap and cheerful. A teacher and composer I know was not impressed by being treated on a birthday or by a boss. He hated having two waiters and a dome lifted to reveal the dish created by the chef. He described two of London's best restaurants (I think one was the Oxo Tower) where waiters wear bow ties as 'pretentious'.

Diets
Diet freaks, not fussy, a restaurant does not have to be vegetarian, nor halal nor kosher, but they are never satisfied with anything, extremely picky. My friend is not pleased unless the manager can serve three kinds of fish, cooked grilled not fried, with the anchovies and garlic removed, potatoes mashed without butter, and time to talk for twenty minutes. My friend, who is a travel agent, cancelled my restaurant bookings twice. I now give her a list of three restaurants and ask her to phone, quiz the manager, and select her favourite - and book and cancel, so I don't get the blame and they are rated as a reliable or fussy customer.

Travel Writing Training And Experience
I like insights, into what is going on behind the scenes, in the minds of the the writers and readers, as well as the owners of attractions. Who has time to do all this research? Only me. You have to be paid to write and note detail, then conditioned by a lifetime of writing, in my case for newspapers and magazines worldwide, so that even when you are not paid, merely on holiday, you end up obsessed.

Angela Lansbury, author, travel writer and photographer, speaker.