Our policy on hotel and restaurant reviews

Hi guys

today I just wanted to discuss briefly about our current policy on restaurant and hotel reviews. As we have said before, we are currently avoiding to recommend or to review any particular restaurant/bar/hotel or anything else, with very few exceptions (I think 2).

I would like to explain why we chose this path, and ask your opinion about it, because we are not sure we’re making the right choice in terms of what interests our readers.

You see, most of the travel guides recommend specific restaurants and hotels, but they also get paid by them for the advertising so… How could you know that the guide really believes that that place really deserves it or they’re just recommending it because they got paid for it?

Our precise goal is to create a sincere and direct guide, and you may have also noticed that we don’t mind speaking ill of our city when we must. We believe that our credibility and reputation is our best weapon, and therefore we fear we’ll lose it if we start writing reviews about specific places, even if we think they’re worth it.  Plus: in the era of Tripadvisor, do you really need recommendations from a travel guide?

We know that one of the question that tourists ask more frequently is: where should I eat?

We’re trying to provide you the means to understand by yourself which restaurants are good and which not (as you’ve seen in our posts like: “how to avoid tourist traps in Venice” and others), but we’re not sure that this is enough.

For this reason, we want to ask your opinion:

Do you think we should keep remaining neutral and avoid reviewing specific restaurants or hotels

or

Would you believe your recommendations and actually think they would be useful?

We thank you for your opinion, it helps us understand what our reader want and how to advise them at our best possibilities.