Here, the biggest is probably TripAdvisor.com, which has reviews of thousands of hotels and comments from people who stayed there recently. It also includes user photographs taken by guests which show a more realistic view of the place. Yet, even this can be misleading. For example, hotels can create TripAdvisor accounts and upload their own pictures (which happens a lot), or sometimes guests reviews can be confusingly contradictory. One guest may say 'the best hotel I've ever stayed in', while another will say 'the staff were rude and the bathroom was filthy'. What can we do

Well, the thing is to surf all angles try the official hotel website, try Expedia, try TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet, then make an educated guess.