{"id":17531,"date":"2019-08-11T22:56:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-11T22:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=17531"},"modified":"2019-08-12T06:36:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T06:36:21","slug":"everything-in-mecca-gets-5-stars-and-online-reviews-of-other-holy-sites-are-wildly-inflated-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/everything-in-mecca-gets-5-stars-and-online-reviews-of-other-holy-sites-are-wildly-inflated-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything in Mecca gets 5 stars \u2014 and online reviews of other holy sites are wildly inflated, too"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom van Laer<\/a>, University of Sydney<\/a><\/em> and Elif Izberk-Bilgin<\/a>, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For the millions of Muslims preparing to gather in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 9 for the hajj<\/a>, an obligatory pilgrimage to the Grand Mosque in Mecca, planning is a major part of the process.<\/p>\n

Back in the year 630 CE, when the first hajj was made<\/a>, pilgrims journeyed for months to reach Mecca, many by camel. Today, followers of Islam mostly fly there. Many also book hotels and restaurants based on reviews posted on websites like TripAdvisor<\/a>, Hajj Ratings<\/a> or Ummah.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet online reviewers who have gone to Saudi Arabia before may mislead today\u2019s pilgrims.<\/p>\n

Our study<\/a> of the online reviews of the Grand Mosque indicates they may be unreliable. Reviews of Mecca\u2019s accommodations, clothing stores, eateries and transportation options all have much higher ratings than can be reasonably expected: Mecca\u2019s sites average 4.96 TripAdvisor stars out of 5, while Europe\u2019s 200 best-rated tourist destinations average 3.96 stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hajjis are not alone<\/h2>\n

To see if this phenomenon was specific to Mecca, we also analyzed online reviews of other religions\u2019 most sacred sites: Haridwar, India, which is sacred to Hindus<\/a>; the Maya Devi Buddhist temple<\/a> in Nepal; and, in Jerusalem, Christianity\u2019s Church of the Holy Sepulchre<\/a> and Judaism\u2019s Western Wall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Online reviews for these spiritual places were similarly enthusiastic, with a combined average rating of 4.63 stars on TripAdvisor.<\/p>\n

We determined that the ratings for holy sites are so high because they primarily reflect the contributor\u2019s spiritual experience \u2013 not their experience of more mundane, practical details like the crowds, the weather or souvenir sellers.<\/p>\n

In her 5-star TripAdvisor review of the Western Wall<\/a>, for example, Jennifer O of Orlando Beach, Florida, declares that, \u201cNo words can adequately describe what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor my husband everything went white and completely quiet,\u201d she writes. \u201cFor me a quiet buzzing radiated throughout my whole body and everything went quiet as well. \u2026 One has to go there to experience the incredible effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Five stars all around for Mecca\u2019s Grand Mosque.<\/span>
\nScreenshot\/TripAdvisor.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Internet evaluations of the Grand Mosque, Wailing Wall and other places are not entirely useless for trip-planning, though. Many 5-star reviews include a more moderate, realistic depiction of what to expect on a spiritual pilgrimage in the text itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe patient with the crowds and remember Allah at all times,\u201d reads a 5-star TripAdvisor review<\/a> of the Grand Mosque headlined \u201cGreatest place on Earth,\u201d written by user Mr. McFaren, of Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n

He offers concrete advice for future hajjis: \u201cBe careful with your shoes\/slippers as it might disappear. \u2026 If you lose them during the hot day, be careful of the hot floor surface which are not marble. If you are lucky,\u201d concludes Mr McFaren, \u201cyou might find someone selling slippers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read carefully<\/h2>\n

Pilgrims reserve different writing styles when discussing the spiritual and practical elements of their trip, we observed.<\/p>\n

Reviews highlighting the spiritual aspects of the pilgrimage feature elaborate stories with exaggerated characters and exciting events \u2013 a persuasive form of communication<\/a> that people tend to find quite convincing, consumer research shows.<\/p>\n

In contrast, reviews that assess tour guides, hotel rooms, other pilgrims, road signs, site managers and the weather typically adopt a more analytical tone.<\/p>\n

Recognizing these holy site review trends can help pilgrims planning a trip make more conscious decisions while planning their journey. Whether for sacred sites in Mecca, Haridwar, Jerusalem, Lumbini or another sacred city, the super high ratings and compelling storytelling mostly reflect past visitors\u2019 spiritual experiences \u2013 not the real-world practicalities that actually affected their spiritual journeys.<\/p>\n

In God we may trust, it seems \u2013 but we cannot always trust how God is reviewed.<\/p>\n

[ Thanks for reading! We can send you The Conversation\u2019s stories every day in an informative email. Sign up today.<\/a><\/em> ]\"The<\/p>\n

Tom van Laer<\/a>, Associate Professor of Narratology, University of Sydney<\/a><\/em> and Elif Izberk-Bilgin<\/a>, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom van Laer, University of Sydney and Elif Izberk-Bilgin, University of Michigan For the millions of Muslims preparing to gather in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 9 for the hajj, an obligatory pilgrimage to the Grand Mosque in Mecca, planning is a major part of the process. Back in the year 630 CE, when the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2450],"tags":[3385,3060,3061,6779,6777,3062,2197,6610,6778,16,6776],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17537,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions\/17537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}