Do consumer reviews really matter?

Do the reviews of a product or service that people post online really matter? In the online world of travel, do people really read the reviews other guest write and take their opinion in to consideration? For several years Florida Sprit Vacation Homes have posted emails from past guest thanking us for a wonderful time in the vacation home. We wanted to let people know that guests who stayed with us had a great time and they could also expect the same on their vacation. Sure we had control of the emails, but we have posted hundreds of them on the website over the years. Florida Spirit has had several really nice travel articles written about us, where we invited the travel writer to stay with us, and we also had some really nice things written on yahoo travel and trip advisor, that we have no idea who wrote such nice things since it is by a first name or login name only. I was recently shopping for a new car for my family and found a great car site called www.edmunds.com. On this site they had every detail about all kinds of cars including editor’s ratings. I found the editor ratings really for the car enthusiast, which I am not. I also found buyer reviews from people that have bought the cars and shared their opinion. The buyer reviews were really helpful and seemed to look at the car from a similar view point as mine. I found that most of the reviews talked about items that the car experts did not even cover. I also found interesting that in most cases at least on review was too good to be true, almost as if it was written by the car manufacturer and a review so bad that it may have been written by a competitor. I did find that most reviews had overall similar opinions of the cars and I was very comfortable with that information. I had another situation looking for a new lens for my digital camera. The lens details were very confusing for me since I am very basic with a camera. I only wanted a better lens to take close up shots of my children playing sports and to take better photos of the vacation homes for the website. Again the consumer reviews helped me out the most. In one lens review a buyer explained the lens was a disappointment to him but if you only wanted a great lens to take photos of kids playing sports it was a great value. He actually said that the best use of the camera lens was perfect for what I was looking for. I bought the lens and it is perfect for me. I felt that the consumer reviews were so helpful in my last few personal purchases that I have added reviews by our past renters by an unbiased third party called Flipkey.com. Flipkey contacts our past rental guest by email and asked them if they would be interested in doing a review of the vacation home they stayed in and it would be posted on Flipkey.com. The reviews are unedited and Florida Spirit has no control of what people say other than by providing a very good vacation rental home at a good value in the first place. Since we started a good number of our guests have taken the time to write a review and rate the homes. Florida Spirit has a 4.5 star rating out of a possible 5 stars with Flipkey. We had one less than wonderful review that pointed out that some of the homes furnishing were looking a little tired and that they had trouble with the dish washer and pool heater while staying in the home. Both the dishwasher and pool heater were serviced while the guest were in the home, even though it was understandable it was still frustrating to the guests and affected their vacation. Florida Spirit did use the review to ask the homeowner to make updates to the furnishing of the home which they agreed. Without consumer reviews we would not have had the guest comments to share with the property owner and improve the home for future guests. Please share your thoughts if you feel that consumer reviews of products and services help you decide what to buy and even where to stay on your vacation. Thank you, Florida Spirit Vacation Homes