Meet Tripadvisor’s top commenter, who’s written more than 5,000 reviews and even has his own FANS
Bernardo Famorca from New York wrote 2,000 reviews on the website last year alone
ALMOST everyone has had a good or bad experience at a hotel or restaurant while on holiday and pledged to write it up on TripAdvisor, only to promptly forget on their return home.
But for some dedicated users of the website, reviewing is a way of life.
And none more so than for Bernardo Famorca from New York, who was TripAdvisor's top commenter in the world last year.
Bernardo, who goes by the username Bernardo F, has written a total of 5,348 reviews, with 2,000 of those in 2016 alone.
He has also uploaded more than 7,000 photos of the places he has visited onto the site, even though he has only been a member since January 2015.
The New Yorker, who travels as part of his job and spends around half the year on the road, started using the site several years ago but never bothered to comment until two years ago.
He told Sun Online: “In 2015 I was runner up awards but I didn’t even put any effort in, then last year I used it a lot more.
“I stay in a lot of hotels and I eat out three times a day, so I review everywhere I go now – I even review if I order in food."
He continued: “It’s more than a hobby because I spend so much time on it - I enjoy it because I get to see lots of unique things.
“For instance, if I’m driving along a highway and I spot there’s a memorial or something on Tripadvisor, then I take a detour.”
Bernardo doesn’t just review places though, he has also added hundreds of different places to the site, including local parks and even murals.
He said: “If I see something unique I’ll add it.”
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While the website is famous for its scathing reviews made by disgruntled customers, Bernardo says that he is mostly balanced with his comments and it has to be a truly amazing or awful experience to get a one or a five-star rating.
That said, he does have his favourites, mainly the Ritz Carlton in Cleveland, Ohio.
He said: “It’s an historic hotel in downtown but all of the rooms have been done in the Ritz Carlton style and it’s reasonably priced with fantastic service.”
He has also documented the places he’d rather forget, like the hotel in Syracuse, New York, where the rooms hadn’t been cleaned between guests.
He said: “The garbage hadn’t been emptied, the bathroom had hair in the sink and the tub, and clearly had not been cleaned.
“I called down to the front desk three times and no one answered, then when they did no one came to fix the problem for several hours.
“I had to wait to shower at my next hotel because I didn’t want to get in that tub.”
Even if his experience has been terrible though, Bernardo says he’ll always give the hotel a chance to apologise and fix the problem, unlike the some reviewers.
He said: “You have to disregard a lot of the scathing reviews on there because some people are just unhappy people.
“Others are just trying to get a cut rate on a new stay or a refund.
“If a hotel has 20 per cent bad reviews, it could probably still be very good.”
While Bernardo sometimes reads some of the negative reviews to pass the time and keep himself amused on the road, he is also a bit of a celebrity on the site himself for his prolific commenting.
Almost three million people have read the reviews that he has posted on the site.
He said: “I have a couple of people who are interested in my travels and they look on my profile to see what I have done or where I’ve been, then send me a note about what I did.
“You have your little fan club, I have a few people who don’t travel but they get to travel through me.”