How far can you trust 25 million (and counting) user-generated hotel reviews on TripAdvisor? This issue has plagued the popular travel site for some time. In June the controversy heated up along with the temperature.
The problem is this: the way TripAdvisor's system is set up, reviewers can be anonymous. This means that any innkeeper can ask friends, relatives - even every guest - to go online and give their hotel a rave review, boosting their visibility and popularity. In fact, the way the system stands, they'd be foolish not to. Arthur Frommer weighed in on the logic of the system:
Why wouldn't a hotel submit a flurry of positive comments penned by employees or friends? If you were a hotel owner, wouldn't you take steps to make sure that TripAdvisor contained numerous favorable write-ups of your property? Who would fail to do this? And because of such inescapable logic, doesn't TripAdvisor contain within itself the germs of its own undoing?Christopher Elliott has some good common-sense advice for those relying on TripAdvisor reviews:
I ignore the best and worst reviews (those are typically the fake ones) and whenever I read phrases like "best hotel ever" or "incomparable service" I roll my eyes...Good advice. I'll add my own: beware of properties - especially smaller inns and B&Bs - which have a flurry of positive comments from reviewers who have only one review to their name. That smacks of guests being encouraged, even pressured, into venturing onto TripAdvisor for the first time, solely to boost the inn's numbers. Put more stock in reviewers who have given balanced comments on a larger number of properties.
I'd also caution you to read negative reviews critically. Why did the reviewer give such a low rating to the hotel? They are often complaining about something that wasn't even the fault of the hotel (like a reservation mix-up from a third party booking site), or something that wouldn't bother you at all (like the quality of the restaurant if you aren't going to dine there).
Related:
- "Does TripAdvisor hotel manipulation scandal render the site completely useless?" - Christopher Elliott
- "TripAdvisor is now warning you that numerous hotels are submitting phony recommendations for themselves" - Arthur Frommer
- "TripAdvisor tries to respond to fake hotel reviews" - Sean O'Neill at Budget Travel
Hallo everybody,
I’am reading this good article from Italy where this scandal it’s growing day by day.
There are two parties damaged by Tripadvisor, as it’s working:
1) the travellers who belive that they are reading a trustable information source, and
2) the touristic accommodations reviewed with fake defamatory reviews.
Tripadvisor’s slogan “Get the Trhuth. Then go” it’s compleately FAKE.
Tripadvisor cannot certify and guarantee the content of what it’s published and this because they are keep on letting the writer be anonimous and at the same time they do not certify that the writer it’s a real traveller who have confirmed a paid a real booking and so that he or she has spent a real holiday in the accomodation reviewed: anybody can write a review…even without having seen on a postacard the accomodation reviewed!
They claimed and keep on claiming to the world, to have a Super Sophisticated Algoritm which it’s capable of detecting fake reviews…but why it’s not working?
The biggest point of weakness it’s Tripadvisor’policy to keep the writer-traveller anonimous.
This choice offers a “rules’ land free” where anybody can say everything without being identified, to certify the authenticity and the responsability of what it’s claimed.
But let’s go to straight to the interpretation’ key of this big “show”.
Who is going to gain money from this?…the owner of Tripadvisor….who is?…guess…yes! it’s Expedia!
Tripadvisor, draws milions of travellers promising true and genuine information ( which it’s impossible !) and then, in the same page where you can read the reviews, it “gives as a gift” the chance to know availability of the accomodation reviewed and ALL competitors sorted by distance in meters!
The availability offered it’s “kindly” shown by Expedia and all the booking engines owned, controlled or partnered with Expedia.
Obviously, Tripadvisor list ALL accomodations, not only the ones who are bookable through Expedia: this because they are exploiting good names and fame of all accommodations with a good presence on searching engines, with the”excuse” to be the “voice of thruth”, without being, and at the same time sales the accomodations througt Expedia & co’ booking engines.
This is unfair competition for all accommodations which do not sale their rooms through Expedia & co. ….even because Expedia could claim as a fee on the overall value of confirmed booking more then 30%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A black dangerous shadow it’s growing from Tripadvisor, because “managing” this public image of the accomodations and tourism related businesses, actually they could boost some of them and penalize some other, always in the view to squize the top possible income from this business.
We hope that this doubt will be soon erased by Expedia and Tripadvisor so to let the free market keep on being free and fair.
We have invited hundred times Tripadvisor to reply to those lawful questions, but nobody has never replied:
1) How can you certify that the review’s writer has stayed in the accommodation reviewed?
2) How can you guarantee that the writer it’s not a fake one, an unfair competitor, or a joker?
3) How can you ensure that what it’s written in the review, from the “potential” guest’s accomodation, it’s what really happened?
4) How can you guarantee the thruth, the genuineness, originality and source of the review?
5) In what consit the checks and controls you claimd to do on the reviews? How many checks have been made on all the reviews you claimd to have published?
6) In Italy we have a law which protect privacy of individuals and companies: why you list identifying details ( e.g: names, address, pictures, details od personnels ) of properties whitout asking a permission to the owner/manager/header?
7) Why on http://www.tripadvisor.it you don’t show your legal address, the addresses of your offices, telephone numbers and responsible manager of the sensitive data?
8 ) In order to protect our good name from public defamatory fake reviews, we ask to know writer details : why you don’t supply this information ?
9) How many of the published reviews on Tripadvisor are true and linked to a real booking confirmed and paid by a real identifiable user?
10) Why you keep on using the slogn “Get the Truth then go” which dresses Tripadvisor’s contents as truthful, when you are NOT able to certify the source and truthfulness of what it’s stated in the reviews?
We kindly invite who is in charge for Expedia and Tripadvisor, to reply to those questions to clarify this situation as soon as possible.
Kind regards
Alla Dolce Vita
The more serious issue is whether tripadvisor is itself manipulating reviews to benefit certain hotels & restaurants.
My wife & I are avid travelers. We like to consider ourselves retired though I’m 39 & she’s 30 because our love for travel is so great that it is all that we want to do for the rest of our lives.
One of the most important tools that aid us in our journeys is (was) Tripadvisor.com. It did happen a couple of times that we read rave reviews about certain hotels & decided to stay there only to find the place terrible. Whatever might have been the case I, being a loyal tripadvisor follower felt it my duty & obligation to post my own reviews to help my fellow travelers in their choice of hotels.
We stayed at one such highly recommended hotel in Rome called Welrome based on the amazing tripadvisor reviews & recommendations. When we actually checked in this property was so terrible that there are no words that I can use that would be strong enough to elucidate our horror. We promptly checked out & moved in to a better & cheaper property across the road.
Upon returning home I felt duly obliged to post our review on this terrible hotel on tripadvisor so as to warn other unsuspecting travelers about this hellhole. I received the confirmation of my damning review having been posted by tripadvisor.com.
When we had a similar experience at Tongsai Bay in Koh Samui (Thailand) last week where I found the reviews much more glorifying of a non-deserving hotel I had a niggling and worrying doubt, was tripadvisor manipulating reviews to suit their interests? It was out of this curiosity that I accessed the reviews of Welrome Hotel & to my horror I found that my review had been deleted. Why?
I could understand if certain cronies of Welrome had posted fake reviews to unjustifiably glorify this sad & disgusting property. What baffles me is that why would tripadvisor delete a genuine review from a regular patron of their website like myself.
This episode has shattered my faith in Tripadvisor & I would like to share my increased suspicion with everyone that reviews on Tripadvisor might need to be taken with a sackful of salt.
Since Trip Advisor is gobbling up discount travel sites, it has become blatantly obvious that they are no longer a non-biased site. The businesses that they are promoting do not have negative reviews, so how can these “anonymous” reviews be legitimate?
DO NOT GET DUPED BY TRIP ADVISOR!!!!
I used to be an active Tripadvisor contributor…both on the forums, and reviews. I was a member there since 2003, and had four reviews published, and 473 forum entries, mostly to the Jamaican forum. My handle was buckybruce.
Tripadvisor has just banned me. My crime? Whenever there was a question pertaining to the subject of the “swim with captive dolphins” (SWCD), I would post a reply asking the poster to do some research about how these dolphins were obtained. When the movie “The Cove” came out, I started posting links to the movie site. Since The Cove won the Oscar for best documentary, Tripadvisor started deleting mine(and other like minded individuals) posts, and closing the threads to further discussion. I tried to contact them about this…they refused to answer. I became more “militant” in my posts, finally suggesting in a thread that TA was allowing their advertisers to dictate what was discussed, and what was not. I was banned the next day, with no formal explanation from them. All my posts were gone, as were my reviews. Some old ones now have been restored, but nothing pertaining to the dolphin issue. I tried rejoining under another handle…that worked for a day, but they have now blocked my IP address, both at my home, and at my work.
I’m passionate about this issue. I’m not a PETA member or radicalized, but would classify myself as strongly “pro-animal rights” on many issues. My posts were always polite and respectful to others who disagreed with me…my aim was to educate before people made their decisions to patronize these attractions. But it’s obvious (at least to me) that TA is squashing any “informatative” discussion on this topic, because they take money from these operations.
I love review sites, I think they shape the future of business and drive healthy competition. But as we can see from this article its a dangerous two edged sword. Its terrible people have to be dishonest.
I’ve heard of a lot of other problems from Tripadvisor, like business removing the bad reviews from their site on TripAdvisor. Also, a lot of businesses have been flagged as spammers by Tripadvisor, when tripadvisor claims they’ve been boosting their own numbers with fake reviews. It’s sad.
I definitely trust them more for their recommendations on restaurants than I do on hotels. I’ve been to plenty of great hotels with bad reviews on trip advisor that have been wonderful in person.
Look at this message please ;
Dear TripAdvisor Listing Owner,
Thank you for expressing your concern about the following review:
Title: Perchè mentire?
ID#: 113052583
We encourage travelers to take the whole of a property’s reviews into account when judging it. If most other reviews are positive, travelers are likely to see a negative as a mere aberration.
Though we are leaving the review in question on the site for now, you may respond to it using our management response feature. This feature lets you respond to the review and tell your side of the story. Your management response will appear alongside the review it refers to, so that travelers can read both perspectives.
Now ,here is the story….it is about a restaurant in Dublin Ireland,an italian restaurant called Il Vicoletto,nice little,romantic,rustic ,owned and runned with mostly italian staff.This place just got one of the worst comment which is derogatory,in parts racist and very upseting. False all the way up,just because this small business managed not once,but twice to surpass many other big restaurants. So now there’s a comment about them that they’re not genuine,as they have some other nationality workers,making comments on their accent ,ethnicity,nationality. That is just pure discrimination,and they accept such comment as valid,after having the same comment taken off for a about 10 days,now they posted back again. Dispute is going on over this issue,and i understand that some news papper will be involved in this scandalous subject. Trip advisor,is a dangerous place to be,if you’re to good,small and new.
http://www.tripadvisor.ie/Restaurant_Review-g186605-d1485765-Reviews-IL_VICOLETTO-Dublin_County_Dublin.html
Trip Advisor say they have a zero tolerance for fraud. This is frankly bull. That may be the aim of management but it’s not working.
Of more concern than fake reviews is a worrying increase in reports of reviewers blackmailing small hotels, B&B’s and self-catering holiday lets, threatening poor reviews or offering good reviews in exchange for a discount when the time comes to pay. Small businesses have no choice but to accept or face the consequences, which could, in an instant, unfairly ruin a small business that has taken years and somebody’s life savings to set up. Reviewers are members so you can make some assessment of their credibility but to date Trip Advisor has refused to enable the reviewer to be properly rated, like eBay rates both buyer and seller.
Holiday Lettings in the UK partnered with Trip Advisor last year and are also failing to do anything about. Published results from Trip Advisor’s own research proves that guests who have enjoyed their stay are far less likely to write a review so small businesses clearly want to encourage their customers to write reviews. In fact, Trip Advisor cold call and spam small businesses to register, pushing them to encourage reviews. There’s nothing wrong with encouraging guests to write a review. So where do you draw the line at how you encourage a customer to write a review?
Whilst reviewers are unrated and anonymous there will continue to be blackmail and fake reviews. Trip Advisor could do something about to improve it, but haven’t. The fact is, fake reviews and unrated reviewer anonymity means TripAdvisor reviews are currently worthless.