Travel websites cracking down on bogus customer reviews

Friday, 16 Feb, 2007 0

Travel websites are clamping down on fake online ‘user’ reviews which could be damaging their business.

According to a debate at the Reuters Hotels and Casinos 2007 Summit in Los Angeles this week, illegitimate reviews are sometimes posted on to sites by hotels wanting to make their property look good.

Priceline.com says it is coping with the problem by only allowing users to post their views only if its records show the person has stayed at the hotel.

Meanwhile, TripAdvisor employs a team trained in fraud detection to monitor fake reviews and has software which continually tracks the reviews for anomalies.

It said hotels which try to go against the system are penalised.

“A handful of hotels try to manipulate the site and most don’t do it very cleverly,” said a TripAdvisor UK spokesman.

“It tends to be the smaller establishments that are a little bit naive. It’s not worth it for any hotel because if we catch them at it we will penalise them.

“It’s done on a case by case basis depending on how naughty they’ve been. One hotel in Wales was asking its customers that if they’d had a good time, could they contact TripAdvisor, which is fine, but they were also giving customers photos to put up on the site, which is a bit naughty.

“Other hotels blatanty try and post positive reviews and we will have no hesitation by naming and shaming and dropping their popularity rating. It can ruin their reputation. But it is very much the exception.”

By Bev Fearis

Bev

Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.

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