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Can TripAdvisor hotel reviews be trusted?

February 09, 2010 |

If websites like TripAdvisor are riddled with fake reviews, where will the traveller go for authentic advice, asks Charles Starmer-Smith of The Sydney Morning Herald.

TripAdvisor is in real danger of becoming a victim of its own success. With some 25 million-plus users a month, it wields enormous power and the hotel industry knows it. Many within the industry are now doing all they can to manipulate its anonymous reviews. And who can blame them? A series of bad TripAdvisor reviews can ruin a hotel's business. No wonder then that European hoteliers are seeking to persuade the EU Commission to overhaul the rules governing website reviews to ensure that they have been posted by genuine guests.

A report by the travel website, Travolution, this month, confirmed my suspicions that hoteliers are being approached by companies promising to post positive reviews on websites in return for monthly fees. The report claims that such companies can avoid the protection measures that websites have put in place, by posting the reviews from different locations around the world. The report even claimed that one hotel had received a number of reviews before it had even opened.

Get the full story at The Sydney Morning Herald

Read also "'Fake review' firms are not an issue, says TripAdvisor" at Travolution

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