'Fake' reviews on TripAdvisor a real problem for hoteliers

NET RESULTS:Many in the hotel industry hate the website, but the public seems happy with its 'crowdsourced' review model

CHANCES ARE, if you’ve ever tried to book a hotel online, you’ve come across the reviews site TripAdvisor.com.

The site has been to the forefront of the trend towards “crowdsourcing” opinions and reviews – anyone can post a review. Recently, the site said it had reached a milestone of hosting more than 50 million reviews for hotels all around the world, and about 50 million travellers use the site every month.

But many hoteliers hate the site, feeling the reviews are not adequately vetted, and they argue that as a result of this a significant portion are faked – on both the positive and the negative rating side. This has made the site the target of ire from a certain portion of the hotel industry, with lawsuits threatened on and off.

In the UK, that anger has bubbled over into a complaint brought to the country’s Advertising Standards Agency by online reputation management company KwikChex, representing some 2,000 UK hotels.

According to the Daily Telegraph,the issues at the heart of the complaint seem to be, firstly, that TripAdvisor used the slogan "reviews you can trust" – even though the bona fides of reviewers, or even whether they have actually stayed in a place they are reviewing, are not confirmed.

In addition, there seems to be an issue around hotels using positive reviews in promotional material. Under UK advertising standards, this may be illegal, again because comments – positive or negative – and their posters are not verified. If TripAdvisor were required to verify all positive comments, there is an argument that it would also have to verify all negative comments.

This week, it was widely reported that TripAdvisor had changed its slogan from “reviews you can trust” to “reviews from our community” – though only for the hotels section of the website.

A company spokesperson has said there were plans to make changes anyway and it was not a reaction to the complaint to the standards agency.

Kwikchex co-founder Chris Emmins told the Telegraphthat the company made a similar complaint on behalf of hotels and restaurants to the Federal Trade Commission in the US, and would bring a civil court case against TripAdvisor there.

You only have to read comments posted on any of the discussion boards where people in the hotel and hostel industry gather to sense the hostility many feel towards TripAdvisor. The theme of unreliable, fake reviews, and of unfair reviews from axe-grinders that have damaged an establishment’s reputation, is repeated over and over.

The fake reviews issue is a very real problem. The New York Timessummed it up in a story last month: "In tens of millions of reviews on websites like Amazon.com, Citysearch, TripAdvisor and Yelp, new books are better than Tolstoy, restaurants are undiscovered gems and hotels surpass the Ritz."

Those kinds of gushing, glowing reviews tend to be posted by freelancers recruited off jobs websites and paid very small amounts per review. Positive or negative, such reviews weaken the integrity of the review process and businesses that use crowdsourced reviews are eager to prevent people from gaming the system with fakes.

Last month, the New York Times reported that Cornell University researchers have created an algorithm that can pick out the fake reviews from the real with about 90 per cent accuracy. Amazon and TripAdvisor were among the companies that have contacted the researchers, according to the article, while Google (but of course) asked for the CV of one of the student researchers involved.

Despite all of that – both the concern about fake reviews and the frustration of some hoteliers with TripAdvisor – I find these kinds of personal reviews very helpful. It’s useful to get that insider view. The axe-to-grind people are pretty obvious, and I also tend to disregard overly glowing reviews.

Most of the hotel ratings that I have read on TripAdvisor will have some reviews pointing out problems or dislikes, and generally a majority recording a happy experience. A few negatives are par for the course and some simply reveal personal dislikes more than actual problems. Typically, I find that most reviews are fairly spot on for the places where I have stayed.

Lots of other people apparently feel the same – enough so that TripAdvisor, which was founded 11 years ago and purchased by travel giant Expedia in 2004 for $200 million (€146 million), is a very valuable part of its parent company. It recorded 38 per cent growth last year, about three times Expedia’s growth. Expedia has indicated it intends to spin off the company through an initial public offering towards the end of this year, and it is one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2011.

Some analysts think TripAdvisor comprises about a fourth of the total value of Expedia, giving it a valuation of close to $2 billion. A Wall Street Journalarticle earlier this year predicted the company could IPO at as high as $4 billion.

All of which indicates the public is pretty happy with the crowdsourced review model. But it also highlights that TripAdvisor, like others using crowdsourced reviews, must find tools that will keep reviews honest, useful and real.