Moves to cut down bogus hotel reviews
Written by Karen Bryan
I am glad to see that this issue is being addressed by several companies.
Trip Advisor employs a team of fraud investigators using software to highlight inconsistencies in reviews. Hotels found guilty of gerrymandering will be named and shamed and their popularity ranking will drop. I do think that you require appropiate deterents in place to discourage dishonest reviews. It seems quite just that by trying to get undeserved favourable publicity the tables are turned and the cheats get negative publicity instead.
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The other side of bogus reviewing also needs to be addressed too ie that from “guests”. We have received three separate reviews from guests who didn’t even turn up and all three negative because we charge the noshow fee which they agree to when they book.
Where there is little checking is that guests have actually been guests. Two sites did remove the review from the non-guests but Tripadvisor didn’t so we’re sitting with a very negative review from someone who never even stayed with us.
Now I’ll grant that TA can’t just take our word that the people didn’t turn up as obviously that could let people say that X wasn’t a guest whenever X gave a negative review but there must be some onus on them to get some confirmation that the guests actually did stay. At the moment, we could very easily put negative comments against all our competitors (and I gather that some places do that) with no comeback at all.
Arnold, it is a thorny issue, with so many possible abuses, It is always said the people are far more likely to want to broadcast bad news than good. I quite like the system used by one hotel affiliates I use, Active Hotels, as they email you after you have checked out and ask for your opinion, You can only post a review if you booked the hotel through Active Hotels and did actually stay there.
[Disclaimer: I'm part of the Active Hotels team, so I'm inevitably a bit biased on this one!]
Karen, I’m pleased to see that our hotel reviews system is well received. We really pride ourselves in having unbiased and genuine reviews which, as Arnold said above, can be notoriously difficult to keep control over.
We don’t edit the content of the reviews we receive, so future guests get as fair a description of the hotel experience as possible. Of course, if the feedback can be used to help a hotel improve the condition of their rooms, we notify them, but the reviews stay as is.
And as for people being more likely to broadcast bad news, the balance is still healthy between good and bad stays in my experience. The reviews sometimes are heartwarmingly positive, often about welcoming owners and great breakfasts!
Vero, I’ll be interested to see if the negative review I will write for the Lodge Hotel in Hunstanton in Norfolk (booked through Active Hotels) will appear? Our room in the hotel was extremely disappointing, very small, far too hot, very shabby, mouldy shower tiles. Breakfast had no fresh fruit, the eggs were like rubber. I had read of reviews before booking and it had scored and 8 out of ten, I would score it at 2 or 3!