They’re the stuff of hospitality professionals’ dreams and nightmares: glowing reviews that praise what you’ve got to offer, while the threat of fake reviews looms in the background.
The concern over fake reviews is nothing new, with many hoteliers, restaurateurs and tour operators citing it as one of the primary reasons that they don’t trust platforms like TripAdvisor to provide a fair and unbiased reflection of their facilities. However, a recent article by Which? has brought these concerns to the fore of many minds, as their investigation into property reviews highlighted a large amount of what they claim to be fraudulent feedback amongst top hotels.
Suspicious review activity found on top-rated hotel listings
Which? compared almost 250,000 reviews during their investigation, and found that some of the top-rated hotels in the Middle East, Las Vegas, and even a property under the Travelodge umbrella, Britain’s second-biggest hotel chain, had suspicious activity that suggested their reviews were faked.
On approaching TripAdvisor for comment on their findings, Which? discovered that, of the 15 hotels that they raised concerns about, 14 had received warnings from TripAdvisor for dubious review content over the past year.
What was it that raised Which?‘s suspicions?
The main indicator that Which? looked at to distinguish genuine reviews from falsified ones was whether the reviewer had any previous review activity on TripAdvisor. Properties that reflected a larger than normal amount of positive feedback from first-time reviewers were deemed to be dubious.
The trouble with this method of fraud detection, however, is that it’s difficult to pinpoint whether the reviewers truly are first-timers, or whether they are faked accounts that have been set up for the purposes of boosting hotel reviews. As a TripAdvisor spokesperson explained to The Guardian when approached for comments on the Which? findings: “It is simply far too simplistic to assume all first-time reviewers are suspicious. Every genuine reviewer in the world is at some point a first-time reviewer.”
