While I’m not a legal expert, I wonder if Cruise Critic’s participation in this activity in some way might violate FTC regulations. Cruise Critic’s management, in defense of their behavior, is claiming all it did was to provide their advertiser and marketing partner, RCCL, the contact information for those in to be invited to the Royal Champions Program;. Who are they kidding? Cruise Critic in addition knowingly published reviews and comments from this group and, according to a Cruise Critic bulletin board post (since removed from the site) from their Community Manager, both the Community Manager and Cruise Critic’s Editor met with a large group of Royal Champions aboard one of the free incentive cruises.

So, at the very least, Cruise Critic demonstrated a total disregard for their users who might have been disled by these shills, while creating an uneven playing field to the detriment of cruise lines other than RCCL. This seems to flaunt stated Trip Advisor policy, so it would be good to hear from them on this matter. And, as a public company, I wonder as well if Expedia, corporate parent of both Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor, may be liable for behavior that could be considered detrimental to their shareholders.

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HAhaha glad you picked this up Mr Rants. You are a little slow though, but spot on. How can a so called independent community offer people free cruises and complimentary pay-offs to write nice reviews about a cruise company.

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I have been a member of Cruise Critic for just a short time, but if this is the type of thing that they do to make these reviews ‘independent’ then to be honest I will seek my reviews elsewhere.

It is a shocking way to do business.

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@Darren

If it is indeed the same Stuart Falk, then you are right – he should be disclosing his former responsibilities as sales manager at CruiseCritic.com.

Indeed, according to Falk’s LinkedIn page, he was sales manager at CruiseCritic from 2007 to 2008, which is ironically during the same period when – as CruiseCritic has since admitted – RCCL approached with regards to contacting its members.

Maybe CruiseCritic should disclose who RCCL contacted and who knew about the programme?

[Eagle eyed observers may also notice that the comments by Falk in the thread 'Is Royal Caribbean manipulating Web 2.0 User Generated Content?' on a LinkedIn cruise group are remarkably similar to comments TravelMole used from a "source" earlier this week. Probably just a coincidence, of course]

As for the discussion, i’m a little perturbed that this is such a shocking revelation.

Talk to any travel company and they will tell how desperate they are to attract favourable reviews in forums, blogs and social networks. It’s a pretty straightforward and logical desire, surely?

RCCL managed to do this simply by asking a user review site to help out. CruiseCritic assisted and has subsequently managed to get a fair degree of criticism from SOME of its users and a handful of bloggers and social media types.

One suspects CruiseCritic will survive this slightly dark hour…

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It’s a shame as real user review sites can be very useful but it seems an impossible job to make them impartial – Either people with a vested interest scam them or the owners are biased in some way due to money / ownership issues.

When looking at user review sites – whether it’s for hotels or web hosting, whatever, there is always a wide range of opinions on a given product which takes the usefulness away or anyway makes it necessary to read with some cynicism.

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Darren,
To respond to your question, please be assured that during my time with Cruise Critic I was totally unaware of the Royal Champions program and would never have been associated with such behavior.

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In a way, there’s a certain “told you so” to the RC / CruiseCritic saga. For full disclosure, I manage a travel website that contains 70,000+ tour reviews. And when we started collecting reviews, I received a lot of criticism from colleagues (as well as from travel industry peers) for using a “closed” system. That is, we only ever accepted reviews from actual, confirmed customers. The “open” system used by CruiseCritic, TripAdvisor, and 99% of the user-generated content sites out there requires no validation. In a closed system, you can review something only if you’ve purchased and experienced the product. In an open system, there’s no guarantee of authenticity.

And obviously, this openness gets abused.

It’s obvious why CruiseCritic and TA and others use an open system. Their goals typically are to gather as many reviews as possible, to build up their site content, generate more page inventory for ads, and jump to the top of search rankings. In the short term most sites were successful doing this.

But now, it seems every week or two there’s news of major abuse. And travel customers are losing their trust in ‘reviews’. And who can blame them.

At Viator, it’s taken us 18 months or so to collect 70,000+ reviews. I bet that TripAdvisor collects that many reviews in a single month.

But despite the early naysayers, I think Viator (and companies like us, who use a closed system) are in a much better position to offer travelers an authentic, trustworthy, unbiased view of the travel products we offer. We may not grow our reviews as quickly as we could if we used an open system, but what we’ve lost in quantity we’ve certainly gained in quality.

This model could never work for TA or CruiseCritic, obviously, as then have no relationship between the travel provider and travel consumer.

Ultimately, that’s the fatal flaw in their business model. They have no direct relationship with the travel consumer, and thus the trustworthiness of the content they publish is extremely low.

Sooner or later, travel consumers will figure this out. And when they do, sites like TripAdvisor and CruiseCritic will lose what’s left of their ability to influence a travel purchase decision. And travel sites with actual customers, with verified content, with honest-to-goodness unbiased reviews, will happily fill the gap.

Scott McNeely
Viator.com

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@darren

i agree entirely. however, my comments relate to the supplier company (like RCCL), not the UGC aggregator (like Cruisecritic) when i talk about ‘companies’

Inevitably, the proof will be in how such an ‘outrageous scandal’ ultimately affects sales and traffic in the coming months.

Let’s ask both in 6 months time whether their traffic/number of reviews, etc, has dropped as a result of recent events.

I suspect not…

I disagree with Scott in that sooner or later the world will come crashing down on the likes of Tripadvisor et al.

And even if it does, at least they’ll have metasearch to prop up the business.

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Just discovered this great discussion – on the open/closed issue with regard to TA (a different issue than the disclosure issue re CC), they have a huge databank of reviews and soon, profile information. The amount of reviews by people who have not actually stayed there, or have an axe to grind, must be tiny. There are enough reviews here to form a picture – too many. Their opportunity is profiling and segmenting, in the way Darren wants. With a little bit of neat footwork they could also capture reviews of confirmed bookers. I can’t see their world collapsing either.

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Closed systems (accepting confirmed customers only) can’t be fully trusted either due to the possibility that negative/overly negative reviews are not being published, and/or that fake reviews are posted by staff members. Or they withhold negative reviews until they have enough positive reviews to counteract the negative ones.

If a tour got lots of bad reviews (and it affected tour bookings considerably), would the site not feel the urge to correct the problem, by removing the bad reviews and/or posting positive ones? I suspect some companies might get that urge, and act upon it. Especially if it increases conversion, and profits by thousands.

How is a consumer to know if the “real customer reviews” are genuine? Because the company says they are?

As a consumer, I prefer to get a snap-shot, aggregated overview from lots of different Web sites – both open and closed systems.

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Thanks for this post, Darren.
As I mentioned on Twitter @Nancydbrown, I’m typing this comment while on board Carnival Cruise Lines Carnival Splendor, sailing outside the San Francisco bay area. Full disclousure, I’m a guest of the cruise line, along with several other journalists and a boat load of travel agents.

We were discussing this very topic last night during the welcome cocktail party. FYI, Carnival PR folks mentioned that they do not endorse programs such as the Royal Champions.

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I think user-generated content is a good thing. But if a user gets a freebie, I think they should disclose.

I’ve been asked to write a review as strict tourist — but only after I told someone at a hotel that I loved some aspect of service. That I get. Here’s a person who enjoyed a stay or activity enough to go on and on about it to a hotel employee. Why not ask them to put it out there for the world, too? Some people need that push.

But other than that, if you are reviewing something and get a perk for that service, you need to disclose. Otherwise, everyone’s credibility is on the line.

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Totally agree with need for disclosure/transparency and I do think CruiseCritics made a huge mistake serving as a broker between RC and its posters as it did. I’m really disheartened that TripAdvisor is tangled up in this due to its relationship to CruiseCritics, since I use TA quite heavily when I’m planning my own trips. Of course, I’ve come to take all reviews I read there and elsewhere online with a grain of salt anyway, because it’s just too easy for people to lie when they’re anonymous, as is usually the case on travel forums. What’s great about TA’s regular users is that they can usually see through “fake reviews” and will call the reviewer out on it. I think it’s important for us all to do that as much as possible when we see this kind of behavior online, for the sake of those innocents who believe everything they read. And to be fair, some people probably make the nondisclosure unintentionally–they post on the fly without thinking about the fact that there is something about themselves they need to reveal in order to put their post in the correct context. I suspect that after this scandal, that might not be the case as much any more. It’s been a good eye-opener for the online travel community, for sure.

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I agree with @kayt on this one. It’s O.K. to encourage a guest to post a good review if they rave about something, but not O.K. to bribe them.
As a writer of reviews I think transparency is key. As a reader of reviews, I realize that they are just one point of view. If I find a reviewer or site whose advice I grow to trust, I put more value on what they have to say.

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It is obvious from this sordid tale that many travel companies view social media and user-review sites as part of their marketing programs, and vehicles ripe for manipulation. Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor should come clean and give a detailed accounting of their involvement — a statement that goes beyond Cruise Critic’s brief statement that they posted on their website. However, perhaps Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor are playing this conservatively because they are concerned about potential litigation.

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I’m amused this has keep going, and not showing any signs of slowing down its momentum. Oh well, I’m personally glad that the Royal Champions are exposed. Been reading up a lot on this, but the one fact that surprised me most was knowing how Royal Champions actually banned one of their customers for life, for complaining too much! Even tho their complaints all looked legitimate to me. Yucks…

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[...] the full coverage, check out these articles on Jaunted (twice), MSNBC (also twice), Tripso and many other blogs. This is the same Royal Caribbean that banned a passenger for life for complaining too much [...]

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Darren,

I always been careful around review sites not just for good reviews but for bad ones. A customer of mine had a bad holiday at a hotel and they said so in trip adviser, they also said they would never use the agent again (not us). Basically they booked a holiday from the web and where under the impression that they where booking a 5 star hotel, even though ever thing they had showed a 4 star local rating, so they slated the hotel. But it did not end there, the customer then got family and friends to write bad reviews, 6 in total by people that had never been there. Before this the hotel had 1 bad review out of 37, after this it had 8 bad reviews out of 45.

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Over the past couple of weeks there has been quite a bit of heated debate, conjecture and misinformation on several travel blogs alleging that Royal Caribbean compensated reviewers on Cruise Critic for posting positive reviews. This is simply not true.

In March 2007 Royal Caribbean contacted Cruise Critic (along with several other online cruise sites and bloggers) and asked us to obtain permission from a small group (40 out of 425,000+ members) they had identified, so that they could invite them to an invitation-only pre-inaugural press and travel agent event aboard Liberty of the Seas in May 2007. We agreed to forward the information on to this small group of members, and asked for their permission to share their contact information with Royal Caribbean. This is Cruise Critic’s sole involvement in this program. We did not help develop the program, nor did we help choose the participants. At the time of the request there was no formal name associated with this group and those invited were required to pay their own transportation, which for most cost several hundred dollars. A year later this group was invited to a press event at a New York hotel that lasted all of a few hours. Again, they had to pay their own way to attend, and as a result only about 10 showed up. This is the “compensation” they received.

Royal Caribbean has stated and the Cruise Critic members invited have confirmed, that Royal Caribbean did not compensate them in exchange for writing positive reviews about Royal Caribbean on Cruise Critic. Royal Caribbean did not tell them to do anything or say anything or write anything anywhere. They are not Royal Caribbean employees, nor does Royal Caribbean have any control over what they say on our message boards or anywhere else on the Internet. Royal Caribbean has never contacted us and asked us to remove a negative review or posting written by this group or any other member.

A review of posts and reviews on Cruise Critic by these few members shows that they were a very candid group both before and after this event and while most love cruising on Royal Caribbean, they are also very vocal and quick to criticize anything they don’t like. They share both positive and negative opinions and give helpful advice and information about Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines they sail on.

Cruise Critic has the most active cruise forums and is the leading cruise site. As such, it is the site that people interested in cruises follow the closest. Our community guidelines are explicit re: fraudulent reviews and we monitor our site constantly and investigate message board posts and reviews that appear in anyway suspect and take appropriate action when warranted.

At this time, we have decided that it is not in Cruise Critic’s best interest going forward to contact members on behalf of Royal Caribbean or any other cruise line.

Kathleen Tucker
Publisher, Cruise Critic

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We will never know what Royal Caribbean really offered those ‘champions’ but what they should have chosen a sample of their own customers and given them the perks, rather than choose people who have written only positive reviews about them in the past.

Where Cruise Critic went wrong? They should not have contacted those ‘champions’ on behalf of Royal Caribbean, and I think that they will live to regret that.

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I think at this point the key thing is that Cruise Critic’s management has said that they will not contact members on behalf of any cruise line. In that sense, this will make them a better site.

Just for additional information, following is Jaunted’s follow-up on this issue.

[Darren: Stuart, I have linked to the post, rather than publish it in full in the ocmments]

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Some analysis from Travolution. Kathleen has commented on our post, too.

It seems that after observing for few days they have decided to get “out there” and put their side across, which is the most important thing when dealing with a serious outcry in social networks, forums etc.

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Darren,

Transparency is certainly a major issue for sites which rely heavily on UGC for their content. And it is an issue which is not widely reported on and many don’t even realise that “gifts”/”perks” whatever are given in exchange for positive reviews.

I understand that firms are looking for positive publicity (as all business are or should be) but equally readers are looking for either commentary free of influence of “gifts” or, where those gifts are given, for them to be disclosed.

Readers can and will make their own assesment of what the resulting bias is if the gifts are disclosed. But the lack of disclosure skews an informed decision making process – potentially with the wrong decisions being made. (OK wrong decisions can be made either way – but this makes it more likely)

That said, however, I do continue to read reviews but as little more than background checks. Aside from the lack of transparency, many UGC sites suffer from other functional flaws which ensure that they have minimal added value.

Firstly, the massive amount of averaging that goes on. The larger sites have many reviews per many hotels – which is a total of lots. Now, what happens if I’m not average? (I am an indivudual with my own set of criteria – just like everyone else!)

Secondly, there are a massive number of reviews. I don’t have time to read all of them – it’s simply too much information.

Thirdly, expectation / reality skew. With many people contributing, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find someone who has a similar perception of reality – a fifteen minute walk is a problem for some, several hours isn’t for me. As I’m not average (apparently) I do look for views from people who have similar interests / expectations of a holiday. This is, for the most part, impossible to do on sites which rely on UGC as averages are required to make the site accessible to as many people as possible.

Fourth, as I’ve done much travelling over years I know certain providers who have provided consistently good service and delivery of what they promise. Additionally, many of my personal friends are also travellers and much prefer to rely on proven suppliers and demonstrably more reliable sources than any UGC site.

As a result of the lack of transparency and other issues, I don’t rely on any UGC site for much beyond the bare necessities of pricing and maps.

Mark

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Great debate. I agree with the general thrust that this will only help sour the sentiment towards site that provide UGC reviews. People will have to treat them with a bigger pinch of salt, in some ways the same goes for negative reivews. As Mark S stated you cannot rely on people having the same expectations and this stronlgy colours their reviews.
As an Alfa driver for the past 15 years I’ve noticed that they have appalling ratings in JD power but I’ve never had any problems with any of my models. I put this down to appalling network of agents; which as I never use them doesnt matter a hoot to me.

Most things on the internet are not quite what they seem.

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Regarding US law:

Here’s some of the pertinent language from the FTC for those not familiar with it: “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed….

The FTC is planning to strengthen the endorsement guidelines to specifically address blogs and viral marketing, so hopefully these types of bogus endorsement programs will be a thing of the past. http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2008/11/endorsements.shtm

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The spin from CC is driving me bonkers. So there was no quid pro quo going forward — that DOES NOT mean that the perqs weren’t for writing positive comments on RCCL, ante, and knowing that, as CC and the RC’s did, pretty much assures positiveness going forward. The viral nature of the program also depends on the wannabe RC’s mimicing the behaviours of the chosen ones — a double bang for your buck. Tucker knows this, and CC tried to cover the mess up with deletions of threads and bogus justifications. She said there was no cover up, that there were thousands of posts on the royal champions — no, maybe thousands BY them, but not on them.

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As a CC member I find it disgusting that they have allowed a company to use the community in this way. A number of members have written comments on this topic but are removed. We therefore have no option but to discuss this elsewhere

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As a regular of Cruise Critic I find it sad to read all this negative press, but they went about this the wrong way. How many other cruise companies have infiltrated this community already? It makes you wonder.

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Shocking, but I am not surprised.

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If this happens on Cruise Critic, how do we know that this isn’t happening on Trip Advisor?

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This kind of thing happens on every site that depends on “user-generated content.” I’ve heard a dozen stories of hotels pressuring guests to write a good review and even more of interns/PR flacks being directed to submit the reviews themselves. Here’s a comment on the subject on another blog I follow: Why I don’t trust user reviews.

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This is my first time to your blog – I like it! I may even bookmark it!

You may find this tripadvisor link interesting. It is a B&B that has been ‘marked’ for making up reviews. As far as I know it has had the red warning on their B&B listing for at least 6 months now.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g181748-d634288-Reviews-Madisons_Haunted_Inn-Kincardine_Ontario.html

It is good to see some companies taking this issue seriously.

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ohh, that is interesting… A few days ago there was a big red box with a warning saying that TripAdvisor thought they were paying or making up reviews for this B&B. I posted the link thinking it was still there. I found out about it on a TA forum. I guess TA finally decided to take it off.

Management was quite upset. The original article I read about it was this one:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/292/RipOff0292292.htm

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There is nothing wrong with asking your customers to write a review, but giving them a reward for writing a positive review without disclosing that fact will damage the credibility of user generated reviews. Personally, I have never been a fan of them anyway as they have always been open to abuse by competitors. You rarely find a proper review that discusses the pros and cons in a proper structured way that makes sense.

Travel is all about finding things out for yourself. It’s about discovery and exploring new places. If we have to read reviews before we make a decision on where to go then travel won’t be as exiting in the future in my opinion.

David
Global Holidays (Leeds)

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Both Conde Nast Traveler and Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine contain prominent and unambiguous statements to the effect that their editors, writers or other employess never accept free travel as to do so would compromise the integrity of their reviews and reporting. Do Cruise Critic employees accept free or substantially reduced rate cruises? If so, do you think that the very desire to maintain that perk would influence them to write favorable reviews?

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I recently posted a review of Carnival Victory on cruise critic but the line breaks were all stripped out so I asked if I could redo it. They responded stating that my review was not “comprehensive” enough and that it was rejected. It was a fairly long review, what were they talking about?

It was an honest review listing both the good and the bad with an overall negative rating of two stars. Should people not be made aware that this ship was basically a floating “Trailer Park”. If I was a first time cruiser, I would want to know.

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