I continue to be surprised that people actually think Trip Advisor offers unbiased and honest feedback. I gave up on that concept a good while back.

Do people really think they’ll be relevant much longer?

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People are not stupid. This might work in the hotels favour initially but people who read t/a surely read through ALL the postings on an hotel? I know not read every bit but I tend to click on one with good reviews but perversley then read the negative reviews received and that sort of balances it out. And you’ll know by the writing in many cases if a particular review is worth it’s place there.

As far as working in an hotels favour initially as I said above, this is what will happen. People might (just might) use that hotel but oh boy if it is does not live up to the many reviews they will be angry and moan and complain (maybe rightly) to the manager and then land home and do their own review on t/a and other sites.

So it is poisoned chalice these people are sipping from in offering prizes to give them good reviews.

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Trip Advisor reviews can also be manipulated by more subtle means – like when you know someone’s had a good experience, you mention to them as they leave that they might like to leave a message on Trip Advisor. If they say yes, you email them a link to Trip Advisor to leave a message. The review system is not reputable, in my opinion. And I speak as one with many good reviews!

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Hi there, think this is an interesting one – and would be good if tripadvisor could allow for hotels to do self-promotion, without it being in conflict with genuine reviewers. I.e. make it fairer platform.

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Macdonald Hotels actively seek feedback from guests by placing TripAdvisor Business size cards on our Reception desks for guests to take away and should they like to pass on any comments to future potential guest they then know where they can do it.

We do appreciate all Feedback that is given by guests and honest feedback is where it should be. We find a some people need a little nudge in passing on comments. ( The British are so reserved. )

But apart from PAID Advertorial where it is clearly stated, we do not condone the competition style that has been mentioned above.

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Agree with Catherine above, if hotels use unethical means to get undeserved positive reviews it will come back to bite them eventually. Travellers are mostly not stupid these days with all the info available on the net. Personally I never stay anywhere by choice these days without checking TA and other reviews first. It should be a valid way to keep hotels on their toes and not try to get away with providing shabby accommodation and service. So far I have not been let down by a Trip Advisor review, and hope it remains that way.

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People posting here are more savvy than the average TA user. Look at how many post only one or two reviews – if any – on TA: do they really know how it works? I would bet most take everything at face value.

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Hotels might “bribe” different users to post good reviews but those reviews will be senseless once a real person visits the hotel and doesn’t get what he read on the reviews!

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First, thank you Darren for posting this. It is something I’ve thought about a lot over the past few days, and even inspired a post on my own blog.

I strongly believe in encouraging hotel reviews. It’s good for hotels, and it’s good for travelers.

Ethics in hotel reviews is a tricky subject. How can you encourage people to make public comments about your business without any bias? As Bob says in an earlier comment, there are so many subtle (and not so subtle) ways you can influence reviews. What is good, and what’s not?

I think this is a fundamental flaw in the written review system. Reviews by photos or video are harder to ‘fake’.

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When I have stayed at hotels recently, I have received a follow up email asking me to post feedback on TA – this I think it is OK – it’s in line with the ebay ethos – you buy something and it’s good to feedback if you wish to.
However offering competitions and bribes such as champagne – I think this practice really blurs the lines and really shouldn’t be encouraged – and if people expereince it – they should report the activity and TA should be encouraged to do something about it .. If not it will damage their credibility ..

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I stay in a lot of hotels, and I’m increasingly being asked to write reviews on TripAdvisor. I never do because if I’m going to write reviews, then I want to be paid for it.

But for the ordinary punter, it must be tempting to do so in the face of such incentives. Make no mistake about it, TripAdvisor is very powerful – perhaps too powerful.

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The ultimate loser here is likely to be TripAdvisor, since this doesn’t help their credibility which already seems to be suffering – mention them in conversation and most people seem to take them with a pinch of salt. The more stories that get around like this, the lower they will sink in many estimations.

TripAdvisor reviews already say far more about the reviewer than the property, and need to be read that way. It’s a same that they haven’t really done much to innovate in this area, such as matching user profiles to find reviews from people with similar needs.

Unfortunately I guess hotels will suffer in the meantime whilst many still take TA seriously.

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Darren, thanks for your post about a key point
In TA, reviews can be manipulated because they have no IT relation with real booking in the hotel.
I mean, everybody can write something (good or bad), even if they have not made a booking-stay at the hotel. A fundamental “bug” in their system.
TA is looking for SEO with their UGC page creation and to drive traffic to their OTA partners (Expedia first as their are owned by Expedia).
So, it’s incredible people still beleive and trust this hotel reviews platform.
There are no free lunches !!!!!!

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[...] friend Darren at Travel Rants just posted about ‘hotel review contests’ and related fraud.This is very timely, since it’s a topic I’ve been thinking about a [...]

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I won’t leave a TA comment just because I’m asked to, but where a place has exceeded my expectations, TA is a powerful place to spread the word.
I stayed in one place where the owners told us that they got almost all their business from TA. We found the service was so outstanding, it was no wonder they never needed to advertise; they used this channel to let their customers do it for them (without prompting!)
Review websites serve a valuable purpose, but those who take reviews at face value do so at their own peril. I do think review sites will continue to grow in importance. Many people will trust the word of a “real customer” (define as you will) against the bias of a brochure or website.

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This is clearly in violation of TripAdvisor’s policy and I expect that TripAdvisor will spank this hotel. I wonder why Tony and Cheri of Luna Blue Hotel & Bar didn’t out the hotel in question. What are they hiding, the skeptic in me says?

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Thank you Darren for initiating this discussion. I still use TA as a reference but not exclusively. There are other review sites (especially those attached to hotel booking engines), friends and family one can consult, in addition to TA, to attain a more balanced view.

Besides, I believe all reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt. Even if the review was honest, it all depends on the traveller’s frame of mind and expectations during his/her stay – and we all know these can vary dramatically from one traveller to the next. By trying to (positively) influence reviews, hotels are only doing themselves a disservice as positive reviews only jack up one’s expectations, making the likelihood of disappointment even bigger.

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Hi Darren, by being paid for it, I didn’t mean by the hotel – I meant by a newspaper/ magazine/ website. I write for a living, and do a fair few hotel reviews as a part of that. I don’t see why I should work for free on Expedia Corp’s behalf…

This is purely a personal position, of course. Everyone is entitled to write what they want on a hotel in any review outlet they want. If I’m going to do 500 words on a place, however, I want paying for my time and effort. I’m not saying I’m necessarily better than anyone else at writing reviews, but it is what I do professionally. And, yes, the good and bad all go into the mix.

Being paid by a hotel to write a review of that hotel on TA is clearly unethical.

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Thanks for posting about this, it’s such a hot topic at the moment, at the forefront of pretty much all of the hoteliers minds I speak to.

From our POV we were in a ranking position in Grenada last November which we felt just did not reflect our offering and general regard. We felt we had to do something about this as TA is of course now pretty much ubiquitous. Therefore we began to invite all of our guests to leave reviews at TA, at no point did we consider incentivising this invitation in any way, regardless of the fact that it is completely wrong to do so we just didn’t want to appear to be cheapening our brand.

In my experience TA is as liked as disliked by hoteliers, most respect and appreciate its power but also feel that it is flawed as others have mentioned above. Fortunately we find that most guests use the ‘pinch of salt’ view when reading reviews and form a balanced opinion of our resort before they arrive.

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Good comments all. I think Darren is right that travel consumers aren’t always savvy enough to use TripAdvisor responsibly. So it’s partly our job as travel bloggers to educate the public in proper use, such as at least checking sample size and clicking on the reviewer to see how many previous reviews they’ve posted.

As someone who constantly monitors TripAdvisor rankings for one city (London) I’m fairly confident that hotels which try to manipulate stick out a mile and can’t sustain high positions.

But I agree the dangers are far greater in “small” destinations where it wouldn’t take a lot of reviews to impact the ranking. Here I think TA should take a leaf out of Amazon’s book (no pun intended!) and display a “trust rating” for each reviewer based on their personal history. As well as ranking hotels they need to rank reviewers!

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Online hotel reviews tend to be so polarised that I don’t find them much use these days.

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Hi Darren –
It is strictly against our policy for hotels to offer any sort of incentive in exchange for reviews (http://bit.ly/ml7jZ). We are currently investigating the situation you’ve described here, a process that will take approximately two weeks. Subsequent actions will be based on our findings.

We have many systems in place to detect problematic content, not the least of which is our community of twelve million loyal members. We appreciate the help of Destination Experts, owners, and TripAdvisor users Toni and Cheri in bringing this particular situation to our attention.

Thanks –
April Robb
TripAdvisor

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I think 95 % of tripadvisor reviews are legit. You can spot any fakes if you have half a brain. Still the best site out there in the space.

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One of the biggest problems with TripAdvisor is that ANYONE can submit a review and there is no audit trail of whether they have actually stayed at the property, are from the competition, work for the property etc, so it can really be inaccurate.

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I think people are being way too cynical here. Taking all reviews on TA at face value could be disastrous though of course. I have found you can often spot the possible fake reviews – a place with bad reviews will have an overwhelming amount of them, and same applies to good reviews.

Good to check more than one review site, obviously. Personally know of a hotel close to home which is truly awful. Have followed bad reviews left on TA about it for a couple years now which I know are all totally true – no fake ‘good’ reviews have been added by hotel management or staff!

Just one example. I have willingly left reviews about places I’ve stayed (all good, and all thanks to previous reviews left by other travellers). It should be viewed only as a travel tool and a way to cut down the potential for a disastrous stay and associated problems having to complain to hotel management.

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Hi Darren –

We have not, actually, seen an increase in the use of incentives. We have seen many owners, however, take advantage of TripAdvisor’s marketing tools to promote their properties in acceptable ways. We launched our owners’ center in January 2009 (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Owners) with the goal of assisting owners, particularly in a tough economy. More than 48,500 properties have registered in the last 7 months, and many have taken advantage of widget, badge, management response and listing update tools, in addition to ones that help owners ask their guests to submit reviews. We encourage properties to explore the options.

Thanks-
April Robb

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[...] they are today. My own exclusive interview with TripAdvisor drew some skeptical comments, as did Darren’s a while back: “The ultimate loser here is likely to be TripAdvisor, since this doesn’t help [...]

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If hotels offer a reviewer any incentive to make a review it invalidates that review and renders TripAdviosr a nonsense and merely makes TA’s hotel pages a shop window for that hotel. TA’s biggest problem is the size of its site. With thousands and thousands of hotels how do they go about policing the reviews, the reviewers and the hotels. An almost impossible task? If TA cannot properly monitor and administer the reviews and or allows links to travel agents and booking sites then they are very far from being an independent and transparent review site for travellers. And as a traveller how could I rely on any review, good or bad that was posted? How could I be confident that any review had not manipulated in some way, good or bad or placed there for the hotels gain, TripAdvisors gain or the gain of the reviewer. The honesty of the reviews are the key to making Trip Advisor work for every one, for the hotels (the majority of whom would welcome any comments good or bad), the traveller and the reviewers.

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