ED NOTE: Please read review below this one, Part I, tks
Chuck Kuhn
As I wrote about yesterday, the problem of review fraud is two-fold:
Intense competition in the travel industry, greatly exacerbated by the state of our economy, has caused hotels and other travel providers to artificially manipulate review rankings in order to achieve increased bookings and revenue.
Inherent conflict of interest exists between travel marketing (via advertising) and a user review site like TripAdvisor. Reducing the number of reviews and site visitors in order to curtail fake reviews will negatively impact marketing revenue.
Reviews absolutely influence where people stay.
The notion of writing good reviews about your business and bad reviews about your competitor is not the least bit far-fetched. The reason is simply that the difference in bookings (revenue) between a property highly rated on TripAdvisor and one poorly rated is huge. I cannot stress this enough.
PR firms and fake reviews. I’ve long suspected that public relations companies have been involved in writing fraudulent reviews on behalf of their clients’ properties.
A comment to an article on the website PR Squared confirmed my suspicion. Written by the VP of a major PR firm, it stated: “Posting on TripAdvisor, for example, is the most basic of tactics in the PR 2.0 world.”
Hotels and restaurants incenting their employees to write reviews.
The positive review you’re reading may have been written by a paid employee. How objective is that?
TripAdvisor’s point of view.
TripAdvisor reports becoming more vigilant and hi-tech in detecting fake reviews, and that their readers are savvy enough to ignore those that are bogus. On the other hand, if TripAdvisor really did something to control fake reviews, why would users need to be savvy about them?
Furthermore, the issues are adequately complex that it doesn’t seem reasonable to expect most site visitors to understand them.
Perhaps TripAdvisor’s motto, “get the truth, then go,” needs to be changed to, “try to find the truth, and go.”
The company claims to do the following in order to protect the integrity of reviews:
Employs sophisticated algorithms for fraud detection including language and usage pattern analysis
Carries out spot checks
Investigates reports of abuse
Moderates all reviews
What should/could TripAdvisor do?
I suggest that in addition to taking the issue of fraudulent reviews far more seriously than they appear to do, Expedia should be more transparent and forthcoming with its readers regarding this all-important issue. When your stock in trade is reviews, it’s essential that consumers of the reviews have confidence in them. Otherwise, isn’t this like going to the ATM and being unsure whether the cash you receive is counterfeit?
My three suggestions for consumers using Trip Advisor.
Check each reviewer’s profile you’re basing a travel decision on, in order to see how many he/she has written. When I see a profile with only one or two reviews, I normally look the other way. If the reviewer writes often on multiple properties in various locations, and I see objectivity, I’m more likely to believe what is written.
Disregard the very worst and very best reviews (unless you trust the writer) and go with what’s in the middle. It’s most likely accurate and least likely fraudulent (in either a positive or negative direction).
Do your own research. Find things by professional reviewers (Frommers, Fodors, or Lonely Planet, for example) that corroborate TripAdvisor reviews on which you are basing your travel decisions.
Showing posts with label tripadvisor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tripadvisor. Show all posts
Friday, January 9, 2009
TripAdvisor And The Big Business Of Fake Reviews, Part 1
On reflection, TripAdvisor may at first appear to be a benevolent site where regular people share their honest travel opinions. Dig beneath the surface, however, and you will find something quite the opposite is happening at TripAdvisor. This is big business and the going is rough in today’s economic climate.
There are over twenty million reviews on TripAdvisor. I believe that a fast-growing percentage of them (perhaps now as many as one-third) are fake.
What’s a fake review? A review written by someone connected with a hotel (or other business) to boost its appeal, or a negative review written by a competitor (or a disgruntled party) to lower a hotels’ standing.
To prove this point, The London Times wrote and submitted six glowing reviews, all fake, on hotels considered among the worst in London. TripAdvisor posted all six reviews without ever commenting on the discrepancy.
It just goes to show you have to be careful who you trust and not take anything at face value. The fast-growth of fraudulent reviews makes it imperative that we come to a site like TripAdvisor with a fairly high level of skepticism in order to come away with the honest information we desire.
Trust and TripAdvisor may no longer go together. Here’s why:
Surveys have shown that the vast majority of us have come to trust user reviews. Lack of review credibility, however, has started to seriously erode trust at TripAdvisor and at other review sites.
TripAdvisor, a unit of Expedia, obviously serves first and foremost to further their global travel marketing business. TripAdvisor makes money through their affiliate (link click) program and through advertisements. The value of that marketing business is in no small part based on the number of reviews as well as the number of visitors to the site. Reducing the number of visitors and reviews in order to limit the amount of fraud will likely also have significant negative financial impact on their marketing.
The travel industry is in most serious financial trouble. Competition in order to stay in business is cut-throat. The need to achieve top ranking in user-generated reviews such as on TripAdvisor is intense.
In part two tomorrow, I’ll cover:
Exactly how important TripAdvisor reviews are in the travel industry.
The role of public relations firms in fake reviews.
TripAdvisor’s point of view.
Suggestions for how to make TripAdvisor and other review sites continue to work for you.
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There are over twenty million reviews on TripAdvisor. I believe that a fast-growing percentage of them (perhaps now as many as one-third) are fake.
What’s a fake review? A review written by someone connected with a hotel (or other business) to boost its appeal, or a negative review written by a competitor (or a disgruntled party) to lower a hotels’ standing.
To prove this point, The London Times wrote and submitted six glowing reviews, all fake, on hotels considered among the worst in London. TripAdvisor posted all six reviews without ever commenting on the discrepancy.
It just goes to show you have to be careful who you trust and not take anything at face value. The fast-growth of fraudulent reviews makes it imperative that we come to a site like TripAdvisor with a fairly high level of skepticism in order to come away with the honest information we desire.
Trust and TripAdvisor may no longer go together. Here’s why:
Surveys have shown that the vast majority of us have come to trust user reviews. Lack of review credibility, however, has started to seriously erode trust at TripAdvisor and at other review sites.
TripAdvisor, a unit of Expedia, obviously serves first and foremost to further their global travel marketing business. TripAdvisor makes money through their affiliate (link click) program and through advertisements. The value of that marketing business is in no small part based on the number of reviews as well as the number of visitors to the site. Reducing the number of visitors and reviews in order to limit the amount of fraud will likely also have significant negative financial impact on their marketing.
The travel industry is in most serious financial trouble. Competition in order to stay in business is cut-throat. The need to achieve top ranking in user-generated reviews such as on TripAdvisor is intense.
In part two tomorrow, I’ll cover:
Exactly how important TripAdvisor reviews are in the travel industry.
The role of public relations firms in fake reviews.
TripAdvisor’s point of view.
Suggestions for how to make TripAdvisor and other review sites continue to work for you.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "TripAdvisor And The Big Business Of Fake Reviews, Part 1", url: "http://beatofhawaii.com/tripadvisor-is-big-business/" });
ShareThis
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