TripAdvisor hits back at fake reviews claims

by XPRESS, 09 September 2019

TripAdvisor has disputed allegations that claim the site is allowing fake reviews that are increasing hotel ratings.

Which? called the travel review site “hugely suspicious” over patterns of comments from its reviewers. They recently published results from a survey of 250,000 reviews for the top ten hotels, in ten popular travel destinations. Which? says it reported 15 hotels from the survey as having “blatant hallmarks” of false appraisals.

James Kay, one of the UK directors of TripAdvisor, said the site tackled fake reviews “very aggressively”.

He told the BBC: "We are doing this more than any other platform out there".

"This is something we do every day. We have fraud detection tools that are far more sophisticated than those used by Which?”

Kay claimed that TripAdvisor’s agents were always looking out for patterns of false reviews.

He added that in Italy, TripAdvisor had aided in the prosecution of a fake reviewer that ended with jail time sentenced.

It is a crime under an Eu directive for hotel staff to post biased reviews of their organisation on review or informational websites. Organisations who break this law could face fines, prosecution and staff can even face jail time.

Emma Richardson