Updated June 23: This article has been picked up and written about by Travel Weekly, WalletPop, Hotel Chatter, Chris Elliott, Arthur Frommer and others. The conversation continues. Thank you.
Updated June 4: I was asked on Twitter how many other such warnings exist on the TripAdvisor site. As of this morning I find a total of 92. The warnings appear on locations which have paid TripAdvisor advertising as well as those which do not.
A colleague told me that TripAdvisor posted a warning for Waikiki’s Hotel Renew. I took a look and saw the following statement boldly emblazoned in red at the very top of their TripAdvisor review page:
“…TripAdvisor has reasonable cause to believe that either this property or individuals associated with the property may have attempted to manipulate our popularity index by interfering with the unbiased nature of our reviews. Please take this into consideration when researching your travel plans.”
Aware that I’ve been critical of TripAdvisor for some time, this colleague stated (and I agree):
“On the one hand, at least TripAdvisor is addressing this, but on the other hand they’re basically admitting that their site is worthless!”
My take on the TripAdvisor fraud warning.
This doesn’t address the likelihood that a huge percentage of all their reviews are fraudulent in one way or another. Perhaps the warning is a start but I question if they would post one if the hotel was one of their advertisers.
Another new site feature to validate reviews has missed the boat.
TripAdvisor now shows how many total contributions a poster has made at the beginning of each review. On the surface this looks good to know how active a reviewer has been.
Unfortunately, they include photo contributions in the total count with the number of written reviews. For example, someone who has written one review and posted three photos shows as making four prior contributions. Once again you have to click through to see how many actual reviews have been written.
Conclusion.
As I stated recently:
“Finding the truth about others’ hotel experiences… has now become impossible. I consider myself reasonably astute at this, and there is just no way for me to make good use of these reviews any longer.”
Here are two articles (in addition to the one above) that I’ve written on the fraud problems plaguing TripAdvisor as well as other review sites:
What about Hotel Renew?
I attempted to get Hotel Renew’s viewpoint on their TripAdvisor warning. Thus far they have not responded to my inquiry.
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The whole premise of tripadvisor has to be taken with a grain of salt. They compare apples and oranges when giving comparison ratings of resorts. They can’t determine who is posting and the motive behind a rating’s post. It could be a competitor, a disgruntled employee, or a fanatical guest. The reader must be very careful when evaluating resorts based on this site.
Regarding its T.A.s I found many to be residents of the location and very biased in their views of food, culture and tourist. I see residency as a conflict of interest because these T.A. often are in related industries such as travel and real estate and while they may not benefit directly, friends and relatives mights. It a bad situation.
TravelAdvisor, owned by the on-line booker Expedia and only admitted in the smallest of fonts, only admits its relationships to other brands on the ‘About’ page.
On its home page is the prominent box entitled “Plan the Perfect Trip”. Not a word about Expedia.
The T.A. moderators do not enforce the rules as they allow many travel vendors to post, often with false or misleading information (in the S.E. Asia forums). On occasion when such false posts are challenged the T.A. moderators favour their trade members.
One notorious Ha Noi ‘travel agent’, and I use that term loosely, claimed a Hoi An beach was safe. Another member pointed out a significant danger existing their and the Ha Noi ‘expert’ claimed it was not true.
The other member posted a picture of the notice board warning of danger, effectively challenging the ‘experts’ knowledge. T.A. responded by blocking the person supplying the picture.
The false postings are obvious. It would appear that T.A. would rather be entertaining than a trusted source. Their new warnings serve two purposes: (1) T.A. cannot be trusted; (2) T.A. permits inaccurate content.
A travel writer I am acquainted with, who specialises in destination information on an independent basis for newspapers, joined T.A. and in his judgement the T.A. moderators had little idea or knowledge of the countries he resided in. Boston, where T.A. offices are located, is hardly in the centre of U.S. travel, let alone world travel.
T.A. boasts ‘expert’ members – some claim to be experts simply by virtue of the fact they visited a country for a vacation. Some expertise!
In bringing this matter to the forefront you have performed a great service to the travelling public.
Aloha Jeff,
Great post and great blog. I’m glad you are bringing attention to this. No matter what the site, anonymous reviews are always susceptible to shenanigans. It will be interesting to see what role social media will to play in the future of user generated reviews. Reviews will probably be a lot more reliable when the world knows who they came from.
Ryan Evans
I appreciate your industry experience based comment Alan.
Aloha, Jeff
I do not believe everything on TA. You have to throw out the best couple of comments and the worst couple of comments and see what you are left with. There are true unbiased reviews since everyone has preferences and likes and dislikes.
I work in the hotel industry and know for a fact that some hotels will slam a competitor hotel so people will not stay there and choose them instead. When TA was contacted in regards to this we were told there was nothing they could do to remove these comments. TA does not mention on there site whether reviews make a hotel seem better or worse. This would be beneficial when reading reviews.
There is no type of verification whether the person leaving the comments actually stayed there or not.
REMEMBER CRUISECRITICGATE (CRUISE CRITIC IS OWNED BY TRIPADVISOR).
Travelers use social media more than anyone else to see what others think of accommodations, restaurants and attractions. Trip Advisor has become such a staple of the travel and tourism industry that 25 Million viewers come by each month.
Granted, reviews can be misleading at the micro level, but at that macro-level, garnering positive reviews on trip advisor is more important than being listed on the first page of google search results for many businesses.
Here is a recent post that encourages businesses to take seriously the need to garner positive reviews.
http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/2008/12/how-to-boost-revenue-20-climb-to-1-on-tripadvisor/
Thanks for your comment April. It helps to have input from TripAdvisor.
The relevance of the 92 fraud badges is unclear. Moreover it is impossible to see exactly how TA is dealing with fraud and the lack of transparency in regards thereto only exacerbates the concerns. Alleging a “zero-tolerance policy with many systems in place to address it” isn’t adequate. I am wholly convinced that a significant percentage of reviews on the site are fraudulent in some way, as I pointed that out previously using Honolulu hotels as an example.
Having said all this, however, I realize that the problem of fraud in reviews goes way beyond and is not the entirely the fault of TA. Since you have 25M uniques however, it makes TA the focus of the industry issues.
Lastly, it would be more useful (at least to me) to have the number of reviews show and then display photos and other content on mouse-over. Frankly I wouldn’t have even known about the mouse-over feature if you hadn’t mentioned it, and I wonder if others know or not.
Thank you again, Jeff
Hi Jeff –
TripAdvisor has zero tolerance for fraud, and we have many systems in place to address it. Our red badges are just one component and they are not, in fact, new; they’ve been standard procedure for a while now. Properties that are suspect based on specific criteria have a red badge posted next to their listing to alert travelers to our concerns. Whether or not the property advertises on TripAdvisor is irrelevant; content integrity is our utmost concern.
We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on our new feature that shows the contribution history of a reviewer next to their screen name. Note that when you simply mouse over their name, you are quickly given a breakdown of review and photo contributions, as well as available gender, location, and travel style data. You can drill down further and actually view reviews and photos if you are interested.
Twenty-five million unique travelers plan trips at TripAdvisor each month, and we’ll continue to add new features and utility to make their experience more valuable. As always, we appreciate feedback from you and others on how we’re doing.
Thank you –
April Robb
http://www.twitter.com/tripadvisor
It’s ironic but I have stayed at the Hotel Renew twice now. Originally I stayed there just after it had been renovated by Aqua Resorts based on a TA review (the hotel had just re-opened). In 20 years of visiting HI from New York City (almost yearly), I must say that the Hotel Renew was one of the most pleasant stays in Waikiki. I wouldn’t hesitate staying there again. It is a boutique hotel (better for couples or couples with older kids-although I stayed there with my 8 year old). The rooms are on the “smallish” side, but I rarely stay in the hotel room much while I am visiting Waikiki. The staff is absolutely wonderful. Leonore and Angie are great!!! Really helpful.
This is why I really don’t understand why the Hotel Renew had to manipulate their Trip Advisor ratings. The service at the hotel speaks for itself, excellent. Nevertheless, with tourism to HI down because of the economy, I can see that the HR may look at TA as a form of free advertising. As for trip advisor, they are indeed useless. That is why I am so glad that I have found your site. The information provided is 1000x more useful that trip advisor, IMHO.
Honestly, when I go back to HI this August, I plan on staying in one of the larger hotels in Waikiki, just because the rates are the lowest in years. Hotels that would normally run $400+/night in the summer going for <$200 with breakfast included. This is a rare opportunity for I usually cannot afford those big name hotels.
Keep up the great work with the site.
Mahalo nui loa!
As a librarian and, particularly, as one who has focused on online research for 13 years, I have always taught patrons and students to be critical of all sources of information. Generally, I say:
1. It is better to trust experts who are respected as being objective and highly knowledgeable rather than trust anecdotal experience. So when travel guru Frommer describes Beat of Hawaii as “honest blogging” but doesn’t “agree with all their conclusions” I pay more attention.
2. But, experts can also have their biases. In travel, for example, some experts like the resorts and reject the funky vacation rentals that my wife and I prefer.
3. Anecdotal experience, as exemplified by such sites as Trip Advisor and the Rick Steves Graffiti Wall, may be worthwhile, based on criteria I don’t share, biased, or outright fraudulent. Anybody using any travel forum, wiki, or other group hosting contributed reviews and ratings must be super critical. They must assess the language used, look at both the good and bad reviews, look at the source if noted, and, basically, read between the lines. I would expect those skills to be applied to the few reviews my wife and I have made, as what we like and dislike may not be based on the same criteria others use.
So where does this leave the traveler. Basically, muddling though numerous information and review sources and using their critical skills to find the best, most honest reviewers, particularly ones who share the traveler’s interests, and the best, most honest reviews. But, and I make my living doing this, it is often not easy.
Good comment. Thanks John! Jeff