TripAdvisor Reviews: Malicious, Bogus, Vexatious says AAA

One of Asia Pacific’s largest accommodation lobby groups says dealing with powerful review website TripAdvisor has become a huge issue for its 2000 members with the “possibility for abuse” having the “strong potential to undermine a business and damage it”.

The Accommodation Association of Australia says operators regularly complain of “malicious”, “bogus” and “vexatious” reviews they feel powerless to stop.

“It is here where there is a strong concern that the process is weighted against operators, with their responses more likely to be moderated than those of the reviewer,” wrote Michael Georgeson, Manager National Operations for AAA.

“In a recent case presented to us, the site was used in a personal attack on a property manager via a review where the manager was accused of inebriation (amongst other complaints) whilst on duty.

“In this case, the property was able to identify that the reviewer was the disgruntled former partner of the manager.  Despite having this fact pointed out to TripAdvisor, the site refused to remove the review.

“The property was fortunately able to go directly to the reviewer and have the listing removed. However, this case underscores the lack of control and severity of attack that is possible.

“The possibility for abuse can mean that TripAdvisor has the strong potential to undermine a business and damage it quite substantially.

“This potential has been realised quite acutely in at least one UK case, where a targeted campaign was launched by an individual posting negative bogus reviews on a restaurant they had not even visited.

“Whilst it is unfortunate that this is not the only example, it is amongst those which have led to legislative changes in the UK.

“The issues are not limited to these negative reviews and the potential for attack either – even the positive reviews have pitfalls which may be questioned.

“Ghost-writing opportunities are available for the posting of reviews, in some cases specifically identifying TripAdvisor and the process to generate numbers of reviews from multiple profiles.

“To date, the advice of the Accommodation Association to members has been to attempt to respond to reviews through TripAdvisor.

“However, the consistent feedback from operators is that getting a response from the site operators is difficult, and when successful, responses to reviews can be heavily moderated, with one member saying the final response allowed was almost pointless.

“It is here where there is a strong concern that the process is weighted against operators, with their responses more likely to be moderated than those of the reviewer.

“Regardless, at this stage a measured response via TripAdvisor seems the only productive means of engagement with reviewers.”

(Source: Travel Trends News)

TripAdvisor Reviews: Malicious, Bogus, Vexatious says AAA

TripAdvisor Can’t Claim to be Trusted February 6, 2012

TripAdvisor will not longer be allowed to tell British users that its holiday reviews can be trusted. Advertising regulators said that can’t be certain because there’s nothing to stop bogus reviews being posted.

The Advertising Standards Authority made its ruling after receiving complaints about TripAdvisor’s own website. It said the statements had been made in a promotional manner and thus came under its remit. The ASA is an industry-backed body that rules whether advertisements are “legal, decent, honest and truthful.”

Complaints about the site covered claims that users could “read reviews from real travellers” and that the site featured “more than 50 million honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers around the world”, along with the slogan “Reviews you can trust.”

The ASA noted that reviewers posted on the site were simply asked to declare that they were not personally or commercially linked to the hotel they were reviewing, and that there were no questions asked about whether they were a commercial rival or posting on behalf of the rival.

TripAdvisor said its users had the intelligence and skepticism to detect bogus reviews. It pointed out that because the site was so popular, any review falsely claiming a hotel was particularly good or poor would be drowned out by, and would stand out among, genuine user reviews.

The company also said it had an extensive technical system designed to filter out fake reviewers; it provided details of this system to the ASA on a confidential basis.

The ASA concluded that although TripAdvisor made efforts to make sure reviews were genuine, it simply wasn’t possible to be certain no bogus reviews were being posted on the site. With this in mind it ruled that the site could not truthfully say with absolute confidence that all its reviews were genuine and could be trusted.

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What Would You Most Like to Get for Free at a Hotel?

The following results were taken from a Linkedin survey asking "What Would You Most Like to Get for Free at a Hotel?"

Linkedin Members: Comments:

Peter

Peter Jeffries • It seems to me that the bush is leading the charge in the area of free wifi! I also think the industry could learn from their country counterparts in the art of friendliness.

24 days ago Voted for Late check-out

Jan

Jan Dickens • Free WiFi should be available but I don't think Australia has the capacity to provide this. Hotel bookings should be for at least 22 hrs - this would enable the hotel to have 2 hours cleaning time and still keep their occupancy rates.

27 days ago | Voted for Wireless internet

Lee

Lee Oliveira • Australia is way behind when it comes to free wifi in hotels. Every hotel should at least have free wifi in the lobby. They would need to upgrade their system if a hotel was going to offer free wifi. Some hotels I've stayed at that offer free wifi are extremely slow because of the amount of people using it.

about 1 month ago

Phillip

Phillip Fitzgibbon • wifi should be free in Hotels, if you ask nicely you can usually get late check out free anyway

about 1 month ago | Voted for Wireless internet

Makoto "Mak"

Makoto "Mak" Arai • Free WiFi for sure - Just imagine when you have to sign in and even agree to pay for such basic infrastructure, first thing at hotel after hours of tiresome flight(s)...

about 1 month ago | Voted for Wireless internet

James

James Rennie • Absolutely free WiFi. You have already paid a premimum to stay there so why not offer something that is free in other parts of the world

about 1 month ago | Voted for Wireless internet

Mathew

Mathew Thompson • I have recently returned from a Western USA road trip. I found it interesting that of the five hotels I stayed in, it was the "mum and dad" operators to provide free WiiFi and it was the major national chains who failed to deliver. Unless corporate's refuse to book group travel with hotels failing to step into the 21st century, they won't change their ways, vote with your feet people!

about 1 month ago | Voted for Wireless internet

Carmel

Carmel Hutt • I would like Free WiFI and late a Late Check Out

Ella

Ella Conway • honestly, I think Wifi and Late check outs should be at no extra charge at all.

View the Survey

What Would You Most Like to Get for Free at a Hotel?

Expedia Touts 'Verified' Reviews

No sooner had Expedia shed TripAdvisor in a public offering than it launched an online feature that certifies some user reviews of hotels as having been “verified.”

Known as Expedia Verified Reviews, the feature is a clear attempt to counter skepticism about the veracity of user reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp.

To qualify as a verified review, the writer must be a traveler who booked reservations through Expedia, and the stay must be authenticated by the OTA.

The verified-reviews feature has already launched in much of Western Europe and Asia. John Kim, senior vice president of global products at Expedia, said the company would roll it out in the U.S. and the rest of Western Europe this month.

“The innovation we are launching is a more relevant way to target reviews,” Kim said. He added that Expedia authenticates reviews by checking the writer’s booking history on Expedia and verifying a non-cancelled reservation at a hotel.

“We have introduced an ability for reviewers to target reviews based on interests,” Kim said.

By launching the feature, Expedia, which was overtaken last year by Priceline.com as the largest U.S. online travel agency as measured by revenue, appears to be addressing a hot-button issue: skepticism about whether user reviews are legitimate.

The number of monthly visitors to travel-review sites, online travel agencies’ review pages and travel blogs jumped 35% between 2008 and 2010, research firm PhoCusWright reported earlier this year. Such growth has fueled suspicions about whether some positive reviews are being written by the hotels themselves or some negative reviews are being authored by competitors.

“They’re recognizing that there’s a concern of accuracy and legitimacy of reviews online,” said Henry Harteveldt, an industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group.

He cited a recent research document by his company reporting that more than half of U.S. leisure hotel guests “expressed some concern” about the credibility of online travel reviews.

Such growing concerns about the legitimacy of reviews are best typified by the recent prospectus for TripAdvisor, the spun-off division of Expedia that was founded in 2000 and began trading Dec. 20 as an independent public company on the Nasdaq exchange.

Before Expedia spun off TripAdvisor, it warned potential TripAdvisor investors of possible liabilities in the form of legal claims stemming from user reviews.

The 184-page prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in July warned that TripAdvisor could be subject to legal expenses related to claims ranging from defamation and libel to negligence.

Additionally, this summer TripAdvisor, in what may or may not have been a nod to such concerns, changed the slogan on its hotel-review pages. While TripAdvisor’s home page says “Find Hotels Travelers Trust,” the wording was changed on individual hotel pages to “Reviews from our community.”

At the time, TripAdvisor called the wording change “part of our ever-evolving communication efforts, this time highlighting our commitment to our all-important community.” It did not acknowledge any concerns about hotel grievances.

Harteveldt said the launch of Expedia’s new feature on the heels of the TripAdvisor spinoff was no accident, given that both companies are competing for page views from travelers. Expedia hosts about 6.5 million user reviews, compared with more than 50 million on TripAdvisor.

Kim declined to specifically address whether the timing coincided with the TripAdvisor spinoff, saying only that the company was “trying to satiate consumer demand with its own unique approach.

Expedia Touts 'Verified' Reviews

How to combat Fake Review Optimization on travel Sites

Unfortunately, a reactive approach to the challenge posed by RFOs (Fake Review optimisation) is not effective. Striking a single astroturfed review or having a single sockpuppet profile deleted is akin to scraping party ice from an iceberg.

The ability to generate faux user generated content at will, with the appearance of having it originate from disparate sources and locales, is difficult to stifle. By nature, FROs are exceptionally good at hiding and one can assume that contingencies have been planned in the event of satellite operations being compromised.

Conventional methods to track FROs like blacklisting reviews originating from common IP address, a technique borrowed from email anti-spam filters, are too simplistic, catching only those least likely to have the ability to launch large scale campaigns capable of materially impacting a hotel’s online reputation.

Circumstantial evidence such as ratios for reviews to the number of occupied rooms or the ratio of frequent reviewers to anonymous reviewers may hint at atypical levels of guest engagement. Additionally, flurries of positive reviews following posting of a negative review may appear unnatural.

Jumping to the conclusion that such flags are evidence of malfeasance is inadvisable. They may indicate a hotel is doing an excellent job of legitimately engaging its community of guests. Or, it just may be a coincidence.

Without being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the review source was illegitimate, protests are likely to fall on deaf ears when brought to the attention of the review site or authorities.

Researchers at Cornell University claim to have developed algorithms that isolate fake reviews based on sentence structure and word utilization. While the research methodology identified certain patterns, the sources of the fake reviews were not professional FROs determined to blend in with the crowd.

How to combat Fake Review Optimization on travel Sites

To Post or Not to Post - 'Get it in writing' - Hotel Reviews

It’s a phrase one often hears when guarding against legal action, its also a physical affirmation of something positive or constructive, but when it comes to hoteliers, 'getting it in writing' has a more nuanced meaning.

Ever since the first hotels and temporary lodging facilities arose, hoteliers have had to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of their most valued resource: their customers – especially when it came to the delicate world of written feedback.

But what was once relegated to a quaint leather-bound book on the corner of some concierge desk has expanded exponentially. First came widespread travel publications that would print with equal care both positive and negative reviews.

Today, those efforts seem decidedly quaint as social media and the increasingly ubiquitous nature of mobile and smartphone technology allows current and former guests unparalleled commenting access – without the filter of a publisher. While it’s easy for hoteliers to remain skeptical over such unfettered open access, the benefits of “going social” for hoteliers far outweigh the risks.

The logic behind this embrace is simple. The proverbial Pandora’s box has already been opened. Former and future guests alike are already posting their opinions on sites like Facebook and Twitter about their travel experience, beginning with the initial booking and following through all aspects of the travel cycle including: dreaming, researching, experiencing and sharing.

In addition, user generated content sites like TripAdvisor, and online travel agencies like Expedia and Priceline, among many others, are similarly embracing user comments. If hoteliers are concerned about losing control of their messaging, the best way to track what’s being said about their hotel is by promoting a guest shift from private and independent site postings to include the more controlled public arena of a hotel website or its affiliated Facebook or Twitter page.

Recognizing the inevitability of this trend, a growing number of hotels are already jumping on board. Earlier this month Marriott Hotels announced it would allow guests from several of its locations, (Marriott Marquis in New York and the Marriott Courtyard near Orlando, among others) to post comments about their stay regardless of the quality of their experience. The announcement follows a similar move by Starwood Hotels & Resorts that also began allowing their preferred customers the ability to post comments directly to their website.

To be sure, hotels that choose this route require a firm commitment and necessary web-savvy staffing. In other words, it can’t be done half way. Whether or not Marriott’s open-access approach or Starwood’s more limited approach is best for online guest reviews remains to be seen.

To Post or Not to Post - 'Get it in writing' - Hotel Reviews

Perth Hotel Reviews: Don't like to complain, but ...

AUSTRALIANS love to complain but mostly only to each other, as they make sure they tell as many people as possible about a bad experience with a rude waiter or an unhelpful shop assistant.

· 65% of Aussies always tell about bad service

· 61% have lost temper in restaurants or shops

· 86% have ditched a purchase over bad service

The latest American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, which surveys thousands of people across 10 countries, reveals that Australians are among the most vocal complainers in the world.

Australians tell an average 23 people about bad service compared with the 10 people who will hear about a good service experience. Only Italians and Indians bemoan bad customer service to more people than Australians.

The survey also shows that 65 per cent of Australians said they would always tell people about their bad experience.

But, while Australians are vocal in their criticism after bad customer service, 61 per cent have also lost their temper at a restaurant or in a shop, the research shows, although that figure is still much lower than most other countries.

Perth Hotel Reviews: Don't like to complain, but ...