TripAdvisor reviews 'can't be trusted'

TripAdvisor can no longer claim to offer “trusted and honest” reviews because it fails to vet comments by its 50 million users, the UK advertising watchdog has ruled.

The site promises to provide reliable reviews from travellers about hotels, restaurants and airlines around the world.

However, it has faced claims that some establishments are being given poor write-ups by rivals to boost their own trade. Malicious customers have even tried to blackmail small hotels with threats to post negative reviews, according to reports in UK national Daily Mail.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) began an investigation following a complaint from British firm KwikChex, which represents several hotels given poor reviews on TripAdvisor, plus two unnamed British hotels.

The ASA was asked to rule on claims made by TripAdvisor about the services it offers, including: ‘TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers’ and ‘50million honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers’.

In reality, TripAdvisor does not check the accuracy of its reviews although it does offer hoteliers a right of reply. Instead, it asks the reviewer only to ensure what they have written is a genuine opinion and say they do not have a personal link to the hotel or service/

However, in a ruling on Thursday 2 February the ASA said: “We understood that reviews could be placed on the site without any form of verification, and while TripAdvisor took steps to monitor suspicious activity, it was possible non-genuine content would appear on the site.

“We did not consider consumers would necessarily be able to detect and separate non-genuine reviews from genuine content.

“Because we considered the claims implied that consumers could be assured all review content was genuine, we concluded that the claims were misleading,” the newspaper reported.

It has told TripAdvisor to make changes to the way it markets its services in the UK.

A spokesman for TripAdvisor said: “We have confidence the 50 million users who come to our site every month trust the reviews they read, which is why they keep coming back.”