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What’s Wrong with TripAdvisor, and What to Do About It

Decals in windows promoting TripAdvisor reviews

In the travel industry, nothing can touch TripAdvisor reviews. It’s the gold standard for information and comparison shopping for hotels, restaurants and excursions.

Yet, just below the surface, there are some major problems with the service. There’s a dark side that is widely discussed in the industry, but rarely acknowledged to consumers: there’s a huge problem with fake TripAdvisor reviews.

Exterior of the Hotel Giraffe
How do you know which hotel reviews to believe?

Here’s What’s Wrong with TripAdvisor Reviews

TripAdvisor Fake Reviews

The company has been embarrassed by recent exposes where a homeless shelter was propelled in the TripAdvisor rankings to become one of Britain’s top hotels or a five-star restaurant in Italy that is Michelin quality but turned out not to exist at all.

In 2017, “The Shed at Dulwich” became London’s #1 rated restaurant on TripAdvisor – only it didn’t exist. These astounding stories are rare, although they seem to be increasing in frequency.

However, much more common are the fake TripAdvisor reviews for known businesses. The site has become a place where competitors attack each other with poor ratings and business owners respond by posting their own over-the-top praise.

Since each TripAdvisor review counts equally, each one of these reviews becomes a tactical weapon in trying to inch up in the TripAdvisor star system. In 2014, the company was slapped with a $600,000 fine in Italy for fake reviews, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped the problems.

Chicken and potatoes on a plate
Fake restaurant reviews are particularly common

And in September 2018, a high-profile investigation by The Times of London found that one in three (33%) of TripAdvisor reviews are fake. The company has denied the results of the independent investigation. However, from our experience, this seems pretty accurate.

A second, broader independent investigation in September 2019 combed through 250,000 reviews and found 15% of them were fake. More troubling, when fake reviews were pointed out to TripAdvisor, they acknowledged that 93% of the hotels engaging in fake ratings had done it previously. Translating this, hotels engaging in this practice have been allowed to remain on the TripAdvisor site to continue engaging in the practice.

After many years, the company has quietly recognized there is a problem. In November 2018, they relaunched the platform as a kind of social network. The theory is that people will trust the recommendations of friends and family.

However, by November 2019 (just 12 months later), many of the social network elements have been rolled back and instead sponsored content from advertisers fills the space. It would seem that the “new TripAdvisor” was a failure.

The latest from the company is Tripadvisor PLUS – an expensive $99/year buying club offering people discounts on packaged travel options (not dissimilar from what other companies have offered for free for decades). Travel publication Skift has noted that the company is essentially offering, “room rates that are widely available elsewhere.” But the new Tripadvisor PLUS also nearly completely sidesteps the research/review step in travel buying.

In October 2021, TripAdvisor finally published a transparency report. They officially acknowledged that about 9% of reviews are fraudulent or biased, requiring them to be removed. It’s a global problem and they found fake reviews in 131 countries. The reality problem is still probably many times worse than the company is willing to admit. However, shockingly, the company has not changed model/addressed the root of the problem.

Very Little Quality Control

TripAdvisor seems to rely on software to “review” the reviews. Unfortunately, the software has significant limitations so the result is that there’s almost no quality control: anyone can post anything. As such, the vast majority of ratings come from one-hit wonders – people who have created the account to gripe or rave about a single particular experience (that may or may not have actually happened).

In the September 2019 investigation, 79% of the five-star fraudulent hotel reviews were left by individuals who had no other activity or ratings on the site.

As competitors wage war and businesses respond with their own fakes, you end up with a lot of contributors who have less than 5-10 reviews. Even if the review does come from a real person, atypical experiences receive disproportionate credibility.

Bar in the restaurant Umi
Don’t believe everything you read in online reviews

Comparisons are Rejected

We’re a TripAdvisor “Top Contributor.” They keep sending us e-mails telling us how we rank among the elite of the elite on the site. But we’ve had many reviews rejected. Why? Those reviews have included actual useful information, such as a particular hotel being close to another business or attraction. That kind of context is frowned upon, even though it is actually useful.

Merchant May Be Gaming the System

We’ve stayed at a number of hotels where we are absolutely bombarded by the hotel management to leave positive reviews for them. We had a restaurant offer to complete the TripAdvisor review for us. On our recent trip to San Francisco, California, a restaurant offered us a complimentary glass of wine for completing a TripAdvisor review.

And one hotel in Munich, Germany went so far as to set up a computer terminal right at the front desk where if you completed the review under the watchful eye of management, you’d receive a 5% discount.

TripAdvisor is a Democracy

Every vote on TripAdvisor counts equally. This may come off as elitist, but this is the core incentive that drives fake reviewers. If TripAdvisor employed, compensated, or otherwise partnered with professional or semi-professional reviewers, much of this could be avoided. To be relevant in the future, TripAdvisor needs to drive quality, not quantity.

The idea of a “social network” was an interesting one. However, after 12 months into the new TripAdvisor experiment, the results were yet another disappointment for the company.

Hotel bed
The photos look lovely, but some negative ratings can be deleted — our negative hotel review got deleted by the company. This hotel currently has a 4.5 Excellent rating on the site, despite serious problems.

Negative Reviews May Be Deleted Without Reason

There have been numerous reports of negative reviews being deleted, especially if a business is a TripAdvisor advertiser or engages in pay-per-click marketing campaigns with the company. The company doesn’t want to hurt a potential advertiser or revenue source.

However, this leads consumers to an unnatural and unrealistic opinion of a property through a process of selective omission. Furthermore, legitimate warnings of unsafe properties where rapes and deaths have occurred are also deleted by the company (such as this one).

Members of Congress have taken notice and instructed the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. The chairwoman of the FTC has expressed concern over TripAdvisor’s business practices and a full investigation may already be underway. (Read more details here.)

To be fair to the company, TripAdvisor has a website statement in which they claim to have a zero tolerance for fraud.

The company finally took action in 2018 and sought criminal prosecution of a single individual in a high-profile criminal case in Italy (note: this is the same country where the company was fined in 2014). The company pressed for charges against a man who posted more than 1,000 fake reviews. The man got nine months in prison and a $9,300 fine.

But more importantly, TripAdvisor got a public relations victory in presenting an image of a company concerned by the scale and scope of the problem. TripAdvisor corporate attorney Brad Young said that this action was no less than a “landmark ruling for the Internet.”

Given the scope of the problem and how many years it has lasted, one has to wonder how many more of these cases would need to happen to truly address the issue. And no word from Mr. Brad Young on exactly when we might expect a second prosecution for fake reviews. Given the scale, scope, and severity of the fake review problem, consumers have expected a more ambitious response.

Sign for The Jefferson Hotel, one of the hotels that deserves its positive TripAdvisor reviews
Some hotels truly deserve their positive online reputations

How to Use TripAdvisor

But TripAdvisor isn’t all bad. It can still be helpful if you know what to do. Here are our strategies for getting some benefit from the service.

Ignore all TripAdvisor Rankings and Star Recommendations

Use price as a guide instead. Let your budget dictate, use the search filters for things like parking or pool that may be important to you, and then drill down to read the qualitative reviews for the property.

Don’t Believe Every Qualitative Review

Ignore all reviews from reviewers that don’t have at least 50 reviews. We’ve recently started ignoring all reviewers that don’t have a minimum of 200 reviews. Travelers should also ignore all reviews from people who are from the same city where you are looking (so if you are looking at Chicago, ignore all reviews from people who list Chicago as their hometown). And ignore all reviews without a customized profile picture.

Exterior of the Siemens Med Museum
There are ratings for hotels and restaurants, as well as attractions and museums

Don’t Login and Clear Your Cache Frequently

The reviews are customized based on past search behavior or marketing relationships with the company. You’ll find that the majority of the “Just For You” reviews are based on companies that pay money to TripAdvisor, not that they are places you may want to eat or stay. Clearing your cache won’t stop all of this, but it does help reduce the target marketing.

A second option is to use an incognito or private browser window (or even a VPN service). This can help provide some additional layer of anonymity.

Don’t Rely on TripAdvisor Exclusively

Use other data sources to supplement your search process. More and more, we’ve been turning to other travel blogs. They are authored by a real person who has real expertise — an authority on the topic. And a good travel article is worth more than all the generic, anonymous reviews.

However, if you have the time or inclination to wade through the clutter, there can be some value in TripAdvisor reviews.

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Angela

Monday 22nd of May 2023

Another issue is companies pushing incentives for employees to push customers to give them & the company a 5 star review. The customers don't know the employees are making sometimes $25 per review the manipulate the customer into doing.

Mauriel Joslyn

Friday 3rd of March 2023

I tried to post a review that a zoo they have on there has closed and completely changed. It is no longer the place all the reviews refer to. They refused to publish my review twice, to all that info with the 5 stars is completely false. If anyone goes there they will wonder where all the happy is.

MACK

Sunday 19th of February 2023

I have a 5-star rated photo experience on TripAdvisor and I have worked very hard to earn these legitimate reviews about my photography in New York City. As my reputation grew, when I would deal with new clients, I foolishly sent them samples of my work with Tripadvisor five star logos pasted all over them. What I didn’t realize is that there are many people out there who if one thing goes wrong, such as if I tell them I’m sold out — they Weaponize the TripAdvisor system to hurt people like me with bogus reviews that have nothing to do with the photography experience. I have received three 1-star reviews in the last three months, two of them were because I was completely sold out, and the other was for a woman from Italy, who sent an email requesting a photo shoot last minute and then showed up in the middle of a thunderstorm for a reservation that she never had. (This is a rooftop Photoshoot). While TripAdvisor swallows up a hefty 25% commission on my photo shoot rate, they do not protect me from monsters like this, instead telling me that “this review is permitted because it is part of the overall experience.” This is a broken system they have. They charge us a huge commission, but they don’t protect us. If all that is needed to write a review for my 45 minute custom photo shoot in New York City is simply to send an email and T o be told that we are sold out, then what is to stop me from asking 500 of my friends to simply send me an email and then write a review? Obviously, I would never do that but that is what TripAdvisor is telling me: that anybody who sends me an email, but never has a photo shoot, is entitled to write a review. Regarding the complaint and feedback system, they usually have some kid just out of college who plays judge and jury in listening to a complaint, and the request to remove such a review. None of these people who decide the fate of these garbage reviews have ever owned a business, or understand how much sweat and work is involved in promoting a new business. I have 140 5-star reviews and three bogus, 1-star reviews written by people who never had their photos taken by me. I am very close to making a large decision to the list, my business in the name of ethics. I cannot partner with someone who takes a large commission off my business, and then turns a blind eye when I point out an ethical violation. Ironically, I have a friend named George who used to work in the very higher-ups at TripAdvisor and he explained to me that when TripAdvisor uses the word algorithm to explain how attractions move up and down, that is actually a lie. They can hijack the system whenever they want and move any attraction into any position they want. He also explained that they give preferential treatment to the businesses that pay top dollar for advertising on Tripadvisor. These are the Untouchables.

G. Oliver

Wednesday 18th of January 2023

Kinda amazed by some of your recommendations. I’m in Playa Del Carmen for vacation and I’ve known many restaurants here for years. I’m a well-known person in the food industry.

I do want to post a few totally legitimate reviews about good places that I know well…but now you’re saying that my reviews should be ignored because I’ve never posted on TripAdviser before?

It seems that you’d be selecting for some fairly odd people who post all the time….?

Lance Longwell

Saturday 21st of January 2023

Let's think about this critically. Yes, I know who you are and you are indeed of considerable reknown. And you know that most guests are happy (otherwise you'd be out of business), but there are always a few people that want to complain loudly for whatever reason and want to share their misery. Could be that person who drinks the WHOLE beer and only after it is done says they really didn't like it and wants their money back. And you also know that many of those complaints aren't really justified. Now, you give them a platform on the Internet where there is no context to validate whether that is a worthwhile opinion. And then you layer in the unethical business owners who add in their own over-the-top self-promotion. And what do you have? Lots of garbage.

The recommendations I've posted we've developed for ourselves based on over 20 years on being on the platform. Yes, unfortunately, that means we'd ignore your well-informed opinions. But we'd also sift out thousands and thousands of others that are worthless. It's a numbers game - how to get maximum efficiency from minimum efforts. Since TripAdvisor won't improve their platform or deal with the proliferation of fake reviews, users need to find a way to get some value from the site...or stop using it completely (which is what we've been doing on our most recent trips).

Daniel Keith Nowak

Wednesday 18th of January 2023

First hand experience with fake reviews. Booked Grand Muthu Cao Guillermo based on four star reviews. The place is barely one star yet folks are still rating this place at four and five stars. These reviews cannot be real as this place is horrible. I came home with an infection that is only caused by fecal contamination of food or water. Trip Advisor is just not credible

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