Due to our long-standing association with, and highly regarded reviews on TripAdvisor at Chanters Lodge, I’m always interested in articles about TripAdvisor and other review sites. Apparently TripAdvisor have been putting warnings up on various sites that some reviews might not be genuine! Luckily I’ve seen nothing like that on our site.

This from AP

“The hotel review may sound too good or perhaps one stands out as the only negative rating of an otherwise popular location. The influential travel Web site TripAdvisor has been quietly posting disclaimers to warn customers of hotels writing fake reviews to improve their popularity rankings or hurt competitors. The red disclaimers near the names of hotels show that TripAdvisor has a problem with fake reviews, travel bloggers and industry experts say. One blogger, Jeff Tucker, warned that without changes to restore credibility to the reviews the site is “going to come crumbling down behind them.” (An hotelier in UK some time back was found to have posted 31 favourable reviews of his own property! – ed)

But TripAdvisor said the disclaimers have been used since 2006 and involve a small fraction of the 400,000 hotels reviewed. The company, based in Newton, Mass., said it has a successful system to root out inaccurate reviews. “The 23 million reviews and opinions are authentic and they’re unbiased and they’re from real users,” spokesman Brooke Ferencsik said. “The vast majority of hoteliers understand the risk to their business and reputation if they attempt to post fraudulent information to TripAdvisor.”

TripAdvisor, which is part of Expedia Inc., was the third most popular travel information site in June, with about 9.2 million unique visitors, according to the tracking firm comScore. The company ranks hotels according to how well they have been reviewed, and loyal users say it is the best place to find accommodations. Last month travel Web sites and blogs began to log and discuss the red warnings, which read: “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.”

TripAdvisor works with hotel owners to get the warnings removed, often after they promise to stop breaking the site’s rules. “Not only does it give our travelers fair warning,” he said. “But also it should be a deterrent for any property that’s thinking about trying to game the system.” The company has policies to weed out suspicious reviews, screens reviews before they are posted, and uses automated tools to identify attempts to corrupt the system, Ferencsik said. Users can also report reviews they find not credible. Ferencsik declined to describe how the company decides a post is not legitimate, saying that could help fake posters subvert the rules.

But experts say manipulated reviews can be overly positive, citing features regular travelers rarely notice. Or they can be extremely negative, with a competitor bashing a hotel that generally has more favorable reviews. Fake posters often have only one or a few reviews, whereas many regular TripAdvisor users post numerous reviews.

On TripAdvisor, “there isn’t an actual connection between a verified reservation and a payment and who’s writing those things,” Associate Dean of the Cornell Hotel School, Steven Carvel,l said. “People early on were not playing games with it. Now there are lots of games.” Travel industry insiders but often not casual travelers understand the financial incentives hotels have to artificially inflate their rankings on the site. Some offer discounts or freebies to patrons who write positive reviews or hire public relations companies who say they can improve the reviews.

But Arthur Frommer, founder of the Frommer’s travel guides, said travelers should rely on the advice of experts, such as guidebook writers or journalists. Frommer said he had to discontinue a popular feature in some of his guidebooks that included readers’ selections, largely because he could not be certain they did not come from businesses. “Find write-ups by professionals whose judgments you trust and rely on that,” Frommer said. “I would never rely on the judgment of amateurs.” (He would say that wouldn’t he? – ed)

The picture? White Water Rafting the Zambezi!