1 in 7 reviews on TripAdvisor for top hotels could be fake

A FLOOD of suspect reviews are contaminating travel website TripAdvisor and boosting the ratings of hotels across the world, it is claimed.

The revelations mean millions are booking holidays and business trips on the basis of bogus five-star recommendations, according to Which? research.

The consumer champion analysed almost 250,000 reviews and found one in seven of some 100 popular hotels carried TripAdvisor recommendations that had hallmarks of being false.

Which? has reported 15 of the worst cases to TripAdvisor. The firm admitted 14 of these had already been caught with fake positive reviews in the past year.

The consumers’ group and Competition and Markets Authority have identified a wider problem of fake reviews on websites on everything from household appliances to handymen services.

Online reviews influence an estimated £23billion of sales a year in the UK.

Some of the most troubling findings concerned hotels in Las Vegas and the Middle East. In one case TripAdvisor had to remove 730 of the five-star ratings for the ‘best hotel’ in Jordan.

Naomi Leach of Which? Travel said if sites such as TripAdvisor failed to ensure information was reliable, they should be ‘compelled to make changes so holidaymakers are no longer at risk of being duped by a flood of fake reviews’.

TripAdvisor said the Which? analysis was ‘based on a flawed understanding of fake review patterns and is reliant on too many assumptions, too little data’.