IN-DEPTH: Travel review sites have been the subject of allegations regarding the authenticity of their reviews on several occasions. The industry needs to look at the whole business of user-generated content and sustaining a fair play for everyone including consumers.

By Ritesh Gupta

Last week the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told TripAdvisor not to claim or imply that all the reviews that appeared on the website were from real travellers, or were honest, real or trusted.

This verdict emerged as the UK-based Authority acted upon complaints filed against TripAdvisor. The complaints were related to claims on tripadvisor.co.uk.

Travel review sites have been the subject of allegations regarding the authenticity of their reviews on several occasions.

Assessing the latest verdict from the ASA, Richard Anson, chief executive of social commerce company Reevoo told EyeforTravel.com, “The issue we are seeing now is a reflection of how important trust is for consumers – since they rely on ratings and reviews for their purchasing decisions. This is clearly a cause of concern for all stakeholders, emphasising the need for transparent and robust systems that ensure reviews are only collected from trusted sources. This is the only way to truly help consumers make the right decisions.”

Dwindling Confidence

Travellers have become increasingly reliant on technology for trip planning. But with the growing number of online resources comes an increase in unreliable sources and general confusion about what sites to trust for what services. As specialists in this arena point out, the paradox that exists at the moment is that a site like TripAdvisor, which is alleged to have suffered from unreliable reviews, has grown hugely in reach and influence, while people’s trust in travel reviews declines. So the gap is actually widening all the time.

Last month a research indicated that just 20 percent of British holiday makers trust hotel star ratings and nearly half of all holiday makers say they have been let down by the star rating of a hotel, with its rating not reflected in the true quality of their own holiday experience. According to Jetsetter.co.uk’s research, although holidaymakers are researching on user review sites such as TripAdvisor, the sites are falling short of consumers’ needs, with just 19 percent of those surveyed claiming they always trust the reviews on these sites. Typical complaints about such sites include the anonymity of reviewers, with 13 percent not trusting who has written the comments and almost 20 percent not trusting reviews without knowing if the review-writer shared their own travel preferences and tastes.

“In the travel industry in particular, 88 percent of travellers consult reviews before making bookings. A recent Reevoo survey has revealed that 70 percent of consumers have some concern about reviews not being trustworthy,” said Anson.

Efforts

Travel companies are increasingly opening avenues on their websites for their guests to contribute ratings and reviews directly. There are a number of challenges around how best to generate this social content to give a balanced picture of your business that consumers will trust.

But there is no dearth of effort to instill confidence as consumers make their decisions.

In November, online travel company Travelocity decided to introduce new tools on its site as part of its efforts to help consumers make more confident hotel booking decisions. The company said its new offering, Questions, described as the first-of-its-kind in the online travel agency space, is a social forum for consumers to quickly and easily get additional information on a hotel before and after they book their trip. Referring to its data, Travelocity mentioned that three out of every four travellers have unanswered questions on the hotels they are interested in after doing initial online research. The company is now relying on its community, which consists of employees, fellow travellers, hoteliers, and other travel gurus for additional information.

Last week Starwood Hotels & Resorts took an initiative to build on the launch of ratings and reviews on its sites. The company has started including customer reviews and ratings on the Facebook page for its Westin brand. The development emerged as Bazaarvoice and Buddy Media announced a partnership to help brands integrate online customer conversations in their social media campaigns.

Westin Hotels & Resorts is the first to use the joint offering on facebook.com/westin. The companies have created a new “sapplet,” or social application, which will allow brands to integrate their Bazaarvoice customer-generated content into their brand pages and social media campaigns powered by Buddy Media.

Commenting on integration of reviews with social media campaigns, Reevoo’s Anson said, “Conversations are taking place amongst consumers on social media. It is important for companies to listen and act accordingly. Social media is one of many channels where reviews can be integrated: reviews increase conversions in any channel (not just channel and social media but also offline).”

There have been developments pertaining to identifying how truth-tellers and deceivers differ in their hotel reviews. Last year Cornell University researchers discovered an intriguing correspondence between the linguistic structure of deceptive reviews and fiction writing. Cornell researchers were in news for developing a computer software for spotting opinion spam. Such initiative was taken as researchers consider that review sites are becoming targets for opinion spam -- phony positive reviews created by sellers to help sell their products, or negative reviews meant to downgrade competitors. In a test on 800 reviews of Chicago hotels, a computer was able to pick out deceptive reviews with almost 90 percent accuracy.

On efforts pertaining to making out whether the review is real or not, Anson pointed out that the reason for having reviews is to generate trust and, as an example, only 20 percent of people trust reviews that businesses collect themselves.

“The statistics speak for themselves,” said Anson.

According to Reevoo, there are certain principles which, if followed, protect the value of user reviews for both consumers and travel suppliers. The principles, which are based on trust, transparency and impartiality are:

·Reviews should only be collected from genuine, verified purchasers, so that fake reviews don’t get into the system.

·Reviews should not be manipulated. All reviews, good and bad, must be shown. They must not be modified, negative reviews not be removed, nor should reviews be shown selectively.

·Content sources should always be transparent. When a response to a review is written by a business owner this must be made completely clear to the reader.