British Watchdog to TripAdvisor: Not All Reviews Are Genuine

Have you been bitten by the travel bug? I sure have, and one of the resources that I use often is TripAdvisor. I think that anyone with with a little travel experience knows about TripAdvisor, and even if they do not have an account, they still check the site for destination and accommodation ideas. The site has grown large enough that it can be said that it is one of the go-to sites for people looking for travel information online.

Recently, however, TripAdvisor has gotten some flak from the advertising watchdog of Britain. The agency has publicly reproved the travel web site due to its claim that all of its user-generated reviews are genuine; that is, all of them are written by real travelers.

Who is to be believed then? British advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Authority states that TripAdvisor’s written claim that they have “more than 50 million honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers around the world” is not accurate. This is due to the fact that not all of the reviews go through a verification process which ensure that the source of those reviews are indeed real travelers.

On their part, TripAdvisor states that they do have measures in place to verify that their reviews are written by real travelers, but that it simply is not practical for them to manually screen each and every review that is posted on the site. I think that this is to be expected and understood. Considering the scale they operate, it really is not a practical thing to go through each review. However, the watchdog does have a point in that the official statement should reflect the reality.

Do you use TripAdvisor? Which party do you think is right in this case?