Can TripAdvisor reviews be trusted? Find out who’s gaming the system

Steve Kaufer is the founder and chief executive of TripAdvisor — a site where some hotel reviews  have been manipulated by hotel operators.  I asked Kaufer about the site, the credibility of user-generated reviews, and the future of social media.

Q: When it comes to user-generated hotel and restaurant reviews, I think it’s safe to say TripAdvisor is by far the most dominant site. Can you give me a sense of the size, traffic and overall influence of TripAdvisor?

Kaufer: TripAdvisor has nearly 25 million reviews and opinions on more than 490,000 hotels and attractions, more than 11 million registered members, and operates in 14 countries and 10 different languages. We have more than 25 million monthly visitors to our site, and have acquired 13 other travel brands. In terms of influence, a May 2008 Jupiter consumer travel survey reported that 76 percent of people find reviews from like-minded people most useful.

Q: TripAdvisor is now warning users that certain hotels may be gaming the review process. Can you tell me why you decided to do this, how long you’ve had these warnings, and how many reviews are affected?

Kaufer: We’ve been posting the warnings since 2006. We view our red badge and rating drop as the best punishment for properties trying to manipulate the system. A couple of people have asked why we don’t drop these properties from the site entirely. We think the red badge is a better punishment, and provides more information to travelers so they can make the most educated and informed decisions before they book. We also wouldn’t want hotels with very poor traveler reviews to use such a banning on the site as a loophole to get out. That’s exactly what poorly run properties want — to be taken off TripAdvisor.

Q: One of the things TripAdvisor uses to catch bogus reviews is a computer program. Why can’t the algorithm tag these fake write-ups?

Kaufer: We have three primary methods to insure review integrity. Prior to posting, every review is screened and a team of quality assurance specialists investigates suspicious ones. This group brings a wide range of professional experience, including expertise in credit card fraud, loss prevention and identity theft.

We also use proprietary automated tools to help identify attempts to subvert the system, and our community helps screen our content and report suspicious activity. These systems do catch the vast majority of suspicious reviews.

Q: What would you say to readers of your site who are concerned about the integrity of your hotel and restaurant reviews?

Kaufer: We believe our 23 million reviews and opinions are authentic, unbiased, and from real travelers, which is why we enjoy tremendous user loyalty. The sheer volume of reviews we have for an individual property allows travelers to base their decisions on the opinions of many and provides an additional safeguard.  After all, any individual review is just that … a review by one person who may or may not have the same tastes as you, or be in a good or bad mood when they wrote the review. But when looking at the average of hundreds of reviews for a single property, the collective wisdom shines through and presents a complete picture of the property.

Q: Some TripAdvisor critics are quick to add their “I-told-you-sos.”  Can you understand where these folks are coming from? Could you help us make some sense of why they’ve been critical of your site?

Kaufer: Some of those critics have a horse in the race. Professional guide books and travel agents are losing audience to TripAdvisor and other UGC sites. Forrester research shows that 68 percent of travelers read reviews from other travelers before they book. The same research shows only 38 percent turn to professionally written content. The average guidebook takes 15 months from manuscript submission to hitting the store shelf. TripAdvisor gets 13 new posts every minute of every day, so it’s the freshest travel information available.

We don’t have anything against professionally written reviews. In fact, we
have links to many professional reviews on TripAdvisor today, as we have
had since we launched the site. We’re happy to have our visitors find all
the available information on the Web to help them make the right travel
decision for them.

Q: How do you use TripAdvisor when you’re on the road? And how do you think people should use the site?

Kaufer: TripAdvisor has a lot of features that are valuable at different stages of the trip. When in the initial planning stages, I’ll use the inspiration section on the home page to help me select a destination. I’ll use our flights product to find the best airfare, and then use our hotel mapping functionality to pick the best hotel near where I want to be.

If I’m traveling on business, I head to the business center, as that section highlights the hotels that are good for business, as well as offer restaurant suggestions for a business dinner.

When I’m traveling with my kids, I’ll look for top-value hotels which save me some money, and I’ll read the reviews written by folks who traveled with their kids. And
like all of our visitors, when I read the reviews, I take the best and worst reviews with a grain of salt, and focus on what the majority of reviewers have to say.
Q: Is there a way in which people are using TripAdvisor that you think they should not?

Kaufer: From a consumer perspective, there’s not necessarily a wrong way to use TripAdvisor.

Q: Do you have any statistical evidence that a positive review on TripAdvisor leads to more bookings or that a negative review takes away bookings? If so, could you please tell me what it says?

Kaufer: We have partners who feature TripAdvisor reviews on their sites, and claim that their bookings have increased — in one case, doubled — with the inclusion of these reviews. And these include both positive and negative reviews. We work with a lot of properties who have found TripAdvisor widgets and badges to be valuable marketing tools.

Anecdotally, we hear from travelers that negative reviews aren’t nearly as
impactful as how a property handles them. We do a lot of outreach to
business owners and encourage them to use the management response tool
that’s available on our site.  We know there are always two sides to every
story, and we encourage property managers to share their side of the story,
or simply apologize if a mistake was made. Anecdotally, we also hear from
property owners that TripAdvisor has helped them grow their business.

With millions of travelers using TripAdvisor daily, it is hard to imagine
that we don’t influence where travelers are choosing to stay. However, it
isn’t something we’ve tried to measure.

Q: With the introduction of video on the new iPhone, we may be poised for a shift from “tell me” to “show me” user-generated reviews. How is TripAdvisor going to position itself in world where information is exchanged in real time, and in a more multimedia way?

Kaufer: We’ve been encouraging travelers to upload photos and video to TripAdvisor for a long time.  We’d love to see the use of these tools increase — anything to help travelers make more informed decisions about their trip.

Q: Let me ask about your slogan, which is, “Get the truth. Then go.” It seems to me that the content you’ll find on TripAdvisor is highly subjective, and that your recent warnings are a concession that the reviews are nothing more than one person’s — or company’s — opinion. Do you have any plans to change your slogan, now that you’ve conceded that some of your ratings may have been manipulated?

Kaufer: It’s never been a secret that reviews are subjective, and that they are individuals’ opinions. That’s the power of user-generated content. It’s up to the traveler, with the help of our popularity index and filters, to review the data that’s meaningful for them, and to listen to the wisdom of the crowds.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.