Should you trust hotel and restaurant reviews?

The praise is effusive from a man who signs his reviews as "Dan": "The rooms are an absolute dream: spacious, stylishly furnished and well-conceived down to the last detail," he writes in a Google review of The Flamingo hotel at Timmendorfer Strand on Germany's Baltic Sea coast. "We would particularly like to emphasize the cleanliness and the wonderful view — simply wonderful!" he writes.

"Anja," on the other hand, was not impressed: "If you want cleanliness and quality, then this is not the right place," she writes. Hair in the drain, dust, dirty towels, mold, fingerprints — the list of shortcomings is long. The hotel itself did not comment on the reviews.

Even if experiences vary from person to person, many travelers look to customer reviews on platforms like Google, Booking.com or Tripadvisor when deciding on hotels or restaurants while on vacation. "Online ratings and reviews are extremely important," says Tobias Warnecke, managing director of the German Hotel Association IHA. Alongside recommendations from friends and acquaintances, such reviews are the most important criteria for many people planning their vacations.

Freedom of opinion

Customer reviews are also essential for hoteliers, says Tobias Warnecke. "If a hotel doesn't appear on the first two pages of the search results on the relevant portals, then a customer probably won't find it," he says.

Since customer ratings help boost a hotel's search results on platforms like Google, most hoteliers make an effort to read and respond to reviews. This is in part because the number of fake reviews is on the rise. According to a 2022 investigation by the EU Commission, as many as two thirds of reviews may not be authentic.

Jonas Kahl, a lawyer specializing in media law, deals with this on a daily basis. "As reviews on the internet are becoming increasingly important for consumers, the number of legal disputes is growing," he says. The spectrum ranges from positive reviews that companies pay for to negative reviews from customers who want to blackmail the company in question, to invented reviews companies use to harm their competitors.

Be skeptical of too many positive reviews

Fake reviews are rarely recognizable at first glance. According to the German company Trusted Shops, which has its own rating system and certifies online companies, you should be wary if you only see positive reviews of a service or company. Paid reviews may often stand out in part due to poor writing style, since many are created by using with automatic translation tools. Another indication that reviews may not be authentic is if the number of reviews suddenly skyrockets on a certain date. Anonymous reviews should also be treated with caution.

Regardless, it's not easy to spot a fake review since there are countless companies on the internet offering paid review services. Legal experts such as Jonas Kahl strongly advises companies not to use them. "It's clearly anti-competitive," he says. "The problem is that you usually can't catch whoever is behind them.”

Travel platforms fight fake reviews

As a result, pressure on booking platforms is increasing. For some time now, the EU has required companies to, at the very least, indicate whether they've checked the authenticity of comments and reviews.

In the meantime, the industry itself has also recognized that fake reviews call their credibility and therefore their business model into question. And so in 2023, the largest travel platforms Booking.com, Tripadvisor and Expedia, among other industry leaders in hospitality, research and customer service, joined forces to form the "Coalition for Trusted Reviews." The group is committed to ensuring that consumers can trust the reviews they read.

Tripadvisor said it blocked a record 2 million misleading reviews from its site in 2023, stopping 4 in 5 of those reviews from ever appearing on the site. Reviews are not published immediately, but are first screened by an automated system and, if necessary, by a team of moderators. According to Tripadvisor, content moderators are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week and work in 28 languages to inspect anything flagged by the automated system.

Booking.com says that only customers who have actually booked accommodation via the platform can leave a review. Google, on the other hand, explains that reviews are not checked for authenticity before they are published, but that automated spam detection measures are used to remove probable fakes. The company also encourages businesses to report reviews that violate Google policies and may be fraudulent.

But consumer advocates say the current regulations do not go far enough. "In the way they are currently published, online reviews are not very helpful for consumers," says Stefanie Grunert, Legal and Trade Officer at the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations in Berlin. "There is a lot of confusion," she points out. Grunert is therefore calling for a clear and uniform set of rules.

Until then, travelers will be left to their own devices to decide if a review is authentic or not.